A Death in the Family (Season 1, Episode 13)
Premise: When a cop is killed during a rooftop chase, the whole city wants the fleeing suspect, but the evidence points somewhere else.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 13
- Detectives
- Sgt. Max Greevey (George Dzundza), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Wendy Makkena as Officer Nicki Sandoval, Jerome Preston Bates as Brutus Walker, David Margulies as defense attorney Simpson
- Director
- Gwen Arner
- Writers
- Teleplay: David Black; Story & teleplay: Joe Viola
Summary
The Investigation
“A Death in the Family” opens with Greevey and Logan on an arrest that turns violent: a man falls from a window, and in the chase that follows, Officer Pete Rennick is shot and killed on a dark rooftop. His partner, Officer Nicki Sandoval, says she couldn’t see who fired. The prime suspect is Brutus Walker, a violent career criminal, and the NYPD launches a citywide manhunt.
Once Walker is caught, his lawyer, Simpson, insists he didn’t kill Rennick and offers information for a deal. Stone and Robinette look into Rennick’s life and find he was spending far more than a patrolman earns. The trail shows that Rennick had been stealing drugs seized in arrests and selling them through a small-time dealer, Ricky Powers. When Rennick believed Powers was cheating him, he killed him, forced Walker to call 911 from the scene, and then arrived as the responding officer.
The Trial
Pressed by the prosecutors, Sandoval admits she knew Rennick was corrupt, refused to take part, and secretly recorded him to protect herself. That makes her a threat to her partner. Her recording from the night of the shooting answers the question of who fired on the roof. Her silence about Rennick’s corruption is itself a problem, since officers are expected to report what they know.
The case is no longer about Walker. Stone has to decide how to handle an officer who killed her partner, in a city that has already decided who the villain is.
Spoiler, the ending: Rennick tried to use the rooftop chase to kill Sandoval but missed, and she shot him in self-defense with an unregistered gun he had once pushed her to carry. Stone presents the evidence to a grand jury as justifiable homicide, asking that Sandoval be cleared, though her failure to report Rennick earlier may still cost her her career.
Why it stands out
- Wendy Makkena plays Officer Nicki Sandoval.
- An early example of the series examining police corruption from inside the department.
- The case ends in a grand jury rather than a trial, with the prosecutor asking jurors to clear the person the police first suspected least.