Hill Street Blues: Season 7

A suitcase containing eighty pounds of cocaine is stolen by a small-time dealer (Jack Kehler) after a light aircraft crash. Sid the Snitch and Buntz get involved as potential buyers, but a more-established dealer kills the small-time dealer and kidnaps Buntz at gunpoint; Buntz eventually kills him. (This plot line initially appears to be self-contained, but returns in the final two episodes of the series, setting up a spinoff series.) Belker is undercover among homeless people looking into a hot

After Hunter shoots a boy caught robbing a convenience store, Internal Affairs finds that neither his firearm nor the bullets used were department-issue, leaving Hunter subject to dismissal from the force; Belker struggles to protect senior citizens from a violent mugger; the public defenders are engaging in a work slow-down to protest recent cuts in their workforce, eventually electing to strike.; Judge Wachtel insults Davenport repeatedly from the bench, leading Davenport to slap him across th

Hunter is demoted to Sergeant as a result of the Internal Affairs investigation, and Furillo convinces him to take over the Desk Sergeant position; with the public defenders on strike, the officers must use discretion in making borderline arrests as the station overflows with suspects; Belker finds the storeowner cashing the checks of the mugged senior citizens; while Belker tries to get the name of the criminal from the shopowner, LaRue reopens the store - acting as the storeowner - and catches

Chief Daniels asks Furillo to intervene at the Polk Avenue Precinct, where racial tensions are simmering and Captain Calletano - derisively nicknamed "Captain Taco" by his officers (a nickname that first cropped up in episode 6.7) - has been unable to control the tensions, but Calletano denies there is a problem and vehemently resists help; Furillo looks on sadly as a brawl between white and black Polk Avenue officers erupts after a black officer is shot, and Calletano is unable to stop it; Inte

After Captain Calletano loses command of Polk Avenue and is reassigned to Division, he threatens to go to the press; several Polk Avenue officers are fired outright or reassigned; Officer James Sanders is transferred to Hill Street and is treated as a pariah; a college friend of Goldblume turns vigilante, with fatal consequences for criminals, police, and ultimately himself; Renko's damaged car is stolen by a hood who offers to get him full replacement cost from his insurance; Renko backs out, a

Renowned mobster "Uncle John" Petruzzi is expected to be assassinated prior to going to jail; Russo is beaten and raped by her mobster "boyfriend" while trying to discover the location and time of the hit; Belker counsels Russo on how to be an undercover cop; LaRue and Washington arrest a purse snatcher who then confesses to several high-profile murders, but further research reveals that he has not committed the crimes; Furillo has to intervene to help Ray Calletano, who is testing Chief Daniels

Grace Gardner, a character from the early seasons who dated Sergeant Esterhaus, returns as a nun planning outreach work on the Hill and Flaherty is assigned as liaison; Councilman Wade, out for personal glory, repeatedly jeopardizes the precinct's battle against drugs, shoots an unarmed juvenile dealer, claiming self-defense, and is arrested by Washington; Belker and Buntz (separately) are working on drug busts; Buntz is forced to delay his bust due to a lack of supporting officers and has his f

Councilman Wade attempts to derail Furillo's investigation of his shooting by revealing details from Washington's personnel file to the press to discredit the detective; Furillo and Washington discover the conspiracy that allowed Wade access to Washington's file, and Wade is arrested for the conspiracy; Grace Gardner's vocation is challenged by her attraction to Flaherty; Buntz chooses to be the one who arrests the loan shark who clipped his finger, but though he tries for a clean bust, the loan

Captain Furillo is advised that his father was shot and killed during a robbery; when he investigates and discovers that his father had a brain tumor and killed himself due to the pain, for his mother's sake Furillo disposes of the suicide weapon and uses his pull with the police to avoid having the case classified as a suicide; Belker - who has been suffering from nightmares regarding nuclear war - takes charge of an abandoned baby and then gets involved with the father's plight; a Korean resta

Racial tensions escalate when a white undercover officer (Sam McMurray) shoots his black partner; Buntz has temporarily lost his sight and goes undercover with Belker, posing as a beggar; a store-owner causes disturbance by displaying Nazi artefacts in his store; enraged because he was made to look like a liar in front of his black officers, Furillo strong-arms Chief Daniels into an apology to them over the shooting incident--and gets unexpected help when detective Patricia Mayo storms into Dani

LaRue thinks he has a chance with a new public defender, Sharon Fein, until she asks Washington for a date; later that day, Fein allows a criminal in the interrogation room to snatch a gun from her; he kidnaps Davenport at gunpoint and decamps from the station, eventually becoming holed up at a convenience store after shooting the owner; Davenport manages to broker an amnesty; Belker wrecks a car belonging to LaRue's brother-in-law while chasing a robber, and the car is later discovered to conta

Jablonski, Renko and Hill go on a deer-hunting weekend; after being accosted by state troopers, breaking into the wrong cabin, and recalling war-time experiences, the weekend is cut short when Hill steps on a spike during the hunt; Henry Goldblume, who had planned to join them, is sidetracked by a speech to the Boy Scouts, an unstable woman who accuses him of raping her in the Captain's office, and a lack of money; he is then kidnapped by a serial robber who, upon learning that Goldblume is a po

During a strike by refuse collectors, the police take over collections, with dramatic consequences when a gangland funeral interferes with a refuse collection route; Hunter is asked to take command of an EAT unit at a siege after their lieutenant is injured by the gunman, who turns out to be none other than Jack Ballantine, Hunter's former EAT second-in-command; Russo and Flaherty try to deal with an angry old deaf man who has been in a fight with crack addicts and who ends up shot by police aft

LaRue becomes obsessed with a radio contest to find the largest live cockroach; he loses the contest, but busts a wanted felon when he shows up to enter the contest; Buntz is worried about the state of Furillo's marriage, based on a (erroneous) tip; a drug user, released on bail after Goldblume changes his charge from a felony to a misdemeanor, kills a grandmother while intoxicated; Goldblume is suspended, but takes his complaints regarding understaffing to Chief Daniels and TV, with his actions

Due to a clerical change, the Hill Street Precinct is $130,000 short of their quota for seized narcotics, and is at risk of losing funding for overtime, and Buntz, in command for the day, mounts a campaign to meet the quota; Belker busts a tough kid named "Fetch" who bites and runs drugs; Russo and Flaherty bust a disowned snitch who tips them to a mobile drug lab, but the bust literally goes up in flames; Inspector Scapizzi sends his new girlfriend to the Hill to redecorate the station house, b

Seven members of a family are murdered in their home; Goldblume reluctantly tries to use a former member of the Blood as an informant, but the head of the Blood immediately identifies him as a "snitch"; Belker lucks into the identity of the murderers when he busts a low-level drug dealer who met the murderers immediately after the crime; Renko has both urine and vomit thrown upon him during his patrol, but his day improves when he delivers a baby girl and the parents name the child after him (An

A jealous Renko confronts his wife about her relationship with her business partner in her cookie-making company, and at the end of the episode, he sleeps with a classmate from night school; a Hill Street officer with limited fluency in Spanish shoots an innocent Hispanic when he doesn't understand what he's saying; Ray Calletano, now representing the Latin-American Coalition, threatens a lawsuit on the victim's behalf - until he finds out that Furillo would bear the blame; Flaherty's romantic i

Belker survives the shooting and is rushed to the hospital with a bullet near his spine; Buntz brutalizes Belker's snitch to get the name of Belker's contact, who refuses to provide any information and is later found dead; Furillo, who is blaming himself for Belker's injury, takes Buntz off the case, but Buntz continues investigating anyway and finds a District Attorney's investigator with connections to the stolen credit cards, Belker's contact and Belker himself; the investigator kills himself

The city is full of stunts after a radio station challenges citizens to commit "outrageous acts"; this includes gang members (one played by Cuba Gooding Jr) releasing a live piglet into the Hill Street squad room; with Hunter resuming command of the EAT, Bates resumes Desk Sergeant duties; Hill and Renko are assigned a new unit (2403), state of the art, and computer-controlled - with disastrous results, which include Renko inadvertently winning the radio competition when he accidentally causes t

A famous American football player (Keenen Ivory Wayans) is arrested for soliciting, but his high-powered attorney and Chief Daniels intervene to reduce the charges and protect his reputation; given 20-1 odds against beating the department's four-time marksmanship champion, LaRue's syndicate bets $400 on Buntz, but Buntz loses by two points in the final round of competition; Furillo backs a loan for his brother, whose construction company is in debt after missing a completion date on a project; f

Lieutenant Hunter is found alive after 11 days, and it is discovered that his friend had been dead for a week, and - under a pact with Hunter - Hunter ate a portion of him to stay alive; Hunter discusses this with Furillo (who advises him not to discuss it) and Prunella (who leaves him); Lieutenant Buntz is accused of stealing a kilogram of cocaine from the suitcase in Episode 1; a box containing $17,000 (actually belonging to his late friend Donahue) is found in Buntz's apartment, leading Inter

The final episode. The Hill Street stationhouse is gutted by fire, though the basic structure still stands; Lieutenant Buntz, Captain Furillo, and Sidney Thurston investigate the case against Buntz and uncover a plot to frame Buntz, in which Internal Affairs investigator Lieutenant Shipman is implicated; fearing that Shipman will flee prosecution, Buntz takes matters into his own hands and holds Shipman at gunpoint, and both are arrested: Shipman for the cover-up and Buntz for carrying a gun whi