Karl Forsman is a Polish national hitman who attempted to assassinate Jay Halstead after Oskar Bembenek placed a bounty on his head.
Background[]
Karl was involved in various illicit activities of Oskar Bembenek's mafia, always trying to rise up the ranks earn the respect of Oskar and the others. Karl saw an opportunity when he found out how Oskar had put a price on the head of a man named Jay Halstead, who had murdered Jacob Bembenek, Oskar's brother. Deciding to execute Halstead to earn the respect of others within the mob, he took on the job but was unaware that the man was actually a cop.
Get My Cigarettes[]
At some point, he manages to identify where Halstead lives, ending up forcibly entering the apartment, where he looks for some indication of where Halstead could be. His actions result in Halstead's landlord notifying him and make the latter wary of the bounty on his head. He physically appears at the end of the episode, as he finally manages to locate Halstead, who was inside a bar next to Det. Erin Lindsay. Karl enters and pulls out his gun, as Erin manages to make Halstead duck, thus avoiding some shots, Erin fires back at Karl, one of the bullets from the shooting ends up seriously wounding Maddie Calahan, the Bartender of the bar.
The Weigh Station[]
It can be seen how he escapes, getting into a black van, which was driven by his partner, Donald Novak, who is also wounded by some bullet wounds from Erin Lindsay. Novak is later found and confesses that he was the one who helped Karl escape.
Kevin Atwater and Hank Voight go to Karl's apartment, where they were about to break down the door, but at that moment, Karl comes out of the hall, seeing the cops decides to run. Chased, he falls while fleeing and that allows him to be arrested, with Kevin putting him in the cage, where Voight makes Kevin leave the room. Karl looks somewhat fearfully at Voight, who opens the cell and punches him in the stomach, as he groans in pain, Voight asks Forsman if he was Catholic. The Sergeant then inquires if he heard of purgatory, telling him that being inside that cell was similar to being inside purgatory, and that he could go to Heaven, which is the interrogation room to explain why he shot Halstead and Erin, and sent a girl to the ER. However, he adds if he refused the offer, he would take him to the silos, which represented Hell. He explained it was a short drive, Karl, scared and on the verge of tears, agrees to go to the interrogation room. The cuffed Karl is dragged by Voight, walking past Halstead who recognizes and identifies him as the shooter from the bar and tries to attack him, but Officers Kim Burgess and Sean Roman stop him. Inside the interrogation room, Voight serves him a coffee and Karl explains his reasons for wanting to kill Halstead, but at one point he mentions that he did not expect to learn he was a cop, nor did he plan to kill anyone who was not on "the list". Voight, intrigued, asks what that list was, Forsman replies that Bembenek had a list of people he wanted dead if he went to jail, then a hit man named Patrick Shostak starts killing the people on the list, so Alvin Olinsky and Voight make Karl translate some conversations between Oskar Bembenek and another hitman, which were in Polish. Patrick Shostak says that he already had the list and also gets angry with Bembenek because he already told him that he had offered the "job" to a such J.P (Joseph Price).
Karl is arrested for his attempted murder of Jay Halstead.