Elliot Stabler
Detective Elliot Stabler is a fictional character on the TV crime drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit portrayed by Christopher Meloni.
Stabler is a police officer with Manhattan's 16th Precinct, also known as the Special Victims Unit, which investigates sex crimes. He is dedicated to his job, but this dedication can occasionally turn into obsession, as he often takes cases personally, affecting his judgement. He lives in Glen Oaks, Queens with his family. Elliot's wife is named Kathy (played by Isabel Gillies); they have three daughters (Maureen, Kathleen and Elizabeth) and one son (Dickie). Stabler is very protective of his children; he helped deliver every one of them, and he sees aspects of them in every child molestation victim, fueling a hatred for pedophiles so intense that he sometimes fantasizes about killing them. He once admitted this to a police psychiatrist in a moment of weakness, an admission that nearly cost him his job.
Stabler came from a large family, and his father was also a policeman who lost his pension shortly before his retirement. He had a difficult relationship with his father, who often beat him. Stabler enlisted in the U.S. Marines after graduating from high school, and has an USMC tattoo of an eagle, globe and anchor on his forearm. He served in the Gulf War. He then attended Queens College where he earned his BA. He became a police officer mostly to follow in his father's footsteps, and to help support his new family, but soon grew to like the job.
Stabler is a devout Catholic. Particularly disturbing to him is when he sees aspects of himself in a child abuser. One such instance was when an abusive parent reminded him of an episode in which he lost his temper and slapped his daughter, who was then a toddler; while he restrained himself from hurting her further, he was frightened by his loss of control.
Stabler mentions his four children to almost everyone he comes in contact with. He has no problems bringing them up in conversations in order to gain information or confessions. Once, his son Dickie even helped out on a case: while visiting his father at the SVU station house, Dickie mentioned his love of first person shooter video games, and (after finding out that the detectives were investigating a rapist whose crimes matched that of one of Dickie's games) advised the detectives what crimes were likely to occur.
Stabler is partnered with Olivia Benson. Kathy is sometimes jealous of Stabler's close relationship with Benson, which, along with the long hours he spends on the job and away from home, has at times strained their marriage. While Stabler and Benson are good friends, however, they have never been romantically involved.
In 2001, Stabler was forced to kill a suspect who was resisting arrest. While it has not outwardly affected his professional conduct, it has weighed on his conscience. The most obvious signs of Stabler's rage and latent sadism is in the 2003 episode "Pandora". Stabler, while in Prague (and thus not subject to American police brutality laws) brutally beats a child pornography suspect who is in custody.
Early in 2005, Stabler's wife moved out of the house with their four kids and is living with her mother. Their marital status is uncertain; they are separated, but not divorced. He has found some solace in Dr. Rebecca Hendrix, a forensic psychiatrist occasionally brought in to help with cases.
In "Charisma," during season 6, Stabler was forced by Captain Don Cragen to take about a week of sick time in lieu of being suspended for refusing to seek counseling for extended treatment after he witnessed multiple children dead in cribs.
In "Ripped," during Season 7, Stabler was ordered home by Cragen for the remainder of the day for telling the family of an assault victim that she would be better off not filing charges against the son of his former partner. Afterwards, it was determined that the suspect was high on steroids. After the suspect's arraignment, which Stabler attended, he witnessed his former partner assaulting his son in the bathroom. He stepped in to defend the young man, but took it too far by using excessive force and knocking his former partner unconscious. He again sought comfort with Hendrix, who persuaded him to unload his long-repressed feelings toward his father.
Stabler had a close call in the episode "Raw" (also season 7) when he was shot by a white supremacist during a trial. Stabler was wounded in the arm, but was rescued by a FBI undercover agent (portrayed by Marcia Gay Harden) breaking cover to kill the assailant and he expected to make a full recovery. While in the hospital, Stabler revealed that two weeks prior to the shootout, his wife had served him with divorce papers, although he had not yet signed them. Currently, Kathy still has sole custody of their kids, although they frequently visit their father (once, they all surprised him at the SVU station house on his birthday); the status of their marriage remains unknown.
Stabler, whose anger problems continue to spiral out of control, was dealt another blow when Benson, his partner of seven years, asked to be reassigned due to their increasingly strained working and personal relationships.
Whereas Olivia Benson, his partner, tends to empathize and connect with female victims, because he is a father of four, Elliot frequently views childhood victims with an especially sympathetic view, even for members of his precinct. In tun, many kid victims tend to respond to him very warmly. He often connects with child victims on a fatherly basis, and he often finds himself very willing to use physical force to apprehend a suspect that he believes to have wronged a child.
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