Katie's actress Andrea F. Friedman lives with Down Syndrome in real life, whereas Danny's actor James Badge Dale is not disabled.
In the episode, the now-outdated term "mental retardation" is used twice, once by Scott Lucas and once by Detective Munch. The episode aired seven years before Rosa's Law, which has replaced terms such as "mental retardation" and its derivatives from educational and medical-based use with person-first terms, "intellectually disabled" and "individuals with special needs ".