John E. Reid and Associates, the company that developed the police-interrogation technique featured in a scene in Netflix’s When They See Us, is suing both Netflix and director Ava DuVernay for defamation. The contested scene is in the fourth episode of When They See Us, when NYPD detective Michael Sheehan is accused of coercing a confession out of a suspect in the Central Park Five case by using the Reid Technique. A character in the scene says, “The Reid Technique has been universally rejected.†John E. Reid and Associates takes issue with this characterization of the Reid Technique, which was originally developed by John E. Reid, a former Chicago police officer. They claim that the Reid Technique is neither coercive nor universally rejected. “Defendants published the statements in When They See Us in an effort to cause a condemnation of the Reid Technique,†reads the suit. The full suit can be read here.