 Officer Perry Henderson Jr., the first African American Police Officer of their Southern Community, believes that he is being setup for a murder, so he points suspicion toward his son. Father and son had a turbulent past due to Larry s constant interference in Perry s alcoholic rages toward his wife. With the thought of the seventeen year-old one-day being able to carry out his threat of revenge, Perry tells the youth that the evidence gathered at the scene of a robbery and murder points to his guilt. He explains to his son that if the case were to go to trial young Larry would receive the death penalty, thus convincing him to plead guilty to a crime perpetrated against a racist white-man in their hometown.