Vic Mackey

Vic Mackey, Head of the Strike Team

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

Very little is known about Vic Mackey before his career with the Strike Team, though it is known that he was a detective in another district before his transfer to Farmington. Mackey is extremely dedicated to his job, and while it would be easy to paint him as a corrupt officer, Mackey simply sees his harsh methods as a means to an end. While he is notorious for physically or mentally beating down suspects until he gets what he wants, he is still one of the more successful cops in Farmington. He also manages to keep the peace among the gangs in Farmington. He manages to keep himself in check for the most part, only unleashing himself against those that truly deserve little or no sympathy.

The Original Sin

Arguably his most barbarous crime was murdering the fifth member of his team, Terry Crowley, who was sent by the 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, Vic shot Crowley in the head, fatally wounding him. Acevada immediately suspected Vic murdered Terry and set out to prove his guilt, but ultimately his attempts were unsuccessful.

Vic and Shane are the only members of the Strike Team aware of the murder, though Lem would eventually be given a form of the events much later.

The Crimes of Vic Mackey

The Strike Team has committed several crimes that would probably place them in prison for a long period of time.

The theft of millions of dollars from the Armenian mob

Hijacking a police evidence van.

Blackmailing a police officer to get him to recant his allegations against the Strike Team.

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.

Terry Crowley would not be Mackey's last murder. He also murdered Margos Dezerian at the end of the third season of the Shield to not only cover up his link to the money train, but also to strop the hitman from killing him and his team.

Mackey and Aceveda

The tension between Vic and Acevada has evolved in different ways from the birth of The Shield. In the first season Acevada was heavily bent out to prove Vic's guilt, putting out all his effort to take him down. At the start of the second season, Acevada, not wanting a scandal in the midst of his political career, agreed to watch Vic'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.

Family Life

Vic was married for over a decade to his wife, Corrine. However, problems between the two resulted in the marriage disintegrating. Though Vic commonly cheated on his wife, he was devastated when she left him. He loves his three children intensely and will do whatever he needs to do in order to help them. In season one, his son Matthew was diagnosed with autism. The financial needs of the two caused Vic to take double shifts and is suspected to be a motivating factor in robbing millions from the Armenian mob.

Other Relationships

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

Mackey’s Notable “Incidents”

Some of Vic Mackey’s most notable incidents include:

Frying a gang leader's face on a stove (in retaliation for the gang leader's raping 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 bucket of crude oil
Threatening to throw a man out a window after forcing him to write a crudely written suicide note
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
Threatening a CI with a knife when she was going to work with Internal Affairs against him
Stopping an attack on a hispanic man by rioting teenagers by using a firehose.

There are more incidents that Mackey has committed, but these are currently some of the more heinous ones.

External link

MoreThings A short discussion of Vic Mackey's morality (or lack thereof). [1] Vic Mackey Photo Gallery