Wannabe (Season 5, Episode 16)
Premise: The shooting of a corporate turnaround expert leads to a subway track walker whose son was expelled from an elite private school.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 16
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Bruce Kirkpatrick as Tom Harrigan, Boyd Gaines as Nathan Barclay, Matthew Carey as Stewart Barclay, Graham Sack as Colin Harrigan
- Director
- Lewis H. Gould
- Writers
- René Balcer & I.C. Rapoport
Summary
The Investigation
“Wannabe” begins when accountant William Prescott is shot twice in the back near his home on his daughter’s tenth birthday. Prescott was cutting jobs at Colony Air, and union workers had burned him in effigy. Ballistics ties the gun to a liquor store killing, and Jimmy Rose, who was acquitted of that crime, admits he dumped the weapon on the subway tracks.
A caller named Harrigan had been phoning Prescott, who skipped a union meeting for an urgent board session at the Luther C. Chase Academy. Tom Harrigan, a transit track walker who covered the stretch where the gun was dropped, says his son, Colin, was expelled and he hoped Prescott would help. School counsel Nathan Barclay and headmaster Dr. Penton say Colin threatened Prescott’s son, Vaughan, with a gun. Gunpowder residue on Colin’s glove leads to his arrest.
The Trial
The judge suppresses the glove because the warrant relied on a false account: the school’s own letter said another student had the gun. Vaughan names Stewart Barclay, Nathan’s son, who looks up to Colin and made threatening calls to other parents. A rink worker saw the two boys with a gun in Central Park shortly before the shooting. When McCoy bluffs that Stewart has talked, Tom Harrigan confesses, leads police to the gun and agrees to plead guilty for 15 years to life.
At his allocution, Tom says he watched Prescott’s car pull away, but the driver had dropped Prescott at the corner, so McCoy stops the plea. Another student says Stewart planned to scare Prescott and told Colin to bring the gun. Nathan Barclay offers his son’s testimony only in exchange for full immunity, and Tom sends Colin to Pittsburgh. McCoy subpoenas Colin and tells him his father will die in prison.
Spoiler, the ending: Colin, who is 13, confesses that he shot Prescott after the man told him he belonged in the tunnels with his father, but he refuses to implicate Stewart. Colin is sent to Central Booking, and the Barclays leave without a deal.
Why it stands out
- One detail in Tom Harrigan’s guilty plea, that he saw Prescott’s car drive off, exposes his confession as false.
- The glove evidence is thrown out because the search warrant rested on the school’s misleading account of who brought the gun.
- The shooter is only 13, and McCoy refuses to send the case to family court.