The Worst Things Voight Has Done On Chicago P.D.
It will come as no surprise to any TV viewer familiar with the police procedural genre that there are by-the-book TV cops and there are those who rip the book up and set the pieces on fire. In this regard, NBC's wildly popular, occasionally controversial police action-drama "Chicago P.D." has introduced audiences to more than one cop entirely capable of bending the rules. Or even breaking a rule or two. Or cuffing the rules and threatening them with a baseball bat. As such, the series' portrayal of police behavior has come in for some serious blowback from both the media (via Chicago Sun-Times) and viewers. And the feedback hasn't gone unheeded, with noticeable changes subsequently being written into the way the show's officers treat both suspects and the rule of law in general.
That being said, it also won't be shocking to long-time "Chicago P.D." watchers that one cop on the show has basically made a career out of repeatedly stepping way over the line, especially in the show's earlier seasons. Whether he's coming down hard on a perp in the show's infamous interview "cage," violently dealing with gang violence, or seeking vengeance on someone who's crossed him, the show's Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) has no equals when it comes to going dangerously rogue. While it may be a tough task to pin down exactly which are his all-time greatest misdeeds or outright excesses, here are a few of the worst things Voight has done on "Chicago P.D."
Voight's rogue cop traits were evident from day one
As the kind of cop willing to do seriously sketchy stuff in any given episode of "Chicago P.D.," 21st District intelligence unit chief Hank Voight is, if nothing else, dependably aggressive in his pursuit of what he considers justice. In this respect, "One Chicago" fans should have known what to expect from him in "Chicago P.D." even before the series debuted. The fact is, even before the show launched in 2014, Voight was a maligned presence in several episodes of "Chicago Fire," the "One Chicago" show that would eventually lead to the "Chicago P.D." spinoff.
But even for those unfamiliar with Voight's violent leanings in the previous series, the very first episode of "Chicago P.D." should have made his uncompromising personality perfectly clear. As the Season 1 premiere episode "Stepping Stone" opens, we see Voight doing what he does best: dragging a suspected criminal out behind a remote industrial site for a brutal Q&A session that doesn't end well for the crook. So, right from day one of "Chicago P.D.," viewers were giving an unmistakable heads-up regarding Voight's tendency to go well beyond the law in the name of enforcing it.
Messing with his family can have grave results
Hank Voight could often be faulted for his hair-trigger temper and fondness for heavy-handed treatment of anyone he viewed as either a criminal or personal enemy. But even in light of this fact, many viewers could certainly understand, if not condone, his brutal response to the developments in the heartbreaking Season 3 finale of "Chicago P.D."
As the season came to a close, we saw Hank Voight's son Justin (Josh Segarra) as a troubled young man struggling to put his life in order, only to again get mixed up with the wrong kind of people. When Justin is shot and dumped into the trunk of a car, Voight rushes him to the hospital. After Justin is declared brain-dead, Voight makes the shattering decision to have him taken off life support. Justifiably enraged, Voight launches into a furious pursuit of his son's attacker. Finally tracking the culprit down, he hauls the man off to a deserted construction site. Forcing him to dig his own grave, Voight is unmoved by the thug's begging for mercy and, in the end, a gunshot rings out. The next scene finds Voight walking away from the gravesite, shovel in hand.
He reacted badly to the murder of Alvin Olinsky
As fans of the show know all too well, Hank Voight is decidedly territorial when it comes to fulfilling his role as head of the department's intelligence unit. While he rules the squad with an iron fist and demands that subordinates follow orders to the last detail, any infringement on his domain by outside forces sparks a white-hot response. And that reaction becomes even more intense for anyone foolish enough to harass or threaten the officers working for him. So when one of those fellow cops is killed, it's hard to overestimate Voight's savagery in dealing out the consequences.
In this case, the officer in question is detective Alvin Olinsky (Elias Koteas), Voight's long-time partner, ally, and confidant. In Season 5 of "Chicago P.D.," Olinsky is unjustly jailed when his DNA is discovered on a murder victim's body. After Olinsky is killed by a cartel hitman in prison, Voight sets out to locate the boss who ordered the hit. Tracking the trail of payoff money to the local head of the Cali Cartel, Voight once again takes the law into his own hands, gunning down the drug lord and, later, drinking a toast to a picture of his slain, but now avenged, buddy.
He enables his officers to be as violent as he is
Yet another instance of Voight allowing things to go totally off the rails plays out in "Chicago P.D." Season 6. As viewers of the show were aware, detective Antonio Dawson (Jon Seda) had been struggling with an on-again-off-again addiction to pain medication. In the season's finale, Dawson's drug connection is jailed and Voight discovers there's a direct link between the two men. As the episode continues, Voight takes action to get his addicted officer into rehab. But when Dawson's daughter is kidnapped by an associate of his jailed pill supplier, the drama and danger both threaten to spiral out of control.
After hunting down and apprehending the kidnapper, Voight, characteristically, dares him to make a move. But this time, it's Dawson who goes off the deep end, brutally attacking the thug. When even Voight feels like Dawson may be taking things too far, he stops the beating. But the kidnapper, thinking he's now safe, makes a crack about Dawson's daughter. At this, Dawson finally loses it and the thug ends up pushed to his death on the street below. In addition to allowing Dawson's lethal assault on the perp, Voight will also plan to cover up the true reason for the suspect's death. All in all, it's just one more clear-cut case of Voight being Voight.
Voight doesn't let justice interfere with vengeance
Yet another situation where Hank Voight circumvents both ethics and police protocol surfaced in Season 1 of "Chicago P.D.," and once again it's family matters pushing Voight over the edge. In the season's 7tth episode, "The Price We Pay," the action ramps up quickly with Voight's son Justin implicated in the bloody murder of a mid-level crime boss. As usual, Voight is willing to cover up for his son, but this time there's a complication: a drug-dealing thug named Joseph Catalano (Joe Reegan), who has proof that Justin was, in fact, involved in the murder.
Determined to get his son out of jeopardy – and out of Chicago – Voight drives the young man to an army recruitment center and makes it clear his only option is to join up. In the meantime, however, a fresh corpse has washed up on the shore of the Chicago River. It's none other than coke-dealer Joseph Catalano. Arriving on the scene, Voight immediately falls under suspicion for the deed, but he simply smirks, says Catalano had enemies and writes it off as a revenge killing by persons unknown. The truth is, any fan of the show knows exactly whose thirst for vengeance has just been satisfied, in one more grisly instance of the worst things Hank Voight has done on "Chicago P.D."