Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

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Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Author David Simon
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Non-fiction
Publisher Houghton Mifflin
Released June 1991
Pages 599
ISBN ISBN 039548829X

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets is a 1991 book written by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon describing a year spent with detectives from the Baltimore Police Department homicide squad. The book received the 1992 Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category.

The book was subsequently fictionalized as the television drama Homicide: Life on the Street, on which Simon served as a writer and producer. Many of the key detectives and incidents portrayed in the book were reworked into the show.

Contents

[edit] Background

David Simon, a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, spent four years on the police beat before taking a leave of absence to write this book. He had persuaded the Baltimore police department to allow him unlimited access to the city's homicide unit for a full year, and throughout that year he shadowed one shift of detectives as they traveled from interrogations to autopsies, from crime scenes to hospital emergency rooms. Baltimore recorded 234 murders during the year Simon spent with the homicide unit. During the two years he spent writing Homicide, an additional 567 murders occurred.

[edit] The book

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets provides a sympathetic but unromantic portrait of crime fighting in a major American city at the height of the late 1980s crime epidemic. The book is notable for the detailed look it gives into the professional lives of police detectives and the sometimes quirky, sometimes absurd, and sometimes tragic cases they investigated.

[edit] Notable cases

  • The Angel of Reservoir Hill - The case of Latonya Kim Wallace, a young girl who was sexually assaulted and murdered, is perhaps the most notable case in the book. The primary detective on the case, which remains unsolved, was Tom Pellegrini. (The Adena Watson case in Homicide: Life on the Street was based on this case.)
  • The Black Widow - The case of Geraldine Parish, a woman who took out insurance policies on her husbands, and then arranged for them to be murdered. The Black Widow was convicted of three murders and received concurrent life sentences. The primary detective on the case was Donald Waltemeyer.

[edit] Editions

  • David Simon (1991). Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 039548829X (Hardcover)
  • David Simon (1992). Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0449908089 (Paperback)
  • David Simon (1993). Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0804109990 (Hardcover)
  • David Simon (2006). Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Henry Holt and Company (Owl Books). ISBN 0805080759 (Paperback)

[edit] The detectives

David Simon joined the Baltimore Police Department as a "police intern" in January 1988 and spent 12 months following the homicide detectives of Lieutenant Gary D'Addario's shift. This is a list of the detectives on D'Addario's squad:

  • Lieutenant Gary D'Addario - Shift Commander
    • Detective Sergeant Terrence McLarney - Shift Supervisor
      • Detective Donald Worden
      • Detective Rick James
      • Detective Edward Brown
      • Detective Donald Waltmeyer
      • Detective David John Brown
    • Detective Sergeant Roger Nolan - Shift Supervisor
      • Detective Harry Edgerton
      • Detective Richard Garvey
      • Detective Robert Bowman
      • Detective Donald Kincaid
      • Detective Robert McAllister
    • Detective Sergeant Jay Landsman - Shift Supervisor
      • Detective Tom Pellegrini
      • Detective Oscar Requer
      • Detective Gary Dunnigan
      • Detective Richard Fahlteich
      • Detective Fred Ceruti

[edit] Where are they now?

  • Gary D'Addario

Lieutenant Gary D'Addario rose to the rank of Major commanding the Northeastern District of the Baltimore Police Department. The 37yr veteran of the department was fired by new Commissioner Kevin Clark in 2003 as part of Clark's unpopular turnover of veteran command staff. Source: Baltimore Sun, July 16, 2003. Dee had guest appearances as QRT Lieutenant Jasper in Homicide: Life on the Street and as a Desk Sergeant in HBO mini-series The Corner. (Source:Gary D'Addario at the Internet Movie Database.)

  • Jay Landsman

Sergeant Jay Landsman retired from the Baltimore Police Department and joined Baltimore County Police Department. Jay currently works as an actor playing Lieutenant Dennis Mello in HBO's The Wire. (Source: Jay Landsman at the Internet Movie Database.) The actor Delaney Williams plays a character called Sergeant Jay Landsman in the same show. (Source: Delaney Williams at the Internet Movie Database.)

  • Donald Waltmeyer

Detective Donald Waltmeyer retired from the Baltimore Police Department and joined Aberdeen Police Department. Don died of cancer in 2005. He was posthomously promoted to Detective Sergeant by the Aberdeen PD.

  • Tom Pellegrini

Detective Tom Pellegrini joined the UNMIK police in Kosovo in 2000. See "Former Baltimore officer battles homicide in Kosovo" for information on Tom's work in the Balkans. Tom is currently a private investigator with Sherwood Investigators based in Severn, Maryland.

[edit] The slang

The book details a number of slang terms used by homicide detectives.

  • Billytown - area of South Baltimore inhabited by "Billies"(Hill Billies), South Baltimore's "white-trash redneck" population.
  • Board, "The Board" - a dry erase board kept in the squad room. Every squad sergeant's name is listed in columns on the top. Below their names are the names of the cases which their detectives are investigating, and a letter indicating which detective is the "primary" on the case. Open cases are listed in red. Closed cases are listed in black. This allowed supervisors to get a quick assessment of how productive each detective/squad was and acted as motivation for detectives. Use of "The Board" was discontinued in 1998 due to public relations and morale concerns, but was restored in 2000 at the request of the detectives.
  • Citizen or Taxpayer - a 'real' murder victim, as opposed to a drug dealer or gang member murdered in the course of criminal activity.
  • Dunker - a slam dunk, an easily cleared case.
  • Eye Fuck - to look at someone disrespectfully or in anger.
  • "Polygraph-by-Copier" - a folk tale in police circles where detectives use a photocopier as a polygraph machine on a particularly dumb suspect.
  • Red Ball - a high profile case that draws media and political attention.
  • Squirrel - a criminal, a suspect, a rodent.
  • "Stone Whodunit" - a difficult case.
  • Ten Seven - police radio code for "out of service", may be applied to a homicide victim.
  • Ten Seventy-Eight - police radio code for "minor accident with injury", used by McAllister to refer to "Your basic blowjob-in-progress interrupted by police gunfire."
  • Yo - a black youth.
  • Yo-ette - a young black female.

[edit] External links

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