Chicago PD: 4 things nobody wants to admit about Hank Voight

Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) is a fascinating, oftentimes polarizing character. He’s the Chicago PD character with the most sordid past, which is saying something given the bad decisions and illegal choices that nearly every member of the IU has made over the last decade.

Voight’s appeal lies in his contradictions, his ability to do horrible things with good intentions. He has, however, done some horrible things without the best intentions. As fans gear up for the 11th season of Chicago PD, we thought it’d be fun to dig up some of Voight’s most questionable acts and give them a second look.

His carelessness led to Alvin Olinksy being killed

Alvin Olinksy (Elias Koteas) was by no means an innocent cop. He played in the same corrupt world as Voight, and often went further than Voight in terms of vigilante actions. That being said, Voight did indirectly seal his buddy’s fate in Chicago PD season 3.

Voight killed Kevin Bingham (Joseph Sikora) after learning that the petty criminal was responsible for the death of his son, and while no one can blame Voight for getting revenge, he did slip up by burying Bingham in a shallow grave. Bingham’s body was eventually discovered, but Olinksy took the murder rap for his friend and was later killed in prison.

The operative word in this instance is “indirectness”, but we’re sure that Voight realizes the role he played in Olinksy’s tragic death.

He coerced Halstead into blackmailing an FBI agent

Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) often pushed against Voight when the veteran wanted to cut a corner or go about solving a case in a questionable fashion. He was good counterbalance, but he succumbed to Voight’s method in the season 9 episode “No Way Out.”

Halstead learns that Voight and his wife, Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos), killed a man and covered it up, and instead of turning them over the authorities, Halstead agrees to blackmail an FBI agent so they can go free. It’s a tough situation on multiple fronts, but the fact remains that Voight used Halstead’s marriage to get himself out of trouble.

It’s not hard to understand why Halstead quit the force the following season.

He held a grudge against Upton for saving his life

Voight had a genuine bond with Anna Avalos (Carmela Zumbado), but that didn’t stop him from hiding information and telling her only what she needed to know so that he could benefit from her undercover findings. When Avalos discovered that Voight was being deceitful, she went into a rage and shot him in the shoulder. It looked like she was going to kill him, but Upton killed Avalos before anything else happened.

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Voight is pretty shaken up by what happened, and the season 10 premiere saw him avoiding Upton due to what happened. She confronts him about the situation in the final minutes of the episode, and he relents, but he was being pretty unfair to someone who had saved his life weeks prior. C’mon, Voight.

He literally tried to murder Casey on Chicago Fire

This one is easy to forget about despite it being so insane. Voight was introduced as a dirty cop on Chicago Fire, and not only did he not get along with Matt Casey (Jesse Spencer), he tried to murder the firefighter when he refused to help him cover up his son’s DUI charge.

Voight is obviously stopped before he can get to Casey, and sentenced to prison for a brief stint, but it’s incredible that we’ve been able to overlook this chapter of the character’s life despite it being the way we met him. We’re glad he’s mellowed out in the years since.

He probably kept his grudge against Casey, though.

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