Spoiler alert: Major spoilers for "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" follow.
The Special Victims Unit is grieving one of their own.
In the Oct. 15 episode of "Law & Order: SVU" Season 26, Reid Scott's Detective Vincent Riley reached the end of the line as the character was fatally shot while off-duty.
Riley, who joined in Season 23, chased a suspect and called for backup from his partner Theo Walker (David Ajala), who couldn't arrive in time. Without his bulletproof vest, Riley was shot twice and found bleeding on the street by the time Walker arrived. He was later hospitalized before doctors revealed that he had died.
The rest of the episode follows the detectives working to find who killed their beloved squad member. Riley was a father to daughter
Bridget (Justine Colan) and son Spencer Riley (Callan Barry), whom he shared with his wife, Tara (Cadden Jones).
"Law & Order" executive producer Rick Eid previously called Riley's exit from the show "very personal" in a TV Insider interview published Sept. 17, after the "Veep" actor decided to leave the procedural series.
"I think it’ll be really emotional and powerful. And the approach was we wanted to give him a memorable exit. He’s a great character," Eid told the outlet.
Who killed Vincent Riley?
The suspect in Riley's murder is later revealed to be Ray Biller (Maxel Amador), who wanted revenge on Executive Assistant District Attorney Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy), who put his late brother Wayne behind bars three years prior.
With no eyewitnesses to Riley's killing, Walker falsely claims that he saw Biller fleeing the scene in order to convict him.
By the end of the episode, Jessica Brady (Maura Tierney) delivers heartfelt remarks about Riley as his face is cemented on the department's wall of honor.
"Though Vince is no longer with us his courage his humor and his inherent sense of decency will live on through all of us, especially his two beautiful children," Brady says in tears. "Vince didn't pick and choose to be a hero or when to do the right thing. That's just who he was and how he was, so in my humble opinion, there's never been someone more deserving to have his name and legacy memorialized here at the NYPD Wall of Honor."
New episodes of "Law & Order: SVU" air Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC, with the next slated for Oct. 22. Episodes stream the next day on Peacock.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Law & Order: SVU' shocks viewers with off-duty death of major character
