The Ledger

5.19 Cruel and Unusual

In this episode (5.19), a mentally disturbed boy dies while wrestling with Mike Logan in a jail cell at the precinct, and the investigation into the boy's life leads to a controversial treatment at a psychiatric facility. Eventually, the director of the facility is charged by McCoy and Kincaid for some highly unorthodox techniques that may have led to the boy's death.

The episode begins with a young couple walking down the street, and an obviously disturbed young man walks by them, saying, "What time? What time?" repeatedly. Police take him into custody and bring him to Logan and Briscoe's precinct, where he starts going crazy in the jail cell. Logan rushes in to restrain the kid, and he suddenly dies in his arms.

Logan is investigated by Internal Affairs (called "IAD" here, but usually is called "IAB"), and Van Buren takes him off rotation. Profaci takes a more prominent role than usual here, and the ME talks to him and Briscoe about the death. She says the boy suffered a stroke, but he also had bruises on his body and had been tied down somewhere. Logan and Briscoe go through the boys stuff and find a movie stub and 300 pennies. They track down the manager of the movie theater who has the kid's coat, which contains schedules for various forms of transit. They check missing persons reports, and eventually ID the victim as Kevin Jeffries, an autistic boy.

They talk to his family who says Kevin was living at a place calle the Behavioral Control Clinic, because he used to hurt himself. The clinic is directed by a Dr Colter.

They visit the clinic and learn that Kevin wore a helmet there to keep him from hurting himself. They talk to orderlies who say they often strapped him to a board. They visit the day room of the clinic, and there's all kinds of erratically-behaving kids in there.

Van Buren says that the boy was also receiving electric shocks. They reinterview Dr Colter, who tells them they used shock treatment on the kid to correct his behavior. Colter shows Logan how the device works, and in a funny but foreboding bit, shocks him with the device, which provoke a strong reaction from Logan.

They check in on Colter's clinic at the NYC Dept of Health, where they learn Colter gets a grant from the city of $175,000 for EACH of 83 kids. They also learn that the doc has to apply for permission whenever he wants to increase the amount of voltage he shocks the kid with. He claims that they only shock the patients on the forearm and thigh, but the kid had marks on his body from being shocked all over.

They check with the parents of other patients to learn of any complaints. They learn from angry parents of a device called "the buzz box," a tight fitting red helmet that delivers electric shocks. They learn that one patient had to wear this device for three straight days, and it left marks on the neck similar to those found on Kevin. The "buzz box" may have constricted blood flow to his brain, which would have caused his stroke.

They execute a warrant to find the buzz box, and they walk in on a treatment room where a young orderly is repeatedly zapping another kid. It seems pretty brutal. They arrest the orderly, Joe Garvey, for assault. He is interrogated by the DAs, and gives up enough information to warrant an arrest of Colter.

Colter is represented by recurring character Norman Rothernberg. Judge River, also a recurring character, seems to be swayed by everyone's opinion, but eventually concludes that the parents OK'd the frequent shock treatment. The judge and McCoy squabble over this in a scene marked by some silly acting. The judge frees Colter.

The central issue of the episode then becomes locating the buzz box, and proving that it was used. They talk to an occupational therapist who testifies for the plaintiffs, and to another ex-assistant, Mr Randazzo, who says he saw Kevin wearing the buzz box. They re-arrest Colter (39').

They try to talk to Kevin's roommate, who is mute, to determine whether Kevin wore the buzz box. Predictably, it doesn't go very well, until they use some kind of "facilitated communication" technique where his mom guides his answers by guiding his hand on a keyboard. So McCoy asks him questions and his mom guides his wrist as he types responses. The scene is extremely silly and reminiscent of a similar scene in an awful episode of Criminal Intent where they talk to a woman in a vegetative state in a similar manner. Anyway, he taps out his answers, and mentions that the helmet was red, a clue that no one seems to notice. Olivet indicates that the mom was guiding the son's responses. McCoy tests the credibility of facilitated communication by showing Kevin a picture and having the mom attempt to use the facilitation to describe it, which, of course, fails. Why an assistant district attorney of NYC was able to devise a better method to test this system than the actual doctors who invented it were is beyond me, but whatever.

McCoy finally realizes the significance of the clue of the red helmet, and the roommate's mom finally admits she saw the buzz box on her son, which wasn't supposed to have been used after a certain date. They meet with Colter to make a deal, and he and McCoy have an argument, but he pleads guilty and gets 2-6 years, and the clinic is closed. This angers the roommate's mom, because she know has this very mentally sick son who she can't deal with at home.

Posted by adm at June 29, 2004 03:23 AM

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