CSI: Miami – Episode 7.11 “Tipping Point” Recap

CSI: Miami Episode 7.11 Tipping Point
Air Date: December 15, 2008

We see the blurry vision of a man lying in the back of a car. He seems to be suffering shock. There’s blood on the window.

As an large auger digs into ground, and we see the man lying, buried alive in a box. He cries out, when he sees the earth dug away, and the auger coming at him. The operator probably cannot hear him, though. The auger rises and lowers back into the box holding the man.

Horatio stands over the dead man. The auger operator tells him that they just broke ground that morning to begin an 18 month construction project. He says that his foreman thought he heard a scream, but it was too late by the time he could stop the machine. The man says that they began work on the site around 9:30 AM. He tells Horatio that he had picked the area with the loose dirt, thinking it would be an easy place to start, never imagining what was there.

At the site, Tara is examining the body. Calleigh asks her if he must have been sedated in order to have gotten him into the box. Tara points out a bullet wound on the man’s abdomen, which, apparently, she’s just now found. This is how he was so easy to get into the box. Frank interrupts to tell them that he’d just found out that someone called in a murder to the Crime Stoppers. The phoned-in description matches the construction site victim, so he was likely shot elsewhere and dumped at the scene.

Tara wonders, out loud, if they can believe a tip from someone who received a reward to give it. Frank points out that, aside from the call, they’re starting out without any leads. Calleigh asks Tara about the old-looking cell phone in the man’s pocket. Tara says it looks like a cardio messenger.

Tara tells Horatio that a cardio messenger sends data from the man’s pacemaker back to health care workers who can trace his arrhythmia. Using the device, she has identified the victim as Michael Olvera. The EKG data shows his heart stopping at 9:21 AM. It also shows that his blood pressure dipped sharply at 8:00 AM. So, that must be the time he was shot. They figure that the murderer had plenty of time in between to get him to the burial site.

At the building where Olvera lived, Delko and Horatio tell a young man of his murder. The man tells them how Olvera…AKA Reverend Mike…was a helpful man who probably was the reason that he wasn’t in prison. Olvera used the home to help teens learn life skills that helped keep them out of gangs. The young man says that Olvera always knew he was a target. The man was always having to clean up graffiti and fix broken windows. Recently, someone had painted the wall outside.

Delko photographs the painted wall, and uses an image filter to reveal the graffiti beneath. It says “Cranios Rifa”…translated “Cranios Control”. According to Delko, Cranios is a hispanic gang that has used kids to do their dirty work. Delko also finds a tag saying, “ZAR”, but doesn’t know what it means.

Frank escorts Wanda Ramoz into the station to see Horatio. He asks about her tip, but she wants to know how much she’ll get. Horatio is dismayed by her appeal for money, when a man has been murdered, but Frank tells her that Crime Stoppers can arrange for anywhere from $50 to $1000. She tells them that, while she was working placing flyers on windshields, she heard a gunshot. She spotted Reverend Mike lying on the ground next to a parked car. She ran, and didn’t see anyone else.

The team works the scene where Wanda saw Olvera. There is blood spattered on the curb, and Calleigh finds a 9mm bullet wedged in a tree. Delko finds a Saint Jude pendant lying in the water in the gutter. He wonders if it’s Olvera’s, since he’s the patron saint of lost causes, like the name he uses for his home.

Calleigh tells Horatio that the blood on the bullet matches Olvera, and finds a IBIS match to a bullet from a ten-year-old drug bust. That case records show an arrest of a Hector Salazar. The gun was never recovered, so they could only put him away for drug charges. He served ten years, and was released a week before.

Horatio asks Salazar about shooting Olvera. Salazar challenges that they couldn’t connect him to the gun ten years ago, and can’t now. Horatio, though, points out that the recent graffiti on Olvera’s house has the last three letter of his name on it –”ZAR”. Pointing out a nasty scar on his left forearm, Salazar claims to have seen the light, proving that the system works.

Frank shows Natalia a list of Crime Stoppers calls. She doubts their usefulness, but Frank points out one from Darryl Broadman, who lives across the street from where Olvera was shot. He called to turn in shouting from his neighbor’s apartment, around 8:00 AM.

Frank and Natalia visit the apartment where the shouting originated. The woman tells them that she was arguing with a funeral home over the cost of her daughter’s burial. Laura, her daughter, was shot three weeks earlier, while walking home from school. The funeral director accepted $1000 for the burial, but called to demand another $1000.

As Natalia tells Frank that she thinks there might be something about he funeral director, and that they should talk to him, Matteo, Laura’s brother catches up to them. He hands Natalia a brochure, and says it’s where his sister is. He asks if they can help his mom.

Valera asks Ryan why they didn’t tell her about Olvera’s necklace. She says that she might still be able to find blood in a crevice. She finds a trace, and matches the DNA to Rafael Vargas, a member of Cranios.

Horatio and Ryan go to arrest Vargas. As Ryan cuffs him, Horatio sees Wanda putting a flyer on the Hummer. He finds a message penned onto it, telling them that the “Craneos” are doing something in the shipping yard.

At the shipping yard, Delko and Horatio find a security guard locked in a container. He tells them that he was attacked by three men, who also took some ANFO…aluminum nitrate/fuel oil, an explosive…from the container. The guard describes one of the men as having a horrible scar on his left forearm: Hector Salazar.

Horatio tells Salazar that he should have covered his scar. Salazar says he wanted to be found. He claims to have wanted to help them find where Olvera was shot, and about the ANFO theft, having fed the information to Wanda Ramoz. He tells Horatio and Frank that Reverend Mike visited him a lot in prison, and convinced him that he had better options. When Olvera was murdered, he resolved to help bring down his own gang, and that it required someone on the inside. He pleads with them to let him help them. He tells Horatio that he remembered him as the cop that helped put away an inmate who had killed another inmate. Horatio was the first authority he’d known who cared about justice for the “animals” in the prison. Horatio agrees to let him help them.

Natalia visits the funeral director, claiming to have little money, and needing to bury her husband. He offers her “The Simple Things” package for $1000. She asks why, then, is he charging Gloria Nuñez twice as much for the same package, and holding her daughter’s body as ransom. Confronted with the facts, the director agrees to upgrade Mrs. Nuñez to the nicer package.

As Natalia tells Mrs. Nuñez about her visit to the funeral home, upstairs, Matteo pulls a handgun from his backpack. Matteo drops the gun and it goes off. Natalia pleads with him to tell her about he weapon, and what he knows about the murder. He won’t talk, so she takes him into custody.

Calleigh matches the ballistics on the weapon to the 9mm that killed Reverend Mike. Delko finds Matteo’s prints all over the gun. The partial print on the trigger, though, doesn’t match. It belongs to Freddie Granada, the kid from Reverend Mike’s home; one of his “lost causes”.

Horatio, Delko, and several uniforms catch up with Granada. With his UV flashlight, Delko finds blood traces in the back of his car. They tell him they found the gun, and ask why he killed Olvera. He says it was the price of admission to get back with “his boys”. He says that Reverend Mike lied. It wasn’t easier to be straight. No one would hire a former gang banger, but now he claims to have “benefits for life”. Delko challenges Granada’s claim to be “stone cold”, saying he would have just dumped the body, and wouldn’t have used a box.

Salazar calls Horatio, and says he knows what the ANFO is for. They plan to use it on Reverend Mike’s house. Horatio and Delko rush to the House of Lost Causes. Delko tosses a tactical camera into a window. He finds the detonator, but not the charges. They also see a woman lying on the floor. Horatio rushes in, though Delko warns him that there’s only thirty seconds left. He runs out with Wanda, just in time.

Wanda tells Horatio that she was attacked for informing the police. She says she liked the money she made by snitching for Hector, and tried to get more info on her own. Horatio promises to keep her in protective custody until they find the bomber.

Ryan and Calleigh examine the video from Delko’s tactical camera. They pan around, until they find the cans that held the explosives. Ryan recognizes them from Vargas’ shop. Horatio and the team arrive in time to find Vargas about to kill Hector Salazar. When Horatio and Delko enter, Vargas uses Salazar as a shield. Salazar, though, surprises him, managing to get away. Horatio fires and hits Vargas, but Vargas’ weapon goes off as he falls. The shot hits Salazar’s chest, and he goes down. Both men die on the shop floor.

As Horatio watches Hector die, he remembers Hector’s promise to bring down the Cranios, and his anger for their murdering Olvera, the man who was keeping kids from turning out like himself. A musical montage reveals that Hector Salazar’s sacrifice led to the capture of loads of munitions, and the gang. Natalia shows up at Laura Nuñez’ funeral. Horatio stands next to Hector’s lifeless body, seemingly sad and proud.

Horatio shows up to find Wanda Ramoz watching workers fix up Reverend Mike’s house. He asks what she plans to do with the money, to which she noticed that Reverend Mike’s place could use some new computers. She thanks Horatio.

Natalia: This is why we do it, isn’t it?
Horatio: Yep. Yep. This is exactly why we do it.

Damn you, CSI: Miami. Where is that box of tissues?!?