Arthur Fancy
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Capt. Arthur Fancy was a fictional character in the television series NYPD Blue. He was played by James McDaniel for from Season 1 through Season 8.
Fancy, an African American, was able to rise through NYPD ranks at a very rapid speed. Fancy was one of the characters who most influenced Andy Sipowicz, changing his once openly racist views. When a racist NYPD Commander planned to have Fancy removed from the 15th for bogus reasons, Andy blackmailed the Commander over an unsolved mob murder to leave Fancy alone; the Commander later tried another scheme to wreck Fancy's career, but Fancy uncovered the plan, worked out a counter-plan and got a recording of the Commander calling him a "nigger." The Commander blustered but decided to retire rather than face Fancy at a civil trial. Fancy and Andy Sipowicz clashed many times throughout the early years, even throwing punches at each other, but eventually they grew to admire each other's talents. Fancy bluntly said that if a member of his family was killed, he would want Andy to be the lead investigator on the case.
Fancy was married to a woman named Lillian (played by Tamara Tunie) with two daughters and a son. He loved his wife dearly but was overprotective of her when learning of her last pregnancy (his son, Art Jr.) because of her diabetes, and it took some time for him to apologize to her. He had a younger brother, a uniformed officer named Reggie (played by Michael Jai White) who was distrustful of whites. Reggie's behavior drew the ire of a bigoted sergeant who came through the academy with Arthur named McNamara who claimed that Reggie was in the wrong line of work with his attitudes towards Whites. McNamara would later help a black cab driver file a harassment claim against Reggie in the hopes of getting Reggie brought up on charges to get thrown off the force. McNamara attempted to use the harassment claim figuring that with the assault of a minority citizen, Reggie would draw the ire of the NYPD's minority citizen sponsored programs (which McNamara despised) even though Reggie himself was a minority officer. Seeing that Reggie was set up (Arthur accurately suspected that McNamara helped the cabbie write the complaint), Arthur had the 15th's non-black detectives investigate the cabbie and squash the harassment claim teaching Reggie a serious lesson in trust. It was revealed in Season 6 that Fancy's father was an alcoholic who stole his mother's hard-earned money and died a broken man in the streets.
Fancy took in a foster child named Maceo in Season 1, and was devastated when Maceo's mom, a reformed drug abuser, returned to claim custody of her son. The story took a sad turn in Season 4 when Maceo was arrested for running drugs for his off-the-wagon mom, and Fancy had to convince him to cooperate with the NYPD in a sting against her dealer cohorts. Later, the mom blamed Maceo and said prison might do him some good--as Maceo watched from an observation window. Fancy put together a plea deal where Maceo would spend a few years in a work farm instead of many years in jail and consoled his former foster son about how he could still make something of his life.
Also in Season 4, Fancy and his wife were stopped at a traffic light and treated in a rough and possibly racist manner by two uniform cops (The officers held them at gunpoint over a broken taillight until Fancy revealed his badge). The following day, Fancy called the officers in claiming that they had overreacted pulling them over and treating them in a manner as if they were suspects in an armed robbery. After questioning the officers, Fancy concluded that he and his wife were pulled over at gunpoint on the basis of their race alone. The senior officer, Syzmanski vehemently denied pulling them over on the basis of their race and claimed they did that to every suspect as a precaution. Angered, Fancy went to Captain Bass requesting that the Chief of Patrol transfer Officer Szymanski out of their predominantly Caucasian beat to a predominantly African American beat such as Harlem or Brooklyn North. Szymanski then came to Fancy furious over having been reassigned to Bedford-Stuyvesant (which he referred to as a "toilet") claiming that Fancy wrongfully abused his power which Fancy purposefully admitted to doing. Fancy was then advised by Captain Bass that putting a bigoted cop in a predominantly African American beat was a bad idea as that officer would only add to that community's problems which were plentiful enough. Fancy compromised transferring Syzmanski into the 15th precinct with a black partner. Szymanski later faced a false accusation of robbing a black drug dealer whom Fancy came across in his days as a rookie for $600. Despite Syzmanski's distrust for the IAB investigators, Fancy believed him to be innocent and got the drug dealer to drop the false accusation leading to a truce between Fancy and Syzmanski.
After spending nine successful years with the 1-5, he was promoted to Captain and moved on to his next assignment, but his influence upon the detectives did not end there. When an extremely unpopular and ignorant lieutenant was transferred in as his replacement, Fancy called in one last favor for his detectives and had the boss-to-be transferred out. His influence on Sipowicz continued to be great, and this was one of the major character-building aspects of the detective's career.
His replacement was Lt. Tony Rodriguez.
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