The character Andy Renko was originally supposed to die in the pilot episode, but after the producers decided to retain actor Charles Haid, the final scene, in which Furillo receives a phone call about the shooting, was rewritten.
Kiel Martin, who played Det. LaRue, suffered from severe alcoholism. While this actually dovetailed with the show's original portrayal of LaRue as a sleazy, corrupt cop, Martin was eventually told by David Milch to either get help or be fired from the show. Martin went through rehab successfully and became a mainstay on the show, as Det. LaRue became an abrasive but believable cop over the following seasons.
Critics and fans noted that the show seemed to often circle back to situations where anyone who was a friend or source to Det. Mick Belker was killed, or where humiliating situations befell neo-fascist Lt. Howard Hunter. Milch and Steven Bochco later confirmed this by saying they just got a lot of joy out of putting those characters through terrible ordeals.
You can see David Caruso as one of the Irish gang members at the meeting about the president coming to visit the Hill.
Former NBC development exec Michael Zinberg recalls that network entertainment president Fred Silverman had little interest in the "Hill Street" project until he saw the show's pilot episode. "I've screened 500 pilots," Zinberg says, "and it was the single most compelling screening I've ever seen. It killed the room." He credits this mostly to the skills of director Robert Butler, an "adventurous thinker".