Tonight on NBC Law & Order returns with an all-new Thursday, May 16, 2024 episode and we have your Law & Order recap below. In tonight’s Law & Order season 23 episode 13 “In Harm’s Way,” as per the NBC synopsis,
“When a sports star is killed, Shaw and Riley suspect the shooter missed their intended target. Baxter’s daughter comes forward as a witness, but her public testimony could impact his re-election campaign with the confession of a family secret.”
Tonight’s Law & Order season 23 episode 13 looks like it is going to be great and you won’t want to miss it. So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back from 8 PM – 9 PM ET for our Law & Order recap. While you wait for the recap make sure to check out all our Law & Order SVU recaps, spoilers, news & more!
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In tonight’s Law & Order episode, the election was coming up soon. District Attorney Nichloas Baxter was up by three points in the election. He wanted to stay the District Attorney. He was appointed to the position after the previous guy retired. Making this current election his first one.
He should technically be on the campaign trail. He instead decided to take his family on a night out. They attended a fundraiser. His daughter Carrie was in law school. She only came with her parents because she wanted to meet Merrit Clark. She was a singer. She was dating a famous baseball player. They were both attending the fundraiser.
Only there was a shooting at the fundraiser. Matt Bennett the baseball player was killed. He was Merrick’s boyfriend and so the cops initially believed she might have been the cause of the murder. Merrick has obsessive fans. There were some that felt she could do better than Matt.
She also has this one stalker that’s been following her everywhere. The police looked for Kyle Taggert. They found him as well as his Merrick memorabilia. He was crazy. He just wasn’t their shooter. He was filming Merrick at the fundraiser and he got images of the shooter aiming his gun.
The shooter wasn’t aiming for Matt. He was actually aiming for the District Attorney. He was following Baxter when Baxter moved out of the way in the final moment.
That’s when Matt got shot. His one mistake was that he was too close Baxter at the worst moment.. Baxter was the target. He has a lot of enemies stemming from his time as District Attorney. He was also an AUSA prosecutor before he got selected for higher office. There’s no telling who was after him. Baxter couldn’t think of anyone when he spoke to the cops.
Baxter’s wife Julia wanted him to drop out of the race. She thought it was too dangerous. She double down when she heard about a killer aiming for her husband. She didn’t think her husband should put himself out there when they haven’t even caught the killer yet. She wanted him to drop out.
He refused to do so. Baxter continued on the campaign trail and the cops eventually found a suspect. They found the murder weapon. It was ditched in a drain after the shooting. They found it. They connected it to a known criminal and that’s when they learned the gun was a community gun.
It gets passed around to whoever needs it. Their known criminal told them he gave the gun to Mad Dog. He didn’t know the man’s legal name and so Detective Shaw contacted his friends in the gang unit. They identified Mad Dog for him. Mad Dog’s real name is Hector Canseco. He was in the gang known as Cobra 10. They were terrorizing East New York in Brooklyn when Baxter put their boss away. He also put away most of the lieutenants too. The cops found Canseco at Baxter’s fundraiser and he was clearly trying for a second time to murder the man.
Canseco was arrested. The cops continued digging through his life. They have a recording of Cobra 10 leadership ordering Canseco to kill Baxter. They found gun ammunition that matched the murder weapon at Canseco’s home. Canseco’s girlfriend testified against him at trial. She said the ammunition was his. Plus, the prosecutors had Eddie. Eddie was the last one with the community gun and he could testify that he handed it over to Canseco. He could place the weapon in the suspect’s hand.
The ADAs on the case were going to call Eddie in as their next witness when they realized they haven’t heard from him in a while. They went to his apartment. They found it ransacked.
They also found Eddie dead on the floor. Someone wrote the word “snitch” in Eddie’s blood. It was all over the walls. The gangs realized that Eddie talked and Canseco’s buddies silenced him. Canseco couldn’t do the same to his girlfriend because the cops moved her to a different location. And they put her son in a new school.
Eddie was also offered witness protection. He turned it down. He chose to stay at his apartment because that’s where he felt safest. He unfortunately made it easier for his killers to find him. There were no prints at Eddie’s home. They didn’t have enough to charge Canseco with the murder of a witness.
They tried to shore up the case in other ways. They called Baxter to the stand. They had him testify about his past with Cobra 10. Canseco’s defense attorney tried to push back on the narrative. He claimed that there’s no concrete proof that Canseco was in a gang.
It didn’t even matter that Canseco has “Cobra 10” tattooed on his back. Only Baxter has another witness. His daughter saw Canseco in front of her parents’ home a week before the shooting.
She could prove that Canseco was looking for her father. That he was aiming for her father. Baxter discussed it with Carrie. Carrie said a lot might come out during cross. She thought some stuff about her would come out. She wasn’t sure if she should testify and her father convinced her to do it in spite of her fears.
Baxter’s wife was angry about that. She felt he carried more about the election than Carrie. Or Carrie’s well-being. Baxter said Carrie had to do this because it was the only way to get Canseco.
Carrie later testified. Her past was brought up. She hit a man with her car. He lost his arm and she got a great plea deal that resulted in probation. She didn’t go to prison. She didn’t lose her license. And so her father might lose the election for calling in a few favors to get her a great deal, but Canseco was still found guilty of murder.
The eventual election was too close to call. There was going to be a run off and Baxter’s wife missed it because she was still angry at her husband.
THE END!