 Law & Order episodes are often advertised as being "ripped from the  headlines." Many people mistake this to mean that they are based on  real events. In reality, the slogan is referring to the shows  practice of coming up with stories that are partially inspired by  recent headlines. However, with almost no exceptions, only a fairly  small portion of the episode will resemble the real incident or  incidents that it is inspired by. There might be a few scenes that  resemble a well