I agree with the Internal Affairs cop who said it was an ironic day indeed when their department is willing to give a shooting of a black teen by a veteran cop a once over, but the precinct won't. The one with whom this doesn't sit right is George Dzundza and he's got a job he even convincing partner Chris Noth to back him up. But Noth does come around.
Police officers John Finn and Jack Gwaltney from their patrol car spot a drug deal in progress and give chase as the participants split up. Gwaltney gives up his pursuit when he hears shots fired. Finn has shot down a kid who has a magnum in his hand and the other has taken off.
I won't go into it all, but the whole thing stinks on ice to Dzundza. Finn has had several complaints against him. The deceased was a community hero of sorts, going to Princeton.
In the end it's tragedy all around. The deceased was not quite the role model the neighborhood made of him. And Finn who might have been severely disciplined blew it by trying a cover-up.
Besides those mentioned there's also a good performance coming from Al Freeman, Jr. as the pastor of the church the deceased and his family went to. Ditto for the survivors of the incident the deceased's younger brother Richard Haversham and Erik King the street wise drug dealer who finds his life turned inside out with this whole affair.