I remember that in an episode of “Hill Street Blues” Officer Joe Coffey ( played by Ed Marinaro I believe) was shot during a traffic stop.
But I don’t recall if he died or not. Anyone remember this?
Well, Coffey did die, but it wasn’t when he was shot during a traffic stop. He went into either a corner store or a liquor store, someone came in to hold up the store, and that’s when he was shot. His partner (whose name I should remember but can’t!) was out in the squad car waiting, she heard shots fired, tried to contact him and got no answer, then went running to the store, finding him critically injured. I think he died before the ambulance even got there. 
Been a while since I watched HSB, but I’ve seen the series all the way through several times, it was one of my favorites. 
Hope this helps jog your memory.
Episode 119 (season 6) was called “Larry of Arabia”.
From the link (since I don’t know if it has popups or not):
Tarragon is very close. Coffey survives the traffic stop shooting. Late in the series, just as they’re getting off shift, Bates and Coffey stop at a liquor store. Coffey goes in to buy a bottle of something. He notices the man behind the counter acting strangely, but he’s in a good mood, about to get off duty for the night, and doesn’t pay close attention, ie he disobeys one of the cardinal rules of police work. When he takes the bottle up to the counter, the guy is shaking, he’s so nervous. Coffey then notices that there’s a body on the floor behind the counter. By the time his attention is back on the man, he’s been shot at point blank range without even a chance to get his gun clear.
The rest is as Tarragon describes.
Other shootings on Hill Street:
Hill and Renko survive the episode where they get shot. This is the first episode.
Officer Garibaldi (Ken Olin) is shot and killed by gangsters who were paying him off when he tries to get out.
Det. Benedetto (Dennis Franz), another bad cop, is shot and killed. Franz is later brought back as Det. Buntz, playing essentially the same character, but this time he’s a good cop. You’ll find most of the foundation for Andy Sipowitz here.
Buntz was the only character to be spun off into his own show, “Beverly Hills Buntz.”
Didn’t he actually commit suicide after the SWAT bomb robot have him cornered?
Anyway, thanks for the answer guys!
Yep he committed suicide. He shot himself.
Another Hill Street shooting:
Neil Washington was accidentally shot by his girlfriend’s young son.
Garibaldi was stabbed, not shot. And it was by a loan shark named Leon Rusk (spelling?). Garibaldi had been losing money gambling and Rusk bought up his debt.
My mistake. The shylock tried to leverage his debt, which Garibaldi couldn’t repay, into having a cop on his payroll. Garibaldi initially seemed as if he might go for it, but backed out and was killed for it. It’s been something like 5-6 years since I last watched it. Is it being rerun anywhere? I think I may actually be getting tired of Buffy reruns.
Neil Washington was also shot by gangsters who were in cahoots with a fence the cops had arrested & turned on them. He was waiting in the car for a meeting that turned into a trap; Benedetto drove him to the hospital. Jarringly, the whole ride over Washington was begging Benedetto not to tell any1 how scared he was. So, Washington has the distinction of getting shot twice.
This thread is old enough to have its own driver’s license.
It’s old enough that one of the links is to a GeoCities website!
In the episode Washington Deceased Joe and Neal play a joke on J.D. when Joe pretends to shoot Neal in the locker room. You could almost say that Washington was shot three times on the show.
There’s also a case where Lt. Hunter is very depressed. It’s suggested at the end of one episode that he’s about to shoot himself. He comes in at the beginning of the next episode with a bandage on the side of his head. J.D. had suspected what Hunter was about to do and replaced the bullets in his gun with blanks.
It always annoyed me that the most Italian man alive played a character with a very Irish name.
Bit of trivia, Ed Marinaro came in 2nd for the Heisman Trophy in 1971.
Harry Garibaldi was knifed, not shot. The coroner said to Frank, “If I were you, I’d look for a butcher. Your man was gutted.” The loan shark was played by Stan Shaw.
Joe Coffey went into the store to buy cigars (“White Owls,” I think), not booze. They were for a poker game that evening. Joe’s partner was Lucy Bates.
Howard Hunter was afraid of being disgraced after he was exposed as being a bag man early in his career. His surviving the suicide attempt was pure BS, since blanks are more than powerful enough to kill you. It wasn’t long after this episode aired that actor Jon-Erik Hexum killed himself horsing around with a pistol on set. I’ve always thought he was influenced by Howard trying to blow his brains out and getting only “powder burns.”
I’d be a little surprised if a working actor, especially a pretty-boy like Hexum, would even risk powder burns anywhere near his face, but dumbness prevailed.
The survival of the Hunter character with just minor burns was pretty improbable. Even for a blank, that would be an extremely light load, barely more than a cap pistol. Also, blank rounds don’t look like regular bullets, and it’s unlikely a man as obsessive-compulsive as Howard wouldn’t check (if not thoroughly clean) his weapon beforehand.
For some reason, a scene that stands out for me is of Hunter and Lt. Goldblume, a quiet intellectual who, if anyone, was Hunter’s exact opposite at the precinct. They were chatting (and disagreeing) in a mobile home that had been set up as a command post when the entire structure suddenly lurches. They both draw their weapons, thinking that they are under attack. The camera focuses on Goldblume crawling along the floor while in the background we can hear Hunter on the radio calling for backup. Goldblume opens the door and looks up and from his expression we can see that he’s recognizing the corpse of the man who has just accidentally fallen out of one of the nearby buildings, as depicted in the scene immediately beforehand.
Hexum may not have known the pistol was loaded with blanks (and didn’t bother to check); or, if he did, he apparently didn’t think they could hurt him. In any case, putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger is not the smartest thing to do.
Howard didn’t just carry a sidearm; he carried a cannon. LaRue took an unbelievable risk by substituting blanks for the bullets, since he had no way of knowing whether Howard would discover them. In any case, he should have known they both could kill. He should have reported his concerns to Furillo instead.
I remember that scene, but not why the guy fell. Was it an accident? 
Could stop a Plymouth at ninety yards, is how I seem to recall him describing it.
No one mentioned yet that the episode was called “Iced Coffey”.
Don’t forget, Furillo himself was shot (on the courthouse steps after testifying at a trial.) Also, Det. Patsy Mayo had her throat slashed (she survived.)