This article contains spoilers for the Feb. 20 episode of “Law & Order: SVU.”
In Thursday night’s episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” Detective Joe Velasco, played by Octavio Pisano, learns the only way to catch a local rapist is to connect with his neighbors in Washington Heights, who don’t exactly trust the police.
His extra effort earns high praise from Captain Benson (Mariska Hargitay): At the end of the episode, she tells him he has “command presence.”
First, he had to befriend his noisy downstairs neighbor, an ambitious young security guard Danny (Ethan Jones Romero), who wound up in jail after beating up a man he thought was the suspect.