Odafin Tutuola

Sergeant Odafin "Fin" Tutuola is the second-in-command of Manhattan's Special Victims Unit. He was a detective partnered with John Munch, Chester Lake and Amanda Rollins. He is the second longest serving character in the Law & Order franchise.

Early Life
Little is known about Odafin Tutuola's past, though he said he lived with his parents and brother. His father was a con artist who tried to con criminals who promptly retaliated and this led to him witnessing his mother get killed as a child. Fin later placed his grandfather in a retirement home, where the latter died because inadequate care. Fin never forgave himself for what he did. He went onto serve in the 75th Ranger Regiment and was once deployed to Mogadishu, Somalia, during the conflict there.

He later married Teresa Randall and they had a son named Kwasi "Ken" Randall. Fin became a cop and served in the Narcotics Division, though the stress of the job often butting heads with his wife and being far away from his son. Their marriage later fell through and they seperated and eventually divorced sometime later. He later had a relationship with Sergeant Phoebe Baker, a fellow detective in Narcotics. Eventually, however, they broke up due to trust complications on Tutuola's behalf. During one undercover assignment in Narcotics, he threatened a woman who came to retrieved her troubled daughter. This would later come back on him in the future.

In his time with the Narcotics Division, his former partner Luis Montero, lost his job after taking a bullet meant for Fin during an undercover operation to oust a drug lord named Benito Escobar. Since then, he struggled to forgive himself and wound up transferring to SVU to distance himself from the trauma unaware of the troubles that Montero later faced. He was partnered with John Munch from 2000-07, until Fin was partnered with Detective Chester Lake in the middle of that year. After Lake killed a dirty cop, both Elliot Stabler's and Lake's betrayal convinces Fin to consider transfer out of SVU in early 2008. But in September 2008, Fin's transfer proposal was scrapped because of an ex-friend back in the Narcotics Division was now dealing with handling transfer papers. Seeing the transfer as a bust, Fin was again partnered with Munch. His relationship with Stabler after this was somewhat hostile for a time, but it appeared to have warmed again before Stabler's departure from the squad.

In December 2004, while off-duty in a convenience store, Fin got caught in the middle of a robbery that killed the store clerk. Fin shot and killed both teenage robbers and was shot himself. Though it initially appeared Fin had shot an unarmed kid, Ruben Morales was able to find security camera footage showing where the robber's weapon had gone, exonerating Fin. Fin was hailed as a hero for protecting a young boy, but he was left haunted by the fact that he had killed two teenagers. The shooting also caused Fin to be briefly reunited with his son, Ken for the first time in years. However, the mother of Tricia Knowles, a young woman Fin knew from his undercover days, accused him of being a crooked cop for not helping her daughter. Fin decided to find Tricia for her mother, only to learn that after turning on her drug dealer boyfriend, Tricia was murdered. Fin helped return Tricia's body to her mother, and with the help of Warner, he discovered that Tricia had a son named Austin that she had turned her life around for. Fin and his rookie partner, Mike Sandoval, tracked and located Austin and returned him to his grandmother's care which earned him her forgiveness.

One child he particularly grew close to was a boy named Andre Fuller, who witnessed his mother be physically and emotionally abused and raped by his father, Leon, which resulted in Andre calling the cops. Concerned that Andre's father would return, Tutuola gave Andre a phone and told him to call him in case he did turn up. Eventually he did and Tutuola fatally shot Andre's father in an attempt to save Andre when his father held him hostage with a knife. Fin is later sued by the family for wrongful death. After a summer of bad public relations for law enforcement, he was sued again along with Benson by Jayvon Brown for wrongful arrest. Fin was warned by Chief Garland to tread lightly because of these events.

Fin's suit with the Fuller family ended when the city abruptly settled the lawsuit with Andre's mother, Joelle Fuller, for $2 million. Fin said the city settled because of "the optics."

After a registered sex offender named Lonnie Liston who was suspected of killing a woman is murdered, Fin blamed himself because he suspected him and was aggressive towards him. Fin confides in Kat and Kat comforts him and tells him that Lonnie’s death is not on him. It turns out Lonnie was murdered by Roy Eastman, the father who accused him of raping his girl.

Appearances

 * Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
 * Season 2
 * Season 3
 * Season 4
 * Season 5
 * Season 6
 * Season 7
 * Season 8
 * Season 9
 * Season 10
 * Season 11
 * Season 12
 * Season 13
 * Season 14
 * Season 15
 * Season 16
 * Season 17
 * Season 18
 * Season 19
 * Season 20
 * Season 21
 * Season 22