Julio Sanchez

Julio Sanchez
Name	Julio Sanchez
Spouse(s)	Maria Sanchez (wife, deceased)
Family	Ramona Sanchez (mother) Oscar Sanchez (brother, deceased) 6 Unnamed Siblings
Career Information
Affiliation	Los Angeles Police Department
Rank	Detective II
Series Information
First appearance	The Closer (Pilot)

Character Information

Before being assigned to the Priority Homicide Division (later Major Crimes Division), Sanchez worked for the LAPD's gang intelligence unit. As such, he is the unit's go-to guy for information about local gangs. As of the start of The Closer, he had been a widower for two years, but has never taken off his wedding ring. He had a brother, Oscar, who was killed in Sudden Death as collateral damage in a gang conflict.

Sanchez is known by the team as one of the most compassionate out of the group. He came back to work even after he was shot not too long before. He also has the tendency to interrogate suspects with physical force and anger, which has actually helped the unit solve crimes more often than not. Sanchez is well liked by his colleagues in spite of his aggressive interrogation tactics.

In "Risk Assessment", Rusty Beck asks him why he became a cop along with the rest of the squad. Julio explains that as a kid, his cat was murdered and he wanted to catch the guys who did it and send them to jail. He did eventually catch the guys for attempted murder and rape charges and as they were on their third strike, they went to prison for life. Julio is shown to be greatly pleased with this.

In "Personal Day", a man named Dante Gomez who Julio sent to prison for 20 years is paroled after 17 years. Dante approaches Julio after being paroled and shows no hard feelings towards Julio, actually being thankful for his actions instead. To Julio's surprise, Dante, who confessed to the murder, now insists that he's innocent and asks for Julio's help in catching the real killer, providing him with an alibi of doing an armed robbery 26 miles away at the time of the murder. Julio reluctantly informs Captain Raydor due to the rules and is unenthusiastic about investigating it. Dante is later murdered and Julio is left horrified when it turns out Dante was telling the truth about the robbery. He had taken a deal to protect his best friend and accomplice in the robbery who would have gone to jail for life if he'd confessed to the robbery instead of the murder. The squad is able to identify the witness in the first murder as the killer of both and Julio informs Dante's grandmother of her grandson's innocence as Dante's reason for coming forward with the truth was his grandmother was dying and he didn't want her to die thinking he was a murderer. Feeling remorse for putting an innocent man away for 17 years and not helping him when he was asked to, Julio reopens the murder investigations into Dante's father and uncle on his own time to try to bring his grandmother closure on those cases as well.

During "Internal Affairs", Julio is framed for the murder of his mother's nurse who had been stealing from her. While he was ultimately cleared of all charges, he was forced to go to anger management courses as a result of his aggressive interrogation tactics being discovered by FID. He also moved back in with his mother so she would have the support she needed.

It was revealed during "A Rose is a Rose" that during the the summer break between Season 3 and Season 4 he had been suspended for five months without pay for his beating of Markos Christakis. After his return, he seems to have a better control of his anger issues though Flynn is distant from him.

At the end of "Sorry I Missed You", after sympathizing with a suspect who murdered a doctor he blamed for his daughter's suicide, he explains to the squad the source of his anger problems: years before he was married to a woman who had a seizure disorder. The doctors said it was safe for her to go off her medication and she got pregnant with their first child, a baby girl and while driving to the grocery store, had a seizure and a car accident. It took her four days to die and he lost both his wife and unborn child. Julio's comments to the suspect indicate he may have tried to sue the doctor for malpractice but was told that "these things just happen." The deaths of his wife and daughter due to what he believes to be doctor incompetence left him with a great anger that he can't get over and let go. His revelation elects great sympathy from the squad and he's fully accepted back. Before he had been considering leaving due to the distance of his co-workers, particularly Flynn who makes an overt gesture of acceptance after his story.

In Hindsight, Part 4, he visited the doctor he blamed for his wife's death. During the visit he learned that his wife, Maria, was the one who decided to stop the medication against the advice from her doctor, which leaves Julio visibly distraught.

Following his time away from the squad, Julio is shown to have a better reign on his temper. In "Snitch", Julio apparently loses his temper with a suspect and explodes at him, but then nods at the camera, showing it was an act to the pleasure of the rest of the squad.