In Blackwater Falls, Colorado, Harry Cooper, a police officer nearing retirement, is hot on the heels of some local vandals when the situation turns deadly: believing one of them to have a gun, Harry opens fire and Duante Reed, a young Black man, is killed. The "gun" in his hands was a bottle of spray paint.

Meanwhile in nearby Denver, a drug raid goes south and a Latino teen, Mateo Ruiz, is also killed. The officer thought to be responsible is Kelly Broda, a name Detective Inaya Rahman is all too familiar with. Kelly is the son of the police officer who led a violent attack on her when they were both in Denver: John Broda. No one is more surprised than Inaya when John turns up on her doorstep, pleading for her help in proving the innocence of his son, who he insists is a much different breed of man than John himself.

With the Denver Police force spread thin between the two cases, protests on both sides of the cases begin and Lieutenant Wagas Seif and Inaya have their work cut out for them. Harry was by all accounts an officer dedicated to the communities he served: was this shooting truly a terrible mistake? Duante was a street artist with no prior record: can his death ever be justified? Was Mateo in the wrong place at the wrong time, or truly a dangerous drug dealer: either way, was lethal force necessary? And can Kelly's apple really have fallen so far from the rotten tree that is his father, or are Inaya's own prejudices working against her?