美国国家公共电台 NPR Seeking Empathy, 'Shots Fired' Creators Flip The Script On Police Shootings

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Also on TV tonight, a new show looking at racially charged police shootings. The 10-episode series on FOX is called "Shots Fired." NPR TV critic Eric Deggans says the show is better at exploring explosive emotions than it is at providing deeper insight.

ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE 1: "Shots Fired" begins with a horrific incident...

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TRISTAN MACK WILDS: (As Deputy Joshua Beck) Shots fired, shots fired. I need some units. Shots fired. I need some units. Shots fired.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character, over radio) All units, all units respond to...

DEGGANS: ...The shooting of an unarmed 19-year-old by a police officer in a small North Carolina town. But when federal prosecutor 2 Preston Terry, who happens to be black, is assigned to investigate the case, his supervisor 3 explains a key detail.

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MIKE PNIEWSKI: (As Julian Carroll) Governor called me personally. It's a black cop and a white kid. She wants a black prosecutor out front - optics. This climate, only a black man can indict 4 this black cop without inciting 5 tensions if he's guilty.

DEGGANS: The outlook for the officer only gets worse when video surfaces of a racist 6 joke he made at a party for his graduation from the police academy.

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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Just graduating from the academy. Any last words?

WILDS: (As Deputy Joshua Beck) Finally got my license 7 to shoot these crackers 8.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) That's right. My boy's bulletproof.

DEGGANS: About halfway 9 through the first episode, federal investigators 11 learn local police are also covering up the shooting death of a black teen by a white officer. That's when "Shots Fired" expands its scope and begins to show how these two deaths produce very different reactions from police, the media and the community.

When I caught up with the show's co-creator, Reggie Rock Bythewood, at a press reception, he explained why "Shots Fired" began with the white teen's death. It's about getting non-black audience members to care about the victims of police shootings, too.

REGGIE ROCK BYTHEWOOD: What that case gives us forces a segment of the audience to look at it from a different point of view, forces people in a way to say what if that was your child?

DEGGANS: His wife, Gina Prince-Bythewood, co-created the show. She says the way some people cheered the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman for killing 12 unarmed black 17-year-old Trayvon Martin convinced her there were people out there who needed some lessons in empathy.

GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: It was shocking to us after the Zimmerman verdict. It was so personal and emotional to us and to our son. And then to turn on the TV or go online and see people starting to make excuses for everything that happened, and it felt that they were not seeing Trayvon as their child.

DEGGANS: The Bythewoods are both directors, producers and writers. Their credits together and separately include the films "Love And Basketball," "Beyond The Lights" and the TV show "A Different World." "Shots Fired" bears all the signs of a prestige project for Fox. There are A-list costars like Richard Dreyfus and Helen Hunt, along with a jazzy score by Spike 13 Lee's longtime composer Terence Blanchard. The show's two lead actors, Stephan James and Sanaa Lathan, make a great team, playing a straight arrow prosecutor, an unconventional investigator 10.

But for all its ambition, "Shots Fired" has a lot of clunky dialogue. At times, the characters are simply acting 14 out a political argument instead of responding as people, like in this scene where a black pastor 15 who challenges the federal investigators at a press conference is interrupted by a white man in the crowd.

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AISHA HINDS 16: (As Pastor Janae James) What I don't understand is why you're here. All the murdering of unarmed black man by police across this country, and this is the one that the government is investigating?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Oh, so only black lives matter?

HINDS: (As Pastor Janae James) I'm sorry, when is the last time you were pulled over by the police and didn't know if you were going to make it out alive?

DEGGANS: Instead of revealing new ways to look at these issues, some scenes told us what we already know, as when that same pastor, played by Aisha Hinds, talks about the value of public protest to an earnest North Carolina governor played by Helen Hunt.

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HELEN HUNT: (As Governor Patricia Eamons) I know together we can get ahead of this and keep our city from becoming another Ferguson.

HINDS: (As Pastor Janae James) Ferguson was a tragedy, a rallying cry that spawned 17 a movement, a movement still alive today. Have you ever considered that maybe I do want another Ferguson?

DEGGANS: Fox only provided six of the limited series' 10 episodes early to critics. So I'm hopeful later installments 18 will dig a little deeper and surprise viewers a little more. Because at a moment when political divisions in America couldn't be more heated, there's no better time for a series which approaches tough social issues by asking for a little empathy. I'm Eric Deggans.

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