'Chicago PD' Season 7 Episode 6: Jay Halstead's mistake costs an innocent man his life, but will he make up for it?
In this week's episode of 'Chicago PD', Interim Superintendent Jason Crawford asks the Intelligence Unit to use an off-the-books facial recognition software that was still in its beta stage.
Crawford presses on the usefulness of the software, telling Hank Voight that it helped him to nab three suspects and pressurizes the team to use it in this week's case.
When the software spits up the name "Marcus West" with apparently more than 99% accuracy, Detective Jay Halstead brings him in.
Halstead was the first one on the scene that had two young boys shot in the head, and he was quite shaken up, determined to bring the culprit to justice.
So when West is brought in, Halstead grills him, despite the man repeatedly insisting that he is innocent.
Halstead books him into the county instead of the 21st precinct hoping that West would be motivated to tell the truth after spending time in county jail.
However, West is attacked brutally in the county by the people who knew of the murder of the children. He gets put into a coma but does not survive.
When Halstead realizes that West did not commit the murders, after all, he is filled with guilt.
He and Voight go to the tech team who then tells them that the software is increasingly inaccurate when it came to people of color, less so the more dark-skinned they are.
Crawford is willing to let Halstead take the fall should this go out to the public, but Voight warns him that it was Crawford who insisted on using the software.
At the end of the episode, Voight releases the name of the real killer to the gang leader who beats the murderer to death. But when Crawford gives a press conference, the blame is put on Marcus West himself, likely to save Halstead and himself.
We've known that Halstead is more of a straight shooter than Voight and not as willing as the latter to do what is required to solve the case.
In this episode, his actions cost the life of an innocent man and it is sure to weigh on him. Perhaps this could make Halstead more mindful of his actions and of his implicit bias as well.
Whether this incident will come to cost them in the future is left to be seen, but for now, the ending of the episode has left a bad taste in our mouths.
'Chicago PD' airs on NBC on Wednesday nights.