Profile (Season 4, Episode 4)
Premise: A gunman with a sawed-off shotgun kills dark-skinned residents of the Upper West Side, and the white supremacist charged with the murders hires a prominent Black defense lawyer.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 4
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- James Earl Jones as defense attorney Horace McCoy, William Carden as Arthur Tunney, Joe Seneca as Lionel Jackson, Carolyn McCormick as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet
- Director
- E. W. Swackhamer
- Writers
- Story: Ed Zuckerman; Teleplay: Gordon Rayfield
Summary
The Investigation
“Profile” opens with the shotgun murder of Ashita Khan, a cellist from India, on an Upper West Side street. The detectives link her death to the killing of Hector Duvall, a Haitian teenager who worked at the market where she shopped, and of Ruben Calzada, a Harlem drug lookout. All were shot at close range with the same old paper shells, likely from a sawed-off gun. Witnesses describe a polite white man in a cap carrying a gym bag.
Van Buren brings in Dr. Olivet and an FBI profile describing a man in his late 30s with a grudge tied to the neighborhood. A fourth victim, World War II veteran Lionel Jackson, survives and recalls the gunman asking how he liked the neighborhood. Mailing lists of white supremacist publications lead to Arthur Tunney, whose mother died months earlier after a purse snatching. He is caught carrying a sawed-off shotgun, and Jackson picks out his voice from a recording.
The Trial
Tunney, who openly airs racist views, hires Horace McCoy, a respected Black defense attorney. Tunney is stabbed at Rikers, and a copycat shooting gives McCoy grounds to seek bail. Tunney’s sister, Mary Bradley, refuses to help, but phone records show she called him minutes after the detectives left her apartment.
At trial McCoy asks why the police didn’t check hundreds of others on the same mailing lists, then calls Dr. Olivet to show how poorly Tunney fits the FBI profile. Jackson stands firm on his voice identification. As Stone prepares a plea offer, he learns that Judge Pongracic quietly granted bail; Stone narrowly avoids contempt, and Kincaid moves to get an emergency order from an appellate judge. Mary’s husband leads the detectives to a storage locker holding his late father-in-law’s shotguns, one of them freshly sawed off that day.
Spoiler, the ending: Police flood the neighborhood, but Tunney shoots a man walking home from the bus with his daughter. Moments later Tunney is found dead, shot by the daughter, and the case ends without a verdict.
Why it stands out
- James Earl Jones guest stars as defense lawyer Horace McCoy.
- The defense calls the prosecution’s usual expert, Dr. Olivet, to pick apart the FBI profile that led police to Tunney.
- The case ends without a verdict after the defendant is freed on bail and killed.