Sandra de La Cruz, better known as La Fiera, is a major antagonist in The Rookie, serving as one of the two main antagonists (alongside Doug Stanton) of season 3, and the main antagonist of the first episode of season 4, Life and Death.
She is a Guatemalan drug trafficker who wants revenge against detective Angela Lopez for failing to protect her son, Diego.
She is portrayed by Camille Guaty.
Biography[]
When she was 15 years old, Sandra returned from the hospital with her newborn son Diego and found herself under fire from two rival gangs. To protect her son, she took a semi-automatic pistol from a dead man and killed everyone, the cartel was impressed and recruited her, giving her the name La Fiera (The Beast).
De La Cruz first meets detective Angela Lopez at a college campus after a man who had his village massacre under her orders has a friend try and kill her. She and Lopez meet at the college campus to protect each other, but Lopez still didn’t like her due to what she did. At the end of the episode, she sends a teddy bear as a gift for Lopez for her unborn baby.
La Fierra is later seen at a hospital to negotiate with dying cartel leader Tomas Madrigal for control of his family business. She talks to Tomas in code while a camera records the conversation and suddenly threatens Wesley Evers, who is lured to a carpark but escapes. in a parking garage, they start talking about their son, but a car slowly shows up from behind. Moments later, Diego is shot by Tomas’s goons in retaliation and a fight between cops and cartel members ensues. All the gangsters are defeated while La Cruz touches the chair where Diego was in, puts on glasses, and leaves.
To hit back again met Tomas, the gang ambushes the other gang start shooting at each other in a cemetery, claiming the lives of over a dozen people. Once again Lopez comes to meet La Fierra and she mentions that she knew they had a wire recording. The NYPD starts branching off to dismantle the Tomas gang, with Bradford and Nolan spying on the operations. As a plan, the DEA gives Lopez a drive which will be used to suck up information on her cartel. However, she uses another computer to connect it knowing the trick. As revenge, she orders Cesar’s baby and her girlfriend to be murdered but instead deal with Nolan and Bradford.
As Cesar's investigation unfolds, he is killed by one of La Fiera's men despite Nolan and Quigley Smitty's best attempts to protect him. However, the LAPD receives a major break in the case when Lucy Chen's undercover assignment leads to La Fiera being arrested. Later that day, Lopez visits her in her cell at the Mid Wilshire station and blames La Fiera for her son Diego's death. As Lopez is preparing to walk down the aisle at her wedding, it is revealed that La Fiera had been broken out of her prison transport by a heavily armed cartel. At the same time, other armed members of the cartel kidnap Lopez from her dressing room, and her previous gift from La Fiera is later found by Nolan when he goes to check on her, and he realizes that she has been abducted.
Lopez's former rookie Jackson West was also abducted during the wedding and was subsequently murdered by a cartel member, a 17 year old named Armando De Leon. As the LAPD team mourns Jackson's death, La Fiera takes Lopez to her compound outside of Guatemala City, Guatemala, where she plans to wait for Angela to give birth, kill her, then raise the baby as her own. Wesley Evers, Angela's husband, contacts drug dealer Elijah Stone for intel as to his wife's whereabouts in exchange, he agrees to serve as his dirty lawyer. Wesley eventually gathers the team at his house, where they formulated a plan to save Lopez. The team decided to split up with Nolan, Bradford, Nyla Harper, and Wesley traveling to Guatemala while Chen and Sgt Wade Grey remained in Los Angeles to help apprehend Jackson's killer. Nolan, Bradford, and Harper arrive in Guatemala in a helicopter, and Evers flies to the local airport in order to get the police force to take him to the compound. Evers then uses the guise of wanting to negotiate with La Fiera, allowing him to get inside and reunite with Lopez. Lopez, with help from her husband, then pretends to be in labor so that they can attempt to escape and meet up with the others. Although the ruse succeeds, Lopez and Wesley are unexpectedly separated once they get outside and are taken to different locations. Bradford and Harper then follow Lopez and her captors to a nearby hospital, while Nolan follows Wesley and his captors to an abandoned orchard field.
Bradford and Harper are able to rescue Lopez from the hospital and subdue most of her captors in the process. La Fiera is the last of Lopez's captors in pursuit of them, and Lopez kills her after she had shot Lopez in the leg, allowing them to escape in the helicopter. Lopez, Bradford, and Harper then ask the pilot to stop at the field where Nolan and Wesley are and the pilot complies after the three draw their guns on him after he originally refused to make another stop. At the same time, Nolan rescues Wesley from the orchard field by using a tractor as a distraction. They then proceed to knock out Wesley's captors and are able to make it to the helicopter safely allowing everyone to return to Los Angeles unharmed. Three months later, Lopez has given birth to her son, who she names Jackson in honor of her deceased rookie.
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