Amaro's One-Eighty (Season 15, Episode 11)
Premise: Amaro shoots an unarmed teenager while backing up a wounded officer, and the case becomes a political test for the new mayor and IAB.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 11
- Starring
- Sgt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Nick Amaro (Danny Pino), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), Defense Attorney Rita Calhoun (Elizabeth Marvel)
- Guest stars
- Greg Germann as ADA Derek Strauss, Robert John Burke as IAB Lt. Ed Tucker, Cathy Moriarty as Captain Toni Howard, Vicky Jeudy as Officer McKenna, Leslie Odom Jr. as Reverend Curtis Scott
- Director
- Nick Gomez
- Writers
- Story: Warren Leight & Julie Martin; Teleplay: Kevin Fox
Summary
“Amaro’s One-Eighty” opens at Benson’s apartment, where the squad toasts her sergeant’s exam and Cragen reports that 1PP, short of supervisors, will let her stay at SVU. On the drive home, Amaro and Rollins meet a chase: Officer Mike Dragin has been hit by a cab, and his partner, Officer McKenna, is running after a teenager she believes is armed. Amaro follows her into a building. In a hallway McKenna charges the boy, yells that she has been hit, and Amaro fires around the corner. The boy, 14-year-old Yusuf Barré, who speaks no English, is gravely wounded. He carries khat, but no gun turns up.
Capt. Toni Howard, Amaro’s old narcotics boss, takes his weapon, and his union delegate, Didi Denzler, briefly stops a nurse from drawing his blood after he admits to two glasses of wine. Under the new mayor, IAB takes charge: Lt. Ed Tucker arrives with Cassidy, now training in internal affairs, and Reverend Curtis Scott calls the shooting racist. Yusuf survives, but a bullet has struck his spine and he may be paralyzed. An edited phone video posted online makes Amaro look reckless. Cassidy then reports that Yusuf had no gunshot residue. McKenna tripped with her finger on the trigger, and a ricochet from her own weapon wounded her; Amaro’s blood alcohol was .049 two hours after the shooting. He is arrested and held on $500,000 bail, which he covers with the house he owns with his estranged wife, Maria. Yusuf’s brother, Berko, says Yusuf only made deliveries.
Someone shoots into Amaro’s home while his mother, Cesaria, and daughter Zara are inside, and Amaro goes after teenagers on the street with a baseball bat, prompting another IAB inquiry. Maria asks for sole custody. Through his lawyer, Rita Calhoun, Amaro offers to plead to misdemeanor reckless endangerment and leave with his pension, but special prosecutor Derek Strauss wants a felony hate-crime plea, and Amaro refuses. Before the grand jury, Strauss questions McKenna and Rollins and raises Amaro’s past assault on a man he suspected of sleeping with his wife. Against Calhoun’s advice, Amaro testifies that he followed his training but regrets crippling a boy.
Spoiler, the ending: The grand jury splits ten to eight in favor of indicting, too few votes for a charge, and Amaro is cleared; Calhoun plans to tell reporters the DA overreached. After two days of talks, 1PP gives him a command discipline, anger management, retraining on his own vacation days and desk duty until Benson decides otherwise. Cragen then tells the squad he is retiring to take a six-month cruise around the world with his girlfriend, Eileen. He says goodbye to each detective, leaves Benson in charge and urges her to live her own life.
Why it stands out
- Dann Florek leaves the main cast with this episode, as Cragen retires and hands the squad to Benson.
- Cathy Moriarty returns as Capt. Toni Howard, Greg Germann as Derek Strauss and Elizabeth Marvel as Rita Calhoun; Mel Harris plays Cragen’s girlfriend, Eileen Switzer, also seen earlier in the season in “Rapist Anonymous.”