Brooklyn Nine-Nine Star Says All Season 8 Scripts Have Been Scrapped Due to Police Brutality Protests

The social unrest of the past several weeks has led to the cancellation of shows like Cops and Live PD. While NBC hasn’t canceled any shows like Law & Order: SVU or Brooklyn 9-9, the creators of the shows are doing what they can to retool the properties so as not to glorify police brutality. In the case of Brooklyn 9-9, the writer’s room of the comedy has committed to restarting development on its upcoming eighth season entirely from scratch.

According to Nine-Nine star Terry Crews, whatever episodes were done for the season were thrown in the trash so that the team can start over and accurately discuss the situation, both in the writer’s room and on air.

“We’ve had a lot of somber talks about it and deep conversations and we hope through this we’re going to make something that will be truly groundbreaking this year,” Crews tells Access Hollywood. “We have an opportunity and we plan to use it in the best way possible. Our show-runner Dan Goor, they had four episodes all ready to go and they just threw them in the trash. We have to start over. Right now we don’t know which direction it’s going to go in.”

In the same interview, Crews detailed his own experiences with police, after having guns pointed at him by the Los Angeles Police Department due to a case of mistaken identity. “You’ve seen me, in movies or whatever but before all this, I was always a threat,” the actor recalls. “I would be going to the mall or going different places. I’ve had guns pointed at me by police officers in L.A. This was before I was famous. The thing is, they had the wrong guy.”

He adds, “It’s something that every black man has been through and it’s hard to really try to get other people to understand. I have to say, right here, what is going on right now is Black America’s Me Too movement. We always knew this was happening, but now white people are understanding.”

“With that George Floyd video that came out it literally opened up the world because now you’ve experienced it and you have to go through the same trauma that Black America has been going through,” he concluded.

To learn more about the Black Lives Matter movement and how to support the non-profits involved with it, you can use the resources located here.