Characters / Chicago P.D.

Main Characters

Hank Voight

Henry "Hank" Voight

Played By: Jason Beghe

Detective Sergeant, Squad Commander of the Chicago Police Department's Intelligence Unit

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• Action Dad: To his son, Justin. Voight actually has a soft spot toward kids, particularly ones in trouble. Erin Lindsey, for instance, is the teenage daughter of a junkie and Voight took her in and raised her as his own. Throughout the years, he's helped a variety of kids he's encountered through his police work. What's more, when seeing kids being abused or taken advantage of, it sets off his Berserk Button along with his Tranquil Fury to see justice done to their abusers.
• Anti-Hero: Voight is a dedicated cop for the people and the city of Chicago, but more often than not resorts to very underhanded, sometimes outright illegal ways to do so. See Knight Templar.
• Anti-Role Model: Makes it clear that he does not want anyone in his unit employing the Cowboy Cop tactics he uses without his authorization. When he catches Upton leaning towards doing this, he ships her off to the FBI to teach her a lesson. An example of what would happen if he encouraged such behavior is shown in Born Into Bad News where they take down a dark and utterly corrupt expy of Voight and his unit.
  Voight (to Upton): "I DON'T WANT YOU TO BE ME! THAT'S MY JOB!!! YOUR JOB IS TO BE YOU!!!"
• Ax-Crazy: Yes even if he's a cop Voight has a tendency to go overboard with violence and is outright ruthless when it comes to dealing with criminals, as his treatment towards them is downright sadistic to the point where he's willing to brutally torture whomever he feels that are keeping answers from him. He's also the only one in his district that is willing to illegally kill a man with his anti-heroic sense of justice.
• Berserk Button:
  • Any one of his Intelligence Unit members compromising themselves or a case due to recklessness or indecisiveness will earn a stern lecture from him.
  • He severely dislikes it when someone blames any minority for a crime that they either committed or for outright bigotry and hatred. It doesn't help those who had racism inflicted upon them don't trust him a majority of the time when he's the one who mainly defends them.
  • Another is if anyone crosses him and think they can get away with it. This one is pressed almost all the time as others attempt to either withhold information and ruin a case or go off on their own regard or even try to ruin his career on a daily basis.
  • Being questioned or challenged by his subordinates about how he runs Intelligence, especially regarding how he treats suspects.
  • Anything that involves children getting trafficked, abused or even worse. The same goes for women. Hank goes into death mode against a registered sex offender who just bought a girl and used her as a human shield. As to the trafficker who sold the kid? Hank sends him to be placed in the general population in prison - where crimes against children is a death sentence courtesy of his friend at Cook County.
• Blackmail: Voight has no qualms about using this when needed (in Season 2, it's shown he rents a storage unit where he keeps potentially incriminating materials).
• Briefcase Full of Money: Several times Voight has given huge amounts of cash to people in need, courtesy of the safe hidden in his basement.
• Broken Aesop: Per Deputy Superintendent Miller's encouragement, Voight was actually making a much-more-than-token effort to go by the book in Season 8, even visibly resisting his usual Cowboy Cop urges in a couple of episodes. Then Burgess got abducted and it all went to hell, probably along with Voight's soul if the final shot of Season 8 is anything to go by.
• Bullying a Dragon: A lot of people seem to think that they can be the one to intimidate Voight. He very quickly robs them of that notion.
  • A couple of crooks hear that Voight keeps a significant stash of money in his home and decide to rob him and torture Olive, the woman pregnant with Voight's grandchild, to get him to open his safe. The two find out the hard way why that was a bad idea.
  • A murderer and heroin dealer (who is genuinely guilty) whom Voight put away with false information decides to try and kill him with a bomb planted in his car, nearly killing Voight's family in the process. Voight has to be physically pried off the guy when he's finally caught.
• Consummate Liar: Voight is more than willing to cover up his more illegal actions when working the cases he and his unit investigate. He even advocates that his unit resort to "off-the-books" proclivities and that it be passed by him and no one else.
  Voight: "We keep everything in house. ... this is Intelligence. My unit. .... You do things my way. Our way. .... You tell me the truth so that I can lie for you."
• Convicted by Public Opinion: Although there is no concrete evidence that Voight is a dirty cop, it's obvious most people believe he is. Sometimes he uses this reputation to his advantage, sometimes it bites him in the ass.
• Cowboy Cop: Voight generally plays fast and loose with the rules when it comes to police work, especially when it fishing for information, tracking down and identifying suspects, and serving Chicago. That being said, justice is Voight's ultimate motive, and he generally prefers to keep most of his team clean as much as possible. When he goes outside the law, he usually does it himself or with Olinsky.
• Crazy-Prepared: Voight has his own stash of blackmail material, listed by season and year, that fills an entire storage unit. Summer 2005 comes in handy when trying to get a memorial stone approved. J. Edgar Hoover would be impressed.
• Death Glare: Voight reserves this for whenever he's truly pissed and/or trying to break a particularly intransigent suspect. A mild version is enough to get a diplomat's bodyguards to give up their weapons.
• Defeat Means Friendship: He is, at first, ruthless and unapologetic when aiming to coerce Matt Casey into covering up Justin's DUI. Though after he's newly out-of-prison, he holds no ill will towards Casey, Antonio for arresting him, or even prosecutor Peter Stone for sending him to prison. He eventually earns their grudging respect because of his dedication to gaining justice for victims in his cases.
• Did Not Think This Through: Going rogue and interrogating Roy Walton as to Burgess's whereabouts using his usual methods was far from the best idea he's ever had. Choosing to dispose of Watson's body after Upton is forced to shoot him in her and Voight's defense took this into Idiot Ball territory, as it leaves Voight and Upton with a situation where they can't give closure to either Deputy Superintendent Miller (Walton killed her son) or Burgess (who thinks Walton will come back for her to finish what he started) lest they risk their careers and their freedom.
• Dirty Cop: Voight is suspected of being this by a great many people. Chicago Fire seemed to set up that he's pretending to be dirty in order to take down street gangs, but developments on Chicago PD make things murkier. Voight finally reveals to Intelligence that he indeed put himself out as a supposedly dirty cop in order to bring in high profile criminals, but that does very little to make clear if his hands are truly clean. The only thing that's certain in everyone's eyes is that Voight has always acted extralegally (to what extent is yet to be seen) but also always has Chicago's best interests at heart and always operates safely conscious and shows restraint .... most of the time.
• Doting Grandparent: The man who terrifies most of Chicago's criminal underworld by reputation alone turns out to be a doting grandpa who's more than happy to go to theme restaurants to spend time with his grandson, Daniel.
• Establishing Character Moment: In the first episode, Voight forces a beaten drug dealer to drive outside Chicago city limits, kicks his ass some more, gets him to give up his supplier, takes his money (four thousand dollars of it), and tells him that if he ever steps inside Chicago again, he'll kill him. Then, he leaves him a hundred bucks for bus fare.
• Everyone Has Standards: For all his flaws, racism and misogyny aren't among them.
• Experienced Protagonist: By Season 5, he's been a cop for 27 years.
• Family of Choice: Lindsay and Voight. After a meeting with her mother, during which she is told that Voight is not her family, Lindsay goes straight to Voight, simply to tell him that he definitely is.
• A Father to His Men: In addition to him raising Lindsay, Voight is something of a father figure to his younger colleagues/subordinates, offering both professional and personal guidance when he sees fit and not hesitating to rush to their aid. At one point, he outright says Atwater is like a son to him when defending the latter cop to another sergeant.
• Fingore: Voight uses a pair of pliers to break the fingers of a man to intimidate a woman into talking.
• Friend to All Children: Voight has a soft spot for kids and will go out of his way to help vulnerable young people in trouble and get them out of a life of crime. God help you if you threaten one and he finds out about it. When investigating a case where a student may have been involved in a suspected attack on a school, he actually follows the rules to the letter.
• Get Out!: Delivers an impressive, mostly non-verbal Tough Love example of this to his son Justin after bailing him out of trouble yet again, by driving him to an army recruiting center and dropping him off there. It actually ends up more effective than most uses of this trope though, by turning Justin's life around.
  • Meanwhile, the straight version of this gets shouted by him at anyone on his Unit who questions his authority/judgement one time too many.
  Voight (to Atwater): "You don't like the way I do business? I'm not woke enough for you? You feel free to get the hell out!"
  • A couple of unsavories (the drug dealer in his Establishing Character Moment and an accused date rapist who got away with it and teaches men how to "pick up" women) get driven by Voight to the city limits and told never to return if they value their lives.
• Godzilla Threshold: As Character Development progresses, Voight actually tries to do things by the book, if for no other reason than to keep the case sound. However, if it looks like the perp's going to walk scotch free or if lives are in immenent danger, he'll bend or outright break the rules to avert it and worry about the fallout later.
• The Gunslinger: Apropos because he's a Cowboy Cop, will stomp up to a gun wielding perp and take them down. Sometimes he'll shout that he wants the perp alive before shooting to maim. The sound effect of his gun is even more booming (closer to a shotgun) than the other characters' guns.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: When Voight gets angry he won't hesitate to let his temper fly such as when he's frustrated when he's constantly one-upped by someone he's going after or when he's out for blood against someone who's wronged him and when he feels the need to call someone out on their wrong doings. He also has a tendency to be overly vicious whenever he's provoked by a criminal or another person who disrespects him.
• Hand Wave: Voight's introduction on Chicago Fire painted him as an outright crooked cop, covering up Justin's driving under the influence where he caused a fatal accident, then attempted to persuade, bribe then subtly threaten Matt Casey for his silence, including Casey's then-fiance Hailee Thompson. After his initial story arc, he was recast as a morally ambiguous but ultimately heroic figure. This discrepancy was eventually explained away in a brief scene in Season 2 where Voight admits to Olinsky that Justin's antics had put him in a bad place and he was lashing out at Casey out of frustration.
• Hero Antagonist: How he's introduced in Chicago Fire, as a menacing CPD detective using intimidation and threats of violence to get his way.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Olinsky and Platt. They go back nearly twenty years.
• Hot-Blooded: Not all of the time but Voight has a tendency to be overly aggressive and hot-headed when something doesn't go the way it needs to be. His temper also lands him in a lot of trouble as he's considered to be very impulsive whenever he's frustrated and would often be branded as a rabid cop which is very unsettling towards others as he's pretty much either feared or disliked when faced with his anger.
• Hypocrite:
  • Voight will manipulate the truth, if not outright lie, if it means protecting himself or his team. However, he gets angry at others for lying to him. Regarding his unit, it's partially justified as he can't protect or take the heat for them if they do something off the books and lie to him about it. See Consummate Liar above for further clarification.
  • Voight stops Olinsky from murdering the man responsible for his daughter's death, saying they had to go by the book. However, that didn't stop him from executing the man responsible for killing his son. Olinsky even points this out. Though, Voight made a valid point that thirty-eight other families were also looking for justice against the perpetrator. It is likely he did not want other to go to the same violent path as Voight did.
  • Both Trudy and Kim have called Voight out on this when he stops them from either helping with cases they might be too close to or dealing their own personal "justice" on the men who murdered or hurt their family members (Trudy's dad and Kim's sister, respectively). In both cases, he justifies it in that they're not him and he knows the path it'll lead them down and he doesn't want that for them.
  • He condemns others for their overzealous, downright Dirty Cop actions, but he's just as guilty. In Upton's case, he outright punishes her for this, then loudly tries to invoke Anti-Role Model to justify it.
• I Am a Monster: Voight admits that he isn't the best person in the world and knows his acts are questionable, but overall he doesn't try to impose this on his subordinates viewing them as young people who have their whole lives ahead of them and doesn't want them to be anything like him.
• Idiot Ball: It's not often that Voight is the one holding this, but boy does he ever grab it in "The Other Side".
  • First, he goes rogue and threatens one of Walton's associates into giving up his location, then apparently doesn't do anything to guarantee the other man's silence. Next, he reverts to his usual Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique to get Walton to disclose Burgess's location, with Walton refusing to talk. When Upton shows up and informs him that Burgess has been recovered alive, he now has a witness he's brutalized and will have to silence but Upton talks him into just turning Walton in instead. So he goes to free Walton...with his gun still strapped so Walton makes a grab for it and Upton is forced to shoot Walton. Then, instead of simply admitting they're in deep crap and letting it end there, Voight sends Upton home and disposes of Walton's body. This, with Miller and the rest of the Unit still searching for Walton. It carries over into the next epsiode/season where Voight and Upton now have to keep a lid on the fact that Walton is dead and they're responsible or risk their jobs and jail time. Worse yet, its obvious that Voight is making this all up as he goes along whereas he's usally more of a chessmaster when it comes to covering his tracks.
• If I Want Your Opinion: Voight, to pretty much everyone. He even tells Lindsay, when she questions not being told something she considers important, that if she doesn't like what he does she's free to transfer.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: At least twice
  • Voight feels this way regarding Olinsky's murder, since he involved him in helping dispose of Kevin Bingham's body, then waited until the last possible minute to consider falling on his sword and trying to offer himself to Woods in exchange for Olinsky's freedom. It's telling when the Season 5 finale ends with the series's toughest badass pounding a wall in sheer anguish and wailing fruitlessly at the sky before collapsing to the ground in tears.
  • And then there's his CI Anna Avalos, whom Voight had bonded with throughout Season 9. She winds up murdering that Season's Big Bad and shooting Voight during a paranoia-induced breakdown, forcing Upton to mortally wound her to protect Voight and Voight blames himself for it for not properly protecting Anna from herself.
• Impaled Palm: He does this to find where some of his team are being held in a house raid. It's to a much older lady, and he lets loose.
• It Runs in the Family: Voight's father, Richard was a cop.
• It's Personal:
  • Voight takes this trope to new, terrifying lengths. Most cops, not least of all his own Unit, know that it's simply easier to stand aside and find something else to do while he's on a rampage.
  • In cases where cops are killed in the line of duty, Lindsay in season 1, mentions Voight always gets "that look in his eye." Most definitely, the death of his cop father when he was a child contributed to this.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique:
  • Voight will use official interrogation rooms and techniques when investigating something that isn't time sensitive. But if the clock is running down, or he's in a really bad mood, Voight will show why the mere mention of his name will get many of Chicago's criminals shaking in fear.
  • His "enhanced interrogation techniques," and their shady legality, are even lampshaded during a crossover episode with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: when he begins to physically interrogate a suspect in front of Olivia Benson. She (having been partner to Elliot Stabler, who acted in the same way) immediately tells him to stand down with an explicit warning:
    Benson: "I'll remind you that you being here is a courtesy. You have no jurisdiction. If you do that crap again, I will arrest you."
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Voight is one of Chicago's more ruthless cops but his take-no-prisoners approach is truly because he wants to protect and serve the public. He's also fiercely protective and loyal towards his unit, his fellow cops, his family and will go to great lengths to help young people who genuinely want get out of a life of crime.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Hypocritical though it may be, he has very good reasons for not wanting his officers to wantonly adopt his Knight Templar Cowboy Cop methods. Notably, they tend to bring unnecessary heat/scrutiny upon the unit at best and has threatened or even cost the careers and/or lives of those close to him at worse. And that's when he does it.
• Just a Flesh Wound: When Voight is shot in the arm in "What Puts You on That Ledge,” he says he does not need an "ambo," just a drive to Chicago Med. His arm is in a sling at the end of the episode.
• Karma Houdini: Has outright committed murder and has yet to be properly punished for it. Not in self defense mind you but has literally driven criminals to abandoned lots and executed them without benefit of trial. Regardless of the circumstances, in a day and age when incidents of police brutality and abuse of power are getting more and more attention, a show that glorifies and even idolizes those who commit them is not only deplorable, but irresponsible as well.
• Killer Cop: Voight is absolutely capable of committing the unthinkable, whether it's out of Revenge or to put the most heinous criminals away. Most notably in the Season 3 finale, when he executes Kevin Bingham, Justin's murderer.
• Knight Templar: Voight is liberal in his use of Blackmail, scheming, and Police Brutality to solve the cases he and his unit work, resorting to terrorizing, sometimes torturing suspects for info, committing perjury to put the crooks he arrests away, and well able and willing to take the law into his own hands when it suits him.
• Knight Templar Parent: Voight will cross even more lines when it comes to Justin, known for bailing his son out of many felonies.
  • Most notably, during their introduction in Chicago Fire, when Justin had been driving while intoxicated, and caused an accident that almost killed a man and left his son paralyzed, it was all but said Voight was pinning the blame on the innocent father for the accident. When Lt. Matt Casey attempted to file an honest report citing the alcohol on Justin's breath and the beer cans he saw in the front seat, Voight went all out to prevent Casey from doing so, including bribery, threatening him and his then-fiancée Hailee Thomas, and attempting to have Casey silenced by force, all to keep Justin, "the son of a cop" out of prison.
  • In "The Price We Pay", we learn Justin fell in with a career criminal named Joe Catalanoe, who forced Justin into being a murder accomplice, and Voight almost certainly had the criminal killed by drowning.
  • In "Start Digging", Kevin Bingham murders Justin; Voight forces Bingham to dig his own grave before shooting him to death and burying him in it.
• Lost Lenore: Voight lost his wife Camille to ovarian cancer a few years before the series started.
• Manly Tears: Lets out some big ones while drinking and mourning Al’s death.
  • Also sheds some while saluting his casket during the funeral from across the street.
• Married to the Job: Having lost his wife and son, and with his daughter-in-law, grandson, and foster daughter (Lindsay) leaving Chicago by the end of Season 4. Effectively lampshaded in "Closer."
• Miranda Rights: Voight is notable in that he doesn't read criminals their rights. When dealing with the worst of them he flat out denies them their rights.
  Perp: You're going to read me my rights, officer?
  Voight: You got the wrong guy.
• My Way or the Highway: Voight, to pretty much everyone, pretty much all the time. Lampshaded in (appropriately) "My Way." Voight comments that if Commander Perry ever actually compliments him and his team, he'll take everyone out to karaoke. When asked what he'd sing, Voight replies "My Way."
• Necessarily Evil: How and what Voight sees himself and his more shady approach to police work as.
  Voight: The difference between dirty and necessary. Like it or not, you and all your self-righteous friends in the Ivory Tower ... you need people like me out on the streets. Doing the things that regular cops are unwilling to do. Going the extra mile. To make sure the truly evil, the truly dangerous ... go away. I thin the herd for the greater good.
• Non-Answer: Voight is a master at this, rarely answering questions he doesn't want to answer, even if his team is legitimately in need of more information about a situation.
• Old-Fashioned Copper: Probably the best way to describe Voight is that he is an American version of this trope.
• Oh, Crap!: Voight, when he realizes two of his detectives are walking right into the arms of El Pulpo.
• Outliving One's Offspring:
  • The season 3 episode "In A Duffle Bag", Voight reveals to Lindsay Justin was a twin and his sibling was stillborn.
    Voight: It was a girl.
  • In the season 3 finale, he's shattered after Justin dies from being shot, so much so he kills the offender.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Voight goes out of his way to terrorize even innocent people in an attempt to protect his son. But he comes to realize the the kid needs a form of discipline that he himself isn't willing to dispense so he drives Justin to a recruiting station to get him away from Chicago, and a number of felony charges ... then it's very much implied he killed Joe Catalanoe who'd duped Justin into being an accessory to murder.
  • Voight's protective streak extends to his fellow cops, whom he considers to be his extended family. He will go through fire to protect and help them.
  • Any case involving young people or children being abused tends to make him even more of a Knight Templar than usual and he makes it his mission to put a VERY quick and painful end to it. Just ask the people who tried trafficking little kids or the time he found a two-week-old baby abandoned on the road.
• Parental Substitute: Voight and his late wife for Lindsay. When she was 15, they took her in, helped her stay away from a life of crime. Voight has always been more of a parent for Lindsay than both her birth parents have ever been.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Voight, alongside Olinsky, proves he is willing to commit outright illegal acts to get particularly heinous criminals off the streets. Back in the day, the two of them and fellow Cowboy Cop Jimmy Shi apprehended a crook, Browning who murdered a cop named Eddie Penland who was Olinsky's partner. Browning never made it to prison because the three took him "for a boat ride."
  • He decides he and Olinsky will do this to Adrez Diaz aka Pulpo after the notorious drug kingpin kills multiple cops and fatally shoots Antonio, and once he's recaptured orders everyone to go off-the-books for them, though Jay and later Olinsky talk him out of it.
  • In the closing moments of season 3, he executes Justin's murderer with no hesitation or remorse.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Hank himself isn't very tall nor is he very large; in fact he is one of the shorter people in the Intelligence Unit. Despite his height, he is able to bring down criminals who outclass him in stature and can definitely hold his own in a fight.
• Properly Paranoid: Voight keeps all his money and valuables in a safe hidden in his basement. He also has surveillance cameras around his home and won't answer his door after dark without a gun in hand.
• Red Oni: Though both are Cowboy Cops, Voight is more outspoken and aggressive in contrast the soft-spoken and reserved Olinsky.
• Revenge: Voight's main issue being his volatile rage and thirst for vengeance.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Do not piss Voight off. He'll burn down the city if it means catching people who target him, his team, or his family.
  • In Season 2, "An Honest Woman", Voight gets robbed and the woman who's pregnant with his grandchild is tortured. He reaches a new level of brutality in trying to find those responsible.
  • He goes over the line again in the Season 3 finale, torturing suspects in a revenge mission to hunt down Justin's murderer.
  • In the Season 5 finale "Homecoming", after his best friend Alvin Olinsky is stabbed in prison and later dies, he gives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to the crook who committed the deed and executes the one who ordered the hit.
• The Soul Saver:
  • Voight can be quick to pull the trigger and capable of covering up his unit's more brutal police work, but he generally doesn't allow the cops serving under him the same leeway, best seen when he talks Trudy out of offing the guy who killed her father.
  • In Season 6, "Brotherhood", he's fully intent on taking the blame for Antonio's Accidental Murder then angrily reprimands Ruzek for confessing to it before him, arguing it's his job to look out for the unit.
    Voight: This is my unit! My unit. I take the heat. I take the bullets!
  • He also tries to warn Upton about the danger of taking the law into her own hands and temporarily sends her to the FBI to curb this.
• Standard Cop Backstory: Voight's father, who was also a cop, was killed in the line of duty when Voight was 8.
• The Stoic: Voight practically invented the concept of poker face.
• Team Dad: He's very fiercely protective of the team, especially to Lindsay, who he helped raise.
• Torture Technician: Voight uses his reputation to terrorize suspects and inflicts pain on those who don't fear him. Olinsky often provides backup or runs interference while this is happening.
• Tough Love:
  • At the end of the first season, Voight sends his delinquent son into the Army. When Justin returns in Season 2, it's clear that his father's desperate act was best for him, as Justin's entire attitude is different.
  • The Season 7 episode, "Lines", has him reassigning Upton to the FBI in New York after she crosses one too many lines.
• Tranquil Fury: Hank almost constantly has to control or channel his boiling anger when he comes across a truly remorseless scumbag (especially when one of his unit or an innocent child is harmed or threatened). In these scenarios, he tries his damnedest not to visibly murder someone and isn't afraid to get dirty. This earns others a spine-chilling glare and a guttural monotone voice to warn people that he's not the guy to mess with.
• Transplant: Initially introduced in a recurring role on the first season in Chicago Fire.
• True Companions: He is this with Olinsky, with the two of them having served as cops for nearly two decades. Both of them are willing to go for bat for each other and have a genuine brotherly bond.
• Unstoppable Rage: Voight is mostly one to keep his cool at times in order to lead his unit but there are times when he is practically filled with so much anger that he is able to dish out a brutal beating or will downright murder someone in cold blood. Not that the people involved don't have it coming.
• Vigilante Execution: He consistently threatens this as a way to get information, run off people who are making Chicago a bad/worse place to be in, or just to show criminals how easy they have it in the justice system compared to what he'd like to do to them. The murderer of his son and the criminal who successfully ordered a hit on Olinski are on the receiving end of this.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • When tracking down the crooks who robbed him, Voight makes it abundantly clear he is willing to beat a woman with a baseball bat if she doesn't talk. But then her friend walks out of the bathroom and Voight decides to terrorize the woman by breaking the friend's fingers instead.
  • In Remember the Devil, when Atwater and Ruzek are imprisoned in a basement behind a reinforced steel door, Voight forces the guilty party - an elderly woman - responsible into give up the access code. When refuses to talk, he stabs her hand with a flick-knife. Cue Vought calling in to give them the code and the woman showing up later with a bandaged hand.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Despite being fairly ruthless toward criminals (and most people in general), Voight actually has a soft spot toward kids, particularly ones in trouble. Erin Lindsey, for instance, is the teenage daughter of a junkie and Voight took her in and raised her as his own. Throughout the years, he's helped a variety of kids he's encountered through his police work. What's more, when seeing kids being abused or taken advantage of, it sets off his Berserk Button along with his Tranquil Fury to see justice done to their abusers.

Adam Ruzek

Adam Ruzek

Played By: Patrick Flueger

Intelligence Unit Officer.

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• Action Dad: To Makayla alongside Burgess's Action Mom.
• Action Hero: Adam is originally a cadet in the police academy until he's assigned to Intelligence, later becoming a stellar cop in his own right.
• Anger Born of Worry: After an encounter with an armed suspect Burgess was attempting to talk down turns sideways and ends with him putting the guy down, he lectures her about staying in the field while she's pregnant with their unborn child. It earns him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech in return.
  • There are several times where he goes off on the other officers, or even Voight himself, when a member of the Unit has been endangered or kidnapped and he feels that they didn't do or aren't doing enough to resolve the situation, as shown in "Captive", "Ties That Bind", and "The Other Side".
• Berserk Button:
  • He seems to dislike the word "bitch" even going as far as to beat up offenders for it.
  • Questioning his ethics as a police officer tends to set him off.
• Big Brother Instinct: Season 5 reveals he has a younger sister Kate who was once arrested for a DUI, which he tried to cover up and prevent the authorities from charging her and taking away her son Sammy, his nephew.
• Blackmail: Unfortunately he's caught by Lt. Denny Woods who then holds his attempted cover-up, his sister and nephew over his head to force Adam to be a spy in Intelligence.
• Broken Pedestal: In "The Radical Truth- He learns his father has been borrowing money from a gang leader and outed him as an Intelligence Unit officer in order to make up for his debt and is disgusted, since both their names and CPD statuses will be sullied if that ever gets out. Later in the same episode, he chews out Burgess for not only not backing him when he shot the gangster in self defense—she arrived after the fact and didn't see what led up to it—but for assuming he did it in cold blood to keep his dad and his family name clean.
• Butt-Monkey: He often gets the short end of the stick at times, especially in the first season where he's the newest member of Intelligence Unit.
  • Season 8 seems determined to put him through the wringer, to the point of bordering on Trauma Conga Line.
• Character Development: Ruzek now takes his job more seriously on Intelligence from when he was prone to reckless behavior to where he could've been killed on the job, but he now follows orders and does what's best for the case instead and uses his head rather than gut instinct.
• Chick Magnet: Attracts at least three women throughout the series.
• Commitment Issues: He can't seem to commit to one woman for the life of himself after a string of many he's been involved with.
• Cool Car: Brief instances in Season 5 show him driving a Chevrolet Camaro and a Pontiac G8.
• Cool Shades: Ruzek is regularly seen sporting darkened sunglasses on the job...even when it doesn't seem he'd need them and nobody else is wearing them.
• Cool Uncle: Has a nephew Sammy through his sister.
• Cowboy Cop: Ruzek is willing to engage in the same behavior as Voight does in roughing up offenders and willing to do odd deals to benefit a case or help his unit.
• Disposable Fiancé: Wendy in Season 1.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first appearance shows how he would solve an armed suicide situation. It's unconventional to say the least.
• Facial Composite Failure: Ruzek, unable to use the new software, hilariously outsources the composite to a rookie cop for a hamburger.
• Fatal Flaw: Ruzek has many issues, but his most prominent one would be that he constantly tries too hard to benefit everyone else around him to where he is willing to take the brunt of the consequences faced in front of him rather than lay it on his friends and family. While he does try to sleuth his way out of these situations specifically with help at the end of the day he's too willing to take the fall to make sure everyone around him isn't affected in anyway shape or form. This gets lampshaded when the results of an evaluation note that his "dedication to CPD" could be make him a liability.
• Fire-Forged Friends: At first he and Antonio were at odds as Ruzek was very reckless during their mission to get Antonio's son Diego back. Though it seems like they've gome past it and now are good friends, but there have been multiple arguments between the two after Olinsky's death showing a clash of their ideals in the way they should do business.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • In "Chin Check", Adam is shaken and behaving erratically after he shoots a perp for the first time, putting him in the hospital and although he tries to play it off, the others in the unit encourage him to see a psychologist.
  • In Season 2, "Say Her Real Name", he's shaken and unshakably motivated to solve the case when the victim dies in front of him minutes after got a call from her asking for his help during an undercover stint.
  • "Instinct" ends with him down in the dumps after an undercover assignment ends with him shooting the crook they're trying to nab—after said crook murders his meth-addled friend/CI in front of him. He points out that he could have shot sooner and saved the CI, but froze due to bystanders recording the encounter on their phones which, along with an earlier talking-to by Voight about him roughing up another suspect, caused him to question his judgement.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Olinsky and Atwater.
• Hot-Blooded: Ruzek has been known to be very overzealous and reckless when doing police work as the only thought to cross his mind is to make the first move before anyone else can. However he seems to have mellowed out a bit that is until he starts transferring this into anger as he'll act highly irrational when faced with something that triggers him.
• Hypocrite: In the Season 6 premiere, Ruzek throws beef in Dawson's face for not lying and backing Voight's story when Voight is under suspicion for allegedly executing the drug dealer who ordered the hit on Olinsky because Antonio had not yet arrived on the scene until after Voight opened fire, the same reason Ruzek made for not backing that of a fellow ex-cop/informant named Ray back in episode 19 of season 5 who claimed he fired a clean shot when he lost his badge.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Eventually with Olinsky.
• It Runs in the Family: Ruzek's father was a cop and worked with Voight and Olinsky back in the day.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ruzek is sometimes very stubborn and commits himself to questionable acts, but there's no doubt about it that he cares for his team and sees them as his family.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Ruzek starts out as an eager-to-please and impulsive cop who doesn't think ahead, charging into the action without backup. When Antonio's son is taken and they chase down a lead, he walks right in giving himself and the unit away to the perp that he manages to escape. He soon gets called out on this behavior from Olinsky after his cockiness causes friction during a stakeout and later a bust.
• Mission Control: He becomes this occasionally working behind the computer after Mouse's departure.
• New Meat: He's detailed to Intelligence in the series' pilot as they needed a fresh face as an undercover buyer.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Has plenty of these throughout his career, where his well-intentioned actions actually make things worse for him, the unit, or anyone else he cares about.
• Papa Wolf: To Burgess's adopted daughter, Makayla, despite simply being a backup legal guardian. Case in point, when Makayla tells him about her new "friend" who gives her stickers at school from inside his car, he and Burgess are at Makayla's school first thing the following morning demanding to see the school's surveillance footage so they can identify him.
• Parentalissues: Later seasons saw his dad, Officer "Disco Bob" Ruzek, using questionable means to supplement his income and Ruzek having to ask Voight having to help bail Bob out.
• Put on a Bus: He was undercover for a time in Season 4 without letting anyone know, outside of Voight.
• Rabid Cop: Not to the extent of Voight but he is willing to go the extra mile in engaging with questionable acts out of everyone else on his team and actually approves of Cowboy Cop behavior.
• Red Oni: To Kevin and Antonio's blue. As Ruzek is more Hot-Blooded and reckless than the former two who are calmer and more collected.
• Sex with the Ex: He and Burgess will hook up from time to time post their broken off engagement and Sean Roman's departure.
• Ship Tease: With Kim Burgess. Sparks start to fly in Season 1 after working together a few times. They become engaged in Season 2 finale, but Kim calls it off in Season 3 after she realizes his Commitment Issues, though they continue to dance around each other with a random kiss and a night of fun in Season 4 and 5. At least until Season 7 when one of their liasons results in her getting pregnant. After a few episodes of awkwardness and tension, she tells him she loves him but would rather they co-parent, for the time being, when he asks her again to marry him.
  • In Season 6, he and new team member Hailey Upton start of as Friends with Benefits, though they do admit they start to develop something deeper. It doesn't last.
• Standard Cop Backstory: Ruzek's parents had an extremely vicious divorce when he was a child.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Silly Adam, your ex-fiance being pregnant with your child after a chance one-night stand will not make her reconsider marrying you.
• True Companions: Olinsky his mentor in all things being in Intelligence.
  • Later with his new partner Atwater. In "Captive", when Kevin is taken hostage for over a day and when they lose a lead to his location, Adam angrily calls Dawson out for shooting the suspect, who was about to shoot Burgess.
  • With Burgess. They don't always see eye-to-eye but for all the history, drama, and now a child between them, they will support each other and have each other's back in the field, no matter what.
• Undying Loyalty: In Season 5, after he's blackmailed by Woods for his sister's DUI, he eventually refuses to rat out Voight and the rest of the unit, knowing he'll have consequences to face for sweeping up his sister's DUI under the rug. Woods throws his family in his face, he fires back that Intelligence is his family.
• Will They or Won't They?: With Burgess, made more complicated by the fact that she's pregnant with his child but at least they're working through that amicably.

Kim Burgess

Kim Burgess

Played By: Marina Squerciati

Patrol Officer, 21st District. Later an Intelligence Officer after being promoted in season 4.

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• 11th-Hour Ranger: She and Atwater are typically called up to Intelligence as backup and are eventually detailed to Intelligence. Later she and Roman in seasons 2 and 3.
• Action Girl: She's been physically put through the wringer multiple times and always comes through with flying colors.
  • Action Mom: Is one now since she's adopted Makayla.
• Affectionate Nickname: Platt, Voight, and Olinsky call her "Kid" (or "the kid" if not referring to her directly), presumably due to her rookie status if not her age.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Quickly begs for her life when a ruthless sex trafficker has her at gunpoint, having witnessed him murder his partner in cold blood and saying she has a daughter to go home to. He double-taps her anyway.
• Anger Born of Worry:
  • She gets pissed off at Ruzek in "43rd and Normal" for shooting an armed suspect she was attempting to talk down as not only had she had the situation under control until he spooked the suspect, but he also needlessly placed himself, along with her and their unborn child, in harm's way to do so.
  • Happens again in "Gone" when they butt heads over how to safely recover their daughter, Makayla.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: She takes a shotgun blast to the side of her face and upper body (her vest stopped the worst of it). Her wounds remain visible for a few episodes but they quickly fade save for some scars on her shoulder.
  • Averted in "I Was Here" and "Center Mass", where she's sporting several mean looking cuts/bruises after an assault.
  • And averted again in "The Other Side". This time it's worse due to her being repeatedly dragged/tossed around, beaten, and stomped on. And that's before she gets double-tapped in the gut. When she finally makes it out of the hospital, she looks a mess.
• Berserk Button: After her sister's assault, (see below) she seems to have it out for rapists.
  • While it has yet to be fully shown, it's a safe bet that threatening or harming Makayla is one for her as well.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She's a Nice Girl, but that doesn't mean Burgess won't hesitate to kick some perp's ass, slap the cuffs on their wrists or do her utmost damnest to protect and save her fellow officers.
  • In "Last Minute Resistance", after her sister Nicole is brutally raped and ''sodomized'', she takes it personally to get justice for Nicole and catch her assailants, and when she does she gives one of them a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. She also violently gets in her ex-brother-in-law's face after learning he hired a PI to spy on her during their custody battle for her niece, and refuses to let him take her niece Zoe home.
  • When the wife of the drug lord responsible for Olinsky's death complain about the cops in her home, Burgess slaps her across the face and threatens to not only put the woman down but have her mother deported if she doesn't cooperate.
• Big Sister Instinct: She acts as a big sister figure for Atwater's siblings and despite being the younger sister in her own family, she does everything possible to make sure her sister's rapist pays for his crimes.
• Break the Cutie: Later in Season 2, she and Roman have been taken hostage by gunmen with no backup and Roman almost fatally wounded and come close to being murdered more than once throughout the whole experience. It's really telling when she, usually resilient and optimistic is the worst situations, tearfully breaks down in Ruzek's arms at the end of the episode. Mind you, this is after she took a Booby Trap shotgun blast to her face/upper body.
  • She suffers a Forced Miscarriage in Season 7 and carries the guilt from that.
  • Gets assaulted, shot, and left for dead in Season 8 and according to Word of God, this leaves her in a dark place...and the darkness is winning.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Burgess and Atwater, in Season 1; Burgess and Roman, in Season 2 as subordinates under Platt.
• Cerebus Syndrome: With all the bad stuff that happens to her in the line of duty from Season 2 onward, Burgess pretty much personifies this trope. See Took A Level In Cynicism below for more details.
• Clear My Name: Is accused of shooting an unarmed suspect and has to prove otherwise in the backdoor pilot to Chicago Justice.
• Cool Aunt: Has a cute relationship with Zoe, her sister's child.
• Cute Bruiser: Very bubbly and absolutely beautiful, but she is also a police officer and can be very dangerous when she wants to be.
• The Determinator: More than once, Officer Burgess has demonstrated an incredible will to survive when placed in life-threatening situations. Her latest instance has her survive two shots to the gut and hold out long enough for Atwater and Halstead to find her and rush her to the hospital.
  • She's equally determined to see justice done for victims in her cases.
• Disney Death: Twice, Burgess gets near-fatally shot on duty and lands in Chicago Med in critical condition. Both times, she survives.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Burgess outright demands this in "Burden of Truth" when she finally confronts Ruzek and her own guilt about the loss of their unborn child.
  Burgess: I wasn’t supposed to be on the scene, I wasn’t supposed to be at the motel, I wasn’t supposed to lose the baby! Don’t you get that? I don’t want pity, and I don’t want support. I want you to be angry with me, as angry with me as I am.”
  Ruzek: *beat* I can't do that.
• Fair Cop: Being played by Marina Squerciati.
• Forced Miscarriage: She lost the child she and Ruzek conceived as a result of being badly beaten by a violent sex trafficker in "I Was Here."
• Friend to All Children: Besides being a Cool Aunt to her niece and a Cool Big Sis figure to Atwater's siblings, she's very compassionate when addressing child-witnesses and usually takes point in getting kids out of harm's way in the field.
  • Combined with Mama Bear in the episode "Tender Age", where Burgess practically adopts a young girl who's the sole surviving witness to the rest of her family being murdered. She steps up to foster the child a couple of episodes later in "In Your Care" and makes it official in "Trouble Dolls".
• Genki Girl: She was an energetic, optimistic officer who managed to keep a smile on her face despite the odds. Then shit hit the fan hard for her.
• Happily Adopted: She takes in Makayla, a traumatized girl who witnessed her father murder her entire immediate family and despite some initial misgivings, seems to be getting along quite well in her role as a mother.
• Heroic BSoD: After she'd been shot with a shotgun blast above the shoulder, scarring her face, when she observes the fruits of her near-death experience.
  • Suffers another one at the end of "I Was Here" due to miscarrying her and Ruzek's unborn child after being viciously assaulted. The episode ends with her in near catatonia and staring stone-faced out a window at Chicago Med as Ruzek tries to comfort her, without much success.
• Idiot Ball: While she's typically pretty competent, even in her rookie days, she tends to make some substantial blunders no cop should. Her favorite seems to be going in hot to a scene without backup or willingly allowing herself to be alone with a potentially dangerous suspect. It's gotten her beaten up, shot, her partner badly injured, chewed out by Voight, has resulted in her losing her unborn child, and most recently got her abducted, shot (again and even worse than the first time) and left for dead for all but the first and last 5-10 minutes of that particular episode.
• I'm Okay!: Burgess, a physically small, female officer, claims to be just fine after sustaining a beating from a man who just beat the crap out of two of her male colleagues (one of whom was a former Army Ranger).
• Intergenerational Friendship: Though Platt sometimes uses her as an errand girl and is a hardass towards her subordinates, she develop a rapport with the desk sergeant, looking up to her as a role model.
  • She also manages to gain Olinsky's respect, if not complete friendship, after proving herself in the field.
• It's All My Fault: Burgess blames herself for losing her and Ruzek's child due to going after a violent sex trafficker she had cornered in a motel without waiting for backup and expects Ruzek to do the same (see Don't You Dare Pity Me!). He doesn't, pointing out that in the time it had taken for him and Upton to arrive, the suspect, who assaulted her and caused the miscarriage, would have succeeded in drowning the teenage girl Burgess spent the entire episode trying to locate and rescue in the first place had she waited.
  • An earlier episode has her torn up over pushing one of her CI's too hard to get incriminating information on a suspect. Said CI wound up murdered. Once again, it's Ruzek who tells her otherwise, saying it's just part of the job and CI's know the risks when they sign up.
• It's Personal: When her sister is raped, very much so.
• Mama Bear: To her adopted daughter, Makayla, although most of the examples of this trope were shown before she officially adopted her...up until "Gone" where Makayla gets kidnapped. Unfortunately, Ruzek finds himself a target of this due to his own PapaWolf coming out at the same time.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Having been in relationships with Ruzek and Roman, she's developed a reputation as a "badge bunny" in Olinsky's words and a lot of people don't take her police skills seriously as a result.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: One of the smaller Intelligence members, but she packs a wallop and has no trouble wrestling bad guys to the ground. At one point, she decks a suspected date rapist while just feeling the effects of whatever drug he spiked her drink with.
• Platonic Life-Partners: She has this with Atwater, staying friends with him while he's promoted up to Intelligence.
• Put on a Bus: Kim takes a leave of absence to look after her big sister after her brutal rape. This was due to Squerciati taking time of for her maternity leave.
• Rape and Revenge: While she wasn't the one raped (her sister was), she definitely made sure she got her revenge; she dishes out a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to the guy who raped her sister in "Last Minute Resistance". When Olinsky finally pulls her off of him, she stomps/kicks the bad guy one last time for good measure.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Comes to believe this after what happened to her sister in "Last Minute Resistance". Compare her reaction to a sex offender's death in "You Wish", where she works it like any other homicide and has to be prodded to show some empathy to one of his victims(who's also a suspect) to the same in "Sisterhood" where she clearly doesn't see the victim (a gang member who had violently raped and killed a teenage girl, early in the episode) as such, but is much more readily sympathetic to one of his surviving victims (who is also a suspect) and openly admits she's glad that he's gone.
• Really Gets Around: Has the most romantic liasons (that we see/know of) of all of the Unit's officers, including affairs with two of her partners (and almost marrying one of them) that lead to her garnering a reputation around the district as a "Badge Bunny".
• Sex with the Ex: She and Ruzek still hook up from time to time despite not being an Official Couple anymore.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Burgess in "Chin Check," going for a night on the town with her flight attendant friends.
• Standard Cop Backstory: She's the only regular officer to start the series without one. And then Season 2 happens...
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Adopting and raising Makayla is fun but proves to be no easy feat, as Burgess admits she's now barely able to crawl into bed after making sure Makayla's needs are taken care of on top of doing her job. And that's when everything goes right. "Trouble Dolls" in particular delves quite deeply into the ramifications of trying to raise a severely traumatized child on your own.
• Took a Level in Badass: Goes from needing assistance in every physical takedown she makes to tackling guys to the ground like a seasoned linebacker.
• Took A Level In Cynicism: She started out as a Genki Girl with a seemingly permanent smile. Getting shot, held hostage, repeatedly beat up on by perps, nearly losing the same partner right next to her, twice, facing both criminal charges and the loss of her job when she shoots someone in self-defense, having another partner she gets along with unfairly transferred, being saddled with yet another partner who's a complete Jerkass, and facing off against a Cop Killer, all while she's a patrol officer, results in this. Tellingly, it fully takes hold right about the same time she gets formally promoted to Intelligence.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Downplayed and combined with Took A Level In Cynicism above.
  • She's still a Nice Girl, but in later seasons, she has gotten much more snarky and seems to have less patience with people around her.
  • Her relationship with Ruzek post-engagement breakoff has been lukewarm at times but typically friendly, with the occasional post episode hookup. After one such liason results in her carrying his baby as a result, her basic responses to his presence are noticeably cooler, culminating with an angry "The Reason You Suck" Speech thrown in due to her issues.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Compared to the other female Intelligence officers, Burgess tends to be more feminine than the other ladies.
• True Companions: With Atwater, then Roman in Season 2 so much so that as Roman is beating himself up over arguing with his ex when she was shot, she declines Voight's initial offer to be detailed up to Intelligence, saying she feels she still needs to learn something on patrol with Roman.
• Tsundere: From dere to tsun to...somewhere in between with Ruzek. She starts out dating, then being engaged to him, only to break it off due to his Commitment Issues. After that, she treats him coolly up until new partner/lover Sean Roman leaves, then she flip-flops from wanting to still at least date or sleep with Ruzek to wanting him to back off and give her her space. His brief fling with Upton which he broke off from before he and Burgess conceive an unplanned child that later dies via miscarriage and Burgess adopting Makayla justwhen it seemed like they were back on track with each other complicate matters.
• Two Girls to a Team: First with Lindsay, then with Upton. Then with Rojas after Upton gets transferred. Currently back to her and Upton.
• Verbal Tic: Tends to utter rapid-fire triple repetition like Ian Malcolm being chased by a T. rex when she's talking fast or under stress. Examples:
  "Yeah-yeah-yeah,"
  "Go-go-go,"
• What the Hell, Hero?: She constantly gives and receives this with Ruzek. In one case, she assumed Ruzek shot a gang leader in cold blood and only later realized via surveillance footage that the shoot was justified. Ruzek chews her out for this, pointing out that he's always had her back and would have given her the benefit of the doubt had their positions been reversed.
• Where The White Women At: She has a brief relationship with Blair Williams, Superintendent Kelton's black mayoral campaign consultant, that ends when he's found murdered. The preganancy arc that she has in the following season was originally supposed to have him being the father.
• Will They or Won't They?: With Ruzek. Each time it seems that they're finally coming to a resoultion in their relationship, something else occurs to complicate things between them. The end of "Out of the Depths" the opening of "You Only Die Twice" finally seems to have resolved things, if anything, establishing that Burgess is ready to move past the on-again, off-again friends-with-benefits relationship and into a committed one with him.

Kevin Atwater

Kevin Atwater

Played By: La Royce Hawkins

Intelligence Unit Officer-turned-Detective.

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• 11th-Hour Ranger: He and Burgess are typically called up by Intelligence whenever they need the manpower.
• Action Hero: Atwater is a beat patrol officer and a dedicated, solid cop. At the end of Season 1, he is detailed to the Intelligence Unit.
• Badass Boast: How Atwater finally gets Sgt. Nolan to back down.
  Atwater: I'm going to tell you our way out.
  Nolan: That's not how this works.
  Atwater: It is if I Take the Third Option, where I give up my badge a different way. Where I sue you and I sue the Chicago police department. Where I detail the harassment, the intimidation, the kilo of dope you planted in my car, the officers who pulled me over, the break-in my house, the beatdown, the innocent cop you let get shot, the fact that you ordered other officers to do your bidding.
  Nolan: You might need some sort of evidence.
  Atwater: Yeah, but do you really think all those men are going to stand by you? When I rip you limb from limb in front of the media? When I give up my badge, my job, and my life to stand on the podium and call you a racist? Where every member of my team backs me while I march in the streets with your face on my poster, when I come for your job, your pension, your house, your name, all while you're still living while your three sons watch? I don't want to give up this job but if you keep coming after me, any member of my unit or any cop. I promise you, I will give it all away. I will make it my job to come after you and I will destroy you.
• Berserk Button:
  • He dislikes hypocritical criminals who pretend to care about the African American community and use it a ruse to move their products.
  • Disrespecting his partners, especially the female ones, seems to be this.
  • He despises racism to where he is willing to call out or go against other fellow officers for acting belligerent towards his race for no apparent reason. Unfortunately, this gets him targeted by some of his fellow officers for breaking the Blue Wall.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While he's generally an easy-going Nice Guy, it's not a good idea to piss him off.
• Big Brother Instinct: Atwater is very protective of his younger siblings.
• Big Damn Heroes: Taken literally (see The Big Guy).
• Big Fun: He's not outright portly like most examples but he was noticeably pauchier as a patrol cop, as well as being much more jovial. His Intelligence career gradually saw him slim down and consequently, he became more jaded.
• The Big Guy: The tallest and most physically imposing member in the Intelligence Unit.
• Boisterous Bruiser: He's the muscle of the unit and a regular at Molly's, known by the firefighters at 51 for throwing great parties and is shown doing stand-up comedy.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Burgess and Atwater, in Season 1 when both working as beat cops under Platt.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Like Burgess, he goes from being Big Fun to becoming progressively jaded by the crimes he faces on the job as an Intelligence officer, with most of it stemming from him witnessing and being subjected to both racism on the force and mistrust from his own (African-American) community due to him being a cop. The hazing he receives for breaking the blue wall finally sends him over the edge, leaving him paranoid and seriously considering quitting the force.
  Atwater: Maybe I don't want to be a cop anymore! I'm constantly looking over my shoulder. I'm mad every hour, every minute, every second. I'm mad at Nolan, I'm mad at you, I'm mad at Ruzek. I'm mad at every white cop that feels like they can make a deal for me. And every cop that's done this job the wrong way, which means I'm mad at myself. I'm so mad I don't even think I can do the job the right way anymore!
• By-the-Book Cop: Along with Halstead and Burgess, he's the least likely to go rogue during an investigation and has called out Voight and Ruzek when they want to resort to violent or illegal interrogation methods. He'll also back up a cop who followed protocol and speak out against one who isn't, no matter whether he dislikes said cop or not.
• Cool Car: As of Season 4, Atwater has gotten his hands on a Dodge Charger Hellcat.
• Clear My Name: An episode of Chicago Justice has him accused of using excessive force on a suspect in his custody.
• Dark and Troubled Past: In "Captive", its revealed Atwater shot and killed an aspiring gangster whom he knew from his own neighborhood named Ronnie a few years back when he was a beat cop. The young banger had killed a clerk, then refused to comply with Atwater and went for his gun. Kevin talks that he sees Ronnie's face as he goes to sleep every day.
• Designated Driver: Atwater always drives the patrol car when partnered with Burgess.
• The Dog Bites Back: Atwater finally has enough of his fellow officers' harassment when it results in Ruzek nearly being killed and goes after the sergeant who's calling the shots, giving him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech while threateing to sue him and drag his name through the mud if he allows it to continue.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Atwater begins the show with a clean-shaven head but it gradually grows and he keeps it longer. This shows his growing experience as a police officer.
• Friend to All Children: Kevin is very soft towards kids, in particular young minorities, and will be as kind as possible towards them.
• From Bad to Worse: Dear God, who knew breaking the blue wall could be so hazardous? It starts out with Atwater coming home and having to stare down several cops from Doyle's district while they zoom past him, lights and sirens blaring. Then, they attempt to frame him for drug possession by planting heroin in his undercover patrol car, with the implication that at least one of the officers who stops him is in on it (thankfully, Atwater and Ruzek had already found the planted drugs by that point.) Not to be outdone, the cops show up at his home again, this time in riot gear and beat him senseless. Next they manage to get him locked out the CPD system so he can't login or make calls on his radio. Then they bug his house. And finally, the sergeant orchestating the whole campaign orders patrols not to answer calls for backup from anyone in the Intelligence Unit, which not only allows a suspect they're pursuing to escape but leads to Ruzek getting shot—thankfully his vest deflects the bullet, but Atwater is completely at/past his breaking point by then.
• Heroic BSoD: Several, notably after he's forced to send his siblings away for their own safety and after Ruzek ends up getting shot because of his feud with Doyle's district.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Burgess and becomes this with Adam.
• Honor Before Reason: His decision to break the blue wall and go to IAD regarding Det. Doyle could be seen as this considering all the grief it nets him.
• It's All My Fault: His reaction to Ruzek being wounded since backup officers were ordered not to assist his team in retaliation for him breaking the blue wall.
• It's Personal: Multiple times where a case involved his siblings (specially Jordon) getting caught up in someone's mess. This goes for when his friends are in danger as well where he becomes very terrifying.
  • The ongoing harassment against him by fellow officers (not Intelligence) for breaking the blue wall becomes more personal than it already was when it indirectly leads to Ruzek getting shot.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Burgess.
• Like a Son to Me: Said about him by Voight at one point when Voight is defending his (Atwater's) decision to tell the truth about a well-liked cop's shooting death to IA (See Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!). When the sergeant Voight is talking to says that this will lead to the deceased cop's buddies/family in the force coming after Atwater, Voight says they'd better be ready to come after him as well.
  • A bit of stealth Fridge Brilliance applies here considering Voight's biological son was murdered by a man named Kevin.
• Manly Facial Hair: Has a cleanly shaven beard to match him being a tough cop.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Not with his sister, but a platonic example with Burgess when she and Ruzek pursue each other.
• Mysterious Past: His parents are unnamed and absent from his life and his younger siblings Jordan and Vanessa live with him as his wards though it's not yet established as to why. Its implied in a conversation between Burgess and Jordan that Kevin gave up a lot to be able to raise and provide for him and Vanessa.
  • "Long Lost" in season 10 gives him A Day in the Limelight and sheds some light on their father. Mr. Atwater went to prison after taking all the heat for a robbery and homicide for which he was simply a lookout. As a result, he went to prison, leaving Kevin to take care of his siblings. As the elder Atwater put it, "I just wanted you to remember our night walks." After the case is closed, Kevin, owner of a building, offers his father a place to stay despite the latter feeling as though he is undeserving of it, which Kevin agrees, but still offers it to him.
• Oh, Crap!: Atwater messes majorly up in season 2's "There's my Girl" leaving a cuffed suspect alone in the interrogation room with a soda can he gave him, which said suspect used to commit suicide. Voight temporarily bumps him back down to patrol and is put under investigation by IA.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Burgess. She also acts as an older sister for his siblings.
• Profiling: He's been a victim of this several times, most notably in "A Night In Chicago" while he was undercover.
• Promotion to Parent: Atwater, to his younger siblings Jordan and Vinessa.
• Properly Paranoid: Atwater becomes this after going against the blue wall and fearing retaliation from Doyle's crew. He's not wrong, but them covering their tracks and him not looping in Voight from the start make it impossible to catch them in the act.
• Scary Black Man: Wouldn't be much good as an Intelligence detective or even as a standard patrol cop if he couldn't pull this off when needed.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: An undercover officer Atwater is briefly partnered with, who has a history of racial profiling minority suspects, gets shot in the line of duty as a result of doing just this, including drawing his gun and shooting unprovoked, which prompted the other man and his buddies to shoot back in self-defense. While the cop is initially treated as a hero, Atwater chooses to go to the IA with the truth. After Voight explains that breaking the blue wall will put a target on his (and possibly the Unit's) back due to the cop having familial and other connections in the force, Atwater chooses to do so anyway. Read his From Bad to Worse entry above to see how badly this screws him.
  • "Fighting Ghosts" has him get into a shouting match with Voight after trying to explain to the latter that, due to the increasing public distrust towards law enforcement, taking suspects to the cage to beat out a confession can't be a tactic anymore.
• Ship Tease: With Rojas. He always to seems to be either pretending to be a couple with her when they're undercover or to be there backing her up when she does a take down. At one point, he threatens a suspect for calling Rojas a "bitch". The first thing he does when meeting her at the precinct on her first day on the IU is taking her out for coffee, albeit he does so to keep her from invoking Platt's wrath over a minor assignment detail the two women are debating.
• Standard Cop Backstory: Atwater's parents are unknown and he has custody of his younger brother and sister.
• Take a Third Option: Atwater is given two choices to end the CPD's harassment against him- turn in his badge or have a formal complaint filed against him which would keep him from making detective or advancing beyond Voight's unit. Per Voight's advice to do things differently, he goes to the sergeant who is orchestrating the harassment campaign and tells him that if it continues, he'll not only voluntarily relinquish his badge, he'll also sue the CPD and name the sergeant as the primary offender, and go public with all of the harassment he suffered—and documented—thus outing the sergeant and the officers in cahoots with him as racists and doing some serious damage to their careers. In short...
  Atwater: I will make it my job to come after you, and I will destroy you.
• Token Minority: After Sumner and Jin, he was the sole token person of color on Intelligence until Rojas joined. Back to this by Season 8. Averted once more in season 11, when Torres joins the unit.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Thanks to his interactions with racist cops in Seasons 6-8, along with the distrust he receives from fellow black citizens and the general violence or aftermath thereof that he witnesses as a member of Intelligence.

Trudy Platt

Trudy Platt

Played By: Amy Morton

Desk Sergeant, 21st District.

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• Always on Duty: No matter what time of day or night, we never see anyone at the desk but Platt.
• Ascended Extra: A recurring character in season 1. She's promoted to main character the following season.
• Blackmail: Platt has no qualms about using this when needed.
• Crossover Ship: Starting in Chicago Fire third season, Mouch and Platt from the two shows are in a relationship.
• Desk Jockey: Sergeant Platt works the desk of the 21st District's station house. She later explains that she was Antonio's training officer and took a shot to the hip while they were on patrol. Antonio managed to get her to safety but the injury meant that she'd be stuck behind a desk for the rest of her career.
• Determinator: She's determined to hunt down her father's killer in "All Cylinders Firing", so much so that not even the fractured orbital and other blunt force trauma she suffered at the start of that episode slow her down.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Well, a desk sergeant. Some of Trickster Mentor tactics border on this and she'll go full into it if her orders aren't followed or someone does something she deems incredibly stupid.
• Dirty Harriet: Platt tells Lindsay and Burgess in passing she used to work undercover as a street worker twenty years previously before the series. At their looks of skepticism, she admits it was really 25 years ago.
• Friend to All Children: Despite her hardass attitude, Trudy gets along well with kids. She's protective and hospitable towards younger kids who come in as victims or witnesses to crimes, comforting them or offering them food or drinks to ease their trauma. Some kids open up to her and, when neccessary, she'll make arrangments to make sure they're left with good people to take care of them.
  • In fact, Upton reveals that this was the reason she became a cop in Robbery Homocide; as a little girl 15 years prior, her father's store was violently robbed when she was working the register. The criminal beat her father, busting his eyesocket and nearly killing him. She was traumatized, but Platt, who was working the unit at the time, stayed with her and comforted her until the guy was caught. Upton decided after this she was going to become a cop and also work in Robbery Homocide just like her hero.
• Happily Married: With Mouch.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: She has this camaderie with Voight and Olinsky.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Platt loves nothing more than to toy with her subordinates but gives solid lessons to be learned (in a very roundabout way) from the hell she puts them through. She also takes Nadia under her wing and will do what she can to help the officers in her district if they're in genuine need of it. She is also absolutely smitten with Mouch and rarely (if ever) directs her usual causticity towards him.
• Ladykiller in Love: A gender-flipped example - Platt finds herself smitten with Mouch from Chicago Fire and they enter into a serious relationship which leads to a happy marriage.
• Mama Bear: Platt has a strange way of showing it but she is fiercely protective of all the cops in her district.
• Mistaken for Gay: Briefly by Ruzek due to her lack of an apparent partner and twisting his arm to be her date for just a social appearance. She's irritated when she finds out.
• A Mother to Her Men: Platt, to not just Burgess and the junior members of Intelligence, but to all the dedicated cops working under her.
• Never Mess with Granny: She doesn't suffer fools gladly and pissing her off or showing insubordination will get you a nasty "The Reason You Suck" Speech followed by whatever Trickster Mentor punishment she feels meets the offense. The guy who assaulted her and murdered her father ended up tied to a chair and would have been tortured to death if Voight hadn't shown up to stop her.
  Atwater: The deal is, don't mess with Trudy Platt...this is Platt's house and she's the weatherman. Piss her off and she can make it rain all day, every day.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Any time Sergeant Platt drops her jerkass persona and starts speaking earnestly means something's gone very, very wrong.
• Perpetual Frowner: Frowner may be a strong word but she doesn't smile that much.
• Really Gets Around: Platt, if her stories about herself are to be believed. She's apparently been with dozens of men over the years, including a significant chunk of her class at the police academy.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Platt carries a Colt revolver instead of an automatic; as a rookie, she nearly died in her first gunfight when her gun jammed. Her partner went and got her the revolver since it doesn't jam.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In Season 4, "All Cylinders Firing", her dad is murdered by a felon she worked behind-the-scenes to put away and had business with her father that went south ... so she tracks him down, gives him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and was fully intent on executing him if Voight hadn't stepped in.
• Shot in the Ass: Platt tells Ruzek that she was actually shot in the rear rather than the hip like she tells everyone, saying that her ass counts as her "high hip". She swears him to secrecy.
• Standard Cop Back Story: Her getting shot in the line of duty while training Dawson, on top of having joined the force at a time when female patrol officers weren't all that respected. As backstories on this series go, hers is probably the least traumatic.
• Stealth Mentor: in "Fagin" Detective Hailey Upton reveals that she joined the force because Platt had comforted her as a teenager in the wake of an armed robbery at her family's diner that resulted in her dad getting shot.
• Trickster Mentor: Platt loves to mess with the patrol officers in her district, her favorite targets being Burgess and whoever Burgess is partnered with.

Hailey Upton

Hailey Upton

Played By: Tracy Spiridakos

Intelligence Unit Detective.

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• Abusive Parents: Her father was often very cruel towards her and her brothers. It's somewhat subverted as she reveals that he wasn't always abusive but still counts as he continued this habit by switching from a nice person to an abusive alcoholic.
• Action Girl: As with the other women in the district and Intelligence, Upton also holds the rank of detective from a meritorious promotion.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Season 8 ends with her finally telling Halstead she loves him and asking him to marry her. After she's just witnessed Voight nearly beat a suspect to death and then had to kill said suspect herself in self-defense. And all of this on top of Burgess being transported to Med in critical condition.
• Bookends: Both the Season 8 and Season 9 finales have Upton forced to shoot someone in order to protect Voight from being killed.
• Blue Oni: Calm, collected and aloof, Hailey is this to Halstead's Red Oni.
• Brutal Honesty: Hailey will not hesitate to speak her mind if crap hits the fan.
  Hailey Upton: "Sorry, I'm Greek, I see tragedy in everything."
• Cowboy Cop: Not above using low-key threats or coercion to get what she wants in a case and eventually crosses over to ratting out a snitch for murdering one of her CIs and planting drugs to get a kingpin arrested. Hank sees this and eventually has her temporarily transferred when she goes too far.
• Dark and Troubled Past: In her past she had an abusive father who'd beat her as well as the rest of the family.
• Deadpan Snarker: Hailey does have her moments when she has the chance.
• Here We Go Again!: The Season 8 finale has Voight going solo to solve a case and Upton managing to catch up with him despite being thrown off his trail in time to save his life by shooting the murder suspect he's alone with. The season 9 finale ends exactly the same way.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Develops this with Burgess and Rojas, taking the latter in as a roommate when she has nowhere else to go.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Upton's cold blue eyes reflect her generally aloof, level-headed demeanor.
• Lad-ette: Hailey is this being a cop, which reflects her attitude and sense of fashion, jean, jackets and blazers.
• Married to the Job: Upton never shows any details of her personal life and says in a deleted scene with Halstead that she doesn't have one.
  Halstead: "You're incredibly aloof about your personal life."
  Upton: "I'm not aloof. I just don't have one."
• Platonic Life-Partners: She develops a good rapport with Halstead, though there are hints that it may be evolving into something more.
  • As of "Unforgiven" it's no longer platonic.
• Put on a Bus: Her increasingly Cowboy Cop tactics get her temporarily transferred to the FBI.
• Promoted to Opening Titles: For Season 5.
• She Who Fights Monsters: Season 7 sees her crossing some dangerous lines such as ratting out Voight's CI after he has her own CI murdered, causing his death, and planting drugs on a kingpin the unit was trying to bust in order to help a deal she made with Rojas's ex-boyfriend go through so he won't do more than a year for drug possession. The final one proves to be the last straw for Voight and he promptly has Upton temporarily assigned to the New York branch of the FBI. Yes, that FBI.
• Ship Tease: With Halstead. They finally make it official in "Tender Age".
• Sixth Ranger: Initially joins the unit out of Robbery/Homicide as a replacement for Burgess in Season 4's tail end. Lindsay's departure to the FBI allows her to stay when Burgess comes back.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Upton comes across as obstinate and emotionless in her police work but is loyal and gets along with her fellow cops and compassionate and sympathetic to victims nonetheless.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Shares the Tomboy dynamic with Lindsay and Rojas to Burgess's Girly Girl.
• Token Evil Teammate: Shows shades of becoming this in Season 7, but it's noticeable enough that Voight, of all people, becomes disturbed by it.
• True Companions: With Jay Halstead who becomes her new partner in Intelligence. Also with Vanessa Rojas, who moves in with her after joining the unit.
• Two Girls to a Team: Upton has this dynamic with Lindsay briefly, but much more prominently with Burgess going into Season 5.
• What Would X Do?: Her methods become more and more influenced by Voight's own Cowboy Cop tactics, which he's been trying to get away from as of late, until she finally goes to far, resulting in Voight temporarily reassigning her to the FBI in New York.

Dante Torres

Dante Torres

Played By: Benjamin Levy Aguilar

Newest Recruit to join Intelligence; formerly Halstead's protege'

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• Dark and Troubled Past: He once ran with a neighborhood gang and apparently still has ties to them that he's trying to shed. This comes to light even more in "New Life", where it's revealed that he was an enforcer for a drug dealer and willingly let himself be waterboarded by his fellow members to get out of the gang.
• A Day in the Limelight: "Donde Vives" focuses on his personal life, including his ties to his former neighborhood gang.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After Ramiro makes a thinly-veiled threat against his mother, he removes his badge and his gun and proceeds to beat Ramiro to a pulp, starting with a headbutt.
• Put on a Bus: Even after becoming a regular in Season 9, he spends most of this and the beginning of Season 10 away caring for his ailing mother.
• The Quiet One: He's not much for conversation and usually responds with one-word answers at first. He's also very soft-spoken.
  • Beware the Quiet Ones: You do not want to piss him off if you value keeping all of your teeth where they belong. Ramiro found out the hard way after vaguely threatening his mom.
• Token Minority: The resident Latino on Intelligence as of Season 10, a role previously filled by Dawson and Rojas.

Former Main Characters

Sheldon Jin

Sheldon Jin

Played By: Archie Kao

Tech and Surveillance expert (Season 1).

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• Asian and Nerdy: Downplayed with Jin. He's not especially nerdy, but he is the tech guy.
• Crazy-Prepared: Jin realized that working in Intelligence meant that he and the rest of the unit would inevitably come under heavy scrutiny. In order to counter that, he electronically monitored the activities of every cop he could, including some very high up the chain of command, and dug up a lot of dirt in order to have some leverage in the future.
• Sacrificial Lion: Jin is killed in the first season finale.
• Mission Control: He's this for the Intelligence Unit.
• The Mole: Voight is convinced someone in his unit is a spy for Internal Affairs, and strongly suspects Sumner who IA placed in his unit. Its actually Jin.
• Non-Action Guy: Though he is referred to as "Officer" and is seen carrying a firearm, he doesn't go out on the field, being relegated to tech support for the unit.
• Token Minority: He's of Asian descent in the Unit.
• Undying Loyalty: To Voight, doing anything off-the-books, disposing of incriminating evidence etc, that he tells Jin to do. Subverted towards the end of season 1, where it's revealed Jin is a spy for IA Sergeant Edwin Stillwell, though unwillingly.

Sean Roman

Sean Roman

Played By: Brian Geraghty

Patrol Officer, 21st District.

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• Big Brother Instinct: Season 7's crossover with Chicago Fire reveals he has a teeanage sister who went missing, prompting him to return to Chicago and request Severide and the Intelligence Unit(specifically, Burgess)'s help in finding her. When he finds that she's been murdered by her drug dealer boyfriend, he murders him in revenge.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Burgess and Roman, in Season 2.
• Career-Ending Injury: Gets shot in the line of duty and leaves CPD after learning that his injury would leave him on desk duty for the rest of his career as an officer.
• Hot-Blooded: Moody and confrontational by default. He even punched another cop when the guy disagreed with him in a crisis.
• Karma Houdini: Subverted. Burgess wanted to charge him with murdering his sister's killer, but was willing to wait until after the girl's funeral had cleared out before arresting him. And then Voight outright belays it, saying that the guy got what he deserved and while Intelligence will continue to investigate the matter, it won't be their "top priority" , leaving Roman to deal with his own guilt however he sees fit.
• It's All My Fault: When Burgess was shot doing a drop-by and talk whilst he was arguing with his ex over their failed relationship. Also blames himself for not being around to keep his sister Sarah from falling in with the wrong crowd, which ultimately leads to her death.
• Put on a Bus: He decides to leave Chicago to find a fresh start with the San Diego PD at the end of Season 3.
• Relationship Upgrade: With Burgess towards the end of Season 3.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He murders his sister's killer, aka her abusive drug-dealing boyfriend, for beating and strangling her, then leaving her outside in the cold while she was still barely conscious, causing her to freeze to death.
• The Bus Came Back: He returns in the Season 7 crossover with Chicago Fire to search for his missing sister.

Erin Lindsay

Erin Lindsay

Played By: Sophia Bush

Intelligence Unit Detective.

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• 10-Minute Retirement: Turns in her badge at the end of the second season finale, soured up on police work after Nadia's death and an attempt to kill her by crooked cops. She returns to Intelligence in the season three premiere coming to Jay's rescue after his undercover operation is compromised.
• Action Girl: She's a police detective and when it comes down to it Lindsay really kicks ass.
• Arch-Nemesis: Greg Yates who murdered, tortured and raped Nadia, who she then faces off with before she shoots him. Later, she admits she was relieved to be the one to shoot him.
• Berserk Button: Crooks abusing and harming younger, more vulnerable victims, whom she seems to sympathize with considering she was in a similar position. Also, women who fake being victims.
• Big Sister Instinct: She watches out for her stepbrother Justin and tries to help Voight keep him in line. Also develops this for Nadia in helping her get clean and get a job.
• Birds of a Feather: With Nadia. Which makes it all the more crushing when Nadia's killed.
• Break the Cutie: Her depression after Nadia's horrendous death, a perp getting the jump on her having a gun pointed at her face, then corrupt cops breaking into her home. Her new depressive disposition is gets so bad she almost quits the force.
• Class Reunion: In Season 1, Lindsay begs Halstead to escort her to hers, pretending he is her extremely wealthy and successful fiance in order to impress the snobby girls who ridiculed her as a teen. Although he doesn't approve, Halstead agrees to go, but just outside the hotel, Lindsay changes her mind about going inside.
• Crossover Ship: Severide from Fire and Lindsay from PD started a relationship, which Lindsay ended after Severide, still reeling from Shay's death, kept bailing on her.
• Daddy's Girl: Although she's not his actual daughter, either biological or adopted, Lindsay and Voight have an incredibly close relationship. She tries to emulate Voight in many ways, even affecting a slight rasp in her voice as a subtle and possibly unconscious way to sound more like him, and always defends his actions, even when everyone else is against him, and he in turn tries to protect her physically in an often dangerous job.
• Descent into Addiction: Lindsay, at the end of Season 2, following Nadia's rape and horrendous death.
• Disappeared Dad: Her biological father is not known.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Lindsay (quite understandably, as she is the child of a junkie mother and a father serving life in prison.)
• Fair Cop: Smart, tenacious and tough, not to mention easy on the eyes, played by Sophia Bush.
• Family of Choice: Lindsay and Voight. After a meeting with her mother, during which she is told that Voight is not her family, Lindsay goes straight to Voight, simply to tell him that he definitely is.
• Freudian Couch: Averted. Lindsay has met with Dr. Charles in a coffee shop, and they've even chatted unofficially at Molly's.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: A platonic example. She was being targeted by the suspect Greg Yates which lead to him abducting, raping and murdering Nadia. Lindsay is devastated over this fact feeling immense guilty thinking her investigating the perp in the case lead to her death.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: She does this in "Army of One" on a pedophile/kidnapper, pistol-whipping him and forcing her gun down his throat to force him to give up the location of the kidnapped boy in the interrogation room. It backfires on her when she's called to the Chicago PD review board, placed on leave, facing the possibility of never being a cop again, so she accepts a deal with the FBI to move to New York City.
• Like a Daughter to Me: Lindsay is this to Voight.
• Missing Mom: When she was 15, Lindsay's negligent, drug-addicted mother simply didn't come home one night. She appears in the Season 2 premiere, calling Lindsay repeatedly, only to have her ignoring the calls. Lindsay finally goes to meet her mother, whom she says she hasn't spoken to in eight years, implying there was some contact between the two after Lindsay moved in with the Voights.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In Season 4 "Fagin", she guns down an offender armed with a sub-machine gun in her direction. Her face when she sees his after removing his helmet says it all that she'd just killed a teenage boy.
• Not Blood Siblings: Voight's son Justin has shown quite a bit of attraction toward Lindsay, kissing her on the mouth and showing jealousy at her perceived relationship with Halstead. Even though they aren't biological siblings, she was 15 when Voight and his wife took her in, and Justin significantly younger, meaning he really should be thinking of her as a sister.
• Official Couple: With Halstead. Though, their obvious connection is initially forbidden by Voight, they start a steady relationship in Season 3 until the end of Season 4 after he reveals he's legally married.
• Parental Substitute: The Voights for Lindsay, after he took her in at age 15. Lindsay is later moved to tears at the memory of Voight's wife and how the woman was the one who actually got her to clean up her act.
• Penny Among Diamonds: Lindsay tells Halstead that when the Voights took her in, they transferred her to a private school full of rich kids who were only friendly until they learned the truth about her background.
• Put on a Bus: In "Fork In The Road," the threat of being charged with aggravated assault for pistol-whipping a cuffed child molester in "Army Of One" leads her to join the FBI and go to New York City.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Lindsay, when heading out to her high school reunion and goes undercover at a sex club.
• Standard Cop Backstory: Lindsay, whose mother was a junkie and father is in prison, bounced around foster homes.
• Street Urchin: Lindsay, growing up with a junkie mother, until she meets Voight at age 14 and is taken in by him and his wife at age 15.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted when Lindsay starts talking to Dr. Daniel Charles from Chicago Med in "Actual Physical Violence." She's reluctant at first, but agrees at the end of the episode.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Is the Tomboy to Burgess's Girly Girl when they're both on the Unit.
• Two Girls to a Team: First with Burgess, then with Upton until Lindsay joins the FBI at the end of Season 4.
• Undying Loyalty: For her father figure Voight who took her in off the streets and gave her a good life, so much so she repays him by disposing the body of Justin's murderer after the authorities were closing in on him for killing the suspect and staying quiet.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: She leaves the show to work for the FBI in New York, but is nowhere to be seen in the actual FBI show, which takes place in the same universe.

Alvin Olinsky

Alvin Olinsky

Played By: Elias Koteas

Intelligence Unit Detective, Army veteran, and longtime friend and partner of Hank Voight. He was knifed in prison after being arrested and later died of his wounds in the hospital in the season Five finale "Homecoming"

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• Action Dad: Olinsky has the rank of senior detective and a daughter Lexi. It's revealed in Season 2 finale he has another daughter Michelle Sovana by another woman.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Olinsky is quiet and reserved, but that all hides just how badass and dangerous he can be to those who don't see so immediately or those who piss him off. When his wife Meredith is taken hostage at gunpoint by two hooded home invaders to blackmail him into giving them back their heroin, he shows them just how much. One gets killed. The other? Olinsky came right up from behind the crook and in seconds points a commandeered gun to his head.
• Blue Oni: Reserved, soft-spoken, thoughtful and quiet, Olinsky is this to Voight's Red Oni.
• Cold Sniper: Shares this with Halstead. And he definitely fits the 'cold' part.
• Cowboy Cop: Alongside Voight, Olinsky plays fast with the rules of serving the city of Chicago in the cases Intelligence works, including taking the law into his own hands, though to a lesser degree.
• Cynical Mentor:
  • He's this for Adam Ruzek when the rookie is detailed for Intelligence, coaching him in surveillance and undercover assignments.
  • In Season 4, he became this for Kim Burgess. One lecture in particular carries a heavy subtext of "Don’t turn into me." Unfortunately, he's not that far off.
• The Confidant: For Voight.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: He gets unexpectantly shanked to death in prison for something that didn't even have to do with the running storyline at the time.
• Experienced Protagonist: He's been a cop as long as Voight.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: He, Voight and Platt go back nearly twenty years.
• It's Personal
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Olinsky gets properly angry when investigating people smugglers and Voight actually has to step in and pull his friend back from going too far with this style of interrogation.
• Killer Cop
• Morality Pet: He's the only one who can successfully talk Voight out of doing something that he and/or the rest of the Unit will regret.
• Never Bareheaded: Olinsky is never seen without a dark woolen winter hat...not at work, not at the bar, not at home at his own family dinner table.
• Nice Guy: He's usually pretty fair and kind towards others.
• Outliving One's Offspring: In "Emotional Proximity", he is devastated when Lexi dies from her injuries from an arson fire.
• Papa Wolf: For his daughter, Lexi.
• Standard Cop Backstory: Olinsky was in the service. Also, his marriage fell apart and he moved into his garage in order to be close to his daughter. He and his wife are starting to patch things up but then she kicks him out completely upon the discovery that Olinsky has a previously-unknown daughter by another woman.
• The Stoic: Generally emotionless and soft-spoken all the time.
• Token Evil Teammate: Downplayed. He's generally more by-the-book than Voight, but if the situation calls for it, he'll willingly get his hands dirty when interrogating a suspect so Voight's can stay clean. For this reason, he's usually the one Voight takes with him for off-the-book cases. There are a few times where Voight has to stop him from going to far with it, however.
• Torture Technician: Voight uses his reputation to terrorize suspects and uses pain on those who don't fear him. Olinsky often provides backup or runs interference while this is happening.
• Tranquil Fury: When Alvin gets angry he usually talks in a very low monotone voice to show how serious he is. This is shown when personally made a rapist beg for his life as he did with two girls prior to Alvin capturing him.
• True Companions: With Voight.
• Undying Loyalty: For Voight and vice versa, the two of them always going to bat for one another when they each carry out their own brand of justice, Olinsky typically running interference when Voight does something "off-the-books".
• Wound That Will Not Heal: In the penultimate episode of Season 5, while in prison he's knifed by an inmate. He dies from his wounds in the finale despite Chicago Med's efforts to save him.

Antonio Dawson

Antonio Dawson

Played By: Jon Seda

Intelligence Unit Senior Detective. Older brother of Paramedic/Firefighter Gabriela Dawson from Chicago Fire.

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• Action Dad: Antonio has the rank of Senior Detective and has a son Diego and a daughter Eva.
• Arch-Enemy: In season 1, Adrez Diaz aka Pulpo who killed Antonio's partner Jules and had his son Diego kidnapped. Pulpo even attempts to kill him when he escapes.
• Berserk Button: Cases where little kids are the victims really hit close to home with him. Definitely doesn't help that he's a father.
  • He once delivered a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on a registered sex offender who was a suspect in the murder of a tender age boy, that Voight had to step in and restrain him.
  • Another case with a 6 year old murder victim at the hands of a banger affects him hard that he's close to tears when interrogating the gang member in question.
  • Don't even think about messing with his family. Just don't.
• Big Brother Instinct: For Gabriella Dawson.
• Blue Oni: To Voight's Red Oni. Antonio is the level-headed, honest cop who does everything by the book, who comes into conflict with Voight's more ruthless convictions and code.
• Boxing Battler: He's a trained boxer and it usually serves him well in a fight when combined with his police training.
• Break the Cutie: Dawson's under so much pressure in season 2 what with his divorce from his ex and his trying to support his children. He lands a second job in private security for some extra money ... until his client is murdered under his watch, that he risks losing his pension.
• By-the-Book Cop: He is a decent and honest cop who generally follows police procedure in the course of his work and comes to disagree with many of Voight's more ruthless methods. However after his son Diego is kidnapped he makes an exception to find his kidnapped son (see Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique).
• Commuting on a Bus: Midway through Season 4, Antonio moves to the State's Attorney's Office, though he keeps in contact with Intelligence and is seen from time to time for the rest of the season, though starting Season 5, he's makes a comeback to CPD.
• Dashing Hispanic: He's of Dominican descent, sports a Shirtless Scene now and then.
• Dead Partner: Loses his partner in th series premier.
• Descent into Addiction: In Season 6, Antonio becomes addicted to painkillers after an injury on the job. It gets so bad in episode "Descent", he starts buying on the street and gets in too deep with dealers that results in Eva being kidnapped.
• Death Glare: Antonio has a rather impressive one.
• First Day from Hell: While it's not his first day on the job, his first episode on ''Chicago P.D. has his son getting kidnapped and his partner getting fatally shot right in front of him.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Antonio's a boxer, runs a boxing gym and it shows whenever he has to face off against a perp.
• Good Parents: To his son and daughter despite the little time he ever does get to see them.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Antonio has a tendency to border on this behavior at times due to the amount of stress he goes through on a daily basis and will lash out at others when he's highly frustrated or upset. At the end of the day he tries to remain being a nice person but it seems his own affairs and inability to keep his emotions in check refrain him from doing so.
• Happily Married: In season 1 to his wife Lauren. Subverted after the finale when she files for divorce, takes custody of the kids and moves away before season 2, because of the stress of Antonio's job.
• The Heart: Is this to the Intelligence Unit, being a level-headed, likeable all-round Nice Guy. Voight even says the unit came together when he took Antonio on.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With his partner, Julia 'Jules' Wilhite who is killed in the series' premiere. Also with Halstead and Voight.
• Injured Limb Episode: He injures his shoulder while pursuing a suspect and the pain from it is significant enough that he gets hooked on painkillers in subsequent episodes, leading to the end of his career.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: In "Wrong Side of the Bars", with time running out to find Diego's kidnappers, Voight convinces Antonio to beat the truth out of a suspect.
• Nice Guy: Antonio Dawson, definitely.
• Number Two: To Voight in the Intelligence Unit, often taking command whenever Voight is unavailable.
• Odd Friendship: With Voight. Antonio was who arrested him for his actions towards Matt Casey. Morseso, Antonio is the more level-headed By-the-Book Cop while Voight is a ruthless Cowboy Cop who's prone to beating suspects, and the two are known to lock horns over their differing ideologies. While working together in Intelligence however, Antonio gains a newfound respect and common ground with Voight after his methods lead to safely rescuing Diego, then when Antonio covers for Justin's role in a murder, and passing up on being offered Voight's job.
• Papa Wolf: Towards his children. Two crooks involved in the kidnapping of his son Diego found out the hard way. As did the Asshole Victim in Season 5 who kidnapped Eva, via Destination Defenestration.
• Put on a Bus: A painkiller addiction combined with him murdering an unarmed suspect resulted in Voight stating he'd dropped him off at a rehab facility at the beginning of Season 7. In the following episode, it is revealed he is moving to Puerto Rico with Gabby.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He gives one to Gradishar after she tries to use him as a rat. Reminding her that she had met him 15 years before when she investigated his partner, Sean Patterson for double-dipped overtime pay that had been because Patterson mistakenly filed the wrong paperwork. But Gradishar wanted to make a name for herself and went after him harder, resulting in the loss of his pension and job, and Patterson's suicide a year later.
• Standard Cop Backstory: Dawson's job leads to his getting divorced and he rarely gets to see his children.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Ruzek asks Dawson about his injured shoulder looking better, which he attributes to acupuncture. When Ruzek asks why not just take pain pills and a shot of vodka Dawson replies that's not his style. It's later revealed that he's become addicted to said pills.
• Team Dad: One of the more senior members in Intelligence and thus more supportive and reliable to his teammates in contrast to Voight's more ruthless approach.
• Team Spirit: Antonio is a loyal, protective team player to the core, and never lets his teammates down. Even when he obviously suspects Voight's more extreme methods and the ruthless sergeant comes under suspicion by the brass, he remains completely silent in no small part due to Voight playing a part in saving Diego despite their history.
  Antonio Dawson: (to Voight) "You and I might disagree on certain things but I don't do business like that. Never have."
• Transplant: Antonio is the most notable example within the Chicago verse, appearing and starring across three shows. In Chicago Fire, he's a recurring character being Gabby Dawson's brother, before starring in the series as a main character on PD.
  • In Season 4, he then makes his move to star in the short-lived Chicago Justice until his return to PD in Season 5.

Vanessa Rojas

Vanessa Rojas

Played By: Lisseth Chavez

Intelligence Unit Officer.

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• Action Girl: Was an undercover officer before joining Intelligence.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: She's gone in Season 8 and the rest of the Unit just continues as if she'd never been there.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She spent most of her childhood and all of her adolescence in the foster care system until she aged out and no mention of where her parents were or how she ended up there, either. At some point in her teens/early adulthood, she and her then-boyfriend got caught carjacking and she would have ended up with a criminal record had he not taken the fall for her. Voight later points out her personnel file has several red flags in it but says she's got to let the past stay the past if she wants to continue being a cop.
• Disappeared Dad: She knows enough about her father to know he's black but beyond that, makes no mention of either of her parents or how she ended up in foster care as a child.
• First Day from Hell: Downplayed, since it's not particularly hellish and ultimately gets better, but Rojas's first day on the Intelligence Unit has her narrowly avoiding angering Platt over something petty, then being involved in a carjacking foot chase that ends with her suspect falling to his death and Voight letting her know how happy he is with the extra paperwork he's got to fill out as a result. On top of that, she gets assigned to Upton, who's less than thrilled to be saddled with a newbie as opposed to usually partnering with Halstead. She spends the rest of the episode trying to prove herself.
• Foster Kid: She was one for her entire child/adolescent life, having been in and out of 32 foster homes before she aged out.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Upton
• Missing Mom: No mention is made of her mother or how she ended up in foster care as a young child.
• Neat Freak: Compulsively picks up after herself and explains it as a result of bouncing between foster homes when Upton points this out.
• One-Steve Limit: Has nearly the same first name as Atwater's Put on a Bus sister but it's spelled with the traditional "Vanessa" rather than "Vinessa".
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: She's the smallest/shortest team member and regularly chases and takes down suspects much larger than her by charging headlong into them.
• Shipper on Deck: She's the one who gets Upton to finally confront her growing romantic feelings toward Halstead.
• Ship Tease: With Atwater. Since flirting with each other from the start, if they're not being an undercover pretend couple, he's her backup whenever she does a physical take down. Just don't call her a "bitch" in front of him.
• Sixth Ranger: After being introduced as an undercover officer in her debut, she's added to the unit to replace Dawson.
• Spicy Latina: She is of Hispanic descent and tough as nails. She's not nearly as temperamental as most trope examples, though.
• Standard Cop Backstory: Was in the foster system until she aged out, barely made it out of high school, and ended up homeless, but managed to graduate and became a cop thanks to a compassionate case worker who was determined to see her succeed.
  • At one point, she turned to carjacking with her then-boyfriend in order to survive. He ended up taking the whole rap so she could keep her record clean.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Shares the Tomboy dynamic with Upton to Burgess's Girly Girl.
• True Companions: With Upton. They're roommates, they ride together quite frequently, and when Upton is waiting for Halstead to recover at Chicago Med, Rojas brings her food and clean clothes.
• Twofer Token Minority: She's a Afro-Latina female Intelligence Officer.
• Two Girls to a Team: Becomes this with Burgess after Upton's temporary FBI transfer.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Season 8 opens without her and no mentions are made about her status or whereabouts.

Jay Halstead

Jay Halstead

Played By: Jesse Lee Soffer

Intelligence Unit Detective and former US Army Airborne Ranger who fought in Afghanistan.

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• Accidental Murder: In Season 5 opener "Reform", Halstead and civilian bystanders come under fire in a shootout, where he fired a single round wounding an armed suspect ... with the bullet ending up going through the perp, through a wooden door ... and then hits an ''eight-year-old'' girl who later dies.
• Action Hero: He has the rank of detective and was an army Ranger who did tours in Afghanistan.
• Berserk Button: People sexually abusing young boys is a big one for him, to the point that he was the prime suspect in the murder of a pedophile he attempted to arrest before. At least he's aware of what it does to him.
  Halstead: Do me a favor and don't leave me alone with the swim coach.
• The Berserker: Jay always seems to take on more of the action based raids to where he should end up getting killed on the job as he's always the first one to dive head first in a situation without any regard for his own safety. This moreso lands him in a heap of trouble as he would often do something so reckless that it eventually leads him to accidentally killing someone in the crossfire, endangering others in the process, earning a severe amount of injuries, and eventually taking out his anger on those who don't deserve it.
• Butt-Monkey: All the time. Halstead's been kidnapped and tortured (more than once), accused of murder, has been shot, and suffers from PTSD and Survivor's Guilt from his time in the Rangers. On top of all that, his girlfriend Lindsay leaves just as he's planning to propose to her.
• Chick Magnet: Had a brief relationship with Chicago Fire Gabriella Dawson, had attention of an ex-girlfriend Ali, had an ex (or so he thought) wife named Abby—who wasn't ready for him to sign their divorce papers— and his relationship with Detective Erin Lindsay. Not to mention to growing attraction between him and Detective Hailey Upton that sees them ultimately become husband and wife.
• Clear My Name: In Season 1, he is accused of murdering an alleged pedophile who he'd arrested for molesting and murdering the younger brother of his high-school girlfriend who beat the rap in court after the man's father bailed him out. Jay relentlessly harassed the family for years landing only putting himself under the microscope even more. He is cleared after the man's father confessed to killing the young man after realizing his son truly was guilty.
• Cold Sniper: Subverted with Halstead. Despite serving in this capacity for the military and now the Chicago police, he is very feeling. He simply knows that sometimes it's the only way.
• Deadpan Snarker: He always manages to have a snarky quip up his sleeve, even at the most inappropriate of times.
• Fair Cop: He's not at all bad looking.
• Fatal Flaw: While it's obvious that Jay's temper and his recklessness often lands him in bad situations, but it would seem that his major problem is his inability to mind his own business. This is much less a flaw but moreso an issue with connecting with others as it sometimes demonstrates that he does more harm than good when interfering with personal affairs or poking his nose when it doesn't belong. Often this would compromise another's relationship with their close peers or interfere with a decision that would violate someone's own right to choose their fate.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With his good friend Mouse whom he deeply cares for and they both will always back each other up in their decisions.
• Hot-Blooded: Jay is very brash and impulsive as he's more than willingly to risk his life very much recklessly even if he's off duty. On the job he's rather aggressive being that he has a very bad temper especially with him taking down suspects and interrogation tactics.
• Hypocrite: He usually ends up questioning Voight for his violent methods but meanwhile he's been known to be very aggressive towards known criminals himself. Such as when he assaulted a pedophile's father for defending them at a bar. This was likely toned down after being accused of killing that same pedophile.
• Idiot Ball:
  • In Season 5, "Care Under Fire", Halstead pursues the sister of a suspect he is assigned to watch whilst undercover under his alias, then continues to date her even after the job is finished to distract him from his miserable home life. It bites him in the ass when the two of them become mixed up in the murder of a undercover federal agent, it comes out she's a drug dealer and recruits other dealers putting his credibility and job on the line for her, landing him in the doghouse with Voight.
  • He lets his guilt over getting an innocent man incarcerated, where he was ultimately murdered, get the best of him and confesses to the man's wife, whom he's been trying to lend support. She shoots him the first chance she gets, putting him in critical condition for an entire episode.
• The Lancer: He's the most action-oriented of the unit, given he was an Army ranger deployed to Afghanistan and the most commonly seen breaching addresses of suspects with rams.
• Missing Mom: His and Will's mom died of cancer, which is a sore point for Jay having previously harbored some resentment towards Will because he was "out partying" when she passed away.
• Official Couple: With Lindsay. Until towards the end of Season 4.
  • Again with Upton, as of Season 8.
• Parental Issues: Understandably calls his father Pat a "crusty pain in the ass." Turns out his father never supported Jay enlisting or joining the Chicago police academy.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Hailey Upton.
  • As of "Unforgiven," this is no longer the case.
• Put on a Bus: Leaves at the end of season 10, episode 3 to rejoin the Army, to participate in drug interdiction.
• Ranger: Halstead is an Army vet, having served in the rangers in Afghanistan.
• Red Oni: Brash and Hot-Blooded, Halstead is this to his new partner Hailey Upton in Season 5.
• Sex with the Ex: Halstead has an ex-girlfriend, Ali Corson from high school with whom he's still on great terms with, as well as with her parents. Whenever she's back in Chicago, they hook up.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Jay suffered from PTSD from when he served in Afghanistan and occasionally has relapses whenever doing the job gets to him.
• Ship Tease: With Lindsay until they became an Official Couple. After she left, he now shares this with Upton. They make it official in "Tender Age".
• Shirtless Scene: Halstead, a couple of times.
• Standard Cop Backstory: He was in the service.
• Survivor's Guilt: Its obvious in many episodes via conversations and appearances that Jay suffers from immense guilt over his experiences overseas in Afghanistan where many of his brothers in arms died instead of coming home like him.
• There Are No Therapists: Until mid-Season 5, under Voight's orders after his Trauma Conga Line and his Idiot Ball move in dating a murder suspect and drug dealer.
• Transplant: Before the series pilot, he first appears in Chicago Fire season 2, as an undercover cop who works to shut down a dirty businessman threatening Firehouse 51's own Molly's and briefly dating Gabby Dawson.
• Trauma Conga Line: In Season 5, after Lindsay's departure. In a shooting, he learns he fired a stray round that hit and killed an eight-year-old girl, after which his nightmares and trauma from serving overseas resurface. Then when he tries to get a fellow Ranger-turned-kidnapper out of the gutter, the guy is killed right in front of him, which almost pushes Halstead over the edge.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: In Season 4, his romance with Erin is on the outs though they're still civil to and work together, and once Erin's career is on the line and her mother causes more trouble, Halstead decides he still loves her, deciding to propose and waits for her at ''Molly's, unaware that Erin has decided to head to New York to join an FBI task-force, leaving him.

Recurring Characters

Family Members

Justin Voight

Justin Voight

Played By: Josh Segarra

Voight's troublesome son.

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• Action Dad: After his Character Development he's now making the Army his career and has his own son, Daniel.
• Character Death: Is killed in the Season 3 finale.
• Delinquents: Justin has a history for getting into legal trouble, including bar fights, having been first introduced on Fire having caused an vehicular accident after driving under the influence.
• Missing Mom: His mother, Camille, Hank's wife was killed a few years before the start of the series.

Lexi Olinsky

Lexi Olinsky

Played By: Alina Taber

Olinsky's daughter with his wife Meredith.

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• Bratty Teenage Daughter: In her bad moments, although she remains less emotional than most versions of this.
• Character Death: Dies from severe burns caused by a fire in the season 4 crossover with Chicago Fire introducing the Chicago Justice pilot.
• Daddy's Girl: She is established as being close with her father from their first scene.
• Dropped a Bridge on Her: her character death is sudden, and frankly irritating given the lack of attention it gets and how it wasn't necessary for the plot of the Chicago Justice pilot that followed the trial of the arsonist, given the large number of victims there anyway and the lack of focus given the the Olinski's in that episode. The fact that there would have been great potential to use her in the next season, when her father is in prison and being targeted for death, takes this into They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character territory.
• Hope Spot: The Chicago Fire portion of the death trap crossover ends with her apparently having been stabilized, albeit in an induced coma. Then in the Chicago PD segment, she suffers complications and despite efforts from Drs. Halstead and Manning to save her, she dies.
• What You Are in the Dark: One season 1 episode has her firm about testifying against the murderer of one of her classmates even though the man is a gang leader known for killing witnesses, and her father and his colleagues have been trying hard to keep her out of it and find another way to pursue the case. In the end, they let her testify, but Voight threatens to have the gang leader murdered in prison if he retaliates against her.

Meredith Olinsky

Meredith Olinsky

Played By: Melissa Carlson

Alvin Olinksy's somewhat estranged wife who banishes him twice, first to the garage, then from the house altogether. Despite this, she still loves him dearly and is utterly heartbroken when Olinsky is murdered before they have a chance to fully reconcile.

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• Never My Fault: She blames Voight for Olinsky getting killed before she has a chance to reconcile with him, despite the fact that she obviously could have done so while he was still alive.

Bunny Fletcher

Barbara "Bunny" Fletcher

Played By: Markie Post

Lindsay's flighty mother; a former drug addict who constantly tries to reinsert herself back into Lindsay's life despite being estranged from her.

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• Abusive Parents: Bunny is an emotionally manipulative mother to her daughter. During Erin's youth, she was also very neglectful, often choosing drugs of some kind over raising her child.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Almost every altruistic or maternal act by Bunny is part of some scheme to reinsert herself back into Erin's life; ratting out a robbery crew who murdered two hostages (it backfires when Bunny's role in covering their tracks is revealed), claiming that ex-convict Jimmy Sanguinetti is Linday's father (he's proven not to be thanks to a DNA test Halstead runs; whether Bunny is genuinely surprised or lying is left open to conclusion) and playing a battered girlfriend of a career criminal (she's the one who murdered him and stole his stash of stolen pharmaceuticals. Also; Erin has bigger problems than her mother playing Black Widow.
• Consummate Liar
• Jerkass Has a Point: She is by no means a concerned or caring mother, but she makes a valid point - Hank Voight is no saint; a statement that has been proven true given his frequent Dirty Cop actions and hypocrisy on other cops (either from his own squad or a different one), doing the same things.
• The Load: Whenever she shows up, she sucks Lindsay and the rest of the team into whatever drama she has going on at the time.
• Never My Fault
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Her attempt to get payback against Voight. It may have been out of petty spite, but she was correct in that Voight had falsified evidence in getting a gangster convicted.
• Ungrateful Bastard: One of Linday's most vivid childhood memories of Bunny is trying to revive her after a drug overdose, all the while being unable to call an ambulance lest DCFS gets involved. Upon being revived and vomiting all over Lindsay, Bunny's first reaction is to demand cigarettes.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Her last scheme at reconnecting with Erin involves her playing a battered girlfriend of a career criminal. She's the one who murdered him.

Olive Morgan-Voight

Olive Morgan

Played By: Caroline Neff

• Put on a Bus: She and their son leave town after Justin dies.

Makayla Ward-Burgess

Makayla Ward-Burgess

Played By: Ramona Edith Williams

Kim Burgess's adopted daughter.

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• Abusive Dad: Her father, Tariq, slaughters her entire immediate family in order to get custody of her while she's there to witness it all with no thought to how this will affect her psychologically. Later, his girlfriend has her kidnapped to shake down Makayla's wealthy uncle for ransom money to pay off his prison/gang debts while incarcerated. It's heavily implied that Tariq either floated the idea to her or had knowledge of it and did nothing to stop it from being enacted.
• Break the Cutie: She witnessed the murder of her mother, grandmother, and uncle at her father's hands, is nearly catatonic when Burgess and Ruzek find her wandering around, and she still suffers night terrors from it. None of this is helped by her being kidnapped for ransom nearly a season later.
• Happily Adopted: By Burgess.
• Like a Daughter to Me: To Burgess, who ends up adopting her, and to Ruzek, whom she eventually refers to as "Dad" despite his only being appointed her legal guardian should something happen to Burgess.
• Parental Abandonment: Her father, a high-roller with the Gangsta Prophets gang, murdered her mother in an attempt to forcibly get custody of her and ultimately ended up serving a life sentence for it. When we last heard about him, he had racked up massive gang/protection debts while incarcerated and since his plan to use Makayla for ransom to pay them off fell through, he's been more than likely marked for execution by his former gang
• Sole Survivor: Her entire family(mother, uncle, grandmother) were slaughtered by her biological father, who intended to abduct her. She managed to hide and was later found wandering the streets by Burgess and Ruzek.

CPD Members and Employees

Ron Perry

Cmdr. Ron Perry

Played By: Robert Wisdom

Bruce Belden

Lieutenant Bruce Belden

Played By: Kurt Naebig

Nadia Decotis

Nadia Decotis

Played By: Stella Maeve

A hooker and heroin addict in Chicago, who Lindsay arrests and later mentors, eventually becoming her roommate.

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• Brainy Brunette: While she's working for the Intelligence Unit.
• Character Death: She dies at Greg Yates's hands in a crossover arc with Benson's New York squad.
• Going Cold Turkey: In her first appearance Lindsay forces her to do this while getting information from her, then releases her at an intersection between a drug den and a treatment center, telling her that what happens next is he choice, now that she doesn't physically need the heroin anymore. She does choose the drugs, but later appearances do have her change her mind and get clean.
• Heel–Face Turn: Calling her a "heel" is pushing it, but she goes from a minor perp to an unofficial member of Voight's team with ambitions to attend the police academy at some point.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: She's very gentle, and her death goes to show just how depraved Greg Yates is. Her death affects Erin, the Chicago squad, and the SVU squad, all to varying degrees.

Mia Sumner

Detective Mia Sumner

Played By: Sydney Tamiia Poitier

Fischer

Commander Fischer

Played By: Kevin J. O'Connor

Greg "Mouse" Gerwitz

Greg "Mouse" Gerwitz

Played By: Samuel Hunt

Tech and Surveillance expert (Season 2 to Season 4). He was in the same Army unit as Jay.

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• Badass Bookworm: Mouse, Intelligence's new tech expert, is slight-statured, twitchy, and speaks in a soft voice. He's also a former Army Ranger and a combat veteran who continues to suffer from PTSD.
• Badass in Distress: Mouse, the Intelligence Section's tech expert and formerly of the 75th Ranger Regiment, is taken hostage by a former Marine desperately trying to get the police find his daughter. Judging by how quickly he disarmed the hostage taker and Halstead's annoyance, it's clear that Mouse could have gotten out at any time but chose to stay because he thought the man needed a sympathetic ear.
• Book Dumb: an absolute technological genius, but he flunked out or dropped out of college after just two semesters.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Mouse is not satisfied with civilian life, but he feels awkward with becoming a cop. When he is offered a chance to re-enlist, he jumps for it, but a rift between him and Halstead grows, especially with both Halstead and Voight opposing him.
  Mouse: "I was born to be a soldier…when it comes down to it, I’ll die one!"
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Mouse, who was only referred to as Greg Gerwitz when he initially came to Intelligence.
• Put on a Bus: Platt wipes his felony, allowing him to re-enlist. He and Halstead reconcile before he ships out.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: When Mouse is first hired, Platt asks him questions about his military discharge. About all he can say is "that day," looking haunted, until Platt takes mercy and moves on.

Emma Crowley

Commander Emma Crowley

Played By: Barbara Eve Harris

• Reasonable Authority Figure: She takes a proactive approach to reining in Voight's Cowboy Cop policing style while still respecting his dedication to keeping Chicago safe and not outright coming for his badge.

Lugo

Chief Lugo

Played By: Esai Morales

• Da Chief: With two stars, he commands the Department's Organized Crime Bureau, of which the Intelligence Unit is a part.

Brian Kelton

Superintendent Brian Kelton

Played By: John C. McGinley

• Ambition Is Evil: He’ll do anything to get to the top, and covered up serial killings to keep his stats up.
• Big Bad: Of Season 6.
• DeathByIrony: Brennan murders him hours after he is elected mayor.
• Dirty Cop: He covered up serial killings when he was a Commander, which lead to the death of one of Voight's informants.
• Pyrrhic Victory: He ultimately succeeds in becoming mayor, but he doesn’t live long enough to enjoy it, getting murdered mere hours after he gets elected.

Denny Woods

Lieutenant Denny Woods

Played By: Mykelti Williamson

• Bad Boss: Voight's immediate superior officer who is gunning for the latter's badge and has no qualms about resorting to coercion and threats to get what he wants or willfully withholding critical resources like 1505 funds from the Intelligence Unit's disposal.
• Corrupt Cop: Planted a murder weapon on an innocent man back when he and Voight were partners to protect his own confidential informant who had actually committed the murder and has no problem throwing fellow cops under the bus to get what he wants. Also attempts to bribe a witness into falsely testifying against Voight regarding the murder of Kevin Bingham.
• Hypocrite: He claims to be acting for police reform but in reality, he's a Smug Super looking out for his own ambitions and has framed at least one innocent man to do so.
• Idiot Ball: He comes very close to taking Voight down using Olinsky in jail as leverage. However, he doesn't make any effort to protect his leverage. The guard watching Olinsky gets bribed to look the other way, he gets attacked by an inmate in a hired hit, ends up in the hospital and dies. The moment Hank finds out, the deal's off and he walks away.
• It's Personal: Has a vendetta with Voight after Voight exposed the above corruption, which led to him being temporarily suspended and investigated. It's probably gotten worse once Voight also exposed his bribery, which led to his arrest.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Tries to invoke this when Voight calls him out on his corrupt actions but as Voight points out, Woods steps on anyone in his way if it suits him whereas Voight reserves his "justice" for the criminals who truly deserve it.
• Scary Black Man: Enough that he's able to intimidate Ruzek, of all people, into acting as his mole. Although the fact that he'd caught Ruzek committing evidence tampering to protect his sister was a large part of said intimidation.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The last we see of him is him being arrested for bribery and witness tampering and his ultimate fate is never brought up.

Samantha Miller

Deputy Superintendent Samantha Miller

Played By: Nicole Ari Parker

• All-Loving Hero: She's more of an optimistic idealist than the standard Chicago cop, given by how she repeatedly trusts Voight of all people to do things by the book even when there's glaring evidence that he either won't or already hasn't. She also lets Voight talk her into honoring a fallen officer who went against protocol to help a domestic abuse victim, thus deviating from her stance that everything has to be done by the book or it's wrong.
• Berserk Button: Cops who cross the line via misconduct or taking the law into their own hands.
• By-the-Book Cop: And how. She even refuses to let Hank help her own son off-book when he lands in a hard spot with some traffickers. Unfortunately, this leads to...
• Outliving One's Offspring: ...her son Darell getting abducted and murdered. She's left heartbroken and wondering if it was because she forced Voight to stay within the law instead of going full force into the investigation his way.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Like Crowley before her, she wants to help Voight curb his Cowboy Cop tendencies without affecting his success rate, as opposed to being an Obstructive Bureaucrat trying to force him out of the department. She's also the first and so far, only, one of Voight's superiors to openly listen to and trust him without expecting anything more from him than that he do his job ethically.
• What Have I Done: When she realizes that forcing Voight's unit to go by the book probably kept them from saving her son in time and likely got three other innocent victims killed as well. Voight tries to tell her it's not her fault but she's not having any of it.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Last seen in the Season 9 premiere episode, "Closure", and hasn't been seen, heard from, or mentioned since.

Criminals

Andres "Pulpo" Diaz

Andres "Pulpo" Diaz

Played by: Arturo Del Puerto

A drug dealer and an old nemesis of Dawson.

• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When he realizes that Voight is going to kill him, he offers up any information he has on his criminal associates and begs for his life. Even though he lives, it's ultimately a No-Sell as he has exhausted what little good will and credibility he had with Voight and the US Federal Government after his escape left several police officers dead and Dawson in the hospital.
• Ax-Crazy: Once he returned to Chicago from Columbia he gained a bad habit of decapitating heads off of known dealers. He also gained a bad habit of killing law enforcement officials and kidnapping Dawson's son. This eventually comes back to bite him once he's recaptured since he not only has run afoul of the Chicago PD, but the US Government
• Dirty Coward: He's quite willing to throw anyone and everyone under the bus if he can get away. When he offers to give up information on the Russians and Mexicans, Voight tells him that he doesn't care and it's likely the Feds won't be giving him any concessions either.
• Hero Killer: His first appearance ends with his people killing Dawson's partner, Jules Willhite.
• Starter Villain: He first clashes with the gang in the pilot.
• Too Dumb to Live: He uses his girlfriend and her son to escape by having the former smuggle in a gun and ends up killing and injuring more cops in the process. This ends up being the final straw for Hank. When they find him, he ends up getting disappeared and nearly murdered by Hank and Olinsky. The only reason he gets handed over to the Federal authorities alive instead is because of Halstead intervening on behalf of Dawson.
• Would Hurt a Child: He had Dawson's son kidnapped as leverage and endangered his girlfriend's son in his escape.

Kevin Bingham

Kevin Bingham

Played By: Joseph Sikora

A burglar who is the primary suspect in the season 3 finale whom murders Voight's son Justin.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: He tries to talk his way out of the mess he gets into with Hank. At first he tries to deny it, then he tries to bribe Hank with half-a-million dollars, then he blames Justin for his own death. It's a total No-Sell for Hank and Erin.
• Asshole Victim: He's not a pleasant guy in the least and he dies an equally unpleasant death, courtesy of Hank Voight.
• Ax-Crazy: He once stabbed someone sixteen times for a small mistake.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In Season 5, his body is found and becomes a smoking gun during the feud between Voight and Lt. Denny Woods. It also ultimately leads to Olinsky's incarceration and death.
• Curse Cut Short: Although it's left ambiguous as to whether Voight shot him before he got the curse out or just after, due to the scene cutting away.
• Dig Your Own Grave: Voight forces Bingham to do this before shooting him dead and burying him in it out of revenge for Bingham murdering Justin.
• Domestic Abuser: He used and planted hooks into an old girlfriend of his to have her give up clients with hefty payouts from her law firm, and once she wanted out of his burglary ring, he had her killed by slitting her throat..
• One-Steve Limit: Averted with him and Atwater both being named "Kevin" and notably one of the few, if not the only, instances where this occurred within the same episode. Word of God states his first name was originally supposed to be Keith.
• Sadist: Ties his victims' wrists and ankles in barb wire and leaves them to die a slow death in the trunks of car.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Voight shoots him just as he's posthumously insulting Justin.
• Too Dumb to Live: Not that he was getting out alive anyway, but directing a Precision F-Strike at the man whose son you've murdered and who has a gun aimed at you isn't a smart way to spend your final moments.
• Would Hit a Girl: He murders one of his accomplices who was his teenage girlfriend when she tries to back out by slashing her throat.

Darius Walker

Darius Walker

Played By: Michael Beach

• Cop Killer: Not directly, but he hired some thugs to kill some corrupt cops so that he wouldn't have to testify against them since that would reveal him as Voight's source, since Voight was forced to name him as his source for the trial.
• Karmic Death: After Hailey outs him as a snitch to some gang members in revenge for the death of one of her CIs, they kill him.