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Will Chicago PD finally change in light of current events?

By Brittany Frederick

CHICAGO P.D. -- "Familia" Episode 704 -- Pictured: (l-r) Patrick John Flueger as Officer Adam Ruzek, Marina Squerciati as Officer Kim Burgess, LaRoyce Hawkins as Officer Kevin Atwater, Lisseth Chavez as Vanessa Rojas, Jason Beghe as Sgt Hank Voight -- (Photo by: Matt Dinerstein/NBC)
CHICAGO P.D. -- "Familia" Episode 704 -- Pictured: (l-r) Patrick John Flueger as Officer Adam Ruzek, Marina Squerciati as Officer Kim Burgess, LaRoyce Hawkins as Officer Kevin Atwater, Lisseth Chavez as Vanessa Rojas, Jason Beghe as Sgt Hank Voight -- (Photo by: Matt Dinerstein/NBC) /
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Chicago PD
Chicago PD (Photo by: Matt Dinerstein/NBC) /

Current events should prompt new storytelling for Chicago PD

It’s time for Chicago PD to change, both for creative reasons and to be mindful of what is going on in the country. Even conceding a certain amount of dramatic license, it’s not a good idea to proceed with a show where the cops regularly flout procedure and commit acts of violence at a time when people are discussing police conduct.

As of season 4, Voight had 56 complaints of excessive force against him, and that number has to have gone up since then.

We have yet to see serious reprisals for Intelligence when they do something clearly illegal. The police reform storyline in season 5 turned into just one person’s vendetta against Voight. The sixth season started with Voight being investigated for shooting the man responsible for Olinsky’s death, but he quickly got off the hook when Deputy Superintendent Katherine Brennan (Anne Heche) wanted his team’s help.

This season, no one knows that Voight and Superintendent Jason Crawford (Paul Adelstein) framed an innocent man for murder in “False Positive” thanks to Voight threatening the man’s widow in “Mercy.” Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) planted drugs later in the season and she got sent to New York, but that was between her and Voight, and hasn’t seemed to have any negative effect on Upton.

And as much as the show talks about racism, it also has room for improvement there. The main cast includes one African-American character (Kevin Atwater played by LaRoyce Hawkins), who’s not used enough and when he is used, it’s usually in a racism-themed storyline. The show just added a biracial character, Vanessa Rojas (Lisseth Chavez), this past season.

But a large portion of the African-American characters on Chicago PD are suspects, many of them being drug dealers, gang members, or both. The show did introduce some prominent people who weren’t—Denny Woods (Mykelti Williamson), Blair Williams (Charles Michael Davis) and Ray Price (Wendell Pierce)—but Woods and Price went to jail anyway while Blair was murdered.

There was Commander Emma Crowley, who used to be Voight’s boss, but Barbara Eve Harris’s character hasn’t been seen on the show since 2017.

The writers have tried to address racial issues and talked about addressing police reform as early as season 5, but they haven’t completely gotten there. If they still want the show to “feel like it’s really part of Chicago” then they need to take current events into account and make the changes that would happen as a result. Not only would it be realistic, but it’d be a better show, too.

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