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This week's Law and Order episode was based on the "wildings" that occurred after a Puerto Rican Day parade in Central Park in June 2000. Some information on the real event can be found here.

The show featured a poorly conducted murder investigation resulting in a revolving door of suspects. The victim, Susan Capp, is found dead on the riverbank of a lake in Central Park, after an unruly mob disrupts a Puerto Rican Day parade by spraying women with water and robbing vendors.

After learning that Susan was about to go through a nasty divorce, suspicion focuses on her husband, who has a software company that could potentially be sold in a divorce. However, Susan's husband provides an alibi, including a mistress. When Detectives Briscoe and Green question the mistress, they learn that the husband's close friend named Seth had attempted to choke her. The mistress also states that Seth had blamed her for the dissolution of the Capp's marriage. The displays of anger and violence, along with the fact that Seth owns stock options in the company, cause the detectives to suspect he has a motive. They charge him in Susan's death. The case seems to be strengthened when they find a limo driver who brought Seth to the rowboats in the lake. This is a pretty obvious red herring, however, as not many killers would take a limo to the scene and risk having the driver witness the crime.

During a break in Seth's trial, an investigator approaches Jack McCoy and Abbie Carmichael, alleging that one of the teenagers arrested that day (and questioned by Briscoe) was a witness to Seth's crime. After the youth testifies, Briscoe informs McCoy that the testimony was quite different from the statement given during the initial questioning. In discussing this development with Nora Lewin, Jack expresses concern that the defense is entitled to know about the contradictory statements given by the witness. Jack is correct on this point: the case of Brady v. Maryland requires the prosecution to turn all exculpatory evidence over to the defense. Since the credibility of a key witness is at stake, the evidence could be exculpatory. The youth is then threatened with perjury, unless he leads them to the real suspect.

After the case against Seth is dropped, the youth leads the detectives to their third suspect of the episode: a teenager named Nestor Salazar. Prior to trial, Nestor's attorney files a motion to suppress, on the grounds of prejudice, a videotape of Nestor harassing a woman. Jack argues that the probative value of the tape outweighs any prejudice, since it establishes a sequence of events related in cause and effect to the crime. McCoy's argument is successful; the judge allows the tape into evidence.

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At trial, witnesses testify that Nestor jumped into the rowboat and attempted to splash Susan, and that he began hitting her head against the side of the boat when she tried to defend herself. In his defense, Nestor testified that he hung back when his friends were spraying women and robbing the vendors, and that the teasing from his friends about his reluctance prompted him to go after Susan in the rowboat.

In closing, Nestor's attorney tries to portray him as "foolish, impulsive, and negligent" but not guilty of manslaughter. This argument is perplexing, since most states provide that a person is guilty of manslaughter, if their negligence causes the death of another during the commission of an unlawful act. Since the defendant admitted under oath that he had negligently caused the death of another, the jury correctly returns with a guilty verdict on the charge of manslaughter in the second degree.

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