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| “ | Lennie, it's over. What if it was one of your kids? | „ |
| ~ Parker rationalizing to his old friend, Lennie Briscoe, about having a witness in his son's murder trial killed |
Ted Parker is the main antagonist of the Law & Order episode "Kids". He is a former NYPD detective who murders a black market arms trafficker and tampers with evidence to make sure that his teenage son, Kevin, is acquitted of murder.
He was portrayed by the late Robert Hogan, who also portrayed Grant Harrison on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Parker was a homicide detective with the NYPD's 33rd Precinct, where he was partnered with Detective Lennie Briscoe until the latter was transferred to the 27th Precinct's homicide department in 1992. Parker retired soon afterward and took a job as a security consultant for a brokerage firm.
He and his wife had a son, Kevin, of whom they took joint custody after they divorced. Work often kept him too busy to be a fulltime parent, so he sent Kevin to an expensive private Catholic high school to keep him out of trouble.
In 1994, Kevin was threatened by illegal arms dealer Juan Domingo and bought a gun on the street to kill him. When he shot at Domingo, however, he missed and accidentally hit a 14-year-old boy named Angel Ramirez, killing him instantly.
"Kids"[]
Kevin is eventually arrested by Briscoe and his new partner, Detective Mike Logan, after they find evidence connecting him to the crime.
After being told that his son was under arrest, Parker went to the 27th Precinct to talk to Briscoe, hoping to convince his former partner to let the boy go. When Briscoe refuses, Parker asks him to at least let Kevin participate in a lineup before he is formally charged with anything - but only at their old precinct. Briscoe agrees, but Kevin is nevertheless identified by a witness as Angel's killer, leaving Briscoe no choice but to arrest him.
Parker gets his son a respected defense lawyer, Gordon Schell, who argues that Angel's death was an accident and that Kevin had feared for his life. He tries to persuade Executive Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone and Assistant District Attorney Claire Kincaid to sentence him as a juvenile for manslaughter and remand him to a juvenile facility, but they insist that he serve time in prison for second-degree murder.
Stone and Kincaid are both aware that the evidence against Kevin is weak, so they make a deal with Domingo, who saw Kevin kill Angel, to testify against him in return for a reduced sentence in the weapons trafficking charges he is facing. With Domingo's testimony, they now have enough evidence to put Kevin in prison for first-degree manslaughter, but just as they are about to formalize a deal with him, Schell gets a phone call informing him that Domingo has been murdered in prison, so he refuses to make any agreement with Stone. Without Domingo's testimony, Stone's case falls apart; the jury ends up deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial, and Stone does not have enough evidence to charge Kevin again.
Kincaid finds out that Schell got the news of Domingo's murder so soon after it happened because he got a call from the 33rd Precinct - where Parker used to work. She and Stone suspect that Parker had one of his former colleagues kill Domingo to get his son out of trouble, but they cannot prove it. Later that night, Parker meets with Briscoe, who asks him how he sleeps at night, implying that he knows Parker arranged Domingo's murder. Parker defiantly says that he sleeps well at night, and then asks Briscoe what he would have done to get his daughters out of trouble with the law. Briscoe replies that he doesn't know, and then remarks that there is no statute of limitations on murder. As Briscoe leaves, he tells Parker, "Sweet dreams, pal."
External links[]
- Ted Parker on the Law & Order Wiki
