Roy Benitez serves as leader of the Joint Task Force in New York City. A former New York City police officer, Benitez commands the Security Wing in JTF's midtown Base of Operations in the James Farley Post Office, directing operations to reclaim the streets from the hostile factions stilt active in the city. He commands the Security Wing and plans operations to take back the city from the various factions that have taken over.
Biography[]
A narcotics officer for eight years before his promotion to precinct captain, Benitez was an NYPD lifer - his father was a Chinatown beat cop who referred to police work as "the family business." He won multiple citations for bravery, and was one of the first responders on September 11th, narrowly escaping the collapse of the South Tower.
Following the outbreak of Green Poison Benitez's wife was quickly claimed as one of the first victims of the disease, and he was given command of the JTF in New York city were he assigned them to help keep the Midtown quarantine zone in check. However as the outbreak continued gangs, and factions began appearing and growing in power with Benitez beginning to lose control of the situation, as JTF forces were either being overwhelmed, pushed back, or outright killed. At this time President Waller enacted Directive 51, and sent in the First wave of division agents to help deal with and keep control of the quarantine.
However, because of the small number of agents activated, along with a good handful of Division agents as revealed by James Dragov being sent to protect the rich elite of New York who choose not to evacuate as the had the means to do so at anytime. The first wave proved ineffective in tipping the balance of control back into the JTF's favor. This also caused the first case of agent turning rouge, and Waller to activate the second wave.
Shortly after President Waller died from a stressed induced heart attack, with the now new president Thomas Mendez later being been killed by two secret service agents under orders from Black Tusk, and causing the the Speaker of the House Andrew Ellis to become the new president. Unknown to Benitez Ellis was in league with Black Tusk, and their secretive employer who aimed to establish their own governing force over the states by using the collapse of order caused by green poison to gain control of key locations, and wipe out any high ranking government officials.
Under the order of Ellis (possibly to destabilize the situation in New York more to allow further collapse) and higher ups in the JTF, Benitez and the JTF were forced to pull out of the quarantine zone, and seal all entrances. Though he argued, and fought against this order Benitez eventually complied with it, and sealed the quarantine zone effectively creating the Dark Zone. Benitez later developed survivor's guilt over this act blaming himself for the death of the first wave agents, and wishing he had fought harder against the higher ups.
Unknown to Benitez this action also lead to agents Aaron Keener, and Javier Kajika going rouge. Keener for the JTF refusing to send reinforcements because of the retreat which cause the civilians he was protecting to be killed, and Kajika being denied backup and being left with either abandoning the civilians he was trying to evacuate and being marked rouge, or stay and be killed by Rikers.
Although rescued by The Division when Rioters were storming the DT's Lincoln Tunnel Checkpoint, Benitez wasn't initially pleased to be working with "the Feds." But as Division-led efforts relentlessly pushed the JTF sphere of control outward, the Captain began to warm to the agency. He and Agent Faye Lau continue to work together to direct missions targeting leaders of the three main enemy factions: Cleaners, Rikers, and the Last Man Battalion.
During the campaign against the hostile forces, Benitez coordinated his JTF forces with the agent through comms, killing several high value targets, like Larae Barrett, Joe Ferro and Charles Bliss. As well as taking back valuable sites, like the U.N. building, Grand Central Station and Queens Tunnel.
Benitez received a Secure Quarantine Center report on a suspected IED in a quarantine center in Tenderloin, he then asked the agent to investigate the situation. When the agent got there, the place was rigged to blow, killing all most of the civilians inside. The agent then came under attack from the Rikers, after successfully repealing them, the agent found evidence that connected the Rikers to the activity in the Underground. Benitez then introduced the agent to the new Tactical Operations Center, built by Rhodes, right under the Base of Operations. The agent then took the train to a remote location in the underground, killing those responsible, and retrieved an audio log regarding a deal between the Rikers and a Rogue Division Agent.
Benitez later received information on the Cleaners' activity on the Port Control Transit Terminal, he then dispatched a team of Division agents to investigate and eliminate the threat. Benitez then received Intel from agents that the Cleaners had built a weapon using a fire truck at the terminal. Benitez then called Rhodes to aid the agents on destroying the weapon. In the end, the weapon was destroyed and all the Cleaners at the site were killed.
Personality[]
Roy Benitez has a well-documented love for New York City, with feelings described by one colleague as "visceral, almost feral". But to him, New York is not the concrete and steel of the skyline - it's New Yorkers, plain and simple.
The Green Poison made Benitez a widower, but the pain of that loss was further complicated due to the fact that he and his wife had been on the verge of a separation when the illness claimed her life. With a relationship already strained by both his religious commitment to the police force and their inability to have children, Benitez reportedly took the loss exceptionally hard: it triggered a guilt that he still struggles to reconcile. However, this loss, like so many of his experiences, has only challenged him to go beyond his emotional comfort level.
Past performance reviews have rightly described him as stubborn. Relentless in cracking cases and a grandmaster at grudge holding, Benitez is a force to reckon with. But for as much he strives to go above and beyond the call of duty, he finds himself at a crossroads with finding the confidence to do so at times.
The man also seems to hold himself to a high standard to the point that he has developed survivor's guilt over what happened in the New York quarantine zone, as he confided in a preacher how he feels guilty about what happened to the first wave of Division agents, and how he should have fought harder against the higher-ups decision of pulling out of the Dark Zone, and leaving the first wave behind.
Warlords of New York[]
After the events of Tom Clancy's The Division and before the events of Warlords of New York, after Benitez is transferred to Lower Manhattan, it is revealed that many members of the New York JTF force were leaving to join the new civilian settlement, Haven.
This, along with the resuscitation of old factions, led to the JTF to become severely weakened and undermanned, putting Benitez and the JTF in a tough spot. It is revealed that the JTF barely had enough manpower and patrols to maintain some semblance of order or defend vital positions, like the Base of Operations at City Hall or the Hell's Kitchen settlement, leading Benitez and Division commander Faye Lau to contemplate whether to assimilate the remaining JTF in Lower Manhattan with the Peacekeepers.
However, they did not choose to assimilate in the end due to Lau's dissent with their leader, Paul Rhodes. By the time the D.C. agents arrive in Lower Manhattan, the Base of Operations has been attacked, leading to Benitez, Lau, and surviving Division agents and JTF personnel to evacuate to Haven. Rhodes reluctantly allows The Division to use Haven as a temporary Base of Operations.
Initially Rhodes wants Faye, Kelso, the D.C. Sheriff, and remnants of The Division out of Haven once Aaron Keener was neutralized alongside his rogue cell. Realizing that Lau went on bad terms with Benitez during the Keener Manhunt at Liberty Island, this campaign proved to Rhodes that a system of checks and balances were necessary, so with Benitez pleading with Kelso and the D.C. Marshals to stay at New York to protect the Peacekeepers, Rhodes felt that the D.C. Sheriff cell earned a permanent place in Haven and the Peacekeepers.
Gallery[]