The season finale of Fox’s race-baiting drama, Shots Fired, “Hour 10: Last Dance,” continued with its black=good, white=bad theme as it ended with this conclusion: it’s always about race.
Wednesday night’s resolution was completely predictable. The black police officer, who killed unarmed white teenager Jesse Carr, is indicted. But there is no indictment for the wealthy white man who killed unarmed black teenager Joey Campbell.
As the finale unfolds, Special Prosecutor Preston Terry (Stephen James) is faced with a dilemma: does he make this case all about race or not? A fellow DOJ prosecutor, who happens to be a white female, tells him to stick to the facts because “in this climate, race will make everybody uncomfortable.” Regarding the indictment of black Deputy Beck, the police officer who shot white Jesse Carr, she adds, “Beck's actions are being presented to the grand jury, not his color, not Jesse's.” While her advice seems sage (shouldn’t the case just be about the facts?), Terry insists, “Race is a contributing factor.”
Yet while Terry interrogates white Deputy Brooks about Deputy Beck being the only black man on the police force, Brooks pushes against Terry's race agenda. When Terry asks Brooks how Beck felt about the Tours, which let “wealthy white men” patrol “poor black neighborhoods” with police officers, Brooks offers that both he and Beck “thought it was messed up… but it wasn't about skin color. It was about right and wrong.” Obviously. Brooks even mentions that the isolation Beck felt due to being the only black man on the force was from “the black community” that called Beck “a sellout.”
Terry finally decides to remove race as a major tenet of the case. But before he gives his closing argument on how justice should be color-blind, he, of course, has to take a few jabs at America’s racist past (would it be a liberal TV show if he didn’t?) Amongst mentions of “our race-based justice system rooted in our biases,” “the Jim Crow era,” and the names of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Emmett Till, Terry does ultimately ask the jury to remove all racial biases and simply see the facts. The scene is interspersed with clips from the day of the actual shooting.
Terry: I thought these proceedings were about race. Maybe you thought these proceedings were about race. After all, isn't that what our justice system's always been about? Ever since the Jim Crow era, black men being sent to work camps for spitting on the sidewalk or making the God-awful mistake of looking a white man in the eyes. That isn't just the history of Gate Station. That is the history of this country. We have a race-based justice system rooted in our biases, rooted in our prejudices. It's that very same system that taught Deputy Beck to be the officer he was revealed to be the day he encountered Jesse Carr.
Jesse: Great. Po-po. Check this out.
Beck: You lost, boy?
Jesse: No, sir.
Terry: These proceedings are about the common sense facts of the case.
Beck: What are you doing in this neighborhood?
Jesse: Why did you pull me over?
Beck: 'Cause you don't look right.
Jesse: I didn't realize it was illegal to be in this part of town.
Beck: Depends on what you're doing here.
Jesse: I came for some fried chicken.
Terry: Deputy Beck pulled over an unarmed young man, a young man who posed no threat of any kind.
Beck: License and registration.
Jesse; What? I didn't do anything!
Beck: License and registration now.
Terry: Yet Deputy Beck chose to escalate the situation.
Beck: Get out.
Jesse: Sorry.
Beck: Get out of the car.
Terry: See, the facts suggest that marijuana had been planted inside Jesse's vehicle in order to substantiate a stop that should have never been made in the first place. His civil rights were violated. Deprivation of rights as defined by law. And as a result, Jesse Carr lost his life. An indictment doesn't mean that an accused is guilty or innocent. It just means that there have been enough unanswered questions that have been presented to warrant a trial. History tells us that white jurors will empathize with the victim.
Jesse: I'm sorry, all right?
Terry: Black jurors will empathize with the shooter.
Beck: Get out of the car!
Terry: I'm asking you all to stop yourselves right now from doing that.
Jesse: Why?
Beck: Get out of the...
Terry: I'm asking you to empathize with a justice system that needs to answer our prayers for fairness, common sense... And humanity. That is what is at stake here, folks: The humanity of our justice system. Because if Deputy Beck were a white cop who pulled over a black boy named Trayvon or Tamir or Emmett, I'd be asking for the same thing. I'd be asking for an indictment.
A similar montage is presented during the trial of Arlen Cox, the white man who killed Joey Campbell. But this time, the montage shows the unjustified killing of a young black man crying for his mother. Joey’s mother also takes the stand and reveals that when the racist police reported her son’s death to her, they threatened to take her youngest son away from her due to weed found in Joey’s bedroom (which appears to have been planted by the white police officers).
Continuing the racist fantasy world that mirrors Hollywood’s own left-wing hysteria, after white Lieutenant Breeland is murdered on his own property, the police force takes it upon themselves to raid the nearby black neighborhood, shoving young black men to the ground and handcuffing them. Shocker: the sheriff who ordered the raid was actually the one who killed him.
The Shots Fired writers were probably thinking of themselves when they had main characters say to each other at the end of the episode, “We just have to keep trying to save the world one case at a time,” except with the thought, “We just have to keep trying to save the world one TV show at a time.” Yet the leftist contrivances presented throughout the show probably did more to escalate racial tensions than solve them.
