After George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, TV Rethinks If Cops Should Always Be the Good Guys

The Hero Cop is one of television’s most enduring tropes. But how heroic can the police remain at a time when many outraged citizens are campaigning for them to be defunded amid widespread protests over the killing of unarmed civilians like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor? The fallout from the weeks of nationwide demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism has already prompted two cop shows to hand in their badges: The long-running reality shows “Cops” and A&E’s popular “Live PD.” The simmering tensions against the people entrusted to protect and serve their communities have boiled over, and that has led to questions about the vitality of the fictional cops who patrol the television screen. “There’s always going to be an appetite for people who can go out, do good and get a form of justice. That’s always a satisfying story for most people,” said Aaron Rahsaan Thomas, showrunner for CBS’ “S.W.A.T.,” who conceded that many of the current crop of shows around police suffer from “a conservatively narrow point of view.” Thomas is a rarity in the industry: An African American showrunner who has made a career for himself writing about law enforcement. Before running “S.W.A.T.,” Thomas worked on...

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