‘East New York’ Boss on Haywood’s Plans for the 74th Precinct and Crafting a Police Procedural in 2022

CBS’ “East New York” is the latest police procedural among the broadcast networks, and so far it’s been attempting to paint a more nuanced picture of the relationship between the community and law enforcement in the city’s 74th precinct.

The series follows new Deputy Inspector Regina Haywood (Amanda Warren) as she tries to implement drastic change that will hopefully improve the distrust that people have for police, including encouraging her cops to focus less on petty crime and starting a community policing initiative. It marks a sign of change for police procedurals, which commonly depict cops going unchecked as they chase criminals — many of whom perpetuate harmful stereotypes about marginalized communities.

“What captivated me from the [previous police procedurals] were the characters in it [and] their views on how they approach their jobs versus how it would traditionally conventionally done,” showrunner Mike Flynn told TheWrap in a recent interview. “I wanted to see how that would look in a show about policing in 2022.”

Below, Flynn breaks down more of what to expect from Haywood’s efforts to reform the 74th precinct, as well as how he hopes “East New York” is moving the procedural genre forward.

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Regina seems to want to implement a lot of change within the precinct, and we’ve already seen some of the ways she plans to do so. Can you talk more about how that will play out over the course of the season?

I think it’s more about her coming into the situation at this precinct and getting a sense of what elements could improve in terms of making sure officers are more present as a welcoming entity in the community, as opposed to looking like an occupying force. We see in the pilot that she’s set up to two apartments for cops in the 74th precinct to move into and we see one cop move, which is Brandy Quinlan. We’re also going to have another officer move in just to expand on the awareness of the community. Also I think it’s about making her face known more to the people. One thing Regina is going to do is make herself available, to open our doors to these people who, normally in the past, the former Deputy Inspector didn’t necessarily have that open door policy for. It’s also about taking a different approach in terms of how they approach potential suspects — not necessarily approaching them as guilty before proven innocent. I think something that she wants to understand the person who committed the crime. Do they have to go down the route of being implemented into the penal system, or is there something that she can do to sway them on a better and higher path?

The community policing storyline is one I found interesting, and I wonder how you developed it in the writers room — especially given that, in our current flawed policing system, experts have found it doesn’t always work?

A lot of officers don’t necessarily live in the communities in which they serve. More specifically, precincts where there’s a higher rate of crime or low income ratio. So I think there’s that disconnect that Regina Haywood notices early on, and it’s her first subject to tackle. How do you bridge that disconnect? One thing she saw was to have faith in that in that community. In terms of how we tacked it in the writers room, I think we set that precedent on the pilot. Once we dove into it, the conversations that we had all the time were like, how does that character ingratiate themselves or gain trust with other people in the community? They have to rethink how they approach situations at the top with a higher responsibility to hold. We wanted to have our characters be human first before they’re cops.

Why did Quinlan volunteer to live in the housing project?

I think she saw it as an opportunity to make a good impression on her commanding officer. She’s somebody who believes in Regina’s ideals and her ideas and, being that she’s a younger cop, she’s seeing what it takes to become successful. I think she jumped at that opportunity given her past. She lived in Section Eight housing before, so she has an idea of what that life entails. I think that by her jumping to this responsibility, she’s displaying that she wants to believe that this can actually work.

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She’s already starting forming some relationships with community members, some more positive than others. How will those develop throughout the season?

Her world is opened up these people who felt that they couldn’t come to the police before for help. She wants to really put that out there that she is there to help them, not be a force of executing the law. I think that she wants to bridge the gap between the community. I think that by understanding that these people are just as human [as she is]. She’s approaching it from a humanistic level. There’s a certain connection to her past that coming full circle.

You mentioned wanting the police to feel human. What about the other members of the community? How did you work to make sure that they didn’t perpetuate stereotypes about crimes that certain people commit?

Our writers room is a diverse room. We have people from different backgrounds and different ethnicities, different cultures who are advocates for not making characters stereotypes, or having them be one note. I think that the more that we speak on these people who live in the community — about who they are, what their day is like, and how that plays into their economical status — that speaks to certain incidents that they find themselves in. Oftentimes, the people who are implicated in crimes are always looked at as a criminal first, and they don’t look at any other elements. I think that that’s something that we’ve laid into, to look at these people beyond just how media portrays them.

We’ve also seen Haywood encourage her officers to spend less time focused on petty crimes, which I think speaks to what you’re saying.

She’s trying to crack open how things were done and find new ways in terms of how we approach these types of crimes, not necessarily focusing on somebody selling cigarettes on the corner, which is what happened to Eric Garner. Those situations don’t need to escalate to that level.

How did you retain some of the same aspects of police procedurals that already are proven to resonate with the audience while still trying to differentiate yourself?

I think what captivated me from from these shows were the characters in it, and their views on how they like to approach their jobs versus how it would traditionally conventionally be done. Some of those characters kind of broke the rules in terms of how to get a suspect or how to solve certain crimes or building those relationships with people in a community that they can trust. There’s those shows like ‘NYPD Blue’ and ‘Southland,’ where you really get into how this job affects the lives of these cops and what they’re taking home from the job, and how they’re looking at the world and how that viewpoint affects them in doing their job. I wanted to see how that would look in a show about policing in 2022.

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Were there conversations with the studio or with executives, where they questioned where the direction of the show might be going? How sensitive were they to these types of stories?

Absolutely. The general question that we were trying to carefully navigate is why now? Why this cop? Why is she joining this precinct? With New York, like a lot of other cities, there’s areas that have been gentrified, and the makeup of the community has drastically changed over the years. I think by choosing East New York as the landing grounds, I think we can get into a situation where we’re confronting that head on, before the storm comes, essentially. East New York also embodies a nostalgic essence of the last bastion of what New York City is and who the people are here. In terms of just creating a show, I think we want to carefully navigate how this deputy inspector comes into this precinct with a troubled history to implement new ideas. Some are going to rub people in an uncomfortable way, but I think that’s something that we really want to understand is why Regina Haywood is so passionate about it.

Did you consult with actual police officers, especially from the precincts you’re writing about, to get an authentic look at their relationship with the community?

Yeah, we do have technical advisors who are retired police officers of the NYPD. We just wanted to get that perspective. We also want to give the show the right amount of authenticity as well, anywhere from language down to uniform pieces. I think all those details are important to telling the correct story.

There are some people who would say that police procedurals of any form in 2022 are irresponsible. What is your response to that?

I think it might have been Nina Simone who said, ‘An artist’s job is to reflect the society in which they live.’ It’s our job as storytellers to let society get a glimpse of how things are moving in certain directions, and what policies are affecting people’s lives. How does that trickle down from the top all the way through municipal services? It’s something that we want to definitely continue to look at, because we’ve seen policies change and the world adjusts to those policies, and people react to those policing strategies. I think that there’s a reason why police dramas work. People get the satisfaction of police getting the right criminals for the crimes that they commit and people who are maybe innocently prosecuted or wrongly arrested, I think that’s something that we want to also show — police owning up to some of the errors they can avoid.

Will we see ‘East New York’ grapple with any wrongly accused people?

I wouldn’t say wrongly accused people, but we’ll look into situations where that could be a possibility. That’s something they’ll grapple with. Did this person commit this crime? Was it someone else? Why did they do it? It’s an interesting issue.

“East New York” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.