1.3 "Law & Order: Los Angeles" - "Harbor City" Quiz

Answer: Higher Ground

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are an American band from Los Angeles who have released more than 10 studio albums and have attained worldwide popularity. The band started with Anthony Kiedis, Hillel Slovak, Flea, and Jack Irons. Slovak and Irons have been replaced by several other musicians throughout the years, including Jesse Tobias, Dave Navarro, Chad Smith, and John Frusciante. The band has won multiple Grammy Awards as well as other accolades from organizations like MTV and Billboard.

The song used in the episode is "Higher Ground", a funk song released by Stevie Wonder in 1973 and covered by the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1989. The track was the first single of "Mother's Milk", their fourth studio album. This was the second time in a row that "Law & Order: Los Angeles" used a song by the group to open an episode; the first was in the previous episode "Echo Park" which opened with "Venice Queen". This episode was also the first in the series to use the traditional voice opening by Steven Zirnkilton.

Answer: Surfing

The episode starts with images of a man (who we later learn is Trevor Knight) swimming and surfing in the ocean with several other people. We then see him walking towards his car, putting his surfboard away, and getting into his car. As he prepares to leave, a blue car blocks him. When he tries to see who it is, the car speeds away, but Trevor doesn't seem to give this incident too much importance.

Surfing is a popular sport in places like Hawaii, Brazil, and California, all known for having beautiful beaches and oceans where the activity can be practiced. Surfing involves balancing on a board, either standing or laying down, as the waves from the ocean come closer. It is fun but can also be dangerous if not done with caution!

Answer: Melanoma

Trevor appears to be a hot-headed man with several enemies. Trevor owned a marijuana dispensary, given that the drug is legal in California. According to an employee, many of the neighbors didn't like having a dispensary around, but couldn't think of anyone with a specific grudge. A teen warns Trevor that there is someone outside watching him, assuming it is an undercover police officer. Trevor dismisses it, and in the next scene, we see his body on the floor. The detectives found blood on the biometric safe, suggesting that the thieves used Trevor's hand to access the contents of the safe.

The detectives also believe that this event is connected with other recent dispensary robberies. To begin their investigation, they go to Trevor's house to review his financial records, which he kept at home to protect his customers. His grieving mother explains to Detective Jaruszalski that she uses marijuana to treat her melanoma, one of the most severe types of cancer. Melanoma derives its name from the part of the body where it develops: the melanocytes that produce melanin and give color to the skin. Melanoma not only attacks the skin, but may accelerate the transmission of the cancer through the body.

Answer: She is his wife

Trevor's mother explains that her son was using the money from the dispensary to pay for her chemotherapy. Trevor's wife Deena tells Detective Winters she didn't want to move from Hawaii to the mainland nor wanted to sell weed, but there was nothing she could do to stop Trevor. The detectives think that the security company that Trevor had contracted with, Security Arms, may be able to help with the investigation. While questioning a manager, they learn that the company recently acquired some of its competitors and centralized its operations. This would mean that someone in either of those companies could have knowledge about the recent dispensary burglaries.

Apparently, Trevor kept missing cash pick-ups because when the security company came to pick up the money, he was busy taking his mother to chemotherapy. This made that safe a great target because it had more cash than usual. The dispatcher they interview tells the detectives that she is getting a divorce, but they don't believe her. They quickly uncover her lies and find out that her husband is serving time for armed robbery at a Vacaville prison. According to the dispatcher, her husband owed a favor to Chuck Roker, a man he met in prison. The dispatcher paid this favor by giving Roker a list of dispensaries serviced by her security company.

Answer: Gun

The LAPD conduct an undercover operation that, despite not going as planned, is successful in capturing Chuck Roker. Though he refuses to talk at first, he waives his right to remain silent when he finds out he may be liable for murder. Roker confesses to the prior robberies but insists that he is not guilty of Trevor's killing. He explains that he did intend to rob the dispensary at Harbor City, but he was chased out by a Samoan man who "shoved a sawed-off Mossberg" in his face. He also claims that the man told him Harbor City belongs to "SOS", which stands for the gang Sons of Samoa. Roker also describes the man's car as the same vehicle that Trevor saw earlier: a blue lowrider Impala.

The "Mossberg" Roker is referring to is a firearm manufactured by O.F. Mossberg & Sons, a company founded in 1919 in the United States by Swedish immigrant Oscar Frederick Mossberg. The company specializes in long guns that can obviously do a lot of damage.

Answer: No

The LAPD Gang Unit tells the detectives that the man Roker describes sounds like criminal Joey Fatu, who has priors for robbery and manslaughter. As it turns out, not only was Fatu married to Deena Knight, but also gave Trevor money to open his dispensary.

They soon find out that Fatu recently beat up Mr. Toomey, Trevor's employee at the dispensary, because he believed Toomey stole the money. That leads the detectives to find that Joey was driving the blue car that scared Trevor, and that the car belonged to a woman.

When they barge into the woman's home in Hermosa Beach, they find Joey and his girlfriend Theresa kissing with loud music playing in the background. She begs the police not to hurt him, but Detective Winters senses imminent danger and hits Fatu with a taser. Fatu is so big that when he falls on his girlfriend, she has trouble breathing and needs help from the policemen to get him off her.

Answer: Moon Bay Crew

Joey Fatu is not guilty after all. He was not after the dispensary money, but instead, he thought he could make much more money from Knight's surfing talent. Fatu decided to help Knight's career by scaring his opponent from showing up to the competition, allowing Trevor to win easily. The detectives later find that Trevor had bought a new surfboard because his old one had been destroyed by three "dudes" in Lunada Bay Beach. graffiti on beach MBC. A local sheriff confirms that "MBC" stands for "Moon Bay Crew", a group of rich surfers that intimidate others to keep the ocean to themselves.

The MBC is formed by Carlton Campbell, Logan Rudman, and Patrick Scott. None of them have criminal records but they do have some juvenile offenses in their sealed records. They seem to be responsible for the murder of Trevor. DDA Morales identifies Scott as the "target" because he would have the least prepared attorney, allowing him to make a better case against the other two.

Answer: O.J. Simpson

The detectives are unsuccessful in getting Scott to talk, so Morales gives it a try. Since Scott doesn't want to betray his friends, Morales tells him that he's neither "O.J." nor Robert Blake, who unlike him, had the money to pay for better and more expensive lawyers than him. Morales tells Scott that he isn't really "one of them" and convinces him to give a statement incriminating his friends. Scott explains that they wanted to "teach Knight a lesson" because he was cutting them off and using all the good waves for surfing. Scott says that it was all Logan's idea, and that beating Trevor was the next step after destroying his board and keying his car.

O.J. Simpson and actor Robert Blake are two celebrities who were accused of murdering their partners in the Los Angeles area. DDA Morales probably made this comment because both of them were acquitted of all charges in their trials. O.J. Simpson was a football player who was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. In one of the most mediatic trials in American modern history, O.J. was ultimately acquitted, which is often attributed to his team of high-profile attorneys. O.J. then served time in prison for armed robbery in a charge stemming from a different event.

Answer: Plain view doctrine

Winters and Jaruszalski arrest Carlton Campbell and Logan Rudman at Campbell's home following Scott's confession. Carlton's dad makes sure to warn the detectives not to get physical with them and to tell his son not to say anything. The two defendants plead not guilty and are remanded without bail. Their attorneys want to make a case that Patrick Scott acted alone and can't be trusted because he is a "sociopathic liar". This leads to a revelation that Scott had sex with an intoxicated girl without her consent, but Carlton's father helped hide it. This wasn't the first time he had paid off people to hide what his son and their friends did.

While trying to find a new angle to prosecute Campbell and Rudman, the police and prosecution find a picture of lighter fluid next to a gas fireplace. This picture, taken at Gray Campbell's house, suggests that they used the lighter fluid to burn what possibly was incriminating evidence. Though the room where the fluid was found was not within the bounds of the search warrant, DDA Morales believes that they could persuade the judge to accept it because the bottle was "in plain sight". Morales is alluding to the plain view doctrine, a legal term that is one of the few exceptions to the constitutional requirement that searches and seizures happen with a warrant. Among other requirements, the doctrine specifies that some evidence can be collected by police, even without a warrant, if an item is in plain view and does not require agents to peruse the contents. It is a very interesting area of American privacy law!

Answer: Yes

DDA Morales and DDA Price tell Mr. Campbell that they found burnt neoprene and rag paper in his fireplace, consistent with the burning of surfing suits and bloodstained money. Frustrated with Campbell's lack of cooperation, Morales charges him with "willful promotion of felony gang activity", a real crime but likely a strategy to turn Mr. Campbell against his son. A detective from LAPD's Gang Unit testifies that legally, a gang is a group of three or more people that commit crimes as a primary activity. Morales is trying to prove that the Moon Bay Crew behaves as a gang and fulfills all legal requirements to make it one. The defense lawyer argues that their primary activity is surfing, not anything crime-related.

The girl who Patrick allegedly raped testifies that Gray Campbell offered her money in exchange for her silence about the incident. DDA Morales also brings evidence of another person who was beaten up by the MBC for surfing in "their territory" of Lunada Bay Beach. Morales accuses Campbell of facilitating the criminal conduct of the boys by financing their activities. Though he is reluctant at first, Carlton's father agrees to testify against his son when he realizes that the prosecutors have enough evidence to charge him with conspiracy.

Campbell and Rudman are sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, while Scott is sentenced to 6 years. In the backdrop, the episode implicitly discusses the public trust doctrine, a concept developed by courts which allows the public to use some parts of beaches even if the surrounding property is privately-owned. DDA Morales takes the position that beach access should be for everyone, while Campbell thinks that anyone on his land is liable for trespassing.