“I feel like our job as a group of documentarians trying to cover this very delicate issue was to do what we’re always trying to do, which is tell the truth. Let’s hear everybody out. And then let’s let the audience decide for themselves what’s true and what’s not true or what’s right and what’s wrong.”—“Cheer” director Greg Whitely (emphasis mine)

It’s funny reading a comment like that from a documentary filmmaker. One of my problems with that genre, specifically in the realm of criminal justice issues, is the tendency to take nuanced issues and present them as unvarnished truth. When the director’s eye turns its gaze toward what makes a story pop for the camera, concepts like the presumption of innocence become evanescent.

Netflix has been a pretty egregious offender when it comes to their mischaracterizations of individuals in service of a story. The last time the streaming service was covered at SJ it was over the accusations fabricated out of whole cloth by “When They See Us” director Ava DuVernay for her biopic on the Central Park Five. That misstep added a still-unresolved defamation suit to Reed Hasting’s woes.

Now the series “Cheer” might face a similar fate thanks to Jerry Harris.

Harris, 22 as of this writing, was arrested in September of 2020 by the FBI for allegedly soliciting and producing child pornography at his home in Naperville, Illinois. Denied bond in October of the same year for being an alleged danger to the community, Jerry’s been confined to Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center ever since. Per a recent docket filing, Jerry’s next court date is scheduled for February 10, 2022.

How convenient is it, then, that Netflix released Season 2 of “Cheer,” the docuseries about two cheerleading squads in Texas that brought Jerry Harris to national fame, almost a month before this date? And how doubly convenient for the federal prosecutors involved that an entire episode is called “Jerry” and deals with the allegations against Harris?

When I say “deals,” I hope those of you reading this are smart enough to realize “Cheer’s” production staff didn’t mention Harris pleaded not guilty to all the charges, or even include a disclaimer that “parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.” You know, like “Cops” used to do before the show got canceled? No, that would be too simple, too close to serving the actual truth.

No, Netflix and the producers of “Cheer” spent the majority of Season 2, Episode 5 throwing a young gay black man under the proverbial bus before he ever got a day in court.

The episode begins with a disclaimer that it features “graphic depictions of sexual abuse involving minors, which may be disturbing for some viewers,” along with the requisite web link to a resource if someone is offended by the show’s content.

We next hear of Jerry’s case as he does a perp walk for local Illinois TV news cameras, flanked by masked FBI agents. Allegations are mentioned from two thirteen-year-old twins that Harris solicited sex and illicit photos from them while Harris was 19.

“I was here in my room when I got the call about Jerry. And immediately my heart…my heart completely sank. I honestly thought I was living in a—in a bad dream. I literally could not—I could not wrap my head around any of that. I felt like someone died.”—“Cheer” star Gabi Butler, Season 2, Episode 5.

So we next get the hit job treatment from Jerry’s former teammates, Gabi Butler and LaDarius Marshall. One says the accusations felt like someone “died,” another says they simply “couldn’t be true.” At first.

“I felt like I just sunk, very deep…into a hole and cried…I called my mom and asked “How?”…He never said anything about this stuff to me…I was just like “how could I guide him away from this?”—“Cheer” star James Thomas, Season 2, Episode 5.

And the hits just keep on coming for Jerry Harris. What about Monica Aldama, the iconic coach at the head of the series? She was responsible for nurturing Jerry Harris through her time with him as part of the Navarro College cheer squad. Did she have anything redeeming to say about Jerry Harris?

If your answer was “Nope,” congratulations. You’re obviously a frequent reader here.

“I was at the stage of ‘Dancing With The Stars’ in dress rehearsal for our very first live show. The Executive Producer came up to me, showed me her phone, and asked if I had seen the headline in the news that day. It was like an out of body experience at the time. I couldn’t breathe…I did the show and I went back to my trailer and I didn’t even look at my phone because I was scared. I was in such a vulnerable position at the time with what I was going through and I couldn’t take the weight of what was going on…I just didn’t want to read it…We had a team meeting that night and it felt like a funeral.”—Monica Aldama, “Cheer,” Season 2, Episode 5.

So the next person we hear from is Sarah Klein, who’s billed as an “Attorney and Advocate For Victims of Sexual Abuse.” We later learn in the series Ms. Klein’s bona fides in this arena are that she was allegedly abused by Larry Nassar, the disgraced Michigan State doctor who once worked for the US Women’s Olympic Gymnastics team.

“You can fall in love with somebody on TV, people defending him…his closest friends saying he would never do this…you don’t know. You don’t know unless you are his victim, you don’t know, but coming forward as a survivor is extremely difficult. You put yourself out there to be judged and criticized, and called names, and shamed, and broken. And that’s why a lot of survivors never come forward.”—Sarah Klein, “Cheer,” Season 2, Episode 5.

We next hear from the “survivors,” Sam and Charlie, who’s last names aren’t mentioned because this would cross some boundary Greg Whiteley and the other producers apparently don’t feel comfortable approaching. Sam, Charlie and mother Kristen are given ample space to share their stories of Jerry and the antics he supposedly committed while 19.

At least Whiteley and Netflix were comfortable mentioning Sam and Charlie first sued Jerry Harris civilly over the alleged lewd exchanges before the FBI came knocking.

We also hear from Tricia Naldony and Marisa Kwiatkowski, the two investigative reporters from USA Today who broke the story of Harris’s alleged misconduct and how they felt it played into a bigger narrative about the role of sexual abuse in gymnastics and cheer competitions. Plenty of airtime is devoted to the text messages and criminal complaint filed against Jerry Harris.

The criminal complaint gets a focus, along with the judge who sentenced Harris to remain behind bars without bond as he’s a “danger to the community.”

You know who doesn’t get one iota of time to defend himself? Jerry Harris, who wisely declined to participate in the series this season. Hopefully on advice of counsel, he learned to keep his mouth shut no matter what “Cheer” or Netflix had to say about him.

That doesn’t change the fact “Cheer” probably damned him to the maximum possible sentence. At the very least, the popular show tainted the jury pool to where Harris’s counsel would be idiots if they didn’t ask in voir dire if prospective jurors have seen Season 2 of the Netflix show.

Our justice system relies on the presumption of innocence for the accused, especially those in federal court accused of crimes as horrendous as those Jerry Harris faces. No matter how “vulnerable” or “trying” the cast members of a Netflix series feel about an issue, Defendants in criminal cases of this nature are especially reliant on that presumption if they’re even to get a fair shake against the mighty resources of the federal government.

Yet Netflix, Greg Whiteley, and the cast of “Cheer” just threw a gay black man under the bus in search of better ratings and a favorable light in the #MeToo world.

As this is Black History Month, and society’s focus is on elevating black voices and black stories, I’ll close with this: Shame on Netflix for what the streaming giant did to damn Jerry Harris to a permanent second-class citizen status. Shame on Harris’s former colleagues at Navarro College, who could’ve stood by their peer and really proven they believed Black Lives Matter.

But most of all, shame on Monica Aldama, Jerry’s former coach, who took this whole debacle and made it about her. In a world full of people who could elevate black voices, Aldama could have stood up for her former pupil.

Instead, it was all about how tough Jerry’s problems made “Dancing With The Stars” for her.