Protection (Season 3, Episode 12)
Premise: A boy shot in a drive-by is murdered in his hospital bed, and the detectives must protect his mother and brother, the only witnesses against a ruthless drug dealer.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 12
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March)
- Guest stars
- Elpidia Carrillo as Maria Ramos, Jean-Luke Figueroa as Luis Ramos, Louie Leonardo as Fredo Garcia, Otto Sanchez as Eddie Fuente, David Zayas as Det. Milton
- Director
- Alex Zakrzewski
- Writers
- Robert F. Campbell & Jonathan Greene
Summary
“Protection” begins when a woman rushes her wounded six-year-old son into an emergency room, gives false names, and slips away with her older boy while he is in surgery. The child was shot once in the abdomen, and X-rays show years of healed fractures. A school principal identifies him as first grader Miguel Ramos, whose mother, Maria, enrolled him and his ten-year-old brother, Luis, using a forged lease.
A youth-center counselor leads the detectives to the boys’ building, where ricochet and skid marks and paint from a sideswiped car point to a drive-by. The boys have been living with their grandmother, who says Maria was arrested with drugs a year earlier and lived with a boyfriend in the Bronx, Fredo Garcia. Fredo tells Benson and Stabler that Maria hit Miguel. Then Miguel is smothered in his hospital bed, and a nurse recalls an unfamiliar maintenance man nearby.
Following a friend who collects Maria’s paycheck, the detectives pick up Luis, and a note in his pocket leads them to Maria at a Brooklyn shop. Told that Miguel is dead, she denies hurting her sons and will not discuss Fredo, but Munch gets Luis to say he saw one of Fredo’s men in the shooter’s car, and Fin’s informant describes Fredo as a heroin dealer with a contract out on a woman. Maria then describes two years of abuse and says Fredo made her and her sons carry drugs.
At Miguel’s funeral, Bronx detectives Milton and Tatum reveal that Maria and Miguel saw Fredo kill a rival dealer, Joey Stapleton, and that she vanished before giving a statement. A gunman wounds Maria in the arm, and police stop a black Lexus and arrest Eddie Fuente, whom the nurse picks out of a lineup. Maria says Fredo fired at Miguel from the back seat, and Fuente, facing a capital charge, says Fredo paid him $60,000 to kill mother and son. Maria refuses to testify and gives the Bronx detectives the slip. When the squad raids Fredo’s building, they find she has shot him in the knee, and Stabler talks her into handing over the gun.
Spoiler, the ending: Cabot wants to charge Maria with attempted murder because she bought the gun and planned the shooting, while Benson calls it self-defense and Cabot is warned that a conviction would wreck the only eyewitness against Fredo. The episode ends with Maria and Luis boarding a bus out of the city and promising to stay in touch; Cabot’s final decision and Fredo’s case are left unresolved on screen.
Why it stands out
- David Zayas, best known as Angel Batista on Showtime’s Dexter, plays Bronx Det. Milton.
- Elpidia Carrillo, known for her role in the 1987 film Predator opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, plays Maria Ramos.