While at Columbia University’s Barnard College, majoring in women’s studies and political science, Ms. Sud audited a film class. She was the only woman in the room and the first screening was Brian De Palma’s “Body Double.” As she watched an abused woman murdered by a man with a giant drill, Ms. Sud’s film career aspirations evaporated. “Having women subjected to that extreme violence and obvious hate made me feel like I didn’t belong and I should try something else,” she said.

She spent a few years working in journalism and as a film distributor at Third World Newsreel, a media center that highlights the work of minorities. Inspired by the filmmakers she promoted (she namechecked Julie Dash and Ada Gay Griffin), Ms. Sud was determined to try film again. Divorced and raising a young son (now 26), she became a film student at New York University, working in the equipment rental department to subsidize a partial scholarship. (She remarried in 2005.) A Master Class with Spike Lee was a turning point, the encouraging antithesis of the De Palma fiasco. “I remember thinking, ‘This is an example of what’s possible for someone like me.’”

There aren’t that many like her in film and TV. According to a study by Color of Change, a racial justice organization that consulted with the “Seven Seconds” creators on representation, 80 percent of showrunners working in 2016-17 were male, and 90 percent were white. On “Seven Seconds,” Ms. Sud forced a correction: Her writers room is half women, with two white writers, two black, three Latino and one Asian-Pacific writer.

Ms. King (“The Leftovers,” “Southland”) was watching Ms. Sud with pride. “Young girls of color might not even know the idea of showrunner exists,” Ms. King said. “It’s such a powerful message to be able to say, Veena Sud is the boss.”

The arc of “Seven Seconds” will be familiar to anyone who followed the cases of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray and others. In death, the hungry news cycle transforms Brenton Butler from kid victim into gang banger, then he becomes a political pawn in a broken justice system.