Pop - Recap

A young child was found on a carousel, he is declared dead on the scene. The coroner comes to the scene and determines that he had been dead for an hour. There are no hits on the Missing Persons list, but surveillance camera spotted him getting out of the cab two hours prior to their arrival, meaning he was alive for an hour after the cab dropped him off. When the detectives go to the place of work of the taxi driver, his boss shows that he is not where he should be, but instead is in the woods. His name is Joe Gilbert. The boy, whose name is Ethan, is the nephew of Joe. Medical examination says his lung was punctured, which broke his rib. For all they could determine, this was accidental, therefore it is inconclusive. On the day he was found, he complained of a stomach ache. The mother says that there was a kid at school who had been bullying him, and that he may have gone too far. It comes out later that Uncle Joe was teaching the boy how to fight.



Nicky Roberts is in the woods where Stabler and Finn discover the fight club. He is brought down to the precinct and interrogated. His father is Hank Roberts, the one who forced him to fight. Nicky says that his father told him it would “toughen him up”. When they interrogate Joe, they tell him he will be given a ticket for promoting gambling. It comes out that Hank has a domestic wrap sheet. Nicky went after Ethan, Jot says he did not know Nicky was bigger. Joe tried to stop the fight, he claims, but it was too late. Cragan, after the interrogation, warns Stabler to not pursue the investigation outside of the limits of the law, and Stabler assures him he is going home.



Stabler finds Nicky at school, telling him he only wants to talk to him. Nicky was beat by Hank, which Nicky immediately tries to cover, by saying that he fell. He was beat because Hank found the business card of Elliott Stabler on Nicky. Later, Hank frames Stabler for assault, claiming that Stabler followed him and beat him up. Nicky shows the bruises on his stomach. He says Hank made his mother hit him and to say that Stabler actually did it. He tells Stabler that his mother never knew anything of the fighting.



Nicky tells Stabler in the interview process that when he loses, Hank blames him for all their problems, and then usually abuses him. He says that Hank egged him on to beat up Ethan, and told him not to stop, and Ethan eventually collapsed and died. Nicky is visibly remorseful when he reveals this. Cragan tries to convince the mother, Sandra, to press charges, but she will have none of it. Fifty thousand dollars bail and an order of protection is what the judge orders. Cragan and Stabler go to the house to patrol the area. They hear shots being fired. They step in and find that Hank is dead and Nicky is holding the gun, with his mother sitting on the ground, visibly shaken up and injured. The details of this scenario are shaky at best, but either way they can not possibly prove what happened, because of the fact that someone really tall would have had to fire the gun from where the shot came from. The real shooter never fesses up, even though none of them would be charged, even with the word of both the lawyer as well as Detective Stabler.

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