What Happened To Cedric Jones In Law And Order: SVU? Explored

NBC's Law and Order: SVU season 15 episode 16 first premiered on 5th March 2014. The episode focuses on Cedric Jones (Winston Duke), a high school football star and college recruit from Georgia, who goes missing in New York after a team hazing incident.

Law And Order: SVU's veteran, Detective Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), turns out to be a friend from Cedric's hometown who gets involved when his uncle reports him missing, and what follows is a detailed police procedural that shows the dangers of the hazing culture.

But we aren't going to discuss the details of this Law and Order: SVU episode here. What I plan on doing is telling Cedric Jones' story from his own perspective.

So let's dive in.

Law And Order: SVU The Cedric Jones' Story Explored

Cedric's visit to Hudson University was supposed to change his life. The high school football star from Georgia dreamt of playing at the highest level, which is why, even though he had already committed to Georgia Tech, upon being given a free recruitment trip to New York from Hudson University, he saw it as a chance to explore all the possibilities life had to offer him.

His excitement knew no bounds as he hopped on the plane, thinking about a weekend in New York, meeting coaches, and experiencing life at college.

But what started as a dream come true quickly turned into a nightmare he couldn't even imagine.

When Cedric entered Hudson, he felt as though the V.I.P. treatment applied to him. Coach Bill Becker greeted him upon arrival before leading him to meet cheerleaders Zoe and Tanya, who expressed keen interest in giving him a great experience. This entire experience made him feel important, as he believed he was destined to become a significant member of this world. The group brought him to parties where he received drinks while an atmosphere formed around him that suggested he was already an established team member.

During the initiation ritual at a party, Cedric underwent blindfolding, which he understood to be part of the team initiation. And as he was blindfolded, the two female cheerleaders promised him that they would provide him a sexual experience, which would serve as his team welcome ceremony. The moment he removed the blindfold, he discovered the person in front of him to be Ty Lee, who turned out to be a male cheerleader.

That moment struck him the same way you would be struck after someone hit you directly in the stomach. This discovery caused him to experience betrayal and assault alongside complete humiliation. When the blindfold came off, he lost every aspect of his identity, from his gender to his athletic abilities. The act itself, along with discovering that he had been duped, was what caused him the most devastation. A malicious prank operated as the mean conspiracy against his honor. This cruel scenario led to the worst moment of his life when people mocked him about his situation.

Cedric experienced too much shame, so he dashed out of the party and roamed through the streets of New York City.

The events at the party caused his thoughts to race as he questioned what college football truly entailed. The way he would return to public life remained unfathomable to him. The disclosure of this information to his back-home community would cause substantial damage.

He told the cab driver to take him to a sports bar, but what he didn't know was that the driver actually took him to a gay bar.

There he got approached by Freddy, a man whom he thought to be gay, and the humiliation, paired with the betrayal he felt earlier, led him to act out in a way he wouldn't have before.

He snapped and attacked Freddy in a blind fit of rage. He hit him so hard that the police were called, and Cedric found himself in handcuffs.

Cedric found himself inside the criminal justice system because he now faced accusations for committing a hate crime. The situation became exceptionally harsh since he neither was homophobic nor violent. But to the NYPD, he was just another athlete with anger issues.

Detective Amanda Rollins managed to locate him inside the county jail, but by then, Cedric had reached a state of rupture. He struggled to describe the mixture of disgrace with the confusion and suffering he was experiencing.

Rollins, with the help of another Law and Order: SVU regular, Detective Benson, started digging into Hudson's years of abuse and hazing rituals just like the one Cedric had gone through and found out that Coach Becker knew about the hazing and still let it happen year after year, defending it as a "team bonding experience."

Cedric listened as the detectives confronted Becker and realized that the man who had told him he was special had seen him as nothing more than a pawn in a twisted game.

Cedric spent his time in the jail cell unable to find any hope for escape. His dream was over. The legal troubles made him consider whether any educational institution would accept him in the future. How could he continue feeling regular again? The reflection he had towards his own image had shattered forever.

The end of his football career followed his unsuccessful suicide attempt, which resulted in physical limitations that made football playing impossible. This mattered because all his life he had pursued that dream, but now it had disappeared.

With Rollins' help, the truth about the real incident that made Cedric do what he did came out. Other victims, who had been previously shut up with threats, spoke up, and the university was exposed. But that didn't really change what happened to Cedric.

At the end of the episode, Cedric, together with his uncle, made plans to depart from New York City and relocate back to their home. Every aspect of this world had tormented him before discarding his suffering body. Those individuals who should have safeguarded and advised him instead mocked his circumstances before they abandoned him.

He had come to Hudson to create a beautiful future, but instead, they took away all his future prospects, leaving him a broken man.

So this was the Cedric Jones story from Law and Order: SVU episode 15 of Season 16, named "Gridiron Soldier," from Cedric's own perspective.

Have you watched this episode? Let us know your perspective down in the comments below.