Detective Stabler’s Fate Is Revealed After His Internal Affairs Investigation
Detective Elliot Stabler finally found out the outcome of his investigation by the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau after an on-the-job incident involving a minor.
Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) finally found out the outcome of his investigation by the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau after an on-the-job incident involving a minor.
Following stress-inducing interviews with Stabler's colleagues at the Organized Crime Control Bureau, his boss, and the detective himself, he learned his fate in Season 4, Episode 8 of Law & Order: Organized Crime.
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Why was Elliot Stabler investigated by internal affairs in Season 4 of Organized Crime?
The probe of Stabler stemmed from his suspension in Season 4, Episode 4, when his squad was protecting the family of an informant who agreed to testify against the powerful Los Santos gang. After a shootout between Stabler's unit and the gang, the informant's son — whose dad died during a drug lab bust that Stabler was present at in an earlier episode — yelled, “This is for papi!” and fired a gun.
Stabler dodged the shot and knocked the teen to the floor, making him bleed from the head, as Bell revealed she'd been shot in the abdomen. Captain Nazanin Shah later told Stabler, "I’ll need your gun and shield. You assaulted a minor.” He was told he was suspended, pending an investigation into the incident.
Retired captain Donald Cragen (Dann Florek) — who was Stabler's boss when the detective was a main character on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — made an appearance in Season 4, Episode 7 to warn the detective's boss, Sergeant Ayanna Bell (Danielle Moné Truitt), that Stabler might have some trouble with his IAB investigation.
Cragen returned in Episode 8, this time breaking the news to Stabler himself. Meeting Stabler at a diner, he told the detective that Moses Warren (Malcolm Goodwin), the guy running the probe, was close with Stabler’s late father's NYPD partner, Gus Hanson, whom Stabler had confronted in Season 2 of Organized Crime about him shooting an unarmed kid. Hanson and Stabler's dad had covered up the shooting.
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After hearing the news, Stabler told Cragen, “Let’s say this is a vendetta. Then the truth is not gonna matter.”
But Cragen responded, “Warren is one man. You’ve got an entire army. Everybody is fighting for you, except you.”
Cragen told Stabler, who'd been skipping out on meetings called by the investigator, to stop angering the people running the probe.
Sergeant Ayanna Bell stood up for Elliot Stabler to internal affairs investigator
When it was Bell's turn to be interviewed by Warren, the Internal Affairs Bureau rep, she told him, "Stabler did what he had to do and he did what I would have done if I were in his position. He diffused a deadly situation.”
She also leaned in and told Warren, "The worst thing IAB can do right now is mistake unfortunate for unjust.”
Bell informed Warren that Stabler’s dad’s partner Hanson “shot and killed an unarmed teenager and then covered it up.” She added: “Your mentor was a dirty cop. And he hated Stabler because Stabler knew he was dirty."
She then slid a folder across the table to Warren and told him, “[Stabler] could have made this public. But he didn’t.”
Later on in the episode, the IAB committee called a seemingly secret meeting about Stabler in the middle of the night, alarming Cragen and Bell.
What was the outcome of Stabler's internal affairs investigation?
The next day, Stabler met Bell at their office to learn his fate. She showed him an NYPD file, saying, "Everything’s here in the file if you want to read it.” Stabler just said, “Skip to the end.”
Bell then handed him back his shield and gun, telling him, “Detective Elliot Stabler, welcome back.”
To find out more about Stabler's official return to work, watch Law & Order: Organized Crime on Thursdays at 10/9c p.m. on NBC, or stream episodes the next day on Peacock.
