1.4 "Law & Order: Los Angeles" - "Sylmar" Quiz

Answer: Dora the Explorer

This episode opens with a woman driving in the Californian neighborhood of Sylmar. The two children in the car, a boy and his younger sister, are listening to the theme song of "Dora the Explorer" as their mother drives. She parks the car in front of a house and tells the boy, Billy, to watch her sister while she is away. A man opens the door and she goes into the house. Seconds later, a loud explosion occurs and sets the car on fire.

"Dora the Explorer" was a popular Nickelodeon animated TV show that ran between 2000 and 2019. The series told the story of nine-year-old Dora Marquez and her many adventures. Dora, joined by her cousin Diego and her friends Boots, Backpack, Isa, and Map, gets help from the audience throughout the show. Typically, Dora needs to get somewhere and needs to protect herself from Swiper, a fox who likes to steal from other people. The show often is interrupted by silence to allow the audience to answer Dora and her friends.

Answer: The arm of a beam scale

The explosion came from Ronnie Powell's garage and set Kim's car on fire immediately since her vehicle was parked exactly in front of the garage. Miller tells the detectives that she went to the house to drop something off to a friend and that she tried to save her children but couldn't.

She reveals that Ronnie drove away immediately after the explosion. While she receives oxygen from first responders, crime scene investigators find the arm of a beam scale and a hot plate, two items sometimes used to produce methamphetamines.

Then, Winters says: "word to the wise: if you're gonna drop in on your friendly neighborhood meth cooker, leave the kids at home".

Answer: Softball

Still at the scene, the detectives ask Kim if she was there to pick something up, suspecting that she may have been there to buy drugs. Miller responds that Ronnie left his sunglasses with "plastic frames and dark lenses" at her workplace and another cashier gave her the address. Winters and Jaruszalski believe she's lying, which they confirm when she later describes them as glasses with "dark frames and black lenses".

The detectives interview Kim and her husband Kevin at their home. There, they find that Ronnie played softball with Kevin last year and that Kim was at Ronnie's because they were having an affair. Kevin then yells "you killed them!" at his wife as Jaruszalski holds him back.

Answer: Timothy McVeigh

The detectives visit Ronnie's mother's house in Reseda where he lived recently. His sister is not surprised to hear Ronnie is in trouble, but his mom insists that he has done nothing wrong. She also believes that Ronnie's hobby is assembling model airplanes and that she even received shipments from UPS with materials for his planes. Winters and Jaruszalski quickly discover that what Ronnie ordered was Zeta Max, a brand of fuel for radio-controlled airplanes that is made with 99% pure nitromethane. The detectives are troubled because nitromethane is a chemical compound that can be used to make explosives. Soon, the police find out that the explosion wasn't caused by nitromethane, meaning that Ronnie has the fuel somewhere else.

Liquid nitromethane, as Detective Winters says, was the material used by domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh to carry out his attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma, which killed more than 150 people and injured more than 600. McVeigh claimed that the attacks were revenge against the federal government for events that happened in 1992 and 1993 in Ruby Ridge and Waco. McVeigh was executed in June 2001.

Answer: Rats

The LAPD receives a lead that Ronnie's truck was seen outside a house. Lieutenant Gonzales orders the detectives to go to the house accompanied by a bomb squad. The police storm the house and scare a man who was eating popcorn. He claims Ronnie was sleeping, but Detective Winters hears noises coming from the crawlspace. Realizing that Ronnie would have to come out through the outside of the house, Jaruszalski heads there and threatens Ronnie with releasing "trained rats" to go into the tight duct. The suspect says that he hates rats, throws his gun out, and surrenders to the police. Ronnie claims that he doesn't know about the fuel delivered to his mom's house, forcing the detectives to broaden their investigation.

Rats are rodents that are often associated with pests and illnesses. They can reproduce quickly and thrive in underground environments. In recent years, the number of rats in New York City has exponentially increased, leading to sightings in restaurants, subways, and streets.

Answer: Flowers

Ronnie wants a deal in exchange for his cooperation, but DDA Dekker refuses to negotiate with him. Winters and Jaruszalski once again talk to Ronnie's sister, Amy. They ask her about her fiancée Terry, who she says is in a campground in Topanga. The detectives drive there and find Terry's truck suspicious, so they search Amy's mother's house. They find an abaya, a traditional Muslim dress, in her closet. This confuses Amy's mother because they are not Muslim. When they open her computer, however, they find that Amy visited a web page for airplane enthusiasts. The detectives also see a video where Amy is almost fully covered by a hijab, calling for "true Muslims to defend their brothers and sisters from infidel soldiers in Afghanistan".

This discovery puts the police on high alert, leading to the immediate arrest of Amy at her workplace, an outdoor flower shop. She initially says that Terry is taking her to dinner that night and pretends to not understand what is happening, but soon starts screaming at bystanders that "America is killing Muslim women and children" and that "they should all burn in hell". They also find other videos of her calling the U.S. president a "warmonger". Investigators further discover that Amy and Terry were part of a Jihadi terrorist cell alongside two other white men.

Answer: Encounter

The detectives go to Jason McParr's home in Sherman Oaks, where they are greeted by off-duty police officers working as private security. McParr is a cartoonist who received death threats over his work in "Town Square". He explains that a parody of Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad earned him death threats from Muslims and boycotts from Christians. The police identify the other terrorists as Joey Pine and Roger Hagen. They track down Hagen's former cellmate, who confesses that Hagen said "everything had to be ready before Thanksgiving". He also mentions that Hagen called him from a "groovy bar with lava lamps everywhere" and that he could hear airplanes on the phone.

These clues lead the detectives to the Encounter Restaurant, which was located in the Theme Building of Los Angeles International Airport. There, an employee tells them that the men have been there several times posing as business travelers. The table where they sat has a clear view of Terminal 7, prompting the detectives to think that may be their target. Amy doesn't want to believe that Terry would be capable of killing thousands of people, and that Hagen must have forced him. She then tells DDA Dekker that they could find Hagen in a garage in Westchester. The LAPD raids that garage and finds the three men inside a truck with nitromethane and cell phone triggers, indicating that they were very close to executing their planned terrorist attack.

Answer: Adam Gadahn

The defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit murder with a weapon of mass destruction. Their bail hearing is interrupted by an assistant U.S. attorney and an army captain who have an executive order from the Department of Defense. The officials have an order signed by a federal judge which forces the L.A. court to surrender the defendants. DDA Dekker is upset about this because all four criminals will now be tried in a military court for their terroristic plans, but will not face any consequences for the murder of the Miller children. Dekker wants at least a statement from Amy, but he is told that is not possible because anything military detainees say is classified. Dekker notes that the defendants would only face justice if convicted, which is not that common (Dekker mentions that only 4 out of 20 terrorists had been convicted by military tribunals in 10 years).

In federal court, Dekker argues that the defendants are American citizens who violated California laws, and should therefore be tried by a jury in Los Angeles. The military lawyer or JAG (Judge Advocate General) tells the judge that the charges of treason are not unprecedented, citing the example of Adam Gadahn, an American citizen from Oregon who joined the terrorist group Al-Qaeda and was indicted for treason in 2006. He became the first person to be charged with treason against the U.S. in over 50 years. Gadahn, who acted as an advisor to Osama bin Laden, was known for releasing provocative videos ripping his U.S. passport. He was killed in 2015 by U.S. airstrikes in Pakistan.

Answer: Yes

Dekker wins in federal court and the defendants are returned to L.A. Jerry Hardin, the district attorney, is concerned that the trial will turn into a circus. That is because the defense counsel, Lane Garfield, is known for defending terrorists and creating a public spectacle. Seconds before the jury comes in, Dekker drops all charges related to the LAX bombing plot, and instead decides to charge each defendant with murder. This appears to be a strategy so that Garfield can't talk about terrorism while defending his clients.

During the trial, Amy confesses that she saw Terry put denatured alcohol in Ronnie's garage, with the intent to kill him. She claims she was misled by Terry's false love. Attorney Garfield shows her a picture of an engagement ring that Terry planned to use to propose to Amy. This momentarily changes her mind into saying everything she said before was a lie. Faced with this challenge, Dekker decides to use Amy's strict interpretation of Islam against her. Dekker says that Amy was fulfilling her role as a "good conservative Muslim wife" and needed to ask permission from her husband to do anything, which included killing her brother. This last cross-examination appears to sway the jury since they return a guilty verdict for all three defendants.

Answer: Jihad Jane

There have been a number of incidents where Americans become radical Islamists and plan or perpetrate terrorist acts (such as all the answer choices for this question), many of which could have reasonably served as inspiration for this episode. Producer René Balcer once said, however, that the episode was written with the case of Jihad Jane in mind. Colleen LaRose, born in Michigan in 1963, converted to Islam in 2005. She became more and more radicalized by posting videos saying she wanted to become a martyr and avenge the killings of innocent Muslims by the United States and Israel.

Another parallel between this episode and Jihad Jane's real actions is that the woman was involved in a plot to murder Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks for drawing an image of the prophet Muhammad. LaRose was arrested in 2009 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.