"Scandal" front woman Shonda Rhimes tackled the hot button issue of the number of rising deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of law enforcement in a recent episode of the hit TV show.

In an episode entitled "The Lawn Chair," unarmed black 17-year-old Brandon Parker gets shot by white police officer Jeffrey Newton (Michael Welch) in a southeast Washington neighborhood, not far from the Capitol building

Much like the real-life circumstances surrounding the shooting death of 17-year-old Ferguson, Missouri teen Michael Brown at the hands of then officer Darren Wilson last summer, Parker's body lies in the streets for nearly an hour before his father, played by Courtney B. Vance, arrives at the scene carrying a shotgun.

Vance's character, Clarence, stands guard over his son's body and refuses to leave before knowing the name of the officer responsible for his son's death.

As the situation boils to near riot proportions, Olivia Pope, the character played by Kerry Washington, is hired by police to calm the waters. In the midst of it all, Pope has an epiphany, largely brought on when she senses the police chief is trying to shut out the press and the attorney general is holding on to evidence that might clear the teen of any wrongdoing.

Eventually, Pope uncovers the fact that Newton planted a knife on the teen he pulled from a different suspect and uses it as justification for him shooting the youth. After Pope exposes the cover-up, Newton is arrested and charged with altering evidence, perjury, filing a false report and obstruction of justice.

The episode aired just as news that the Ferguson police department involved in the Brown shooting was found by the Justice Department to be "systematically targeting black residents with citations and arrest to put money in the city's coffers."

Later Rhimes tweeted: 

We had a great deal of debate about this ending. Whether to be hopeful or not. It was really hard. #scandal

— shonda rhimes (@shondarhimes) March 6, 2015 "

"It was really hard. In the end, we went with showing what fulfilling the dream SHOULD mean. The idea of possibility. And the despair we feel now," she continued.