Summary: Horrified college students watch as a girl is raped by a tattooed man on the campus’s live streaming video. The girl is then abducted and held hostage. Her kidnapper continues to stream videos of violent things he’s doing to her. Using a tattoo database and cell phone records, Elliott finds the rapist: a weepy college boy whose little brother was kidnapped eight years ago. But Weepy’s friend is still holding the girl. Weepy says he’ll kill her unless Elliott solves his brother’s case. Elliott miraculously finds the little brother. Then Weepy leads them to the girl, who is fine. Turns out, Weepy didn’t rape or kidnap anyone. He and a couple of friends staged the whole thing to get NYPD to reopen the cold case (kids, don’t try this at home).
Verdict: B
What they got right: There really is a tattoo database! This is one of the few things in real life that is almost as cool as what you see on TV. NYPD’s Real-Time Crime Center is a Jetsons-looking nerve center that collects data on tattoos, birthmarks and scars. It also tracks embarrassing identifiers like blotchy skin, limps, and missing or gold teeth. They get this information from arrest reports, 911 calls, complaints filed by victims, and traffic tickets. You can run a key-word search for the tattoo or mark you’re looking for and – presto! – the system tells you who matches. If a guy with psoriasis and an “I love Mom” tattoo robs a 7-11, the police might be able to find him using that information alone. Technology, I love you.
As a side note, I chuckled when the Chinese tattoo that was supposed to say “Try or Die” actually said “Pie or Die.” There are many reasons I wish I could read Chinese, but the most compelling would be to see how often tattoo artists mess with their clients.
What they got wrong: The DA charged a man with Possession With Intent to Distribute an illicit substance (“PWID”) after the cops found some Adderall on him. Adderall is a drug abused by some students today the way I abused Mountain Dew in the 90’s: to pull all-nighters in college. Unlike Mountain Dew, you need a prescription for Adderall – but this character had one. The DA’s legal theory seemed to be that, because the pills were packaged in a few different ziploc bags, she could prove that the guy intended to sell them to other kids, which would be illegal. Good luck with that. It’s hard enough to get a felony PWID conviction when you have a police officer actually watch a kid sell crack on a street corner. Even if that kid has 20 more zips of crack on him, he’ll claim they were for his personal use (making him guilty only of Possession, a misdemeanor). Juries can be sympathetic to this claim. If SVU’s DA convinces a jury that there was intent to distribute the Adderall based solely on a few extra ziplocs, I’ll eat that Adderall. And then I’ll stay up all night blogging about it.
All views expressed on this blog are mine alone and may not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Justice.