Episode Report Card Wendola: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Uncivilized
By Wendola | Season 1 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.14.1999
Just then Jeffries bursts in and calls Stabler and Benson into the hallway. She's been checking the records, and as usual she makes a huge deal out of the fact that she can work a file cabinet. She's found out, ooh, that there are nine registered sex offenders in Turbit's precinct! Cragen comes in and adds: "And only one of the sex offenders’ MOs matches this case," "Turbit was convicted eleven years ago," says Jeffries. She goes on: Turbit did his time, was paroled, and filled out his paperwork with the sex offender monitoring unit like a good little sex offender should. "He's been in the neighborhood about a year," says Jeffries, looking through a file folder. "What was he convicted of?" asks Stabler. Jeffries doesn't hear him at first and keeps blathering on some more about the registry. The camera pans in on Stabler as his face tenses up: "What was he convicted of?" Jeffries looks up. She speaks slowly for emphasis, or maybe because these lines are the last ones she gets to speak for the remainder of the episode: "Child. Molestation. A boy. A boy two months older than Ryan Davies." She turns, and we can see Turbit through the window of the interview room, sitting stiffly, as we suppose any pederast would. Stabler glares.
Stabler and Benson go to search Turbit's apartment and find uniformed cops trying to calm down about a dozen angry neighbors in front of the building. The extras yowl caterwauls of outrage and shake their fists. A handful of neighbors confront the detectives: "Why weren't we informed about this?" wails a woman. "You let a child molester move in among our children!?" barks a man. Stabler has to shout to be heard: "Sir, I'm not going to argue with you because I agree with you. Unfortunately, I am not the parole board!" Outraged Man yells back: "I let my son be alone with him!" Outraged Woman: "That damn stamp collection! He used it to lure my daughter inside!" Stabler tries to move past to enter the building, when Outraged Woman grabs him, howling, "Aren't you listening now!?" "I'm sorry," Stabler says, coldly, and goes up the steps.
Shit hits fans. Cragen, Stabler, and Benson meet with Turbit's prison psychiatrist and a precinct captain. "Not all sex offenders are repeat offenders," says the psychiatrist. "Well, you show me a first-time offender, and I'll show you someone who's never been caught before," says Stabler. "I'd met with Dr. Lloyd and Mr. Turbit. In my opinion, he wasn't a threat," insists the precinct captain. "Is that why you didn't do a door-to-door notification when he moved into the neighborhood?" Cragen asks. The other captain gets defensive: "You saw what happened today! A neighborhood finds out there's a sex offender among them, he becomes a target." "So, it's the rights of a community versus the rights of an individual," says Benson. Mark off "civics lesson" on your episode checklist, people. The captain points out that anyone who wants to know can go to a sex offenders Web site and find out plenty about Turbit. Dr. Lloyd adds that he thinks Turbit has had "a complete turnaround." Stabler snaps back: "One year out and he molests another kid, only this one dies -- this is your idea of a turnaround?" Dr. Lloyd shakes his head. "That doesn't sound like the Bill Turbit I knew," he says. Cragen and Benson insist that people are different in prison; Stabler starts bringing up really chilling details about Turbit's original victim. Dr. Lloyd says that at the time Turbit was on a "psychedelic STP cocktail" that made him psychotic. We learn that Turbit had attacked a kid who had come to his door selling candy, and when neighbors heard screaming and called 911, the police found Turbit having a hallucinatory freakout. "It wasn't the boy's screams the neighbors heard," says Dr. Lloyd. "It was Turbit's." The room falls silent. Mark off "squidgy shudder-inducing moment" on your checklist. Stabler remains stony-faced.
Stabler walks through the lockup with Turbit's lawyer (a woman who I swear was a girlfriend on Seinfeld), arguing about getting a blood test from Turbit. "It's completely unnecessary," she says, much in the same way she would say something like, "No, Jerry, I do not want a doggie bag for that steak!" But Stabler says that they plan on comparing the sample with DNA material under the boy's fingernails. The lawyer bitches on: "These new laws protect the public at the expense of the individual's constitutional rights. My client did his time, but you wouldn't know it -- he had more freedom inside." Stabler tries to ignore her. In a room down the hall, Turbit is struggling with med techs who are trying to pull up his sleeve. "Please don't -- please -- don't!" Stabler comes in: "Mr. Turbit, we have a court order to obtain a sample of blood from you. Now we can do this one of two ways: my way or your way." Oooh, Stabler: your way is MY way any day. But Turbit doesn't see it that way: "I -- don't like needles," he says. Just then one of the med techs whips out a big old needle and Turbit leaps up screaming, "No!! Nooo!!" so that Stabler and a guard have to pinion his arms and wrestle him to the table, where he continues to scream, "No! Nooo!! No!!!" while they draw blood, and at last he just whimpers and makes pathetic animal noises.