David Simon - Homicide - A Year On The Killing Streets

“White male, six foot, 170, bald, poorly dressed, puzzled expression, reeking of beer, tattered notebook in possession, last seen…”

For me, one of the more poignant passages from Homicide was Donald Waltemeyer straightening the clothing of an overdosed junkie to make her more presentable just before her husband arrived to identify her remains. Dave called it a “small act of charity” and it was vintage Waltemeyer. I was Donald’s sergeant for a long time and never fully understood him, but I respected him immensely.

Waltemeyer and I traveled twice to a rural corner of Indiana. An arsonist had set a fire there, killing his girlfriend and her two young children. He then made his way to Baltimore, set another fire, got caught, and felt compelled to confess his earlier crime to his transvestite cell mate, who immediately called us. We flew out for the preliminary hearing, but when the actual trial came around, Donald, a noted claustrophobic, argued for a road trip. The pink Cadillac he rented was wine colored, he claimed.

One morning, as we ate in a diner, several locals stopped to ask whether we were the detectives from Baltimore and to thank us. We were happy to be appreciated and Donald, beaming, related his surprise that people knew who we were. As the Cadillac loomed just beyond the plateglass window I reminded Donald that we were in a tiny, conservative town, hanging out with a transvestite and cruising around in a pink Cadillac. He chewed thoughtfully and replied, “I told you, it’s wine colored.”

Donald’s passing saddened us all.

The job has changed some over the past fifteen years. The so-called CSI effect has raised juror expectations to unreasonable levels and become the bane of prosecutors everywhere. There is more witness intimidation, and, not surprisingly, a corresponding reduction in citizen cooperation. Gangs have discovered Baltimore. The drug problem has not abated. There are fewer dunkers and more whodunits. On the positive side, there are epithelial cells. (I love to say that word.) They exploded onto the scene just a few years back, like some wonder drug, spurred by advances in collection methods and the general march of DNA analysis. You can mask your face, wash your hands and throw your gun in the harbor, but you can’t keep your skin from shedding DNA. Yet, in the overall scheme of things, those changes are minor and the job remains much as it was when captured by David Simon. It is all about crime scenes, interviews, and interrogations, played out against a backdrop of flawed humanity.

It always will be.

TERRY MCLARNEY

Lieutenant, Homicide

Baltimore

May 2006

David Simon’s Homicide won an Edgar Award and became the basis for the NBC award-winning drama. Simon’s second book, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, co-authored with Edward Burns, was made into an HBO mini-series. Simon is currently the executive producer and writer for HBO’s Peabody Award-winning series The Wire. He lives in Baltimore.