Frank Reagan, widower and Police Commissioner and his father Hank, ready themselves for his son Jamie's graduation from the Police Academy. As Frank addresses the hundreds of new officers convened in Madison Square Garden we see an overview of New York City at its finest. Meanwhile, elsewhere in NYC, a 9 year old girl, on her walk home from school is abducted and driven off in an unmarked white van. Danny Reagan who is a police detective is on the case. He and his partner track down the kidnapper at a seedy hotel and the girl is not there. Knowing he is the kidnapper, Danny beats a confession out of him and locates the girl in a storage unit, where she was being kept. Due to his untraditional tactics the evidence Danny procured from the suspect is not admissible in court. Erin Reagan -Boyle, Danny and Jamie's sister and Assistant D.A. needs to find another way to prosecute him. They do so by finding cold cases of the same nature in Tampa where the kidnapper lived prior, and are able to trace him to a murder and prosecute him for this crime. Jamie is approached by the FBI regarding his potential assistance in investigating the Blue Templar, a secret organization within the police force. When he discovers that Joe, his brother a police officer that was killed in the line of duty, was involved with the secret FBI investigation, he contemplates how this association relates to his family and his brother's murder.
