There are posts that say McCoy was part of the vigilantes and sacrificed because he was unstable.
While McCoy was probably would a little tight, he was NOT killed by the vigilantes because he was one of them and becoming unglued.
He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was a red herring to detract to from the actual killings.
I dunno man, he was coming out of a utility closet in the building where that murder occured, seems pretty fishy to me.
It makes sense that the vigilantes may have planned to kill him because they feared he would either snap and kill the wrong person or would accidentally spill the beans on the whole operation.
Either way, I'd like to know how you can definitively conclude one way or the other.
I assume he was becoming a little too much of a loose cannon for Davis and his compadres.
shareWhat does Milius say on the commentary? Perhaps he mention it, and what their intention was.
So a traffic cop with years of experience, happens to go by where a stakeout is happening, just happens to clip a car.
Boy that's convenient....
Yes it's possible that it's on his patrol route. But at almost the same time as Guzman was getting hit?
Another interesting thought would be, the pimp doesn't match the other targets. (Notice Briggs targets he mentioned were all organised crime leaders)
Maybe Charlie did the first hit on Ricca. Then he decides to take out the pimp, but the murder of the pimp was not one of Briggs' targets. Charlie is turning into a liability. So he sends Charlie to distract the stakeout team. His intent is to go in and bump off Guzman once he's cleaned up.
However Davis is ordered to eliminate a "traitor" by Briggs and wipe out Guzman.
Davis, is startled to find one of his own group as the "traitor" but bumps him off anyways.
That makes the scene more powerful.
Of course, he could just be a red herring. But he was a good enough red herring to distract Callahan, and the Guzman stakeout team.
Another interesting thought would be, the pimp doesn't match the other targets. (Notice Briggs targets he mentioned were all organised crime leaders)
no doubt.
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I'm surprised people have a hard time seeing this, but yes, Charlie is just a red herring. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. When Davis tells Harry, "If only I'd gotten there sooner he'd still be alive," he's telling the truth. If Davis hadn't had the little fender bender in the street, he would have gone up to kill the mob guy and been gone before Charlie ever came out into the parking garage.
shareBut the only problem I have with the theory that Charlie isn't one of the vigilantes is the hit on the Pimp and Ricca. Both times the cop sounded NOTHING like any of the rookies, and clearly the cop that bumped off the Pimp had grey hair. Now the logical explanation is that it was just the stuntman. But why when you could have easily substituted for the actors when the vehicles were stopped.
Now it can be a simple continuity error (As they would have to make sure the guy riding the motorcycle could actually ride!).
Or there were more members of the vigilante team than it appeared. Perhaps the vigilantes counted on Charlie being a suspect, as they knew he was unhinged.
Or perhaps Charlie was one of them and got out of line.....
So he had to be sacrificed.
In reagrds to Guzman, does Briggs say he had "a first grade education" during the police meeting? Can that be right? Who only has a 1st grade education?
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I noticed that the cop's voice didn't sound like any of the 4 rookies as well. At first, I thought there was another vigilante cop out killing the criminals. Especially after Harry tells Briggs that his vigilante team is finished & Briggs says: "There's plenty more where they came from, believe me." But I think he was just referring to the Police Academy & that he could probably convince more rookies in the future that they should kill criminals illegally. So most likely that "neutral" voice was just a technique that the filmmakers used to keep the audience guessing who the killers really were.
"Flying thru hyperspace ain't like dusting crops boy!"
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I also believed Charlie was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but in retrospect I think he was involved. The pimp scene seems to point to him.
shareI always concluded that McCoy was blowing away hoods on his own but was not part of the killer cops.
shareI agree with the OP & those that say McCoy was just a red herring meant to distract the audience from the true killers. I think if Charlie had really been out killing bad guys, he wouldn't have been so frustrated & angry all the time. I think one of the biggest reasons he was so unhappy & even suicidal, was becuz he "couldn't" touch all the pimps, mob bosses & hoods who were being set free.
"Flying thru hyperspace ain't like dusting crops boy!"
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Davis shouldn't have killed Charlie but made an offer to remain silent about the killings or take a chance of being charged for them.
shareI always thought that McCoy was a just a poor effort by the film-makers at creating dual suspects in the murders, not that he was involved with the other four. To my memory, he is never seen with the four rookies.
Yes he is a loose cannon, and the filmakers do attempt to drill this point home (carpark scene where he appears manic, scene with family where his suicide attempt is mentioned and also comments from other officers). But this is to create the possibility that he is the killer, then twist the storyline when he is killed by Davis. The fact that McCoys murder is misinterpreted as his elimination for being a liability to the rest of the group just goes to show that this plot is far from watertight.
it was the T-1000 who killed McCoy, he had to be TERMINATED.
Well, Charlie was depicted as unstable for sure, probably an alcoholic, maybe he had booze stashed in that closet, and it wasn't made clear in the final cut. But of course still a big coincidence he was there at that time.
shareIt's possible that McCoy simply has the same mindset as the death squad -- this is clearly expressed by him early on -- but he was simply a lone vigilante.
The death squad would've had a twisted "ethical" reason to off him, for the motivations they expressed later on - they were not killing indiscriminately and wanted people to "understand" their vigilantism. In their eyes a sloppy, wild eyed lone wolf would cheapen their cause.
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Yeah I agree.
That said, the story is constructed so that its ambiguous. So, that makes it reasonable to prefer either read on it.
Basically, when Harry and Briggs are arguing about McCoy's murder, after the jig is up so Briggs isn't concealing anything...Harry accuses Briggs of murdering an innocent man and Briggs responds with some phrase like "what would you have me do?" which honestly is the piece of evidence that compels me to land on the "McCoy=innocent" side. If McCoy was part of the vigilantes, Briggs (almost certainly) would have corrected Harry somehow during this argument, right there.
Now, this is a signature gun, and that is an optical palm reader.share