In the Criminal Justice System, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups. The police who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.
It is dark and cold December night in New York City, most people are asleep in their homes. Some are awake to work the night-shift, some have trouble falling asleep, some are worried for their loved ones, while others just like to celebrate. In a bar in Brooklyn, three men and a young woman celebrate a victory in a recent case that turned in their favor. These men include two wise-cracking detectives (middle-aged Lennie Briscoe and thirty-nine year old Mike Logan) and two prosecutors (young Claire Kincaid and her older and conservative collage Ben Stone). The two detectives and the prosecutors didn't get along at first during the investigation of a serial killer, in particular, Detective Logan didn't agree with the tactics and decisions of the new District Attorney, Jack McCoy. Despite this, the killer was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. These four collages decide to look past their differences and celebrate the recent victory.
"How can you stand McCoy?" Detective Logan asked Ben Stone. Kincaid and Detective Briscoe turn toward Stone as a smirk grows on his Charlie Brown face.
"I've dealt with worse before," the prosecutor remarked, "But I think I can deal with him." The group of four begin to share a laugh that can be heard across the street. In particular, Mike Logan is surprised that the serious and conservative prosecutor Benjamin Stone can actually make a joke.
Down the road in a nearby park, a socially-awkward middle-aged woman walks all alone. She looks older then Mike Logan but younger then Ben Stone, and she styles a black pixie hair-cut. The woman spends her life writing poems about death and the horrors of life, especially since her encounter with a ghost as a high school student back in 1973. The woman is named Ruth Connors-Singh, wife to a renowned Anglo-Indian doctor named Ray Singh, and a mother of two young girls. Halfway during her stroll, Ruth freezes in her tracks, sighting something out of place. She notices a naked elderly man, possibly in his sixties, climbing out of a hole in the middle of the ground. He notices Ruth and he begins to run away, in a speed too fast for his age.
Curious, Ruth walks towards the hole, checking to see what the old man had just left behind. She opens a hatch and climbs down a wooden ladder built onto a dirt wall. The hole was in fact, an underground bunker in disrepair, patched up together by band-aids. The bunker was probably built during the middle of the Cold War, out of the common fear that the West and the Communist East would fight a fiery nuclear war which could've destroyed human civilization. Ruth looks onto the floor and she notices a horrific sight. A young girl, aged thirteen years old, lays on the cold floor of the decaying bunker. Her clothes are ripped off and her pelvis is bruised. Ruth takes off her coat to cover the young girl, picks her up in her arms, and carries her out of the bunker.
Ruth looks left and right, up and down, trying to find some help for the injured girl. Finally, she sees Mike Logan through the windows of the bar, trying to win a game of pinball. Ruth runs across the street and barges into the bar, grabbing the attention of everyone inside.
"Help," she cries in despair.