Rooftop (Season 3, Episode 4)
Premise: A string of rapes and murders of Black teenage girls in Harlem points first to an HIV-positive sex offender and then to a smooth-talking would-be rap promoter.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 4
- 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), Dr. George Huang (BD Wong), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie)
- Guest stars
- Asio Highsmith as Malik Harris, Todd Williams as Rodney Thompson, Dorian Missick as Leon Tate, Adriane Lenox as Alva Tate, Mylika Davis as Shareen White
- Director
- Steve Shill
- Writers
- Story: Neal Baer; Story & teleplay: Robert F. Campbell & Jonathan Greene
Summary
“Rooftop” opens with Stabler stopping Leon Tate, a paroled sex offender who is HIV-positive, as he leads a 14-year-old girl onto a roof without telling her his status. With little to charge, Cabot seeks to have him civilly committed under the Supreme Court’s Kansas v. Hendricks ruling, and Dr. George Huang diagnoses antisocial personality disorder, but Judge Elmore will not order a hearing without proof he meant to have unprotected sex. Cragen has already ordered Stabler to stop trailing Tate.
A 15-year-old, Shareen White, is beaten and raped on a Harlem rooftop by a man posing as a music promoter who calls himself the “love machine,” a phrase Stabler remembers from a 1993 rape. Det. Fin Tutuola, raised about ten blocks away, joins him. Neither victim can pick Tate out of a lineup, and then 14-year-old Aisha Thompson is strangled, set on fire and thrown from a roof. Her brother, Rodney, whose family Fin knew growing up, demands action. Old records show Tate tortured animals and set fires as a boy, but he is found dead of an overdose on a rooftop, and a new victim, Tiffany Purcell, killed after he died, clears him.
Huang profiles a charming, educated killer who varies his methods. When a fourth girl, Tina Dupree, is strangled in her own building, Fin tells an angry crowd to take their complaints to the press, and Cragen reprimands him; Fin answers that a missing East Side socialite would draw far more officers. Tina was last seen with a tenant, Malik Harris, an aspiring rap promoter called King who has just shaved his head and beard. An informant links him to drug buys, and a narcotics warrant leads to his arrest. Harris refuses a cheek swab on religious grounds, but Fin knocks off his sunglasses, and DNA from them ties Harris to six murders and eight rapes.
Spoiler, the ending: Judge Seligman rules the DNA was taken by coercion, so Cabot drops the murder charges and Harris makes bail on the drug count. As he leaves court, Rodney attacks him and Harris bites Rodney’s arm, leaving his DNA, and he is arrested again. Cabot suspects Fin set up the scuffle but chooses not to ask. Detroit police match Harris to four killings there, and his request for a deal is met with a jab about his last meal.
Why it stands out
- The story centers on Fin, who grew up blocks from the crime scenes and clashes with Cragen over how the department handles killings in Harlem.
- Cabot invokes the Supreme Court’s Kansas v. Hendricks ruling on civil commitment of sex offenders, and the case later turns on whether DNA taken without consent can be used.
- Dorian Missick plays Leon Tate, and Todd Williams plays Rodney Thompson.