Black, White and Blue (Season 10, Episode 17)
Premise: A prep-school student is killed in Harlem after two patrol officers leave him there to teach him a lesson, and the prosecution of the officers turns into a fight over race, politics and venue.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 10, Episode 17
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Danny Johnson as Officer Earl Smith, James Georgiades as Officer Patrick Flannery, Earl Hindman as defense attorney Riley, Ellen Foley as Annette Tobin, Kevin Smith as Tony’s wife’s nephew
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- Story: Richard Sweren; Teleplay: Matt Witten; Story & teleplay: Lynne E. Litt
Summary
The Investigation
“Black, White and Blue” begins with a Harlem killing: 17-year-old Michael Tobin, a white private-school student, is found dead at the foot of a stairwell, killed by a blow to the head after a lopsided fight. His parents say he went out around 10:30 to move the family car, which turns up a few blocks from home. Two patrol officers, Smith and Flannery, tell the detectives they noticed two young Black men near the Tobins’ building that night.
A payphone call places Tobin near the home of a Harlem classmate, Allie Johnson, whose protective older brother, Louis, once threatened a boy who drove her to his store. Louis has no alibi, and his father angrily accuses the police of treating the neighborhood as suspects. An activist who led a bottle-throwing protest that evening, after police roughed up a homeless man, trades a tip for the man’s release. A stolen beer keg leads to a party, a girl named Tina and a teen called Biggie, who admits he only bragged about the killing but names the attackers.
Jerome Weathers and Marcus Cook are arrested, and Weathers’s remark that they did not mean to kill “one of yours” suggests they took Tobin for a police informant. Under a deal sparing him the death penalty, Weathers says they saw Tobin step out of an NYPD car near 144th Street and Broadway and beat him as payback. Radio logs show Smith and Flannery’s car unaccounted for that night, and both officers had heard the alert about the earlier disturbance at that corner.
The Trial
Weathers and Cook plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter. With the mayor calling and a federal prosecutor threatening a civil rights case, Schiff overrules McCoy’s plan for lesser charges, and the officers are indicted for depraved-indifference murder. The judge refuses to dismiss, and off the record the officers admit they stopped Tobin, smelled marijuana, took offense at his attitude and drove him uptown. McCoy offers second-degree manslaughter, but Schiff orders him to withdraw it.
Defense attorney Riley moves to transfer the trial to Albany, citing heavy press coverage. McCoy concedes the upstate jury pool has seen less of it, and the judge moves the case. Schiff accuses McCoy of throwing the motion and tells him to make a deal.
Spoiler, the ending: McCoy warns the officers that an Albany jury may identify with the victim rather than with them, and the closing negotiation turns on terms of four to twelve or three to nine years; no trial is shown, and the case soon falls off the front pages.
Why it stands out
- Filmmaker Kevin Smith makes a cameo as the nephew of a beverage store owner.
- Earl Hindman, Wilson W. Wilson on Home Improvement, plays the officers’ defense attorney.
- McCoy’s concession on a change of venue sends the case to Albany and costs him Schiff’s trust.