Steve Crosetti

Det. Steve Crosetti is a fictional character on the television drama series Homicide: Life on the Street portrayed by actor Jon Polito for the show's first two seasons. He is believed to be based on Baltimore Police Department Det. Terry McLarney^[1], who was in the BPD homicide unit in David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets book; ancestry of the character was changed to Italian because Polito got the role.^[2]

Crosetti was a veteran police detective who was partnered with Det. Meldrick Lewis. Crosetti loved conspiracy theories, which he always recited to Lewis (or anyone who would listen). This was somewhat different than John Munch's interest as Crosetti's pet conspiracies tended to be more arcane and less connected to current events. For example, the conspiracy theories Crosetti talked most often about were those that concerned the Abraham Lincoln assassination. A deeply religious man, Crosetti was shown to have both a scapular and a rosary. In one episode, he recounts an incident several years before when he had been gunned down, hit with at least three rounds. He spent considerable time in recovery, requiring multiple operations.

A dear friend of Crosetti's, a police officer named Chris Thormann, was shot in the head while apprehending a suspect. Thormann survived, but was left blind and despairing. Crosetti tried his best to help him and his wife get through it, and forced himself into the investigation. He was too close to it, apprehending the wrong suspect, but his partner, Meldrick Lewis, eventually arrested the right one. This storyline was based on the real-life shooting and blinding of BPD Officer Gene Cassidy, and is a major part of the David Simon book which spawned the series.

Crosetti's own marriage had fallen apart sometime before the beginning of the series. He had a daughter, Beatrice, who was a teenager and whom Crosetti said "was as close to perfection as God allows." He apparently had at least joint custody. Crosetti was very protective of her, and was appalled that her mother was indifferent to the girl's having a boyfriend over to spend the night.

Crosetti took an extended vacation at the end of season 2. Lewis mentioned that he went to Atlantic City. In the season 3 episode (S3, Ep6)"Crosetti", Detectives Bolander and Munch are called when a body is fished out of the bay. The body turns out to be Crosetti and the initial evidence suggests a suicide. Lewis refuses to believe that Crosetti would kill himself, especially in light of his faith and his daughter. Lewis does everything he can to get the death classified a homicide, even going as far as to tell Crosetti's friends and neighbors not to give any information to Bolander (the primary on the case). He finally accepts the truth when he hears the medical examiner's report, which states that Crosetti had high levels of alcohol, tranquilizers, and antidepressants in his system when he died. Lewis later recalls that before his vacation Crosetti had offered to give a him a childhood possession of his, a yo-yo, and realizes this was possibly a kind of going-away present.

Because his death was a suicide, the department refused an honor guard at the funeral. Det. Frank Pembleton, standing alone in his dress blues on the station house steps, saluted the fallen detective as the procession went by. Lewis carried a lot of guilt over Crosetti's death, thinking back constantly to see if there had been any hint of Crosetti's suicidal tendencies beforehand. The death also deeply affected the other detectives in the squad (especially during the third season), as the reasons for Crosetti's suicide are never explained. The episode itself mentioned job stress, the divorce, and a possible gambling addiction as possible motives; but never confirmed any specific reason. The actor who played Crosetti, Jon Polito, also expressed a certain discomfort with the character's committing suicide.^[3] Because NBC aired some of the Season 3 episodes out of order, a mention of a still-alive Crosetti appeared after the episode that revealed the suicide.

Crosetti's final appearance was in the TV movie Homicide: The Movie, which concluded the series. Both he and fellow fallen detective Beau Felton appear in an afterlife sequence, playing cards in the squadroom and waiting for a new arrival, who turns out to be Al Giardello, their old shift commander.

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