Sykes dressed up like she was from the neighborhood. She went up to the girls and bought some crack. She walked away, disappearing into the neighborhood, and she met up with Tao. He took his indicator solution, and the prelim test showed cocaine. Sanchez, Flynn and Provenza arrested the girls and took them all to the station. They all got put in separate rooms and mirandized.

"I got Fourth Amendment rights," one girl yelled. "These charges ain't shit."

Raydor rolled her eyes. This was going to be great.

"If you want me to help you, then you need to tell me the truth."

"Who says I want help from a white girl?"

"You got caught dealing. That's a felony. If you cooperate, then this will be better for you."

"I ain't admitting to shit."

"Where's Marco?"

"Who?" The girl was clearly lying. Sharon had no time for this fool, so she left her alone. Tao was going through their cell phones. They got confiscated when they were arrested. Two of them had passwords, so he needed to download the information and find a way to open it, but one girl had no password at all. Tao started reading. Marco was hiding somewhere near abandoned train tracks. Tao looked it up. This was a lot of ground. He needed a way to narrow it down. He read the messages, but they just kept referring to old tracks. They brought him money and stuff.

Sharon tried the next girl. She cut straight to the chase.

"Here's the deal. You can go down for being crack dealer or you can help yourself."

"How?"

"Where's Marco?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"I'm no snitch."

"Are you ready to go to prison for him?"

"For what?"

"An accessory to murder?"

"He didn't murder nobody."

"The guard he stabbed, he died." Sharon hoped this lie would work.

"But he didn't mean to stab him."

"But he ran. He's facing a murder charge and anyone who helps him is facing an accessory after the fact, that's 20 years easy."

"That's not fair."

"You have a choice. Turn in Marco or go down for his crime." Sharon played the same game with suspect number 3. Buzz helped Tao imbed tracking devices in their backpacks. Then, Raydor cited the two girls, and cut them loose. She left suspect 1 to stew, suspecting she was the ring leader.

Suspect number 2 went home. Suspect number 3, however, called Marco soon after getting out. Tao traced the call. He found the cell phone tower where Marco was, and officers went to the scene. He was gone, but they knew to watch the tracks for another meeting.

Suspect number 3 got some cash out of a dugout and waited until nightfall. She went out to the tracks. Marco emerged from the darkness. They watched him with night vision goggles. Provenza stubbed his toe on something. "OW!" he yelped.

Marco heard the sound. "Did you rat me out, Bitch?"

"No, I brought the money like you wanted."

He pulled out a pistol. "Who's out there? Speak now, or she gets it."

She screamed. "LAPD, Drop your weapon!" He lined up his sights. Sanchez took the shot, hiting his shoulder. The cops swarmed the scene, got the girl out of there and put a torniquet on Marco's arm. They took him to the hospital and posted a guard outside his room. He was going to jail for a long time.

Taylor hit his head on the desk. He thought it was all over. The guard left the hospital. The boy was found. No one got arrested after the bar fight, but no, an FID investigation because Provenza stubbed his toe. "That old bastard!"

Branson got called to the scene to everyone's chagrin, demanding to know why the victim wasn't left there to be interviewed.

"We took him to the hospital." Flynn answered, Duh! You idiot.

"And who's call was that?"

"I think it's the law, Captain Branson." Tao responded. "If we waited for you, he could have bled out. We would have been sued for negligence."

"Leave the lawsuits to me."

"Going to inspire one." Provenza snickered.

"Where's Sanchez!"

"With his union rep." Sanchez had taken the shot before. He knew the drill. Don't say anything until your rep tells you to.

Branson loved to yell, but no one on Major Crimes was taking the bait.

Captain Raydor was glad to hear that the assailant had been caught. X had been released. It was basically self-defense. He hid from the police, but without an underlying crime, they had to cut him loose.

Sue interviewed Sanchez at the station. Mikki said he was a good guy. She didn't know him. "Can you tell me what happened, Detective."

Sanchez looked at his rep, who nodded. "We were sent to detain a fugitive. He had an arrest warrant out for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, public disturbance, and inciting a panic in a public place. We found out he had plans to skip town, and a girl was supposed to give him money. We followed her to the location, and we waited. He spotted an officer and pulled out a gun, threatening to shoot the girl. We announced ourselves and told him to drop the weapon. Instead, he lined up his sights. I took the first clear shot."

"So he didn't shoot first."

"No, but he was too close to her to try and ambush him. I shot him in the shoulder, so he'd have to drop the gun."

"And you feel that was an appropriate use of force?"

"When there's an imminent threat to a civilian, yes."

"What did you do next, Detective?"

" I surrendered my weapon once the threat was over."

"Which was, when?"

"When he dropped the gun, and they got it away from him and the girl was out of harm's way."

"I came straight here and met with my union rep."

"Is that all?"

"Yes, mam."

"Hopefully, this will all be resolved soon." Sue left. She wrote down Sanchez's statement and sent it to Chief Taylor. He asked her to interview Sanchez first. He wanted to see how Branson did.

Chief Taylor asked Sanchez and his union rep to indulge him and let Branson interview him.

"He already told FID what happened," said the union rep.

"I know, but this isn't about Sanchez."

"It's about Branson," the rep surmised.

"Yes, so just pretend Sue never interviewed you."

They sat down with Branson

"Where the hell have you been?"

"In the station."

"In the station, Captain. Now why the hell did you shoot that poor kid?"

"You mean the man who stabbed a security guard in the neck while trying to kill his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend who has a gang a women selling crack for him in alleys and threatened to shoot of them right in front of us. I shot him to prevent him from murdering her."

"You couldn't have tackled him."

"Tackling a man holding a pistol point blank at a woman is not a wise move."

"So you thought risking his life was a better option."

"I thought shooting him in the shoulder was the least lethal option for all involved."

"Really. You just wanted to kill him didn't you, and you missed, was that it?"

Sanchez didn't dignify that with a response.

The questioning went on like this. Branson got more abbrasive by the minute, but Sanchez refused to answer any more questions.

The rep had enough. "This interview is over."

He took Sanchez and left. Branson wrote a nasty report, suggesting Sanchez was hostile, openly disliked the victim and should be investigated further. He didn't know Taylor watched the whole thing nor that Sanchez had already cooperated in another interview.

The rep told Taylor he wanted to file a complaint against Branson for his unprofessional behavior. Taylor handed him a form.

"You knew he would act like this."

"I had a suspicion." Taylor was one step closer to getting rid of this jerk.

Marco admitted nothing, but his fingerprints matched the knife. Eva agreed to testify against him, and so did the girl he threatened to shoot. He was going away for a long time.

Sunday Morning.

Agent Jackson brought Damien to the airport and they picked up his grandmother. They gave each other the world's biggest hug and Jackson took them both to brunch. After they ate, Jackson went over the case with the grandmother. "The woman who did this is mentally ill. She has been for a long time. She will either end up in jail or in a mental hospital. She will not be free.

"Why did she do it?"

"She lost a baby boy eight years ago and wanted a replacement."

The grandmother pulled Damien to her.

Sharon's house

Rusty was glad the pipsqueak was ok. He didn't even want to think about life if he had been out of a home at eight years old. He wasn't on the street, but Rusty didn't deem living with a bat-shit-crazy woman constituted much of a home.

Monday Morning

Brenda was ready to throw the book at Branson. She now had three confirmed different instances of his conduct. She really wanted to take out the two goons as well. "Now, how do I do that?" she thought. They know me and my brother, but they might talk to Sharon.

"Hey, Sharon, Can you do me favor?"

"Brenda, what is it?"

"I need you to investigate a simple assault."

"A simple assault."

"Yes. A man got headbutted at the bar."

"You think this is a Major Crime?"

Sanchez couldn't work during the investigation, not that there was anything to do at this point. He stayed home and did the yardwork he had been putting off.

Bobby was trying to get everything caught up at work. His new workers arrived that day, so he needed to get them used to the place.

Fritz got Monday off. He slept for a good while. He needed some sleep.

Brenda got right back to work on her case. Against the three stooges, she had enough to bring a case for two counts of assault, sexual harassment, harrasment, obstructing justice, filing two false police reports. She really wanted to prove they vandalized the cars. She had an idea.

She called her brother.

"Hey, Bobby! Can you do me a favor after work?"

Brenda called Buzz.

"Hey, can I borrow you today?"

Florida

Clay enjoyed the nice warm weather of Florida. He got to relax in the sun. His grandkids were all in school and Jr. was at work, the Mrs. was shopping, leaving him at home, alone to drink some coffee and read the paper.

Ring Ring

Now who could that be? "Hello."

"Grandpa?"

"Charlene, how are you?"

She sighed. "I'm good Grandpa."

"You've been keeping up with school."

"Yes, Grandpa." It was mostly true, other than her ratchet English class.

"Do you need any money?"

"I'm good Grandpa."

"Have you talked to Dad?"

"Not, recently. Does he need money?"

"Not, yet. Not until he gets taken to the cleaners."

"Do you think your parents could reconcile?"

"It depends, what are the odds that he gets castrated?"

"Charlene."

"Seriously, Grandpa. Dad got in his car and drove across the country. I can't think of a more emphatic way of ending a marriage."

"I guess you're right."

"Anyway, Mom's got a new boyfriend."

"Already."

"Yeah, he's an entrepeneur."

"He sells horse manure?" Clay was confused.

"Basically. He goes around trying to get money from rich people to do various projects promising them he'll make them more money but he ends up selling them manure."

"How did you find out?"

"Aunt Jill told me." Joyce's sister had a love/hate relationship with Joyce, as in she loved to hate her. Joyce for some reason told Jill many secrets, not knowing Jill told them as soon as she could.

"Well, don't get too caught up in it. Worry about school."

"Yes, Grandpa. Do you think I could come down to Florida and visit during the spring?"

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Fine with me. Call your uncle."

"Ok. Love you Grandpa."

"Love you too, Charlene."

Major Crimes

Sharon went down to FID to speak to tweedles dee and dumb. "We can't tell you anything about Sanchez."

"I'm not here for him."

"You're not."

"I got a report of an assault on Friday."

"Oh yes."

They retold their made up story, not realizing they were accusing her boyfriend. Sharon wrote it all down. She said that he lawyered up, but they would be able to make their case soon enough.

Bobby showed up to the police station. He came with a busted up truck from the job. He did as Brenda asked, made a giant banner insulting the three musketeers. Bobby wrote " Branson is a bitch" on one side and "His two butt pirates are digging for gold on the other." Bobby honked loudly as he drove the car around the lot. He made a big scene so that people would come out and see it. Once he got enough attention, he took the car into the street. He parked it around the corner and left the truck.

"That was fun," Bobby thought.

Once the sun started to set, the two ninnies went to find the car. They vandalized it the same way they had that poor officer. Brenda had it all on tape. Buzz got a great view of their faces.

The next day, Brenda called everyone in FID into work, execpt the three dingbats. She asked the three former members to come. She announced who she was and she announced her team. "Eyes closed." She asked if anyone had been mistreated by Branson. At first, no one raised their hands.

Brenda started to list off the allegations, cursing and berating officers in public, running up drinks on other people's tabs, dining and dashing leaving others to foot his bill, threatening officers who asked for their money back, harassment, sexual harassment, assault.

Again, she asked, had anyone had a problem with Branson. One by one, all of the hands went up. "Open your eyes." Everyone saw everyone else putting down their hands. She gave them each a card and told them to check if any of those things had happened to them, and she left an other column. It wasn't long before they filled them out. Brenda tallied them. He apparently had dined and dashed at least 4 times, ran up drinks 7 times, 18 complaints of general harassment, 3 complaints of sexual harassment, and 5 assault complaints.

She then asked if anyone had a problem with the two goons. Everyone started talking right away. "One at a time." She got her confessions. They ate other people's food in front of them. They gave wedgies, tripped people walking, cat-called at women, many people complained items were stolen from their desk. "Anyone have car trouble?" She got a bunch of stories. Gas missing out the car, tires flattened, etc.

She advised them that they could seek HR to address their greviences. There was practically a stampede to the door. On top of the 6 cases she already had, another 24 appeared. She was ready to report to Taylor.

"30 complaints against them?"

"Yes."

"And they're all legit."

"They had a pattern. They would do the same terrible things across the board. For some of these cases, we have independent witnesses who picked Branson out of a lineup"

"You put him in a lineup?"

"A photo array."

Taylor called the three into his office.

"We need to talk."

First, they denied any wrong doing and demanded union reps. They arrived and then Brenda came into the room. She had a huge stack of papers and a flash drive. First, they saw the two dummies vandalizing a car and fleeing the scene. Brenda threw down the complaints from everyone who had a car vandalized. Then, she thrw down a photo array and witness statements of people who saw Branson attack an officer from behind. Then, she showed them the giant stack of cards she collected. The credit card charges from the tabs he ran up, the time he dined and dashed.

"This monkey show is over."

It didn't take long before the two twits were blaming each other and then they both started blaming Branson. Branson kept denying everything.

Taylor suspended them all immediately. They could either negotiate their resignation or begin their "trial." Maybe, they could get severence pay if they resigned by the end of the week, maybe.

Brenda left. That was over. FID watched, eating popcorn as Branson packed up his desk. His croonies followed, none of them speaking. As soon as they left the door, everyone started cheering.

Sue grabbed Brenda and gave her a big hug. "Thank you so much."

"Your Welcome."