Compelling, revealing documentaries are coming free to a television near you. Starting tonight.

On a hot summer night in Greenwich Village, in 2006, seven women—all of whom were black, lesbian and friends—were walking about enjoying the normally gay-friendly scene when one was accosted by a man. 

Thus begins a journey in which the criminal justice system and the media are shown to roll along well-worn biases, leaving more victims in its wake than the original crime.

The story of that incident, and the subsequent eight year saga, is retold in a documentary called Out in the Night. It's a film that's played the film festival circuit, but it makes its national television debut tonight, June 22, on PBS' kickoff of the 28th season of the POV documentary series.

According to the press release, the accosting man, 28-year-old Dwayne Buckle, hollered "'Let me get some of that,' to [4-foot-11-inch poet] Patreese [Johnson], pointing below her waist. When she told him she was gay, he threatened to force the women 'straight' through rape. He threw a lit cigarette, yanked out a handful of Venice's hair and began to choke Renata [Hill]."

Johnson pulled out a knife and stabbed Buckle, resulting in what police described as a minor wound. Other bystanders jumped in to help the women and a fight escalated. When it was over, the seven women were arrested and charged with gang assault, assault and attempted murder. Three plead guilty to get a reduced sentence. Four went to trial.

They would come to be known as the New Jersey 4. In more sensationalist stories they were labeled a lesbian gang or killer lesbians, though none were in a gang and no one was killed. They were all found guilty.

"Why weren't these women seen as survivors of violent, homophobic harassment?" asks filmmaker blair dorosh-walther, who identifies as gender neutral. "And why were a group of friends with no criminal records, who were not in a gang, being charged as a gang?"

Dorosh-walther answers those questions and more. Their story didn't end when the media coverage had drained all the lurid angles out of the incident. By 2013, they had all been released from prison. That's where dorosh-walther picks up the story.

That POV story, streaming for free online through July 21, leads a season of admirable and revealing documentaries stories playing free on PBS in the coming months.

The next week, June 29, The Overnighters by Jesse Moss tells a "Steinbeckian parable" according to Justin Chang writing for Variety, about men lured to North Dakota by the promise of well-paying oil jobs, but finding just the opposite. The week next, Tough Love by Stephanie Wang-Breal, follows two parents—one in New York, another in Seattle—as they try to prove to the courts that they should get their kids back from Child Protective Services.

See the full schedule here. There is real, good stuff happening on television.