Captain Monica Rawling is a fictional character from the FX television show The Shield, played by Glenn Close,[1] who received an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her performance, and Golden Globe Award nomination as Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama.
Monica Rawling succeeded David Aceveda as Captain of the Farmington precinct. A morally strong woman, she tried to redeem Vic Mackey and Ronnie Gardocki by involving them in a controversial asset forfeiture program designed to clean up Farmington, by destroying the neighborhood drug trade. The program was extremely unpopular with the local citizens, yet she kept the seizures in place, believing they did more good than harm.[2][3]
Rawling began her police career in Farmington, where she started as a patrol officer partnered with Rich Nelson. In "Back in the Hole", drug kingpin Antwon Mitchell reveals that Rawling and Nelson had an affair, but the married father Nelson eventually returned to his family. When Mitchell murdered a 14-year-old girl turned police informant, Rawling was determined to take him down. A video recording of him confessing the murder to Shane Vendrell and ordering Vic Mackey's death provided the means to send Mitchell back to jail. However, after finally proving that Mitchell was responsible for ordering the brutal stabbing deaths of two Farmington police officers, Rawling learned that David Aceveda had arranged an immunity deal for the imprisoned drug lord. Learning that the DEA was using Antwon's information to build a case against the Salvadoran drug cartel which had been supplying him with heroin, Captain Rawling ordered Vic and the Strike Team to build a case against the Salvadorans first.
The DEA was enraged and subsequently threatened to cut off all Federal funding to the LA area unless Rawling was fired. Although the Chief immediately complied, Rawling was allowed to remain at the Barn until Mitchell was delivered to the police station and formally arrested for the Farmington cop killings.
Vic informally visited Rawling one last time in her residence in Farmington. She has a small chat with him about the future and asks if he ever thinks about how things would end for him, Vic responds that he will take things as they come. Monica tells him to promise her to be mindful of his actions and to take good care of himself, a subtle warning to Vic unaware that IAD will be investigating him and the Strike Team. Mackey tells her to do the same and wished each other good luck for the future before departing. Right after closing the door, Rawling broke down in tears, visibly devastated by having been fired. She was the only member of the Farmington Police Division to not attend the celebration at the local bar of Mitchell's arrest. Her final scene shows her alone in her house, sitting on the couch drinking a beer, in contrast to the crowded, boisterous, noisy celebration at the bar.
Before Rawling arrived at the barn, Aceveda disbanded the strike team and wrote a burn notice on Mackey. This made Mackey "untradable" because no other department would take him afterwards. As Rawlings put it, he was the "red-headed stepchild of the barn before (she) came."