The Ledger

11.8 Thin Ice

In this episode (11.8), a hockey coach is beaten to death near his practice rink. Is one of his players responsible, or perhaps an angry parent? Briscoe and Green investigate.

The episode begins with a mother telling her daughter all the sacrifices she makes so the daughter can take ice skating lessons. The daughter discovers the body of the victim, alerts her mom, and the police arrive. Brisco and Green soon discover that the victim, Russell Cryder, is a hockey coach of a youth team. The parking attendant says he didn't hear anything going on, but a witness quickly surfaces who said she heard a car alarm coming from the garage. The detectives revisit the garage attendant who at first says he was in the bathroom and then admits he stepped out to get a lottery ticket. This attendant speaks in a funny way, referring to his job as his "J-O-B" and using some sort of Beatnicky terms. He also has an assault conviction, but they clear him of this assault pretty quickly.

The detectives learn that there was a second 911 call related to the incidedent, but it didn't get logged properly because it came in without caller ID information, because it was a non-compliant cell phone. The call is staticky, but they can hear a relatively young voice urging police to arrive at the scene because someone was dying. They bring the tape of the call over to a forensic technician (a strikingly good looking guy, by the way), who goes through all that techno-babble that is obligatory for such technicians, and then plays back the tape which is now miraculously as clear as a bell. He says that based on the frequency or pitch of the voice, he thinks the caller is a teenager. The detectives take the remasterd tape around to various player and the assistant coach and ask whether anyone recognizes the voice. No one does, but in the process, various people tell them that some of the better players were very upset with the coach because he insisted on playing all the players in every game, not just the good ones. Three young men -- Felder, Taylor, and Ruiz -- were particularly bothered by this. They learn from the boys' principal that Taylor is the ring leader of these. They talk to him, but he is uncooperative and his mother stops the interrogation. They get a judge to compel him to provide a voice sample, which he does (in a process we get to watch). The strikingly good-looking forensic tech tells them instantly that the voice "examplar" is a perfect match, so they now have enough to get a warrant.

At the boy's house, the detectives deal with his angry and combative father and find a hockey stick with a blood stain on it. Later, the assistant coach tells the detectives that the boy's father had a shouting match with the father of a weaker player. From the other dad, they recover a video tape of this incident. A witness says that Taylor's father was indeed at the scene that day, and so now he is a suspect.

Time for McCoy to gather everyone for a Family Conference Room Meeting™, which of course leads to the son admitting (at his father's urging) that it was his father who committed the assault. The father retains counsel (recurring character Al Archer) who argues his client is not guilty by reason of mental defect, namely "sports rage."

The trial begins at 39 minutes in. A psychiatrist testifies that the father didn't know what he was doing because of his rage, but McCoy shoots the theory down, arguing the expert had no way of knowing when the dad went into a "dissociative" state: it could have been before or after the attack. The remainder of the trial is long and boring and just rehashes stuff we already know. Predictably, the verdict is guilty.

The episode is notable because it retells the various "sports rage" incidents that have occurred in the country in recent years, particularly a real incident involving a fight between two hockey parents.

Posted by adm at April 4, 2004 06:18 PM

Comments

Post a comment

validate