Officer Blue

Officer Blue
Season	1
Number	9
Writer	Anthony E. Zuiker
Director	Deran Sarafian
Original Airdate	December 1, 2004
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Officer Blue is the ninth episode in Season One of CSI: NY.

Synopsis

After Mounted Officer Valasquez is shot down in the park, Mac goes looking for the bullet that killed the officer only to learn that it is lodged in the horse's spine and cannot be removed without being fatal to the horse. The investigation leads them to a local street vendor, but stalls when the D.A. asks Mac not to do anything to risk the horse until after the woman who donated it has a chance to say goodbye.

Plot

It seems like a quiet day at the park. Two horse cops are riding. A man attacks an older one and one cop rushes over to the scene. That officer is shot, and his horse runs almost running over a baby and then gets hit by a taxi, while the officer is hurting. The horse is still alive, and gets up. Flack and Mac are on the scene. Flack is freaking, saying that he heard the shot from 6th avenue (a good ways away). Flack and Mac look at the body. Flack finds his badge on the ground. Mac comments he was shot in the back and it went right through its protective vest. They have a sniper.

The horse is led out. Mac tells Flack to start getting statements. He tells people to canvas rooftops. And he says no one sleeps until the shooter gets caught. The entire team joins Mac. Stella is going to be with him, while Danny and Aiden are to process. We see people searching for the bullet, which is of prime importance. Officers walking in lines while others use metal detectors. Mac finds a cell phone. Stella comes back saying they couldn’t find the bullet. Then Mac tells her to have Danny get tapes from all available cameras, to see if they caught something.

Hawkes is talking to Mac over the cop’s body; COD was a single gunshot wound from the back and a downward trajectory. Mac then looks at the vest. After placing it on a dummy, he finds it’s at a 30 degree angle. He places it as if it’s on a horse. The bullet is in the horse.

Mac talks to Dr. Huff who examined the horse, who says he has been hurt but he didn’t find a bullet. The horse is still very upset. They put the horse on a CAT scan, and Mac finds the bullet. Dr. Huff is with him. Removal will most likely kill the horse. The doctor is very upset but agrees.

Aiden and Danny use a camera to check out the surrounding area. Aiden, Danny and Stella are in the lab with the computer footage they just caught. Mac comes in and hands her another case, a DOA at 94th and Lex. Using the information they place the cab and TV. The trajectory is from the Patterson Building-9 windows up, 3 across.

Aiden arrives at her scene, Detective Thacker is there. Lenny Starks is the vic; he is 19 and has scratches on the hinge of his sunglasses and a burn on his face. The cop is checking out her ass. She calls him on it for not being respectful.

Mac and Stella are in the Patterson Building. They enter the office they found there, and find GSR on the windowsill. Mac is acting it out with his flashlight, seeing where the sniper was. There is a fingerprint on the window, on the outside. The dust it and get the print. Mac and Stella check the print, and Flack comes in saying he's got nothing. The print comes back to Richard Smockton, an animal activist with a record for disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly.

Stockton is in cuffs. He is with Mac, Stella and Flack and pleads with them to help the animals. He claims he was in that building months ago. He is sweaty, and is shocked about the cop shooting. He has had a goiter for years His hands are shaking because he has Graves disease, which leads Mac to believe he couldn’t be the shooter. Hawkes is with Aiden. COD is most likely trauma to the head. There is a void in the burn that happened recently. She grabs some tissue to examine it.

Mac and Danny are using facial recognition on the youth who assaulted the elderly man. They use markers to find him in the mug shot database. He was in the system for peddling. On the video he is on his cell phone and it seems as if he’s lining himself up. Then he picks the fight for no reason. They get his address.

Flack approaches the guy, William Chancey, and he runs for it. Flack however catches him as a cop car heads him off. Chancey is questioned by Flack, Mac and Stella. They ask him about the cell phone, and he says that a British tourist was harassing him. But they tell him that know he came at the old man. He claims he was on the phone with a woman and they let him know they traced it to a disposable phone. But Mac and Stella get up and say he’s ready to go. DA Tom Mitford arrives to ask Mac to not put down the horse immediately since the horse was donated by a widow of a cop. Mac however says he can’t promise anything because once they find the weapon they'll need the bullet.

Mac meets with Stella. Stella says that Chancey is back on the street and that Flack got a signal off of Chancey’s cell phone. The live signal is in Queens and heading to LaGuardia. On the plane, there is a message about turning off cell phones. Flack, Stella and Mac enter and there is a phone ringing. They get him to answer and Stella’s on the other line. They interrogate him and tell him the information about the two phone connections. He claims ignorance and wrong number. He says they need a warrant, but they already have one. He says he doesn’t have a car and that he took a cab. Stella makes him take out his hand and she pats him down.

Aiden is with a trace tech and the stuff on the kid’s face was baker’s yeast and cornmeal, which leads Aiden to a pizza place by the murder site: Sly’s Pizza Parlor. A girl there has a burn on her hand and claims it was days ago, but it was recent. Aiden closes the place and prints the oven handle. Nick Vincenzio creeps up on her and asks how she’s doing. He asks her some questions, and he shows her a gun telling her shop is closed now. There are big men at the door, which they close. She takes her kit and leaves.

Mac is in the office, Jane walks in. He is trying to save the horse by making a 3D replica of the bullet. He compares the bullet to a chart, it’s a Military surplus SS-109 round. Mac and Stella argue about the bullet and the horse, and Mac forcibly tells her he is not taking the bullet out of the horse. He claims they need both the bullet and the weapon. And she claims they need the bullet now. Stella enters the house of Jerald Browne (the man on the plane). As she searches, she finds various gun parts stocked in random places throughout the home. She goes back to the lab and assembles the gun. She walks into Mac's office, and places it on the desk. It was unmodified. She tells him they need to get the bullet out of the horse. She looks at him angrily.

Mac, Stella, Dr. Huff, Mandi and Jenny Como (Mandi and Jenny are the donators of the horse) are in front of the stall. Jenny, the little girl, gives the horse a carrot. They try and comfort Blue, the horse. Aiden is discussing what happened with Mac who tells her she did the right thing. But he tells her to go back with backup. The pizza place was a front for sports betting. Dr. Huff informs Stella, Mac and Mandi Como that the surgery was a success and Blue will make it. None of the men they tested for GSR came out positive. The gun they fired from the rifle was not a match to that in the horse. Nothing is making sense. Then Mac gets a call.

In the airport garage they were looking for Jerald Brown’s car but found Chancey’s instead, and inside the trunk was Chancey, dead and beaten. Stella and Danny are with the car in the CSI garage and they discover he was shot in the trunk. Danny finds evidence there might be a secret compartment- A/C on, windshield wipers and radio full blast- it was a combination. They search and find a compartment and try every combination with those. Nothing. In frustration Danny slams on the horn. The compartment opens and there is another AR-15 in it, in pieces.

Aiden is back at the pizza parlor with police backup this time. She is now the one calling the shots. Detective Thacker is helping her to run things. The pizza girl looks sullen. Vincenzio goes to get up, but Thacker makes him sit down. She makes the girl put her finger on the picture. It matches the void on the kid’s face. They try things out; it wasn’t the girl who did it. It was the owner.

Aiden is interrogating him. And she informs him they are closing his sports betting pizzeria, reminding him sports betting in NYC is illegal. She tells him he beat the kid up, then stabbed him. He admits to slamming the kid's face with the oven door, but he denies stabbing the kid. But then she informs him she was lying, and it’s legal to lie to suspects to get them to confess and informs him the cause of death was the trauma on the head. He killed him. He is going to jail.

Stella prints the guns then test fires it. The striations match. They interrogate Jerald Brown, who’s a marksman. He was demoted after disobeying orders. He claims he was right and would do it again. Mac piles the facts they have against him. Military record has him at interim secret, about as smart as they come. He murdered the officer because his father, Willie’s uncle, was charged with drug charges by a crooked cop, and shivved in jail before he could get a court date. He just picked any cop. An eye for an eye. Mac ends it there saying he should be shot to death, an eye for an eye. Mac and Stella are getting dressed for the funeral and she apologizes for being so angry about the horse.

Cast

Main Cast

• Gary Sinise as Mac Taylor
• Melina Kanakaredes as Stella Bonasera
• Carmine Giovinazzo as Danny Messer
• Vanessa Ferlito as Aiden Burn
• Hill Harper as Sheldon Hawkes
• Eddie Cahill as Don Flack

Guest Cast

• Kanin Howell as Lenny Starks
• Erin O'Connor as Mandi Como
• Elle Fanning as Jenny Como
• Barry Del Sherman as Richard Smockton
• Jude Ciccolella as Nick Vicenzo
• Denice J. Sealy as Raquel Trinidad
• Joleigh Fioreavanti as Pizza Girl
• Charles Hutchins as British Tourist
• Ara Anton as Pedestrian
• Juddson Keith Linn as Officer Valasquez
• Stig Eldred as Thug #1
• Paul Carafotes as Det. Charlie Thacker
• Gabriel Casseus as Jerald Brown
• Terry Kinney as District Attorney Tom Mitford
• Jim Metzler as Dr. Huff
• Nicholas Pratley as Ryan Mallone

Quotes

Stella: We haven't had a fight like that in a long time. Reminds me of the old Mac Taylor.

Mac: What old Mac Taylor is that?

Stella: The one who let his heart out of his chest every once in awhile.

Music

• Splinter by Kenny Inglis.
• Urban Angel by Cinephile.

Notes

• Officer Blue earned a Golden Reel nomination in the Sound Effects and Foley for the Short Form category.
• Charles Hutchins, who plays the role of the British tourist, also appears in the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode A Kiss Before Frying.
• Jude Ciccolella, who plays Nick Vicenzo, also appears in the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode Shock Waves.

See Also

• List of CSI: NY episodes
• CSI:New York Season 1
• Category:Images from Officer Blue