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The squad investigates a murder that has political connections. Rusty must deal with the appearance of his biological father who he doesn't want to see.
The Victim[]
- Derek Hansen, founder of Shannon House, a non-profit organization that rescues victims of sex trafficking. Derek was found dead in his home office, punched in the face, stabbed twice, and with his throat cut.
The Suspects[]
- "Little Elena", under-aged prostitute working for Charles Alvarez, her cousin.
- Charles "Chucky" Alvarez, Elena's pimp and cousin.
- John Jacob Felton, Chief of Staff to State Senator Mac Austin. Worked with the victim on a bill that would add millions of dollars worth of funds to California police departments. Retired US Army officer.
Evidence[]
- Locked bathroom door.
- Statement from "Little Elena."
- Missing computer and cellphone.
- Multiple stab wounds, a rather "pimp-esque" method of killing someone (as noted by Lt. Tao).
- Messages recovered from the victim's e-mail.
- Cause of death was eventually ruled to be a broken neck with multiple post-mortem stab wounds which would have all been leathal on their own.
Plot[]
Starting their investigation[]
The Major Crimes Division was called to investigate the case only after the crime scene was already searched.
The Hollowood Division responded to a 9-1-1 call from a concerned neighbor who saw a young girl jumping out of a second-story window. When patrol officers arrived at the scene, they found the victim, Derek Hansen, murdered and a upstairs bathroom door locked.
Hollywood Division detectives figured that the girl might have hurt herself in the fall so they canvassed nearby emergency rooms and found the girl. The girl was treated and released to Det. Sanchez who brought her in to the PAB. Lt. Flynn noted that she wasn't cooperating but that was to be expected because she is a hooker, as noted by Lt. Provenza. The young girl goes by "Little Elena" online and Lt. Tao notes that young girls are usually controlled by a pimp.
Flynn and Provenza noted that Hollywood Division was treating the case as a basic "Pimp kills John" incident, so they cleared the crime scene in a quick manner, before finding out that the victim was a politically connected activist, fighting to end sex trafficking of minors, and maybe working with the young girls a little more closely than he should have been.
Capt. Raydor was pleased to hear that the media has not yet heard about the murder but was less than pleased when Provenza notified her that the "politically connected" are already at the PAB, breathing down their necks.
Investigating the case[]
The "politically connected" who are at the PAB with Asst. Chief Taylor are State Senator Mac Austin and his Chief of Staff John Jacob Felton who had worked with Derek Hansen on a bill that would add millions of dollars worth of funds to California police departments. The funds would be used for training the agencies on matters related to human trafficking.
Capt. Raydor wondered how the Senator knew of Derek's death when even the media was not aware of it. The Senator told her that Derek's last call was to him. The police didn't know the call was to him but when they found out, he noted that "procedure may not have been followed exactly."
At this point, Det. Sanchez came in to notify Capt. Raydor that Elena was in Interview Room 1, waiting to be questioned. Senator Austin asked that is Elena the girl who jumped out the window. Raydor noted that it could be but as they don't want anyone to know she was at the crime scene, she asked the quests to not tell anyone about it.
Chief Taylor asked Julio if there was anything else, but before he answered, he gave brief looks to both Capt. Raydor and Lt. Provenza who both gave Julio a silent "ok" to proceed (most likely because at that point Julio didn't know who the visitors were). Julio noted that Elena only speaks Spanish so she might've heard a fight, but she probably didn't understand it. She also insisted that she was locked in the bathroom the whole time, so she didn't see anything.
Capt. Raydor asked if she mentioned her pimp, which she hadn't, but Julio already requested the Hollywood Division to bring him to the PAB. Chief Taylor noted that the pimp was already arrested and asked if the girl was cooperating. "Not a chance" noted Julio, but Elena's name came up on three FI's. John Jacob Felton asked what are "FI's" and Chief Taylor told him that they are Field Interview cards which are filled out by officers when they come into contact with a "suspicious type." It was noted on all the cards that Elena was with her pimp, Charles Alvarez (who had a circle with a dot in the middle next to his name on all the cards). Senator Austin asked what that meant and Provenza noted bluntly that the mark means that in the officers professional opinion, Mr. Alvarez was an asshole. This caused some amusement in Capt. Raydor, some dissaproving looks from Chief Taylor, and a comment from the slightly taken aback Senator Austin that it's "too bad that's not a crime." Senator Austin noted that he'd be needing the LAPD's professional opinion quite a lot over the next few days and therefore would like to leave John there to monitor the investigation, which Taylor agreed to even though it caused some annoyance in Raydor, stating privately to Provenza and Sanchez that she hates being monitored this way.
At this point, Tao comes in to ask if he should get a warrant to access the victim's email as they don't have his computer. Raydor gives him the go ahead and also tasks Sanchez to prepare the interview with Elena and for Lt. Flynn to inform her immediately when Elena's pimp arrives. When the squad is going in to watch Elena's interview with Julio, John asks to join them as Chief Taylor had given him permission to listen in. Raydor iterated that a murder investigation is confidential but John assured her that he was only there to report to the Senator in order for him to not be blindsided. At this point Marisol Peña, Shannon House's executive director, walks in, asking John if the LAPD had found the girl who jumped out of Derek's house. Raydor then asked John for an explanation, as he was only supposed to report to the Senator. John apologized and tells her that the Senator felt that Marisol might be able to help figure out what happened to Derek.
When Julio started the interview with Elena, she said nothing. It wasn't until Julio hypothesizes that maybe it was Elena who killed Derek when she speaks ups and tells Julio that she had nothing to do with Derek's death. Julio notices that Elena has a tattoo on her left hand, CA, meaning Charles Alvarez. He asks her if she makes money for him but Elena tells him that Charles is her cousin. At the same time, Flynn notifies Raydor that Charles Alvarez has been brought in but has already asked for a public defender. Flynn notes that pimp's know the drill; he's not going to say anything, his girl's are not going to say anything, and they'll both be back on the street in no time.
Later, when Raydor was dealing with the matter of Rusty and his biological father, Lt. Flynn interrogated Charles Alvarez. Charles had a folding knife in his pocket when the LAPD picked him up, violating the terms of his parole. During the interrogation, Charles was non-cooperative, claiming he was tired because he works nights. Flynn tells him that he knows that because he stayed up late last night to murder Derek. Charles denies having anything to do with that and his public defender notes that the LAPD needs to have probable cause to hold him on a murder charge. Flynn notes that they have more than probable cause: they have one of his girls, the girl who was at Derek's house the night Charles beat him up and killed him. After hearing this, Charles' public defender order him to show Flynn his hands, which he then photographed for evidence, although visually his hands showed no signs of assault.
The MCD squad and Alvarez's public defender both know that Elena has to ID Charles as her pimp, otherwise they can only hold him on the parole violation. Raydor hatches a plan and they bring in Elena to Charles' interrogation room, telling Elena that she should tell Charles everything she had told the LAPD (even though she had said nothing). While Elena assured Charles that she had said nothing (in English, even though she previously claimed she only spoke Spanish), Charles didn't believe her and tried to attack her, telling her that he would kill her. This gave the LAPD positive identification that Charles and Elena knew each other as well as an extra charge of witness intimidation.
When Charles tried to attack Elena, he managed to break the interrogation room door. Realizing that fact, Raydor re-examined the SID footage from the crime scene, confirming that the LAPD had to pick the lock to the bathroom. If Charles really was the killer and he went to get Elena back, he would have broke down the door to do so. Based on this new information, Raydor asked Provenza to notify Dr. Fernando Morales that she would like to see Derek's body.
Closing the Case[]
At the morgue, Dr. Morales had determined that Derek's neck was broken before he was stabbed and all of the stab wounds would have been leathal even on their own. Provenza and Raydor came to the conclusion that they were done professionally, perhaps by someone with hand-to-hand combat skills, like a soldier. Because of this new information, Tao and Flynn went to question Derek's friend Lieutenant Angel Hayes about her connection to Derek. Hayes cooperates and reveals that Derek asked her to look up someone's service record but found out their rank was actually Lieutenant instead of Captain as Derek had told her.
The officer in question was John Jacob Felton, Senator Austin's Chief of Staff, who Derek had told Hayes he wanted to help lobby the Senator for more funding for Shannon House. Checking Felton's resume, they discover that he did lie about his rank which is considered unacceptable by politicians and could've caused him serious trouble if he was exposed. Checking Derek's emails, Tao learns that Felton told Derek that he would only be able to get half of the funding he wanted for Shannon House due to budgetary issues and they figure that since Derek refused to compromise, he wanted to find something on Felton to force him to help. He found Felton's lie and Felton murdered him to cover up the secret. However, as Assistant Chief Taylor has let Felton observe the investigation, he knows they have no physical evidence tying him to the crime scene. Raydor and Provenza realize that Elena lied to them about not speaking English so maybe she knows more than she's let on and that they should interrogate her with Felton watching, still believing they are looking at her pimp for the murder.
When Flynn speaks to Elena, she confirms that Derek never tried to molest her, she came to him for help after seeing normal girls and being reminded of the life she once had. Before she can explain more, Flynn purposefully shuts off the video feed the others are watching and confirms with Elena that she will tell the story that they came up with when he turns the camera back on. As they are taking care of her pimp, Elena is happy to help. After Buzz pretends to fix the problem, Flynn switches back on the cameras and Elena claims that she saw the killer enter the house and leave as well as his car and describes Felton. She also heard his name: John Jacob.
Realizing that he's going to be caught, Felton tries to fake a phone call and leave but is stopped by the squad who confront him over the murder. Felton quickly tries to claim that Elena is lying and that she killed Derek, but Raydor points out the fact that she wouldn't have had the skills necessary to commit the murder while Felton, as a former infantry officer would've. Unable to escape, Felton collapses and DDA Hobbs offers him a deal of murder two, thirty years. If he refuses, she threatens to go to murder one and the death penalty. While Felton tries to claim that he won't be executed, Taylor points out that after several years on death row, the political climate may change and he could be. Felton takes the deal and agrees to write out in detail how and why he committed the murder.
Guest Cast[]
- David Naughton (State Senator Mac Austin)
- Ray Santiago (Charles Alvarez)
- Colby French (John Jacob Felton)
- Rose Portillo (Marisol Peña)
- Marielle Young (Elena aka "Little Elena")
- Jon Wellner (Public Defender Willis)
- Cherise Boothe (Lt. Angel Hayes, US Army)
- John Pollono (Derek Hansen)
Recurring[]
- Kathe Mazur (DDA Andrea Hobbs)
- Ian Bohen (Daniel Dunn, Rusty's biological father)
- Sonya Leslie (Cynthia, Rusty's DCFS caseworker)
Locations[]
Episode Notes[]
- Det. Amy Sykes (Kearran Giovanni) is absent from this episode. It was mentioned that she was still recuperating from injuries sustained in “Out of Bounds”.
Goofs[]
- Det. Sanchez mentioned that Elena's name was mentioned on three Field Interview cards but when he gave them to Chief Taylor there were four cards and none of them had Elena's name on them. Although it is possible that Elena gave the officers a different name each time, it begs the question on how they then could have come up on Julio's search.