The actor, known for his roles on acclaimed crime series such as Homicide: Life on the Street and Brooklyn Nine-nine, died on Monday after a recent illness, his representative confirmed to PEOPLE.
Braugher played Det. Frank Pemberton in Homicide, earning his first Emmy win in 1998. He played another police officer, the no-nonsense Capt. Raymond Holt, in the comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine, picking up four Emmy nominations. He earned 11 Emmy Nomination in his career, including a second win for the 2006 miniseries Thief.
At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, the actor reflected on his roles as Holt in Brooklyn Nine-Nineand other fictional police officers,and how he viewed real-police world
“I look up after all these decades of playing these characters, and I say to myself, it’s been so pervasive that I’ve been inside this storytelling, and I, too, have fallen prey to the mythology that’s been built up,” Braugher told Variety at the time.
“It’s almost like the air you breathe or the water that you swim in. It’s hard to see. But because there are so many cop shows on television, that’s where the public gets its information about the state of policing,” he continued. “Cops breaking the law to quote, ‘defend the law,’ is a real terrible slippery slope. It has given license to the breaking of law everywhere, justified it and excused it. That’s something that we’re going to have to collectively address — all cop shows.”
