Flashpoint is a Canadian crime drama television series created by Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern. The series debuted on July 11, 2008, on CTV. In the United States, the series originally aired on CBS; it also aired on Ion Television. The series starred Hugh Dillon, Amy Jo Johnson, David Paetkau, Sergio Di Zio, and Enrico Colantoni. The show focuses on a fictional elite tactical unit, the Strategic Response Unit (SRU), within a Canadian metropolitan police force (styled on the Toronto Police Emergency Task Force). The SRU are tasked to resolve extreme situations that regular officers are not trained to handle, including hostage-taking, bomb threats, and heavily armed criminals. Although the team is seldom seen doing so, they do sometimes discuss the "day job" of serving high-risk arre