The long-running crime drama continues its 14th
series. This week, a man is arrested for the fatal

shooting of a teenager, only to escape conviction
when the prosecution’s star witness is murdered.
Incensed by the killing, McCoy vows to go after those responsible, uncovering a web of fear and intimidation in the process.
Cops race to the scene when 19-year-old Henry Ware is gunned down in a park by a man on a bicycle. Two of Henry’s friends, Shayna Rosario and Jimmy Gordon, witnessed the crime and describe the shooter as a young man with a milkywhite glass eye. Detectives Briscoe and Green canvass the neighbourhood and get a lead on a lad who fits the description – Foster Keyes. Keyes is traced to a flat in the housing projects and arrested. His bike matches the treads left at the scene, and he is picked out of a line-up by Shayna Rosario. However, Shayna is quickly intimidated into not testifying, and McCoy’s case rests upon the statement of the second eyewitness, Jimmy. To keep him safe from death threats, Jimmy is sent to Brooklyn to stay with his aunt. In court, he testifies that Henry and Keyes had a disagreement over a girl, only for Keyes to retaliate by shooting his rival.
The case seems to be progressing smoothly until Jimmy makes the fatal mistake of returning to his old neighbourhood and is shot dead. Because the defence has not had a chance to crossexamine the witness, his testimony is excluded and the trial collapses. Worse still, double jeopardy means that Keyes cannot be tried for Henry’s murder again. “If you can find evidence that Mr Keyes was involved in the murder of this witness, you can charge him for it,” the judge tells McCoy.
The detectives and the lawyers are appalled by Jimmy’s murder and vow to catch his killer. They start by finding out who visited Keyes while he was in custody, and learn that his only visitor of note was his cousin, Ronald Duggan, aka ‘Slug’.
It transpires that Slug is a local hoodlum with a string of charges to his name – including two murder allegations that fell through when the witnesses disappeared. Further investigation reveals that Slug has the whole neighbourhood under his spell. “This guy’s a walking epidemic,” Van Buren says. Suspecting that Slug organised the hit on Jimmy to get his cousin off the hook, Briscoe and Green go to interview one of his associates, an ex-con named Calvin Jacob Rivers. In Rivers’s apartment, they find a firearm matching the one that killed Jimmy. Ballistics confirm that Rivers is the shooter, but he refuses to cut a deal in return for giving Slug up. “Apparently he’s more afraid of Slug than he is of the state of New York,” McCoy remarks. On Branch’s suggestion, McCoy and Southerlyn take a second shot at getting Shayna Rosario to testify. She finally agrees, on the condition that she and her family are moved out of the city. The case goes to trial and this time there are three defendants: Keyes, Rivers and Slug – all of them charged with murder and witness intimidation. However, Shayna stuns the court when she takes the stand and refuses to identify Slug as the man who intimidated her in the previous case. Called into the judge’s chambers, Shayna says that she is still scared to testify, having just received a threatening phone call. “They said I was going to die,” she reveals. Unfortunately, the threat cannot be disclosed to the jury, because there is no proof linking it to the defendants. It is also becoming apparent that Slug is setting Rivers up to be his fall guy. “Rivers’ll end up taking the load for Slug and Keyes,” McCoy says. Will justice be done for all, or will Slug and his cousin walk free yet again?