The Blue Wall (Season 1, Episode 22)
Premise: When evidence is altered in police custody, suspicion falls on the detectives’ own captain.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 22
- Detectives
- Sgt. Max Greevey (George Dzundza), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill), ADA Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks)
- Guest stars
- Robert Lansing as Peter O’Farrell, John Christopher Jones as Dennis Shearer, William Andrews as Al McCrory, Pirie MacDonald as Congressman William Wilson
- Ripped from the headlines
- Possibly inspired by the 1983 case of NYPD officer Joe Sanchez, who was framed by corrupt colleagues.
- Director
- Vern Gillum
- Writers
- Story: Dick Wolf; Story & teleplay: Robert Stuart Nathan
Summary
The Investigation
“The Blue Wall,” the Season 1 finale, opens unusually in a courtroom, where three men accused of laundering drug money are acquitted after computer disks holding the evidence against them are found to have been altered while in police custody. Stone wants to know who inside the department made that happen. Internal Affairs starts looking hard at Captain Donald Cragen, whose longtime mentor, Chief Peter O’Farrell, had oversight of where the evidence was kept.
Greevey and Logan investigate on their own, which puts them in an awkward position with their boss and with Internal Affairs. Records place Cragen near the evidence at the wrong time, and Greevey’s questions strain a long friendship. The detectives also turn up a retired officer, Al McCrory, with close ties to O’Farrell, and Robinette later finds that Detective Shearer’s movements around the time of the tampering don’t add up.
The Trial
Shearer turns out to have altered the evidence himself, and he agrees to testify that McCrory paid him to do it. The money behind the scheme traces back to the launderers, but the prosecutors believe the scheme runs through O’Farrell, who had been taking payoffs. Without direct evidence, he remains out of reach. Stone and Schiff decide to use the one person O’Farrell trusts.
Stone threatens to indict Cragen unless he helps, and Cragen agrees to wear a wire to a meeting with his mentor. At first O’Farrell is careful about what he says. Cragen keeps the pressure on, presenting himself as someone who wants a share of the money.
Spoiler, the ending: O’Farrell incriminates himself to Cragen, admitting that he and Wilson split a $300,000 bribe. He is convicted along with McCrory and Congressman William Wilson, a former cop and O’Farrell’s political ally, while Shearer gets a deal for his testimony. Cragen is cleared, but it costs him his relationship with the man who made his career.
Why it stands out
- It is George Dzundza’s final episode as Sgt. Max Greevey.
- The episode names the unwritten police code against reporting fellow officers, the “blue wall” of silence.