How the makers of 'Shots Fired' are making America confront the reality of police brutality
Shots Fired, Fox’s new show from Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Rock Bythewood, premiered last week. The ten-part series is a fictional account of a shooting of an unarmed citizen by a police officer in a small town in North Carolina, its aftermath, and impact on the community. Unlike the most high profile police shootings that have actually happened in America, in Shots Fired, the victim is a white boy, his killer the only black cop in an entirely white sheriff’s department.
It’s a risky creative move, but the show gracefully and thoughtfully uses it as a jumping off point to tackle some of the biggest issues facing America today. The governor (Helen Hunt) immediately calls in the Department of Justice so as to avoid “another Ferguson.” In investigating the shooting, the two protagonists, DOJ investigator Ashe Akino (Sanaa Lathan) and prosecutor Preston Terry (Stephan James) discover another shooting of a black teen by police that occurred just weeks before, but which received none of the attention of the white teen’s death and seems to have actively been covered up.
Shots Fired is one of the most direct confrontations of police brutality and race I’ve seen on television. It peels back layer after layer of complicated ideas with each episode. Even as it tackles topics like criminal justice, private prisons, poverty, and education, Shots Fired comfortably fits them into the story, while shedding an empathetic light on an often over-sensationalized issue.
“That’s absolutely what we’re trying to do with this show,” Gina Prince-Bythewood told me over the phone. “Show humanity to characters and people who don’t always get that.” I chatted with Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Rock Bythewood about the show, the work they put into “getting it right,” and how television can lead to meaningful change.
There must be an immense amount of pressure when it comes to accurately portraying all the facets of this story.Reggie: One of the ways that we had to discipline ourselves was to not say everything we want to say up top. Part of what we have to do is hold back, so that there’s something for people to come back to in hour two, hour three, hour four. We would really hope an audience concerned about the social issues that we’re raising are patient enough to really see how we are dissecting this issue.
Gina: There was an absolute responsibility to get it right. We thought the best way to do that was research and meeting with people that had been affected by this. We had a great opportunity to speak with Eric Holder. We spoke with Wanda Johnson, mother of Oscar Grant, people from law enforcement, investigators from the DOJ. And when you’re sitting with Wanda Johnson, telling her story, telling her son’s story as a mother: How do you continue on? How do you fight for the legacy, the memories? It wrecked us all and grounded us so deeply in our responsibility.
The way you paint the show with various emotions, whether it’s grief or anger, feels very deliberate. How do you balance that and the more procedural aspects of the show seeing how it is a very emotionally charged subject matter?
Reggie: We want this show that challenges perspectives, [but] we also wanted to be entertaining. We created a creed which is to get the audience at the edge of their seats, and while they’re leaning forward, hit ‘em with the truth.