Precinct Captain Furillo tries to defuse a hostage situation despite the advice of his gung-ho Emergency Action Team leader and the temperament of a self-absorbed gang leader; public defender Joyce Davenport tries to find a client who has been lost in the bureaucratic maze; Detective LaRue gets a lapful of coffee; Sgt. Esterhaus confides to Fay about his teenage sweetheart; Officers Hill and Renko are shot in the line of duty.
Hill and Renko meet again for the first time since their shooting; Esterhaus tries to avoid Grace Gardner, the new police decorator; two transfer officers get themselves into trouble; Belker pursues rapists in the park; and Furillo must deal with Fay's demands for more money and an impending Presidential visit.
The Dekker Avenue Merchants Association continues helping the police; Eddie Hoban finds himself out in the cold; Hill, Renko and Belker all have personal problems; Furillo tries to help a confused Santini decide what to do; and LaRue asks Cynthia Chase along on a dull stakeout that suddenly heats up.
Renko gets put out when a Division homicide detective ridicules his efforts to learn who killed a 15-year-old prostitute; Furillo learns that he may be in line for a promotion to commander; LaRue and Washington have a surprise for Hunter during his annual Alligator hunt in the city sewers; and Fay asks Furillo's help with an obscene phone caller.
Esterhaus faces immense pressure as his wedding day to Cindy dawns and Grace shows him what he's giving up; Furillo resents providing protection for Ralph Macafee, who's now a state witness; Belker busts an entertaining professional cat burglar; and everyone scrambles to get ready for the wedding ceremony.
Neal continues to investigate the Weeks shooting, despite pressure from the Chief to drop it because of the bad publicity; LaRue goes from one shady scam to another as he tries to raise money; Belker's sham fence operation nets a surprise; Shirrett Anders leaves her children again; Furillo warns LaRue to get help for his drinking problem after he ruins a drug bust; and Joe Coffey, Lucy's new partner, is shot.
A prostitute accuses a detective of blackmailing her for sex; Goldblume searches for a missing child; a former gang leader returns to the Hill as crusading social reformer; Belker busts a purse snatching orangutan and keeps in touch with an undercover rookie planted inside a volatile street gang; and Furillo and Esterhaus question their current romantic involvements.
The Captain meets LaRue and Washington when he returns from a purse snatching; Renko (who has lost his service revolver) and Hill are rear-ended by a wedding party; Bates gets mad at Coffey when he stands her up for a breakfast date; Lou threatens again to remove his vending machines from the precinct house; Daniels tells Furillo to initiate a scam saloon in the South Ferry Precinct as a preemptive move against the corruption-seeking Sullivan Commission.
Hunter uses pedigreed hounds to track wild city dogs; the scam saloon begins producing results, despite Captain Freedom's help; Fay fixates on cemetery plots; Frank becomes incresingly disgusted with his lawyer and Chief Daniels over the actions of the Sullivan Commission; and a suspicious Calletano learns the truth about a gorgeous new khaki officer.
Bates plays in the interdepartmental poker finals; Fuchs refuses to help out one of his own men caught forging prescriptions; Henry goes undercover on a smash-and-grab purse snatching detail; Delgado admits he's afraid of testifying before the commission; Joyce chides Furillo for being naive about his supposed innocence protecting him against the commission; the scam saloon closes down after a gun battle; and a furious Furillo testifies before the commission and offers his resignation to Chief Daniels.
Grace asks Esterhaus for help with a barking dog; LaRue suffers a crisis of confidence about the PCP lab bust and starts drinking; Renko's family problems hurt his performance at work; Hill antagonizes everyone in his efforts to recruit for the BOC; Goldblume resorts to force to deal with landlord Sosa; and Furillo tries in vain to hold onto Walter Harmon for the death of Pam Gilliam.
Furillo throws away the rule book when two young men rape and murder a nun during a church robbery; Belker befriends gay prostitute Eddie Gregg; Calletano faces a tax audit; and Joyce feels helpless as public opinion works to destroy her client.
Belker forgets his mother's birthday; Hill and Renko look into urban cattle rustling; LaRue and Washington apply for jobs in the Bahamas; and Furillo sits on a board of rights for a fellow captain accused of neglecting his duties.
Hill and Renko arrest councilman Detweiler for drunken driving; Belker is joined by actor Jon Gennaro on his undercover job; Fay goes to work as a crime reporter for an advertising weekly; and Furillo looks into the charges made against his men by a bitter Lou Hogan.
Gennaro accompanies Belker on a drug buy; LaRue and Washington set up two patrolmen accused by Hogan of stealing from burglary victims; Renko's birthday is less than happy; and Furillo uses his favor to Detweiler to save Goldblume's job when Hogan's accusations prove partially correct.
Joyce humiliates an unprepared Bates on the witness stand; Renko pushes an assault victim to press charges; Furillo's son is missing; and Calletano expresses his true feelings at a luncheon honoring him as the Hispanic Officer of the Year.
At a condemned building site, Hill and Renko try to persuade a black grandmother that she has to move while Goldblume tries to keep an old man afraid of his new living arrangements from jumping off; Belker thwarts a robbery while applying for a bank loan; and LaRue and Washington butt heads with a special narcotics undercover cop dealing with the same cocaine peddler.
Belker goes undercover to investigate a scam using bums to collect injury insurance benefits; Coffey tries to relate to a Vietnam vet suffering from traumatic stress; and Daniels orders Furillo to cut off Fuchs from the Maizel homicide investigation.
LaRue and Washington open Maizel's safety deposit box and find evidence of his corruption; Bates and Coffey try to help an abused child with her baby; Belker ends his insurance scam investigation with a visit to Hill's doctor; and Daniels pressures Furillo to keep quiet about Maizel.
The governor's dog is stolen; Renko and Theresa quarrel at a party; six rookies face hazing; LaRue and Washington try to chase down an autopsy report; and Eddie Gregg becomes Belker's snitch.
Belker makes a bust while picking up a ring at a jewelry store; Furillo tries to make a murder case without a body or autopsy report; Renko gets dumped; the Phantom strikes one final time; and a terrified Eddie implicates his lover in a vicious drug murder.
The governor's dog is found; Eddie's role as an informant leaks out; Furillo tries to stop coroner Nydorf from testifying; and Crawford decides on his future course as a policeman.
Washington's guilt over shooting a bystander resurfaces; Hill's vagabond father pays a visit; Belker goes undercover as Santa Claus; and Bates spends the holiday in the hospital.
An armored-car robbery nets a long sought political radical and everyone tries a new takeout Chinese restaurant.
A veteran cop's daughter is raped; a terrified woman asks Goldblume for help with her vindictive ex-boyfriend; Hunter looks for the rat that bit Daniels; Bates and Coffey answer a call about a survivalist; and Renko gets busted down to a moped and traffic ticket duty.
Furillo clashes with Daniels over a new crime sweep; Renko rescues people from a burning building; Goldblume feels helpless to help the sad young woman threatened by her boyfriend; Hill puts Benedetto in his place; and Joyce has an interview with the Justice Department.
The courts settle Daniels' crime operation; a jealous Furillo questions Joyce about her interview at the Justice Department; LaRue imports a surplus tank; Fay gets herself arrested so she can confront Judge Grogan about the paternity of her expected child; and Goldblume outthinks some gang members threatening a stand up young man who turned in their friends.
LaRue makes a fool of himself with some high school girls; Belker endangers his relationship with Robin by trying to protect her; a talkative comic is brought in on numerous parking tickets; Goldblume and Calletano clash over seniority and rank; Coffey is forced to deal roughly with a man tripping on PCP.
Coroner Nydorf offers to fix things when Coffey is accused of killing a prisoner in custody; LaRue develops another scheme to make money out of a comic named Vic Hitler; Joyce decides her future.
Bates poses as a bus driver; LaRue continues to groom Vic Hitler for his debut; Daniels is ready to sacrifice Coffey to quiet public opinion; and Furillo and Davenport take a major step in their lives.
The brutal Benedetto comes to the Hill on a loan sharking assignment; Furillo and Goldblume question a murder suspect who may have multiple personalities.
Washington goes undercover on Benedetto's loan shark scheme; Hill and Renko, desperate for cash since the payroll talks are stalled, find a suitcase full of temptation; and LaRue tries to clean up in the body parts pool for the missing Buddy Genett.
Belker and LaRue learn that Washington was set up by someone in the station house; the long overdue cash payroll is hijacked; Joyce meets a really nice purse snatcher; and Furillo finds Jesus Martinez behind bars.
The only witness to a massacre in a gay bar is an off duty cop; the Cisco Kid ties up traffic; and Goldblume offers to be Fay's natural childbirth coach.
Hill wins $100,000 in the lottery; Deputy Chief Mahoney tries to ride herd on Furillo's precinct; mayoral candidate Benjamin Fisk moves into a crime-ridden housing project; Goldblume tries to help Hector Ruiz control the Diablos; and Coffey and Bates bust a couple of lady mud wrestlers.
LaRue and Washington salvage a man's severed arm; Joyce defends a frantic West Indian cabbie; Hector Ruiz takes one final hostage; and Hill alienates many of his friends with his new attitude.
Kiki tries to persuade Eldridge to change his story; Hill's behavior gets worse and worse as he blows all his money; Fisk returns to the housing project with tragic results; Coffey sulks when Bates scores higher on the sergeant's exam; and Daniels has to make peace between Furillo and Mahoney.
Commander Ozzie Cleveland enters the mayoral race; Officer Perez accidentally shoots a little boy; Daniels begins "Operation Tenderloin" out of a sexual cafeteria; and Mahoney tries to make political capitol for Daniels out of the Robson shooting.
A pair of sweet junkie lovers create a hostage situation; the Robson arrest blows up in Daniels' face; and Wachtel shows up at the Wonderland as Murray's lawyer.
On election day, Goldblume tries to keep a last minute candidate clear of the polling places; Mahoney turns on Daniels; Wachtel reports gangsters threatening to torch Murray's Wonderland; and Furillo tries to help Perez' family.
Bates and Coffey clean up "Buck Naked" for a court appearance; a busted bookie turns over several tapes incriminating cops on the take, including a rookie Hunter; Belker pursues a paraplegic who spray painted his car; and Hill boxes for the precinct.
Hill has one last fight; Coffey and Bates take on Honky, the guard goose; Belker gets some unexpected help when he goes undercover in a wheelchair; bookie Ben Seltzer gives up a pay off drop point for a judge on the take; and Hunter refuses to admit he attempted suicide or needs any help.
Three visiting Russians bring their personal problems to the Hill; Belker goes undercover as an ambulance attendant; LaRue's brother-in-law is busted for soliciting a police officer; Joyce, the judge, and the victim try hard to keep a mentally slow young man out of jail; and Fay and Goldblume worry about how Furillo will feel about their relationship.
Bates and Coffey take over a storefront police/community relations project; a cop killer seems to be roaming the streets; Daryl Ann buys the wrong motorcycle for Renko; Joyce behaves oddly about buying a house; Leo and Ray try out an unorthodox method to get rid of the rats; and Daniels tries to short circuit Cleveland's corruption task force by exposing a network within the special Vice detail.
The rats return; Esterhaus is hospitalized for tests; Bates, Coffey and Joyce try to protect a woman and her children from her abusive husband; the latest cop killing looks to be a hired gun copying the random killer; and the corruption investigation strikes close to Hill Street; Hill Street gets word of the murder of Marty Nichols.
Furillo loses an old friend as the corruption investigation winds up; a romantic triangle transfers to the Hill and comes to a boil; and Coffey gets shot by the cop killer.
Sergeant Esterhaus dies unexpectedly and the whole station house tries to deal with their grief as they eulogize the man. Meanwhile, Leo finds out his wife is cheating on him; Bates may get a unique promotion; Mrs. Furillo is mistakenly arrested for soliciting by a rookie; Sandy is raped.
Goldblume is fascinated by a call girl held on murder charges whose elite clientele has newspapers bidding for her story and her fearful clients threatening her life. Also, tributes to Esterhaus continue to roll in.
A judge intent on elevating jail conditions releases the court's overflow back into the streets; Bates has a rocky start as roll call sergeant; another professional hit covers up the murder of Whitney Barnes; after his memorial service, Furillo follows Esterhaus' last wishes to scatter his ashes on the Hill.
Belker has a final run in with his bald headed pickpocket with many names; Joyce defends a man whose brother plans to threaten the prosecution witness into silence; and Operation Stop 'N Cop begins.
A census taker disappears while working in the precinct; the Mullins brothers promise Furillo that Joyce will die if she testifies against Timothy; Daniels relieves Furillo of command; and Daryl Ann asks Renko to marry her.
Goldblume and Calletano try to figure out station command as Furillo tries to resist taking a drink; LaRue and Washington dog William Mullins to protect Joyce; and Renko finds he has similar problems to Jesus Martinez.
Garibaldi tries to save himself some money by doing some unofficial police work for a guy whose car he rearended; Belker is left exposed on his latest undercover by agents from another agency; and the mayor's gang appointee to the Youth Commission comes under fire for favoritism.
Calletano prepares for a game show appearance; Renko tries to organize his wedding attendants; Peabody goes to the loan sharks Belker has infiltrated; and Furillo has to deal with renewed gang violence and Joyce's decision to take some time alone.
Belker's loan sharks commandeer a prison bus and demand him in exchange for their hostages; Goldblume tries an unusual video-dating service; Renko has second thoughts as his wedding approaches while Coffey "invests" the wedding present money.
New roll call sergeant Jablonski is called out by a woman; Mayo handles a messy assault case against an elderly couple; the impending execution of Celestine Grey upsets Furillo and Goldblume; Fay tries to help an out of town couple who've lost everything to muggers; and Laura Ann Renko is born.
Goldblume takes the law into his own hands when his ex-wife Rachel is raped and refuses to press charges; Belker's undercover at the Stratford Hotel ends with Calletano and the Fimpels taken hostage; Hunter tries to defend an EATer's callous remarks during the taking of a sniper; and Joyce continues to work for Celestine's life.
Furillo calls Goldblume off the murder investigation of his wife's rapist; Bates has problems with an insolent rookie; Mayo and Garibaldi bust a bogus cable TV installer; Belker goes undercover in a chicken suit and is plagued by a mime; and Hunter insults a female khaki officer, who barricades herself in the john.
Rookie Swann kills himself after the initiation party at the Kubiak Lodge; LaRue tells Furillo about his night with a murder victim's wife; another hooker is killed by a copycat murderer; and the lieutenants quarrel over a government study grant.
Jablonski deals with a woman who has lost her cat; Renko suffers after a TV newswoman exposes his fondness for doughnuts; LaRue looks very bad to IAD after shooting Caroline Reynolds' former lover; Goldblume pushes to tie Buttman to the hooker killing; Washington fumes over the firing of Garfield; everyone tries a new Bengali restaurant.
Furillo feels pressure from the press and Chief Daniels to clear up the shooting death of the Reverend Booker Simons; Joe Keenan interferes on the Hill in pursuit of some renegade Colombian drug dealers; Joyce tries to help a very young hooker straighten out; LaRue and Washington are forced to move early on a chop shop where Belker is undercover; Fay endangers the Simons investigation by revealing information to the victim's wife; Hill and Renko find a dead man and a live sheep in a compromising position; and Jesus (Martinez) rises again.
Belker plans to accompany a prisoner to Las Vegas; Mayo and Garibaldi follow a juvenile murder suspect who has threatened witnesses; Hill faces an IRS audit, with tips from Ray; LaRue and Washington catch a guy with stolen airline ticket forms; Joyce works with a burned out P.D. on the defense of Escobedo and Munoz on assault charges; and Coffey and Bates bust a young black boy for shoplifting.
An assassination attempt against Mayor Cleveland during the rededication of the Monarch Theater opens up a nest of corruption in Daniels' office; several officers catch the "blue flu" and head for Las Vegas with Belker, who wins $5000 on a free spin; Vera Horvath continues to hound Stan; and Hill and Renko try to settle a dispute involving a stolen lottery ticket.
Renewed gang feuding involves a small local grocery store and its owners; Belker takes his anger about Robin's decision to stop seeing him out on his frightened informant during a beauty parlor undercover; Garibaldi cuts corners to help a young hooker and in his night school class; and Furillo must work against Daniels to head off a major gang battle.
Belker temporarily moves into Hunter's RV; Joyce introduces a new PD to the Hill before leaving to become an ADA; LaRue gloats over the videotape evidence of Mayo's undercover visit to Dr. Ted Rose; Fabian's mother reclaims him; and Hill and Renko deal with a man who has several outstanding warrants and who has just lost his whole family to a hit and run driver.
Belker keeps running up against a bitter one man band; Gina Srignoli agrees to wear a wire in an effort to incriminate Al DiPiano; Fay goes a little too far to help a welfare mother assaulted by her abusive boyfriend; and Howard tries to sell his RV only to have it stolen by the first interested party.
The arson squad questions Jablonski about the fire at BowlMor Lanes; Hill remains angry at Renko over his hesitation under pressure; Bates and Coffey are assigned to make a wino presentable for his appearance in court; Furillo gets a copy of LaRue's slightly altered home security video; and Davenport puts her job on the line when she refuses to accept the security cops' version of an alleged window smashing at the volatile O'Neil Projects.
Detective Phil Dugan cuts some corners to catch an elusive mobster; Goldblume pursues a solitary investigation into Gina's death; Hill and Renko try to help a homeless family caught up in red tape; Coffey gets to ride with Jablonski; Calletano and Hunter test for the captain's position; and everyone faces a random drug screening.
Bates gets to know an art teacher; Coffey, Renko, LaRue and Washington bet on who can drive to work the fastest; Renko has to bust his favorite singer for cocaine possession; Goldblume is taken hostage by a militant on the edge of sanity bombarding his neighbors with a high decibel barrage of words.
A runner trying to raise money for cancer research is victimized; Daniels asks Furillo to head up an internal investigation of corruption arising out of Keenan's death; Garibaldi's death shakes the station house; Lee Cleveland comes to the end of his rope; and Howard gets a shock from his latest love.
Buntz catches a mugger only to lose him when the victim won't press charges; a sculptor refuses to let anyone remove his obscene work of art; Lynnetta pushes Neal about commitment to her and her son with tragic results; Belker goes undercover to learn why so many vagrants have fallen from high buildings recently.
Belker's undercover at a bookie joint gets him involved in a protest against Nazis parading through the precinct; Furillo angers the chief and many others with his hard line pursuit of a senile drug king on trial for a relatively minor sale; Hill's father drifts into town claiming to be dying; and Jablonski tries to mediate between a priest and a scrap metal dealer.
Coffey tries to mediate between an irate landlord and a tenant who insists an image on his water stained wall is that of the Virgin Mary; the Furillos tries to renew a family relationship with his parents; Buntz uses "Officer Giblet" to make a drug bust; and the guys compete in a benefit tug of war competition.
Hill, Renko and Buntz look like heroes when they retrieve a stolen heart needed for a transplant; rookie officer Ron Garfield finds himself in trouble again when a second gun shows up at an officer involved shooting; and Belker misses his wedding ceremony when his undercover as a cocaine cooker heats up.
Hunter hallucinates he's aboard a Russian submarine; Belker finally gets married; Renko busts his favorite country singer again; Furillo meets with a political power broker about the Chief's job; Hill takes his daddy home to St. Louis for his burial; Buntz' old partner comes asking for help with a loan shark; and LaRue and Washington use a lady tattoo artist to help them find a killer.
LaRue and Washington continue to stake out the tattoo parlor for a killer; Bates has a tough decision to make about Fabian; Jablonski tries to enforce a city ban on smoking in the station house; Hill meets someone special at his father's funeral; Chief Daniels surprises Furillo by offering to endorse him as his successor; Buntz cuts some corners to get a dealer selling killer synthetic heroin off the streets.
Coffey persuades Bates to file guardianship papers for Fabian; Furillo considers returning to work as Daniels asks him for help getting the consultancy job he wants; Buntz appears on a TV small claims court; an impatient old woman messes up Belker's undercover at a pawn shop; and Hill, Renko, LaRue, Washington and Goldblume stumble on a courier for an international arms purchaser and deal themselves into his action.
Sid and Buntz wrestle with 80 lbs. of cocaine found in a suitcase at the site of a small plane crash; Goldblume looks into a suspected case of aspirin tampering; Belker goes under to look into a hotel owner scamming city housing chits from vagrants; Hill and Renko handle a domestic call concerning a woman abusing her invalid grandparents.
On his way to work, Hunter shoots a boy robbing a convenience store; Jablonski refuses to follow his doctor's orders about heart surgery ; the P.D.'s go on strike over job cuts by the city council; Belker struggles to protect senior citizens victimized by a violent mugger; and LaRue and Washington stake out a luscious young woman suspected of being a fence.
Chaos reigns as the P.D.'s job action continues; Hunter faces his demotion and takes over as roll call sergeant for the ailing Jablonski; the detective LaRue tried to bust as a fence transfers to the Hill; Flaherty and Bates try to defuse a man who promises to blow himself up for money; and Joyce walks a tightrope as she tries to end the job action and cut a deal for her client that would put away the violent mugger.
Goldblume is visited by an old friend, who is mugged and rejected by a publisher; Bernstein saves Joyce from an escaped prisoner and confesses he has a tremendous crush on her; Daniels warns Furillo that Calletano's station house is on the edge of a racial meltdown; and Russo loses an arrest in her undercover assignment because she slept with the subject.
Buntz is in charge of efforts to protect a convicted mobster on his way to jail from a killer hired by his nephew; Russo's undercover places her in another sexually fraught position; LaRue and Washington bust a guy who confesses to several unsolved murders; Jablonski helps Belker bust a bus bandit; and Calletano resigns from the force.
Councilman Wade spends the day exposing and exploiting the crack problem on the Hill; Grace Gardiner returns as Sister Charity and recruits Flaherty; Belker goes under in a seafood joint serving soul food to locate drug traffickers; Goldblume receives an offer to publish Steve Merkur's book; and the manpower shortage delays Buntz' loan shark arrest and costs him part of his finger.
Racial tensions rise again when a white undercover officer shoots his black partner; a temporarily blind Buntz goes undercover with Belker as a beggar; Hill and Renko find several skinned bodies; and Joyce tries to defend a shopkeeper who has adapted Nazi paraphernalia as a deterrent against robbers.
A radio promotion spawns trouble for everyone; Hill and Renko are assigned to a computerized patrol car; Buntz helps Sid get out of an arm-breaking assignment for a shylock; Hunter's return to action as the EATer commander fizzles; and LaRue, Washington and Joyce work on opposite sides to protect the rights of a mentally disturbed young man and his frightened mother and sister.
The Hill faces renewed gang violence when Jesus' sister is apparently kidnapped on the eve of her wedding to a Gypsy Boy; LaRue experiences emotional highs and lows when a perp's gun misfires three times in his face; Hunter is found, but his survival came at a high cost; IAD Shipman pursues a case against Buntz concerning a missing kilo of cocaine.
Sid and Furillo work to find out who is setting up Buntz while Daniels publicly vilifies him; LaRue decides to beat a TV crew doing a live broadcast from a gangster's cellar to the punch; Bates agrees to go out with Sal the plumber; rumors are flying about what will happen to the station house after a three-alarm fire guts it.