What happened to Jackson on The Rookie? Character's fate explored

The Rookie, created by Alexi Hawley, is an American police procedural drama that aired in 2018 on ABC. The show revolves around a middle-aged man named John Nolan, who decides to pursue his dream of becoming a police officer and joins the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) as the oldest rookie in the team.

One of the characters of The Rookie was Jackson West played by Titus Makin, who was part of the show from season 1. Jackson belonged to a police family, his dad Percy West was the Commander in the LAPD. Jackson's journey in the show was about proving his merit, his friendships, and standing against the racism he faced from one of his trainers.

However, Jackson's role in The Rookie came to an abrupt end in season 4. This comes as a shock to the audience, as by now he had become an integral part of the story. In the season 4 premiere, Jackson is killed by a drug gang as he tries to save his trainer Angela.

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Who was Jackson in The Rookie?

Jackson West was a rookie cop and started training under Angela Lopez, who understood his mentee well and helped him become a confident cop. She was a strict but considerate mentor, which was evident from the scene where she covered for Jackson when he was not able to fire the gun in front of the Captain.

Jackson West is played by Titus Makin in The Rookie. (Image via Instagram/@titusmakin)

In the same season, Jackson was further sent to be trained under Bradford, another officer, who helped him overcome his fear of using weapons under pressure. Bradford purposely puts Jackson through intense and pressuring parts of training so that he can push himself and beat his fear.

This season was further about Jackson's romantic relationship with a nurse called Gino Brown and the disagreement between Jackson and his dad about a certain case from Percy's past. This season of The Rookie ends with Jackson and Angela teaming up to solve a case and assassinate Mitchell, who threatens the city with a deadly virus.

The second season of The Rookie started with Jackson struggling to clear his exams as a trainee and progressed with Grey, a senior officer putting a close check on him. In the season further, Jackson was shown in a relationship with a male actor Sterling Freeman.

The season shows Jackson solving a murder case alone and impressing Grey with his achievement. It ends with the death of Chris Rios, a close friend of Jackson. The emotional upheaval he went through, eventually leads him to catch Rios' killer (Serj Derian) and arrest him.

In season three, Angela was promoted to the post of detective and Jackson became the training officer for his last leg of training under Doug Stanton. Doug Stanton was a racist and abusive officer who mistreated Jackson often in the training.

Jackson confided in his friends and often challenged Stanton but was unable to achieve anything concrete due to the position later held in the LAPD. Meanwhile, Stanton goes on to make the situation difficult for Jackson. In the episode Lockdown, Jackson caught four suspects in the neighborhood and requested backup, which was turned down by Stanton.

Jackson survived the above situation and was determined to gather evidence against Stanton. With the help of Grey, he recorded the misbehavior of Stanton, which was further presented to authorities leading to Stanton's removal from the LAPD. This season also shows Jackson's breakup with Freeman and the wedding sequence of Angela Lopez.

Angela was kidnapped by La Fiera, the drug mafia from the wedding, and Jackson also went missing from the scene.

The episode Life and Death of season 4 starts with security footage showing Jackson being ambushed and shot by La Fiera's men. This ends Titus Makin's character of Jackson West in The Rookie.

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What Titus Makin said about playing a cop in The Rookie?

Titus Makin was affected by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and wanted to talk about police brutality and racism through his character in The Rookie.

In a 2022 interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor said, "I woke up one morning and I was watching the news, and I was like, 'I can't do this. I can't go play a cop on a show and not talk about the fact that I'm a Black cop.' My character hadn't addressed any of that."

He then shared his concerns with the showrunner Alexi Hawley who introduced a new arc in the show to address racism within the police force. This is how Doug Stanton's character was incorporated into the series which made Makin continue his role for season 3.

Makin and the show makers have not shared the exact reason behind his exit from the show in season 4. In a conversation with TVLine showrunner Alexi Hawley spoke about Makin's absence from season 4 and said, "What I can say is that Titus [Makin] was not coming back to the show, so we needed to do the best that we could to honor the character who’s been so primally a part of the show.”