Vic Mackey

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The Shield character
Vic Mackey
Gender	Male
Hair color	Bald
Profession	Police officer
Rank	Sergeant
Position	Detective
Current status	Strike Team leader
Known relatives	Corinne (Ex-wife) Cassity (Daughter) Matthew (Son)
Portrayed by	Michael Chiklis
First appearance	Episode 1.1

Detective Vic Mackey is the fictional leader of the Strike Team, a four-man anti-gang unit in the television drama series The Shield. Mackey is played by Michael Chiklis.

Mackey is an extremely corrupt but effective police officer; he steals drugs from drug dealers, beats and tortures suspects, and has committed murder more than once. Mackey sees his tactics as a means to an end. Despite his misdeeds, he is a devoted father, a loyal partner to other cops on his team, and will readily protect those he sees as innocent victims.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Terry's murder 3 Mackey's morality 4 Crimes of Vic Mackey 5 Mackey and Aceveda 6 Family life 7 Other relationships 8 Mackey's notable "incidents" 9 Trivia 10 External links

[edit] Early life

Very little is known about Mackey's early life, although he once mentioned that his father was a bricklayer. In Season Five, he told Lt. Jon Kavanaugh that he had been a cop for 14 years, suggesting that he joined the force sometime between 1991 and 1992.

[edit] Terry's murder

Arguably Mackey's worst crime was murdering the fifth member of his team, Terry Crowley, who was sent by Captain David Aceveda and the Justice Department to prove the Strike Team was working with a drug dealer. While on a raid in a criminal's house during police work, Mackey shot Crowley in the face, fatally wounding him. Though he used the dead criminal's gun to make it seem that the criminal had killed Crowley, Aceveda immediately suspected Mackey was behind it and set out to prove his guilt, but he was ultimately unsuccessful.

Mackey and Shane Vendrell are the only members of the Strike Team aware of the murder, though fellow member Curtis Lemansky would eventually be given a form of the events years later. Mackey has since occasionally expressed regret over Crowley's death.

[edit] Mackey's morality

Vic Mackey's morality is often the biggest question concerning his character. While he has a solid status as a family man, he has cheated on his wife with more than one woman (namely fellow officer Danielle Sofer, who gave birth to a child that many believe to be Vic's, including himself). And while he maintains loyalty to his team members, his murder of Terry Crowley has hung over their heads like a black cloud. He has been labeled corrupt several times, most notably by Captain David Aceveda, Captain Claudette Wyms, and Internal Affairs Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh, but has managed to avoid being caught thus far in his illegal activities.

The closest he has gotten to being caught was when Officer Julien Lowe caught him and the Strike Team bagging evidence from a crime scene (in this case, narcotics), but Mackey made him change his statement by threatening to expose his homosexuality to the entire department. Many see Mackey's personality as Machiavellian, meaning "the ends justify the means" (this has earned him comparisons to another popular television character, 24's Jack Bauer). However, this may also lead to his downfall, which he narrowly avoided in Season Five, but not without losing a trusted member of his team, Curtis Lemansky (who, ironically, was murdered by Vic's best friend Shane Vendrell).

It's very doubtful that, due to the way he does his job, his business, and the number of times that he has already escaped by the skin of his teeth, that there will ever be "a happy ending" for Vic. He steals money to help pay for his kids' autism treatment as well as alimony to his ex-wife Corinne. He has loyalty to his friends, but this has also come with a price. He has helped bail his friend Shane out of numerous predicaments, but Shane never learns. He went to great lengths to pull Curtis Lemansky out of Jon Kavanaugh's clutches in the fifth season, only to lose him to a grenade intentionally thrown by Shane.

In the second season, Vic helped his ex-partner and training officer, Joe Clark, bring down the man who got him booted from the force, only to take a bullet in the alley in which they busted the perp. Despite all of the crimes and questionable acts he has committed, Mackey is one of television's most popular characters and, ironically, is considered to be the show's protagonist. Many see his style as a necessary way to bring down the most uncivilized criminals in a dangerous precinct, although he has gone too far on more than one occasion.

[edit] Crimes of Vic Mackey

The Strike Team has committed several crimes that would likely earn long prison sentences.

• The murder of Terry Crowley.
• The murder of Armenian drug kingpin Margos Dezerian.
• The theft of millions of dollars from the Armenian Mob.
• Hijacking a police evidence van.
• Blackmailing Julien to get him to recant his allegations against the Strike Team. Mackey held over Julien's head the fact that he knew he was gay and threated to reveal it to everyone if Julien would not help him.
• Functioning as a go-between in allowing drugs to flow through Farmington.
• Embezzlement of thousands of dollars from seizures, arrests, or other police-related activities.
• Participating with gang members in the robbery of a police warehouse in which a police officer and gang member were murdered.

[edit] Mackey and Aceveda

The tension between Mackey and Aceveda has evolved in different ways from the birth of The Shield. In the first season Aceveda was heavily bent out to prove Mackey's guilt, putting out all his effort to take him down. Mackey detested Aceveda's political ambitions, but Aceveda continued to label Mackey as "Al Capone with a badge."

At the start of the second season, Aceveda, not wanting a scandal in the midst of his political career, agreed to watch Mackey's back if the Strike Team cleaned up their act and exhibited professionalism at all times possible, creating a very subtle, bumpy friendship between the two. The "friendship" at the start of season 4 seemed to be definitively done for.

[edit] Family life

Mackey was married for a little over 12 years to his wife, Corinne. However, problems between the two resulted in the marriage disintegrating. Though he often cheated on his wife, he was devastated when she left him. He loves his three children deeply and will do whatever he needs to do in order to help them.

This was displayed in season two where, despite suffering pain from a gunshot wound, he takes time to see his kids in the hospital's waiting room prior to seeking medical attention (he zipped his jacket up to cover the wound, which was in his lower abdomen).

In season one, his son Matthew was diagnosed with autism. It then seems like his youngest daughter is autistic as well. These family problems are the overriding factor as to why Mackey took part in the money train robbery.

[edit] Other relationships

Mackey's training officer and first partner was Joe Clarke, who schooled him in how to deal with violent street criminals and also how to bend the laws to his advantage. Clarke was eventually dismissed from the force for beating a suspect. Clarke's legacy to Vic was the justification that they always "did more good than bad."

Mackey also had a close friendship with a prostitute, Connie, whom in an unseen story he found "lying in a bathroom in a pool of bloody crystals," trying to end her pregnancy with drain cleaner and a plunger. He told her if she ever needed any help she could call him, and since then they've always had a deep bond. Connie was killed in season 2 while shacking up with a murderer in a criminal informant assignment. Since her death, Mackey occasionally checks in on her son, Brian, who is in foster care.

Vic was rumored to be the father of a fellow officer's child as well. It is alluded to, throughout the 4th season, that his affair with Officer Danielle "Danny" Sofer resulted in her pregnancy. Sofer's child, a boy whom she names Lee, is implied to be Vic's child during the final episode of the fifth season, in a scene where Vic visits her in the hospital after the birth and holds the child in his arms. However, the child is never expressly confirmed to be Vic's, but it is implied to be his.

During another episode in the fifth season, Vic, in an attempt to throw Internal Affairs officer Jon Kavanaugh from his game, sleeps with Kavanaugh's ex-wife and proceeds to inform him of this action. In response, Kavanaugh tries to stoop to Mackey's level by sleeping with Corinne (Mackey's ex-wife), but she rejects his advances. He accepts this as a form of mental defeat by Mackey.

[edit] Mackey's notable "incidents"

Some of Mackey's most notable incidents include:

• Murder of a police officer — Terry Crowley, a fellow Strike Team member.
• Broiling Armadillo's face on a stove (in retaliation for the gang leader's rape of a twelve-year-old and for burning to death a CI who was a friend of his).
• Stacking tires around a suspect's body and threatening to light him on fire.
• Nearly drowning someone in a barrel of used motor oil.
• Threatening to throw a man out a window after forcing him to write a crudely written suicide note.
• Driving a suspect into an enemy gang territory and rolling down his window telling an enemy gang member that the suspect made sexual comments about his sister, and waited for the car to be surrounded by enemy gang members and then telling the suspect that he better tell him what he wants to know or he would "have to find another ride home".
• Taking a murderer and transporting him across the border, where he was planted with a weapon and arrested by Mexican police.
• Interrogating a teenager by handcuffing him to a metal pole and shocking him with the suspect's own stun gun.
• Blackmailing fellow officer Julien Lowe, who saw Vic and the Strike Team stealing cocaine.
• Threatening a CI with a knife when she confessed that she had given his teammate, Lem, up to Internal Affairs.
• Stopping an attack on a Hispanic man by rioting teenagers by using a firehose. (This incident probably was justified, as Mackey states, "would you rather have them wet and alive, or dry and dead", this may be a reference to the high probability that a SWAT Team (seen arriving just before hand) would have used rather more lethal methods).
• Threatening to plant crack cocaine on a teenager unless he told who he saw ambush and kill two Farmington cops.
• Getting a serial rapist cornered, then standing back and letting a police dog have a few bites at him before having the dog called off.
• Orchestrating the theft of millions of dollars from the Armenian Mob, and leading the Strike Teams plans to cover up their actions, which led to the Armenian Mob murdering several innocent suspects.
• Murdering the Armenian hit man, Margos Dezerian, sent to find out and kill who stole the mob's money.
• Striking a deal with Antwon Mitchell in order to secure the safety of Lem, in which Vic along with Ronnie and Shane helped criminals to break into a police warehouse. In the course of the crime, the criminals shot and killed the guard. They also shot Kern Little, whom Vic used to work with and was on somewhat friendly terms with. Vic allowed Kern to die rather than help him, and covered up both his murder and the murder of the guard, although Vic was clearly distressed by the ordeal.
• Tying a Russian arms dealer to a chair wired with C4 plastic explosives as a scare tactic for information, which resulted in the man panicking and tipping himself over, thereby detonating the explosives.
• Locking two rival gang members in a storage locker overnight in order for them to sort out their differences. One of the gang leaders murders the other.

[edit] Trivia

• Mackey appears to favor a Smith & Wesson Model 4506-1 Pistol in .45 ACP and carries a snub-nosed revolver as a backup gun.
• Mackey wears a Cartier SA Must 21 Chronograph wristwatch.

[edit] External links

• MoreThings A short discussion of Vic Mackey's morality (or lack thereof).
• Vic Mackey Photo Gallery