L.A. Police Lieutenant Winslow

[billswoman]

Call it a hunch, but my vote: Bad Cop! (No doughnut!)

[Jo Pierce - GAH Noir]

But he would be a good cop gone bad... which is a special category, isn't it?

Then again, I am like Ralph when I think that no one is BORN bad, and they turn bad at some point. So that would apply to all the baddies, right?

Even Alicia?

[Houdiniderek]

I have to say that Tracy WAS a bad cop in the end, but how would he classify originally? I have to agree that he used to be worth his weight in gold to SOME degree. He DID bust criminals and he got frustrated when it didn't work out right in the justice system.

However, I agree with BW that he was bad too. I agree that people are not BORN bad, but I think this might be a long-term thing with Winslow. Who knows what he might have done in Korea and such...under the guise of orders. Maybe he learned to be ruthless and cunning in an evil way AFTER getting frustrated at the North Koreans. This could be a pattern behavior if we go back far enough and Bill would not notice for two reasons: 1. Hero worship and 2. Korea was a battleground and different rules applied.

I think that Tracy did not understand the difference and might have suffered to some degree from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which put him in an odd position when confronted with Bill who was a former soldier and who was able to isolate the past from the present.

Overall, I think Tracy was a good man, but I think his tendency to step outside the law designates him as a bad guy.

[billswoman]

I think he was, up till the whole Dave Owens thing, a basically good person. We see his frustration at the so-called "justice" system, so maybe when he and his cop cohorts decide, The hell with it, we're going to get us a piece of the pie and make tracks, it was because of this continual frustration at seeing criminals released within hours of being apprehended.

I don't think Winslow tapped Bill soley for his role as a Fed, as Bill realized... I think he cared enough about Billy to see if he wanted to join in.

Winslow's main mistake was thinking Bill would EVER go bad. "I'm a good Fed, right down to my hair!"