Seasoned TV detective Elliot Stabler is said to have discharged his weapon 11 times as of the 10th episode of season 3 of Law & Order: Organized Crime (OC). The episode, titled “Trap”, opens with the infamous symbol of police brutality attending mandated therapy. While only a quarter of real-life officers are reported to have discharged their weapons, those who are white, male, and veterans are ~30% more likely to do so. Elliot Stabler, being all these things is unphased by another therapy session where he evades unpacking the psychological toll of his work. The NYPD last reported firearm discharges in 2015, where the majority of incidents were made up of adversarial and animal attacks. A total of 33 individuals and 15 dogs were perceived to be enough of a threat for police to shoot at them.
Unlike the case-of-the-week style of Stabler’s former series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit which showed him beating up sex criminals and comforting kids, OC leverages multi-episode arcs to hunt the vicious and violent members of the underworld of the nation's largest city. OC follows the stories of diverse communities, including Albanian, Black, the rich white elite, corrupt cops, etc., across the five boroughs to show the different ways these communities do crime.
“Trap” introduces its audience to the world of Cuban drug corporations and illegal street racing in the South Bronx. The episode plays much like the first film of the Fast and Furious franchise, with Detective Jamie Whelan, the only other white male officer, and Stabler’s presumed protege, going undercover due to his history of stock car racing. Dressed in an outfit befitting the 2009 classic, Whelan somehow convinces Cristobal, the greasy-haired leather-clad henchman, to let him join the operation. These scenes require a great stretch of the imagination as Whelan’s approach to undercover work feels glaringly obvious. Law enforcement is given a great deal of latitude when it comes to the deception and violation of privacy that falls under undercover work, and these deceptions are justified when shows like Organized Crime position undercover officers as a necessary means of stopping criminals and protecting the public.
The rest of the Organized Crime Control Bureau consists of leader, Sergeant Ayanna Bell, a queer Black woman whose authority is often undermined and ignored by Stabler. Detective Jet Slootmaekers is the white female tech expert and Latinx Detective Bobby Reyes’s special skill is navigating unnoticed and unseen during his undercover operations. One cannot help but notice that this skill relies on the legacy of invisibilized labor performed by Latinx people. Other characters featured in the episode are the friendly but uncooperative bodega owner Esteban, Nestor Castillo a mechanic who builds trap compartments for the criminals, and Bernanda Menendez, a career criminal who earned her degree while in prison. Though Menedez serves as the big boss for the episode, it ends with her, Cristobal, and Wheelan on their way to meet 'El Jefe'.
Law & Order: Organized Crime is just one constellation in the copaganda universe which is the Dick Wolf franchise. What makes OC special is the particularly racialized storylines that make up the series. This episode serves as the first half of a two-episode arc that imagines a limited depiction of the life and community of Cuban people in the South Bronx. The South Bronx has often been characterized as a dangerous place due to the high population of Black and Latinx people and this series does little to refute that. Copaganda's foundational myth, that the police are the good guys by any means necessary, relies on stereotypes of who is a criminal and what they look like. This series and its many counterparts perpetuate harmful narratives of crime and policing that continue to vilify minority communities while promising violent white men as the ultimate saviors. Audiences are meant to root for Stabler and his many shootings without questioning the impact that his violent force has had on the people he claims to protect and serve.
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