Let My Brother Go

An old friend of Don Mitchell's can be the key to Chief Ironside's pilot program to reach inner city youth. Ivan Dixon, late of Hogan's Heroes plays a pro-football star who grew up in the same neighborhood as Mitchell did. But he's reluctant to help out.

Dixon has a brother played by Don Marshall who didn't quite turn out the same as Dixon. On parole he's a low level numbers runner who is looking to move up in the criminal world. He also has a nasty gambling addiction.

Raymond Burr sees Dixon as the way to reach kids before they make the same bad choices Marshall did. And Dixon does fine in this episode about a very conflicted man.

Highly satisfying episode. No really great sleuthing, but a heavy focus on the warm fuzzy side of the chief, as Ironside desperately seeks to protect the slum neighborhood kids from being dragged into the gangs by developing an after-school football program in the neighborhood, with football star Bart Masterson as the coach. However, he refuses to help because his brother, a parolee with a suspicious present, claims the police are after him for no reason. Things get messy on all ends, and the conflicting pressures of inner city life are played out very nicely and realistically, with the good brother/bad brother issues inside the family, the anti-police suspicions, the gangs not wanting any police programs to succeed, the youths afraid or unwilling to join these programs, and the good brother being pulled every which way as he must decide what is the correct way of being "good" to his brother, family and community. Very moving and real.