Before the show:

He was born and raised in New York.

We know that Bosco comes from a broken home and that it had a large effect on him growing up. We know that aspects of his childhood still haunt him as a grown man, and that there are issues there that he's never fully dealt with. Understanding Bosco's childhood is important in trying to understand Bosco as a person.

Though the information we're given about specific events and issues at times seems to contradict itself, I'm working under the assumption that everything we've been told is true, and that it just takes a little work to piece it all together.

My understanding is that while Anthony and Rose were married, they kept their fighting (physical or otherwise) from being seen by their sons. I'm led to believe this because when Bosco tells Faith about his parents' divorce, the implication is that he hadn't been expecting it and he couldn't understand as a young boy why they'd be separating and why he was losing his father. We do know, however, that Anthony WAS abusing Rose, and so while this might not have begun until after the divorce, it's possible that it was going on all along and that Bosco and Mikey simply weren't witness to it.

Before the divorce, Bosco seems to have had a fine relationship with his father. It's never been said one way or another whether Anthony ever abused his sons. We ARE told that when Bosco would try to stick up for the geeky kid at school and help even the odds against the bullies, Anthony would tell him he was a loser and "kick [his] ass." Whether that was abuse or a run-of-the-mill punishment, we don't know, but I think it's obvious that even if there wasn't abuse, there WERE damaging aspects of their relationship. What kind of father calls his son a loser and kicks his ass for standing up for the little guy?

Bosco still loved his father enough at the time of the divorce to feel torn up by the separation and at his father moving out. He would let his father sneak into the house through his bedroom window.

It was after this, I assume, that Anthony started beating Rose where the boys could see it. Bosco and Mikey would run to a nearby fort and hide there when the constant fighting was going on. It was then that Bosco started to have problems with his father. Upset (and probably guilty, if his father was sneaking in his window to go beat his mother), Bosco would tell Mikey how they would stick together through it all until they could get away from it. Bosco was ready to get away from his father; Mikey, however, wasn't. From what Bosco has had to say, Mikey always forgave Anthony, and it was that constant forgiveness for things Bosco could NEVER forgive Anthony for, that began to tear the brothers apart.

Presumably, Anthony was aware of his eldest son turning against him. Knowing Bosco, he probably directly confronted his father a time or two. This could be the reason why his father distanced himself from Bosco and not Mikey -- why he couldn't bring himself to make sure Bosco was all right after 9/11 but was there for Mikey as he gave up drugs.

He was an Army Ranger for an unknown amount of time before entering the NYPD academy.

Jason Wiles, his actor, says Bosco is a cop because there's a thin line between cops and criminals and it could've been either/or for him, so he chose to be a cop instead of becoming what he fiercely hated. He met Faith Yokas the first day in the academy and while they didn't make the best impressions on one another, they eventually drew together and trained together. He helped her learn how to shoot and pass the physical requirements while she helped him with the academic portions.

Big Events:

Bosco has been shot two times on the show, to my accounting -- the first in the pilot episode and the second in the third season episode 'Sex, Lies, and Video Tape'. Both times he was wearing a vest so he only suffered impact trauma.

He felt extremely betrayed when he learned that Faith had lied to him about miscarrying after an accident on duty. She had actually had an abortion.

When he learned his mother's boyfriend was beating her, he took matters into his own hands, giving the man a beating of his own. He revealed that his mother had had several abusive relationships -- including her marriage to his father, something that still bothers him to this day.

He and Faith found a couple having sex in a car and mistakenly assumed the girl was a hooker, when actually she was being raped. He was devestated when he learned the truth and couldn't get over the fact. When the rapist turned up dead, he was suspected of possibly being the murderer until the mother of the victim confessed to having done it.

Faith had cancer and didn't tell Bosco, even when she was on treatment that was effecting her ability to do her job. While in pursuit of a suspect, she fell back, sick and in pain, leaving Bosco without backup. He was shot by the perp, but his vest saved him and he only suffered a broken rib. When she tells Bosco about the cancer, he feels betrayed once again, but does forgive her. Ultimately, what he's most concerned about is that she was sick, choosing to put the lie behind him.

He trained with a veteran ESU cop to learn sharp-shooting. The man, Hobart, was disturbed and eventually as events spiralled out of control, he took Bosco hostage, not to actually harm him, but to make the police think he would do so, so that they would kill him. It was suicide. Bosco was deeply shaken by it and as a result, decided not to try for ESU afterall. Faith told the sergeant about how hard he was taking it and as a result he was forced into counseling, which went over terribly. Feeling hurt that Faith had done that, he takes a new partner for a time, only to lose the man in a shoot-out, which, again, he took hard.

Bosco started having panic attacks soon after, revealing that he had PTSD after having been involved in 9/11 and all the other horrific tragedies of the recent months. He broke down in Faith's arms.

When Fred suffered a heart attack during a blackout, Faith took her stress and worry out on Bosco, lashing out at him. He took it, not fighting back, but it ultimately put a strain on their relationship.

In the fourth season, partially as a result of the strain put on his partnership with Yokas by her lashing out at him, Bosco started working with Anti-Crime. He gradually got tangled up in the dirty tactics of that unit, lying and bending rules to get the bad guys put away. When Cruz expected him to frame an innocent man for murder, he finally balked, but she reminded him that it was his signature on all the faulty reports, so if he took it to their superiors, it would be him that went down.

It came to a head when he enlisted Faith's help to get one over on Cruz and prove that she was dirty. They wound up in a stand-off involving Cruz and a drug addict and Faith was shot. Bosco was devestated, even more so when both Fred and Faith forced him away from them and out of their lives.

The following year, he began to shape up as a cop, maturing and becoming more responsible. He grew up, no doubt in reaction to what had happened with Cruz and Faith.

When Mikey appeared again, clean of drugs, Bosco began to trust him again. When he found out Mikey was still involved in drug dealing and was unwillingly involved in the murder of a police officer, Bosco saved him from Cruz's wrath and worked to help him avoid jail time. Ultimately, Cruz made Mikey her informant against Bosco's wishes.

In pursuit of a drug dealer, Joey Mann, Bosco was involved in an accident that caused the man to die. The man's father, Donald Mann, a big time drug lord, retaliated by having Mikey murdered, mutilated, and left for Bosco to find. Bosco had unwittingly become a target of the angry father's wrath (along with Cruz, Faith, and two other officers). Bombs were set to kill them, but Bosco and Cruz survived, though Bosco's mother was seriously injured and almost died. Not willing to give up, the drug lord tried one more time to see Cruz and Bosco dead -- sending gunmen into the hospital where they were located.