CSI:New York

Season 1 - Episode 18 - The Dove Commission

Written by Anthony E. Zuiker and Zachary Reiter
Directed by Emilio Estevez

Commissioner Dan Stanwyk and Charlotte DuBois dance as others look on. A news reporter stands at the edge of the room filming a segment: the Dove Commission, a group formed to investigate corruption in the NYPD, has finished its report and will be releasing it the following day. Suddenly, shots ring out and the couple falls.

Detective Flack leads Mac and Stella to the grim scene. Stanwyk was heading up the Dove Commission, meaning the case will be a big one. He dismisses the woman Stanwyk was dancing with as collateral damage. Mac asks Grace Walderson, Charlotte's friend, about Charlotte, and she tells him Charlotte was a friend visiting from Kentucky and that she hadn't met Stanwyk before that evening. Stella organizes the team, telling them to collect the shattered glass from the windows while she retrieves the bullets. She notes that they're looking for a rifle, not a handgun.

Aiden and Danny are in Washington Heights at the scene of a brutal murder. Fernando Reyes lies dead in his cab, his throat slashed, but Danny is none too sympathetic. He tells Aiden he has "issues" with gypsy cab drivers. The CSIs question Paul Baxter, the transit worker who discovered Reyes's body and called the police. He tells them he didn't notice anyone running from the scene or hopping the turnstile at the subway station he works at.

At the morgue, Dr. Hawkes informs Mac that both Stanwyk and DuBois were shot twice, and one bullet passed through both of them. Mac heads down to the police station and is able to finagle a copy of the Dove Commission report which he reads. Meanwhile, Hawkes finds blood under Reyes's nails and shows Danny and Aiden all the defensive wounds on the mans body. Reyes died from the wound to his neck.
At the station, Mac confronts Chief Vince Robinson, whose men have been implicated in drug trafficking and police brutality in the Dove Commission's report. Mac insists on testing Robinson for GSR though Robinson counters that he's just returned from the shooting range. Back at the lab, Dr. Giles tells Danny and Aiden that the blood under Reyes's nails has female DNA. Constance Briell in the ballistics lab also has some surprising news for Stella: she's compared two of the bullets from the shooting and determined that they come from two different rifles. Looking at the glass from the windows reveals that the bullets came from outside the room, not in it. To make matters worse, Inspector Markoni from IAB pays Mac a visit to put pressure on him to find the shooter. He encourages Mac to pursue the Robinson lead.
Danny and Aiden process Reyes' cab. Danny finds a picture of Reyes and his son, while Aiden discovers a business card with gum in it. They go to Reyes's residence, where they inform his teenaged son, Antonio, of his father's death. Danny starts interrogating the young man, insulting his father for not being a legal cab driver. Antonio bristles, ready for a confrontation with the CSI, but Aiden diffuses the situation.

Chad Willingham tells Mac that Robinson tested positive for GSR, but the GSR had traces of tin in it from the shooting range. Robinson was telling the truth. Mac sends Flack to get the footage from Morty Sherman, the newsman who was filming that night.

Danny freezes the gum in the business card and removes it revealing a name: Gavin Arnold. Danny questions him about his whereabouts. He denies being in the cab, but when Danny presses, he admits he gave his card to a stripper named Savannah at a strip club called Lifestyles the night Reyes was murdered.
Constance tells Stella that the bullets from the hotel are specific to the Tactical Assistance Response Unit (TARU). Mac and Stella track down Officer Jasper, who is the only person authorized to fly TAG--a small helicopter equipped with two rifles and video surveillance equipment. Jasper tells them the helicopter is designed for assault in inaccessible or dangerous places. He was on duty starting at 2am; four hours after Stanwyk and DuBois were killed. Stella takes the helicopter and the remote. Stella tests the bullets and finds they are a match for the chopper's rifles. The prints on the remote match Jasper's, and Mac decides to track the man's movements using the "Pass-N-Go" pass that police officers get to use for free.

Danny and Aiden find Savannah at Lifestyles. She tells the CSIs that when Reyes dropped her off at her apartment a man attacked her in the doorway. Reyes jumped out of his cab and fought the guy, allowing her to run off. She gives them her clothes from that night that contains a substance of steel scrapings.
When Mac informs Inspector Markoni that Jasper couldn't be the killer: he was headed in the opposite direction on the Triborough before the shootings. Markoni presses Mac to find the killer, but Mac is beginning to question his own assumptions it related to the Dove Commission report. Mac and Stella go back and start going over Stanwyk and DuBois's clothes. Stella finds lipstick on Stanwyk's collar. Mac and Stella interrogate Grace Walderson. The lipstick on Stanwyk's collar wasn't from Charlotte and asks if Grace was the one who was with Stanwyk Stella puts it together: Grace, not Charlotte, was the target. Distressed and clearly frightened, Grace runs off, but not before leaving behind a tissue she used to wipe her eyes.

Dr. Giles tells Danny and Aiden that the hair from Savannah’s clothes has female DNA, but notes that it's possible that the killer has a genetic mutation that is causing his Y chromosome to read as an X. When Giles tells them there's steel dust from the transit station on the hair as well, Danny and Aiden realize their culprit is Paul Baxter, the transit worker who found Reyes's body. Paul waited for Jamie to come home and attacked her, but then was pulled off her by Reyes.
Mac goes back to the TAG helicopter and tests its battery for prints. He gets a hit: Inspector Bill Markoni. Mac and Stella interrogate the IAB officer, who had access to TAG five years ago when he worked for TARU. Mac calls it a crime of passion, and Markoni confesses that he used to be with Grace Walderson, but then Stanwyk stole her away. Mac is angry that he tried to pin the crime on two innocent men, but Markoni is unrepentant and insists it was worth it.

Danny tracks down Antonio Reyes and apologizes for his behavior. He tells Antonio that when he was ten years old, he and his father were beaten up by a gypsy cab driver. He also lets Antonio know that Fernando was a good man and died saving a woman. He also gives the boy the picture of him and his father that he found in the cab.

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