CSI: Miami Episode 7.11 Tipping Point
Air Date: December 15, 2008

We see the blurry vision of a man lying in the back of a car. He seems to be suffering shock. There’s blood on the window.

As an large auger digs into ground, and we see the man lying, buried alive in a box. He cries out, when he sees the earth dug away, and the auger coming at him. The operator probably cannot hear him, though. The auger rises and lowers back into the box holding the man.

Horatio stands over the dead man. The auger operator tells him that they just broke ground that morning to begin an 18 month construction project. He says that his foreman thought he heard a scream, but it was too late by the time he could stop the machine. The man says that they began work on the site around 9:30 AM. He tells Horatio that he had picked the area with the loose dirt, thinking it would be an easy place to start, never imagining what was there.

At the site, Tara is examining the body. Calleigh asks her if he must have been sedated in order to have gotten him into the box. Tara points out a bullet wound on the man’s abdomen, which, apparently, she’s just now found. This is how he was so easy to get into the box. Frank interrupts to tell them that he’d just found out that someone called in a murder to the Crime Stoppers. The phoned-in description matches the construction site victim, so he was likely shot elsewhere and dumped at the scene.

Tara wonders, out loud, if they can believe a tip from someone who received a reward to give it. Frank points out that, aside from the call, they’re starting out without any leads. Calleigh asks Tara about the old-looking cell phone in the man’s pocket. Tara says it looks like a cardio messenger.

Tara tells Horatio that a cardio messenger sends data from the man’s pacemaker back to health care workers who can trace his arrhythmia. Using the device, she has identified the victim as Michael Olvera. The EKG data shows his heart stopping at 9:21 AM. It also shows that his blood pressure dipped sharply at 8:00 AM. So, that must be the time he was shot. They figure that the murderer had plenty of time in between to get him to the burial site.

At the building where Olvera lived, Delko and Horatio tell a young man of his murder. The man tells them how Olvera…AKA Reverend Mike…was a helpful man who probably was the reason that he wasn’t in prison. Olvera used the home to help teens learn life skills that helped keep them out of gangs. The young man says that Olvera always knew he was a target. The man was always having to clean up graffiti and fix broken windows. Recently, someone had painted the wall outside.

Delko photographs the painted wall, and uses an image filter to reveal the graffiti beneath. It says “Cranios Rifa”…translated “Cranios Control”. According to Delko, Cranios is a hispanic gang that has used kids to do their dirty work. Delko also finds a tag saying, “ZAR”, but doesn’t know what it means.

Frank escorts Wanda Ramoz into the station to see Horatio. He asks about her tip, but she wants to know how much she’ll get. Horatio is dismayed by her appeal for money, when a man has been murdered, but Frank tells her that Crime Stoppers can arrange for anywhere from $50 to $1000. She tells them that, while she was working placing flyers on windshields, she heard a gunshot. She spotted Reverend Mike lying on the ground next to a parked car. She ran, and didn’t see anyone else.

The team works the scene where Wanda saw Olvera. There is blood spattered on the curb, and Calleigh finds a 9mm bullet wedged in a tree. Delko finds a Saint Jude pendant lying in the water in the gutter. He wonders if it’s Olvera’s, since he’s the patron saint of lost causes, like the name he uses for his home.

Calleigh tells Horatio that the blood on the bullet matches Olvera, and finds a IBIS match to a bullet from a ten-year-old drug bust. That case records show an arrest of a Hector Salazar. The gun was never recovered, so they could only put him away for drug charges. He served ten years, and was released a week before.

Horatio asks Salazar about shooting Olvera. Salazar challenges that they couldn’t connect him to the gun ten years ago, and can’t now. Horatio, though, points out that the recent graffiti on Olvera’s house has the last three letter of his name on it –”ZAR”. Pointing out a nasty scar on his left forearm, Salazar claims to have seen the light, proving that the system works.

Frank shows Natalia a list of Crime Stoppers calls. She doubts their usefulness, but Frank points out one from Darryl Broadman, who lives across the street from where Olvera was shot. He called to turn in shouting from his neighbor’s apartment, around 8:00 AM.

Frank and Natalia visit the apartment where the shouting originated. The woman tells them that she was arguing with a funeral home over the cost of her daughter’s burial. Laura, her daughter, was shot three weeks earlier, while walking home from school. The funeral director accepted $1000 for the burial, but called to demand another $1000.

As Natalia tells Frank that she thinks there might be something about he funeral director, and that they should talk to him, Matteo, Laura’s brother catches up to them. He hands Natalia a brochure, and says it’s where his sister is. He asks if they can help his mom.

Valera asks Ryan why they didn’t tell her about Olvera’s necklace. She says that she might still be able to find blood in a crevice. She finds a trace, and matches the DNA to Rafael Vargas, a member of Cranios.

Horatio and Ryan go to arrest Vargas. As Ryan cuffs him, Horatio sees Wanda putting a flyer on the Hummer. He finds a message penned onto it, telling them that the “Craneos” are doing something in the shipping yard.

At the shipping yard, Delko and Horatio find a security guard locked in a container. He tells them that he was attacked by three men, who also took some ANFO…aluminum nitrate/fuel oil, an explosive…from the container. The guard describes one of the men as having a horrible scar on his left forearm: Hector Salazar.

Horatio tells Salazar that he should have covered his scar. Salazar says he wanted to be found. He claims to have wanted to help them find where Olvera was shot, and about the ANFO theft, having fed the information to Wanda Ramoz. He tells Horatio and Frank that Reverend Mike visited him a lot in prison, and convinced him that he had better options. When Olvera was murdered, he resolved to help bring down his own gang, and that it required someone on the inside. He pleads with them to let him help them. He tells Horatio that he remembered him as the cop that helped put away an inmate who had killed another inmate. Horatio was the first authority he’d known who cared about justice for the “animals” in the prison. Horatio agrees to let him help them.

Natalia visits the funeral director, claiming to have little money, and needing to bury her husband. He offers her “The Simple Things” package for $1000. She asks why, then, is he charging Gloria Nuñez twice as much for the same package, and holding her daughter’s body as ransom. Confronted with the facts, the director agrees to upgrade Mrs. Nuñez to the nicer package.

As Natalia tells Mrs. Nuñez about her visit to the funeral home, upstairs, Matteo pulls a handgun from his backpack. Matteo drops the gun and it goes off. Natalia pleads with him to tell her about he weapon, and what he knows about the murder. He won’t talk, so she takes him into custody.

Calleigh matches the ballistics on the weapon to the 9mm that killed Reverend Mike. Delko finds Matteo’s prints all over the gun. The partial print on the trigger, though, doesn’t match. It belongs to Freddie Granada, the kid from Reverend Mike’s home; one of his “lost causes”.

Horatio, Delko, and several uniforms catch up with Granada. With his UV flashlight, Delko finds blood traces in the back of his car. They tell him they found the gun, and ask why he killed Olvera. He says it was the price of admission to get back with “his boys”. He says that Reverend Mike lied. It wasn’t easier to be straight. No one would hire a former gang banger, but now he claims to have “benefits for life”. Delko challenges Granada’s claim to be “stone cold”, saying he would have just dumped the body, and wouldn’t have used a box.

Salazar calls Horatio, and says he knows what the ANFO is for. They plan to use it on Reverend Mike’s house. Horatio and Delko rush to the House of Lost Causes. Delko tosses a tactical camera into a window. He finds the detonator, but not the charges. They also see a woman lying on the floor. Horatio rushes in, though Delko warns him that there’s only thirty seconds left. He runs out with Wanda, just in time.

Wanda tells Horatio that she was attacked for informing the police. She says she liked the money she made by snitching for Hector, and tried to get more info on her own. Horatio promises to keep her in protective custody until they find the bomber.

Ryan and Calleigh examine the video from Delko’s tactical camera. They pan around, until they find the cans that held the explosives. Ryan recognizes them from Vargas’ shop. Horatio and the team arrive in time to find Vargas about to kill Hector Salazar. When Horatio and Delko enter, Vargas uses Salazar as a shield. Salazar, though, surprises him, managing to get away. Horatio fires and hits Vargas, but Vargas’ weapon goes off as he falls. The shot hits Salazar’s chest, and he goes down. Both men die on the shop floor.

As Horatio watches Hector die, he remembers Hector’s promise to bring down the Cranios, and his anger for their murdering Olvera, the man who was keeping kids from turning out like himself. A musical montage reveals that Hector Salazar’s sacrifice led to the capture of loads of munitions, and the gang. Natalia shows up at Laura Nuñez’ funeral. Horatio stands next to Hector’s lifeless body, seemingly sad and proud.

Horatio shows up to find Wanda Ramoz watching workers fix up Reverend Mike’s house. He asks what she plans to do with the money, to which she noticed that Reverend Mike’s place could use some new computers. She thanks Horatio.

Natalia: This is why we do it, isn’t it?
Horatio: Yep. Yep. This is exactly why we do it.

Damn you, CSI: Miami. Where is that box of tissues?!?

Post from: CSI Fanatic

CSI: Vegas – Episode 9.06 Say Uncle
Air Date: November 13, 2008

At a Korean street party, gunshots interrupt the fun, and send the crowd running, ducking, and scrambling for cover.

The team shows up, but no one seems to have seen exactly what happened. A young woman and a young man lie dead on the asphalt, she with two bullet wounds, he with three. Grissom spots only one casing nearby, but the rest may have been scattered by foot traffic from the crowd. Riley opens the man’s wallet, and identifies him as Sung Bang. He also has an prison release form in his pocket, indicating that he spent six months in detention for two DUIs and had just been released that morning. Hodges notes that the man is loaded with ID, but the woman doesn’t even have lint in her pocket. Just a few feet away from the bodies, Grissom finds a child’s sunglasses, spattered with blood.

(click on “Read More” for the rest of the recap)

Police find it difficult to find anyone with information on what happened, partly because of language issues. They also suspect that gang activity may frighten people from saying anything. Greg finds one man, though, with blood on his shirt. The man also speaks English, “If it’s gonna get me out of here quicker, I’ll be William Freakin’ Shakespeare.” The man has little to say to Brass. Brass asks if he thinks it’s worth the apparent cultural honor to know that a killer walks free. He tells Brass that he’ll agree to any forensic tests they want, but he won’t tell what happened.

Both victims died of exsanguination (they bled to death) from their gunshot wounds. The bullets come from two different guns, though. So, they figure it might be two gunmen, or one gunman with two guns, gang-style. Also, the man’s wounds are shot at pretty level trajectories. The woman’s are very steeply angled, as if shot from below, or while she was lying on the ground. Grissom asks if she could have fallen, trying to flee. David says it could be drugs. She has needle marks. Grissom notices strange scars above the woman’s eyes, indicating she may have had cosmetic surgery. They wonder if she’s a hooker.

Riley and Catherine discuss the man’s background. He’s unmarried with no children. Besides the DUIs, he has a clean record, including no gang affiliations. He was released from prison, 45 minutes from Vegas, and went to Dempsey’s department store. A couple hours later, he’s dead. Grissom comes in, and tells Catherine about the woman’s eye surgery, blepharoplasty. He tells her the so-called Asian eyelid procedure is fairly common in Korea, and is spreading in the U.S. by women wanting a more “Caucasian-look”.

Brass takes the woman’s photo to “Makeover Town”, the block of Korea town where a lot of cosmetic surgery is done. He quickly finds the doctor who performed the procedure. He tells Brass that he was held at gunpoint, and forced to perform the surgery. Brass questions the performing of this surgery to make women’s eyes look less Asian. The doctor says the procedure has become insanely popular, ever since Jackie Chan had it done.

He said the men forced him to agree to 15% of his profits. The doctor says he believes the men are part of the new group KD, the Kam Pai Dragons. He says they work in extortion, but don’t act like many other gangs. They don’t ride lowriders, spray graffiti, wear tattoos, or even deal in drugs. They take from their own, because they know they won’t turn them in. When Brass presses for why the people of Korea Town don’t turn these gangs in, he responds with a plea for the police to protect the immigrant community as well as do others groups. He says he no longer pays the extortion money. When he switched to an HMO, he says, they came and installed security cameras. The KD don’t like to be seen.

Catherine and Brass go down to view surveillance video from Dempsey’s department store. In a lab that is clearly better equipped than that of the city’s, one of the store’s video analysts recognized the man as the victim from Korea Town. The head of Dempsey’s Forensic Services asks Brass about the police and their property crime solve rate. He boasts that theirs is 93%, nationwide. The man in question was in the department store with a little boy. The boy had touched a toy car. One of Dempsey’s “CSI” hands Catherine the toy. She looks at a fingerprint on the car, and matches it to the one they have for the boy at the crime scene.

They all view video of Sung Bang leaving Dempsey’s store with the little boy. The boy is Park Bang. The female victim is Kora Sil, Park’s mother. Park’s father died of AIDS a couple years ago. Park is also HIV-positive. He’s on a strict drug regimen.

Kora has several priors for prostitution. Her “friend agenda” page shows she’s single, and was born in Seoul. It appears, from the comments people have left that she uses the page to score drugs. It also lists her address, in Korea Town.

At Kora’s house, a man: Mr. Pan answers the door. Brass tells his team to take a look around. Pan tells Brass that he’s a respected businessman, and that Park and Kora come over to use his computer. He denies knowing anything about the shooting, or Park’s whereabouts.

Nick marks a satellite photo of the area, showing Dempsey’s and the location of the shooting. There are a couple of blocks between the two locations. Riley notes the receipt for items that Park would have been carrying. Since they found nothing but the sunglasses at the crime scene, some of the other items may have been dumped or lost nearby. The team goes down to find the other store items.

Not seeming keen on “hunting”, Hodges smugly shows Nick something inside a house dumpster, where he has deduced the items might be. It’s a plastic sack with the boy’s bloody shirt in it. Inside the corresponding house, an older woman inside pulls a gun on Riley and Nick. The scene is very tense, until Park Sung comes into the room, and tells her, in Korean, that everything is going to be alright.

As a doctor takes a look at Park, Grissom asks Riley about him. She says he’s very weak. She said he wouldn’t open up about anything. Grissom chides Riley for questioning a minor without an advocate from Child Protective Services present.

Grissom asks the doctor why Park has a gastric tube inserted into his abdomen. He responds that they’ll need to look over his records to find out if he has a feeding issue, requiring the use of the tube. The doctor says dried blood around the feeding tube indicate he may have caught it on something, or tried to pull it out.

The woman from the house tells Nick, via an interpreter, that she pulled the gun because, where she comes from, people watch out for their neighbors.

As Grissom gently tries to coax Park into talking, another doctor, Dr. Eisling, enters and tries to give the boy HIV meds. Grissom looks on, with noticeable concern, as Park squirms violently to avoid the treatment. The boy screams as the staff holds him down and forcibly gives him the drugs.

Henry Andrews tells Grissom that Park’s drug screen is incredible. Since the boy is only HIV-positive and doesn’t have AIDS, there is no need for such aggressive drugs. The mix of drugs he’s taking would inhibit his growth. In fact, one of the drugs has the FDA’s blackbox label, and others are still undergoing clinical trials. Grissom wonders how a boy with a druggie mother gets on a clinical trial.

Wendy shows Greg that DNA from skin under Park’s fingernails matches that of Jin Ming: the man who identified himself as Mr. Pan. Jin was arrested at 18 for stealing cars with his street racing gang. She adds that the tissue was from gluteus tissue. Greg asked if this meant that Park had been molested. She says maybe not. Jin Ming’s mugshot, from when he was 19, showed him covered with tattoos. Now he has none. She says his gluteus tissue may have been used to graft over his tattoos. She also notes that being a street racer, it makes sense to have tattoos. If you’re a Kam Pai Dragon, though, it’s better to “be invisible.”

Greg and Detective Cavaliere return to the house where they met “Mr. Pan” and it has been emptied. They look around Jin Ming’s basement. They find where Park and his mother must have been living. Greg finds a lawyer’s business card on a desk. When Cavaliere looks at a photo of the three of them together, he tries to pick it up. He notices a trip string tied to the back of the photo, and yells, “Get down!” A small pair of blasts come from behind the shelf. Cavaliere fell in the blast, mostly, it seemed, from trying to get away from it.

Greg tells Grissom that he called the lawyer whose card he found on Kora’s desk. He says that Kora was suing Park’s doctor. He was paying her $25 per week. She wanted $50.

Grissom sits outside Park’s hospital room. He blocks Dr. Eisling, who shows up to administer more drugs. Grissom dresses him down for testing those drugs, that clearly weren’t needed, yet, when “doctors” have a stake in the pharmaceutical company that makes the drug. The woman from Child Protective Services says they’ll back Grissom.

Park, having seen that Grissom kept Eisling out of his room, tells him that they were living in Jin Ming’s house. He says that his uncle found them there, and saw the gastric tube. His mother fought with his uncle, then Jin showed up. Sung and Park managed to get away from Jin, and ran out. Hesitating, Park continues carefully, saying that Jin and Kora found them. According to the boy, Jin shot Sung and his mother, with two different guns. When Grissom tells Brass this, over the phone, Brass tells him that Sung, who was in on only a misdemeanor, was released with a 9mm.

In the lab, Grissom finds that Sung carried his gun inside the front of his waistband. Riley asks if Kora carried. Her purse showed traces, indicating a gun. She suggests that they shot each other, and Jin took off.

Riley and Grissom take Park, along with three mannequins marked to show bullet trajectory, to the parking lot where the shooting happened. He says that neither Jin, nor Kora fell before Jin shot her. When Grissom asks Park how he shot her, he positions the third dummy and points, “Bang! Bang!” The motion of his arm between shots indicates a position consistent with the low angles of the two bullets in his mother.

Brass says that juvie may be the best place for an eight-year-old with HIV. He’ll get the care he needs. Grissom says that he wished they hadn’t solved this one.

Post from: CSI Fanatic