The new season of "Law & Order: SVU" will tackle some of the most talked about headlines including the George Zimmerman trial and the Paula Deen racism scandal. Both highly publicized cases have left the country divided and the episode, titled "American Tragedy" is sure to stir up emotions.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the show is currently filming for the new season and the cast and crew were spotted in Manhattan filming the controversial episode. Buzzfeed was able to obtain pictures from the set. In one of the pictures Ice-T is seen talking to Richard Belzer, who is holding a card with the face of Trayvon Martin on the back. In some of the other photos people are seen holding signs and protesting outside of a courtroom.
According to Buzzfeed, Cybill Shepard will playing a character loosely based off of Zimmerman and Jeffrey Tambor will be her lawyer. The photos also revealed that the young boy's name will be Mehcad. Executive producer Warren Leight spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the episode saying that Shepard's character will also be based off of celebrity chef Paula Deen.
"[Jeffrey] Tambor is a defense attorney representing a very high-profile celebrity woman chef who thought she was being pursued by a rapist and turned around it was a teenager. And she shot him," Leight said in an interview with EW. "There's a lot of stop and frisk elements to that as well."
He promised the show will definitely stir up some emotions adding that he was shocked to see how the crew responded to the episode.
"Is racial profiling justifiable? Can self-defense involve racial profiling? We're diving right into that," he said. "When the script was published it became a litmus test for everybody here. It was really interesting to see people read that script and have different interpretations about who did what and whether or not they deserved prison for it. It was fascinating."
No other details about the episode has been released but an eyewitness who spoke to the crew told Buzzfeed that the episode will be the third episode in the new season.
To check out photos from the set click here.
The new season of "Law & Order: SVU" begins with a two-hour premiere on Wednesday, Sept. 25 at 9 p.m. on NBC.
