| “ | Those bitch doctors at the hospital... they said I should apply to nursing school! | „ |
| ~ Trope revealing his misogynistic motive for killing 15 women. |
Dennis Trope is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Gunshow". He is a misogynist who commits a mass shooting in which he kills 15 female college students.
He was portrayed by Neal Huff.
Early life[]
Trope was born into an abusive family in which his father beat him and his mother. He blamed his mother for the abuse, however, believing that she had failed to protect him; as a result, he grew up to hate all women. While he resented his mother, however, he still lived with her well into adulthood.
As an adult, he aspired to be a doctor, but did not have the grades he needed to get into Hudson Medical School. He found work as a paramedic, but soon went on disability because the stress and pressure of the job triggered his anxiety; he was also angered by the fact that his supervisor was female. When a female doctor at the hospital he worked for innocently suggested that he apply to nursing school, his fragile ego was so wounded that he began planning to kill as many women as he could to "put them back in their place".
After stealing the identity of an elderly neighbor, he ordered a 9mm semi-automatic pistol over the Internet from Rolf Firearms, and converted it to an automatic weapon using instructions he found on the dark web. He then went to Central Park to stake out an orientation session of female Hudson pre-med students, whom he especially hated for having the educational opportunities he felt were unfairly denied him, and opened fire, killing 15 women and wounding dozens more.
"Gunshow"[]
While investigating the massacre, NYPD Homicide Detectives Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green check out people who had recently purchased Rolf 9-millimeter pistols, and find that Trope's elderly neighbor, the supposed buyer, has been dead for several days. They eventually trace the purchase to Trope, and speak to his mother, who tells them of his whereabouts so he will be apprehended unharmed. Trope tries to run from them, but Green catches up to him and knocks him to the ground, inflicting a superficial injury to his head, and Briscoe has to pull him off of Trope in order to arrest him.
Green unearths Social Services records of the abuse that Trope and his mother suffered and deduces his motive for the shooting. While interrogating Trope, Green pretends to hate women as much as he does; he tells Trope that his mother is at fault for what his father did to him, and that his victims deserved to die for "humiliating" him. He tells Trope that admitting to the murders is the only way to avoid the death penalty and urges him to confess in order to finally "win". Trope bursts into tears and confesses to the shooting, moments before a lawyer hired by his mother arrives to defend him.
While Trope is charged with the murders, the case against him turns out to be weak, as there is little evidence besides the confession connecting him to the crime. To make sure Trope faces at least some punishment for what he did, Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy and Assistant District Attorney Abbie Carmichael reluctantly make a deal with him in which he agrees to serve 15 years to life in prison.
Trope is last seen testifying in court about the ease with which he converted the 9-millimeter pistol into an automatic weapon as part of McCoy's failed attempt to hold Rolf Firearms legally responsible for the shooting.
External links[]
- Dennis Trope on the Law & Order Wiki
