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| “ | Doesn't anybody listen? I killed John. I'd do it again. I get mad enough, I don't know what I do. I don't want anybody's help. | „ |
| ~ Chris confessing to killing John Lasky. |
Chris Pollit is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Born Bad". He is a juvenile delinquent who murders another boy during a fit of violent rage.
He was portrayed by Wil Horneff, who also portrayed Greg Landen in a later Law & Order episode.
Early life[]
Chris was born into a deeply dysfunctional family: his father, Jack, was a career criminal who often beat him for no reason and eventually went to prison for attacking a mail carrier with a hammer; his mother, Tracy, was an alcoholic and drug addict who treated her son like an inconvenience, when she paid attention to him at all; and his paternal uncle was imprisoned for murder. Chris was also molested by a neighbor, and his parents did nothing about it.
At the age of four, Chris attacked his parents with a knife when they took a toy away from him. Social workers found Jack and Tracy to be unfit parents and put Chris in foster care, where he was neglected to the point of cruelty, often going days without food or basic care. In his early teens, Chris robbed a deli with a group of his friends and shot the owner when he could not open the cash register. He was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and sent to a juvenile detention center, where he beat another inmate within an inch of his life for cutting in front of him in the lunch line.
When he was released, he was taken in by Flo Bishop, a social worker and the first person in his life who treated him with kindness and compassion. She also provided him with a foster brother, Johnny Laskey. It was not enough to heal or change Chris, however; he soon returned to petty crime, the only life he knew, and recruited his foster brother and their friend Andy in breaking into and robbing Johnny's biological father's house. Chris had promised to split the money with Johnny and Andy so they could afford to live with their biological mothers after they got out of rehab, but he double-crossed them and kept all of it for himself.
"Born Bad"[]
Chris promised Johnny and Andy he would make it up to them by taking them along on another robbery, but they ran when they saw a police car. Chris and Johnny got into an argument, and Chris flew into a rage and beat and kicked Johnny to death. When he realized that Johnny was dead, he simply walked away with a blank expression on his face, with a frightened Andy following him. They left Johnny's body in a known prostitution area and fled the scene.
NYPD Homicide Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Mike Logan investigate Johnny's murder, questioning Chris and Andy after they ruled out Johnny's biological parents. The boys covered for each other by claiming to have gone with Johnny to the movies and then to a pizzeria, when Johnny abruptly ran away, as if he saw something or someone who scared him. After Briscoe and Logan learn of Chris' history of violence from Bishop, however, they bring him and Andy to their precinct for questioning. Chris remains cool under the pressure of interrogation, but when the detectives threaten to charge Bishop as an accessory, Andy panics and tells them what really happened, fearfully recalling the empty look in Chris' eyes as he killed Johnny. Chris is arrested and charged with murder.
During the ensuing trial, Chris' lawyer, Helen Brolin, argues that he is genetically predisposed to violence because he has an extra Y chromosome, citing several controversial academic studies that suggest a relationship between that chromosomal anomaly and violence. Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone and Assistant District Attorney Claire Kincaid have Chris evaluated by forensic psychiatrist Elizabeth Olivet, to whom Chris says that he blacks out when he gets angry, and that he is unaware of what he is doing during these blackouts until after he has done it.
Olivet does not believe Chris, however, and testifies that he is aware of and can control his actions. However, she begrudgingly replies in the affirmative when Brolin asks her if a person from an abusive background like his would be more likely to respond to any real or perceived threat with violence.
Chris suddenly insists on pleading guilty, giving up on himself as a lost cause; with Brolin saying that he is innately violent, and the prosecution saying that he was made violent, he believes that there is no hope that he can ever be a good, decent person. Over the objections of both Brolin and Stone, he agrees to be sentenced as an adult for second-degree murder, which would put him in prison for most of his life, if not all of it. He admits that he killed Johnny for no reason and would do it again, and he rejects Stone's offer to get him counseling and a chance for early parole. When Stone tells Chris that he and Brolin are trying to save his life, Chris grimly replies, "What's the point?"
External links[]
- Chris Pollit on Law & Order Wiki
