Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets 1

Chapter one

I’m reading Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon. Simon is a reporter who spent a year observing a Baltimore homicide unit, which served as the basis for this book, and HBO’s The Wire.

Two weeks ago, if you asked me what police do, I’d say something along the lines of, “They run after bad guys… they have guns, sirens…car chases?”

My experience with police officers is (I suppose thankfully) limited.

“Television has given us the myth of the raging pursuit, the high-speed chase, but in truth there is no such thing: if there were, God knows the Cavalier would throw a rod after a dozen blocks…” Simon, page 16.

The detectives, at least for the first chapter, don’t fight people. They yell, they swab, or “NEUTRON,” but that’s the extent of it.  They visit crime scenes, do general sleuthing, interrogate people, and mundane office work.

Writing like a journalist
Simon is able to do what we’re taught in school, show—don’t tell.

“Jay Landsman, of the sidelong smile and pockmarked face, who tells the mothers of wanted men that all the commotion is nothing to be upset about, just a routine murder warrant. Landsman, who leaves empty liquor bottles in the other sergeants’ desks and never fails to turn out the men’s room light when a ranking officer is indisposed,” page 2.

Simon doesn’t have to say that Landsman is a jerk. We get it. Part of this is good story telling, knowing what details matter. The other part is that Simon was actively involved in the story.  If he didn’t know Landsman personally, he wouldn't know those details. Being present improves story telling.

We’ve learned that it’s usually best to avoid jargon. In Homicide, it works. The book reads like it could be fiction, Simon tells the story through the lens of the characters.

However, I do sort of wish there was more of an explanation for some of the slang. I had to look up yo/yos, all I could find was an Urban Dictionary (always a credible source) entry.

I appreciate how slang lends to the voice of characters, but at times it is confusing.

Murders that matter
About three pages in, all I could think about is how little people seem to care about death. It continued throughout the chapter, but it wasn’t just the detectives.  

“Underneath this towering pyramid of authority squats the homicide detective, laboring in anonymity over some bludgeoned prostitute or shot-to-shit narcotics trafficker until one day the phone bleats twice and the body on the ground is that of an eleven-year-old girl, an all-city athlete, a retired priest, or some out-of-state tourist who wandered into the projects with a Nikon around his neck. Red balls. Murders that matter,” page 20.

The deaths people care about are less frequent, but the media gives them coverage. Why are some deaths more important than others?

The deaths are different because the victims are not necessarily people living in  poverty, or  addicted to drugs.

As I got further through the chapter I realized that the detectives  care, at least to an extent, but it's their job, they’re used to it. Murders that matter are only different because other people care.

Empathy

“For each body, he gives what he can afford to give and no more. He carefully measures out the required amount of energy and emotion, closes the file and moves on to the next call. And even after years of calls and bodies and crime scenes and interrogations, a good detective still answers the phone with the stubborn, unyielding belief that if he does his job, the truth is always knowable. A homicide detective endures,” page 22. 

The first day of journalism class this year, we talked about the qualities a journalist should have. I’ve been thinking about empathy a lot since then. As a journalist, should you invest yourself in people’s (sometimes tragic) stories? Is empathy a good quality to have? Does it help people open up?  

I’m still not sure, but I was reminded of our discussion by the quote from page 22. I’m aware that police work and journalism are different, but they are sometimes intertwined.

I still don’t know what my opinion on the matter is, let me know what you think?