The veteran crime drama continues its 14th
series. This week, Briscoe and Green investigate

a shooting at city hall which leaves a councilman
dead and a water inspector injured. Once the
shooter is caught, the prosecution has a hard time
securing the murder weapon, which has been
seized by the FBI in an underhand raid.
Detectives Briscoe and Green are called to city
hall, where Councilman Clarence Johnson has
been shot dead and a water inspector named
Ron Tabachnik has been injured. Suspecting the
councillor may have been targeted by a rival with a
grudge, the cops probe the whereabouts of his
most vociferous opponent – Sonny Rodino, who
was set to stand against Johnson in the elections.
However, Rodino has a cast-iron alibi, and the
case takes a sharp turn when Briscoe and Green
learn that city hall was hosting a hearing about
business water rates at the time of the shooting.
“The day our water inspector got shot there were 200 citizens at city hall griping about their water bills,” Briscoe tells Van Buren. If Tabachnik was the real target of the attack, then the councillor was merely an accidental victim. Unfortunately, the water inspector receives complaints from irate customers and businessmen on a daily basis – meaning the list of potential suspects is huge.
Van Buren hits upon the idea of running a ‘sting’ operation to lure the shooter into the open.
“Tabachnik’s angry businessmen would go anywhere we told them if they thought it would get their water bills wiped clean,” Briscoe remarks. To this end, the veteran cop poses as a water inspector and invites complainers to register their issues with him. Watching on a CCTV monitor, Tabachnik identifies one complainer as the shooter – Peter Ruben, who works with his father at his family’s electronics store.
The Rubens have a clear motive because they have already lodged a complaint about an “unfair” $30,000 water bill levied by Tabachnik. The case against Peter Ruben builds when the cops learn that he owns a .38 calibre pistol – the same type of weapon used in the shooting.
Ruben is promptly arrested, but Southerlyn and McCoy are bemused when his lawyer serves them with a motion to dismiss the pistol as evidence – even though the weapon has yet to be found. “They think we have the murder weapon but we don’t?” McCoy asks. It emerges that the gun was seized during an earlier search of Ruben’s apartment by the FBI – who refuse to reveal why they are investigating the Rubens. Southerlyn conducts a little detective work of her own and soon discovers that the Rubens were under surveillance because they had recently sold hi-tech games consoles to Algeria – in breach of anti-terrorism laws. Their actions prompted the FBI to search their home; but to make matters worse, the raid was conducted on a covert warrant authorised by a secret court.
Branch uses his contacts to have the FBI release the murder weapon and forensic evidence on the gun confirms that Ruben is the shooter. However, McCoy’s open-and-shut case is challenged by the wily defence lawyer, Danielle Melnick, who attempts to put the FBI’s underhand conduct on trial.
Melnick’s case is aided by the sorry story of the Ruben family, whose business was pushed into dire straits by the $30,000 bill – a bill that Tabachnik now admits was a mistake. In order to make ends meet, the Rubens sold the games consoles to Algeria, thus bringing them to the attention of the Feds. This catalogue of errors, coupled with the dubious behaviour of the FBI, allows Melnick to claim that the government “systematically victimised” Peter Ruben. Can McCoy put aside his own misgivings about the case to prove the defendant is guilty beyond doubt?