***SPOILERS*** It's when just released on bail 22 year old Ernie Vogel, Don Reardon, was framed for the murder of Officer Mike Callahan, Jack Carr, that in trying to escape police capture and a possible one way ticket to the Illinois state electric chair he end's up on a ledge 19 floors above the street with only suicide on his mind. It's Let. Frank Ballinger, Lee Marvin, who takes it on himself to talk the desperate and suicidal Vogel down from the ledge who at the same time is trying to find who in fact murdered Officer Callahan.
As we soon learn Officer Callahan discovered corruption in the Chicago Poilce Departmenmt and was about to expose it to the media. It was Det. Gus Simmions, Ward Wood, who had both Vogel framed and Callahan whacked to keep the truth about the Chicago PD from ever seeing the light of day! The big mistake on Simmons' part is that Vogel wasn't gunned down by the police as a suspected cop killer and now, if he survives, is on the verge of exposing police corruption. Which makes his demise even more critical for Let. Simmions and all those other cops that the late Officer Callahan has the goods on!
***SPOILERS*** Let. Ballinger uses psychology and nerves of steel as well as police work to finally get the innocent Vogel to get off the ledge and prevent him from killing himself. And at the same time Let. Ballinger also risks his life in doing it. In the end Vogel ended up a hero by just staying alive and not allowing himself to be a pasty in Officer Callahan's murder. Something that the corrupt Let. Simmions did, in trying to get Vogel to kill himself, everything to possibly make happen.
P.S This M Squad episode so unraveled the then Chicago Mayor Richard P. Daley that he went as far as trying to prevent the series to be filmed in the city. It was not until some ten years later when during the 1968 Democartic Convention in Chicago that people, if they didn't know by then, finally realized what kind of police force Mayor Daely was running. It was then that Mayor Daley let loose his men in blue against a mostly peaceful group of anti war demonstrators in what was later describes as a police riot that made the police corruption in this M Squad episode, which Mayor Daley had no part of, look like child's play in comparison!
As we soon learn Officer Callahan discovered corruption in the Chicago Poilce Departmenmt and was about to expose it to the media. It was Det. Gus Simmions, Ward Wood, who had both Vogel framed and Callahan whacked to keep the truth about the Chicago PD from ever seeing the light of day! The big mistake on Simmons' part is that Vogel wasn't gunned down by the police as a suspected cop killer and now, if he survives, is on the verge of exposing police corruption. Which makes his demise even more critical for Let. Simmions and all those other cops that the late Officer Callahan has the goods on!
***SPOILERS*** Let. Ballinger uses psychology and nerves of steel as well as police work to finally get the innocent Vogel to get off the ledge and prevent him from killing himself. And at the same time Let. Ballinger also risks his life in doing it. In the end Vogel ended up a hero by just staying alive and not allowing himself to be a pasty in Officer Callahan's murder. Something that the corrupt Let. Simmions did, in trying to get Vogel to kill himself, everything to possibly make happen.
P.S This M Squad episode so unraveled the then Chicago Mayor Richard P. Daley that he went as far as trying to prevent the series to be filmed in the city. It was not until some ten years later when during the 1968 Democartic Convention in Chicago that people, if they didn't know by then, finally realized what kind of police force Mayor Daely was running. It was then that Mayor Daley let loose his men in blue against a mostly peaceful group of anti war demonstrators in what was later describes as a police riot that made the police corruption in this M Squad episode, which Mayor Daley had no part of, look like child's play in comparison!
