Andre Braugher was a pioneer in playing smart, driven, flawed Black characters

Andre Braugher as Det. Frank Pembleton of Homicide: Life on the Street

Chris Haston/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank

It is a serious shame that there does not seem to be an official streaming home for episodes of NBC’s groundbreaking police drama, Homicide: Life on the Street.

Because that makes it less likely that a wide swath of younger TV fans have seen one of Andre Braugher’s signature roles – as Baltimore homicide Det. Frank Pembleton.

Braugher died Tuesday at the surprising age of 61. But I remember how compelling he was back in 1993, in Homicide‘s pilot episode, when Braugher took command of the screen in a way I had rarely seen before.

A new kind of cop hero

Pembleton was the homicide department’s star detective — smart, forceful, passionate and driven.

He was also a Black man well aware of how his loner arrogance and talent for closing cases might anger his white co-workers. Which I — as a Black man trying to make his way doing good, challenging work in the wild, white-dominated world of journalism — really loved.

Clark Johnson as Det. Meldrick Lewis and Andre Braugher as Det. Frank Pembleton.

Eric Lieboeitz/NBCU Photo Bank

His debut as Pembleton was a bracing announcement of a new, captivating talent on the scene. This was a cop who figured out most murders quickly, and then relentlessly pursued the killers, often getting them to admit their guilt through electric confrontations in the squad’s…