ABC scripted cop show dumps docu style in wake of death during reality-show taping





Disney-owned ABC's new scripted cop drama "Detroit 1-8-7" dropped its "documentary" conceit as a result of the shooting death of a Detroit child during a police raid being recorded by cameras for a reality series on a Disney co-owned cable network.

In the wake of 7-year-old Aiyana Jones's death, some family members, and attorneys, suggested cops were playing to the camera crew during the raid.

"The main reason ...that was pretty real and pretty scary stuff," "Detroit 1-8-7" executive producer Jason Richman told TV critics about the May shooting death, when asked why the format on his fictional, scripted drama series had been changed.

"The city was very concerned about that....[Detroit authorities] patently said that no documentary film crews could follow these police around" in the wake of the shooting," Richman continued, adding, "We were sensitive to their concerns."

"The credibility of the premise at that point was undermined," chimed in "Detroit 1-8-7" exec producer David Zabel.

The May 16 incident occurred when a camera crew for A&E reality show "The First 48" was outside a home being raided by Detroit homicide detectives. The homicide cops, joined by an "elite Special Response Team," were looking for the suspect in the shooting death of a 17-year-old high school student not far from Aiyana's home.

Police claimed officers threw a non-lethal flash grenade through the first-floor window of the two-family home and that when an officer ran into the girl's grandmother, his gun discharged, accidentally killing the child. Critics of the cops, however, said they had video showing an offer lobbing the grenade and then shooting into the house; they've suggestd the cops were playing to the TV cameras.

"The implication was that they were perhaps amping it up a little bit for the cameras," Zabel told TV critics Sunday.

"Jason and I happened to be [in Detroit] at the time, and the confusion over what our show was, what our show was going to be, what our show wanted to be, was only exacerbated by the fact that [death] had occurred."

A&E is jointly owned by Disney, NBC Universal, and Hearst.