Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book is a work of journalism. The names of the detectives, defendants, victims, prosecutors, police officers, pathologists and others identified in the text are, in fact, their real names. The events described in the book occurred in the manner described.

My research began in January 1988, when I joined the Baltimore Police Department’s homicide unit with the unlikely rank of “police intern.” As often happens when journalists hang around one place long enough, I became a piece of furniture in the unit, a benign part of the detectives’ daily scenery. Within weeks they were acting as if allowing a reporter to gawk at the chaos of criminal investigation was entirely natural.

So that my presence would not interfere with the investigations, I agreed to look and dress the part. That meant cutting my hair, purchasing several sport coats, ties and slacks and removing a diamond-stud earring that had done little to endear me to the detectives themselves. Throughout my year in the unit, I never identified myself to anyone as a law officer. But my appearance, coupled with the presence of other police, often led civilians and even other police to assume that I was, in fact, a detective. To journalists trained to identify themselves while reporting, this may be perceived as a crime of omission. But to declare myself at crime scenes, during interviews or inside hospital emergency rooms would have dramatically impaired the investigations. In brief, there was no other way to research this book.

Still, the ethical ambiguity was there every time I quoted a witness, an emergency room doctor, a prison guard, or a victim’s relative who assumed I was a law officer. For that reason, I have tried to accord these people as much anonymity as possible, balancing questions of fairness and privacy with the need for accuracy.

All of the detectives on Lieutenant D’Addario’s shift signed release forms before seeing any portion of the manuscript. Other characters central to the book also gave approval for their names to be used. In order to obtain these releases, I promised the detectives and others that they would be allowed to review relevant portions of the manuscript and suggest changes for purposes of accuracy. I also told the detectives that if there was something in the manuscript that was not essential to the story but that could nonetheless harm their careers or personal lives, they could ask that it be deleted and I would consider the request. In the end, the detectives requested remarkably few changes, and the handful to which I agreed involved mundane items, such as one detective’s comment about a woman in a bar or another’s criticism of a specific superior. I allowed no changes that involved the handling of a case or in any way altered or muted the book’s message.

In addition to the individual detectives, the police department itself had a limited right to review the manuscript-but only to ensure that undisclosed evidentiary material in pending cases (bullet calibers, manner of death, clothing of victim) was not being released in instances where such facts, if kept secret, might later help identify a suspect. No changes or deletions resulted from the department’s review.

Representatives of the Baltimore state’s attorney’s office and the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner also reviewed relevant portions of the manuscript for purposes of accuracy only. Like the detectives, they could suggest, but not insist on, changes.

Most of the dialogue in this narrative-perhaps 90 percent-comes from the scenes and conversations that I personally witnessed. In a few instances, however, important events occurred on shifts when I was not working or when I was busy reporting on the activities of other detectives. In those instances, I was careful not to use direct quotes for long portions of text, and I have tried to use only those quotes that were specifically recalled by the detectives. And when a character is shown to be thinking something, it is not mere presumption: In every case, subsequent actions made those thoughts apparent or I discussed the matter with that person afterward. And by reviewing the material with the detectives, I have tried to ensure that their thoughts have been portrayed as accurately as possible.

For the unprecedented and unparalleled cooperation of the Baltimore Police Department, I am indebted to the late Police Commissioner Edward J. Tilghman as well as the current commissioner, Edward V. Woods. I am also grateful to Deputy Commissioner for Operations Ronald J. Mullen; retired Colonel Richard A. Lanham and Deputy Commissioner Joseph W. Nixon, both of whom headed the Criminal Investigations Division for portions of 1988; Captain John J. MacGillivary, commander of the Crimes Against Persons section; Lieutenant Stewart Oliver, administrative lieutenant for the persons section; as well as the multitude of BPD commanders, line officers and technicians who went out of their way to assist me.

This project would also not have been possible without the invaluable assistance of Director Dennis S. Hill, chief public information officer for the Baltimore department, and Lieutenant Rick Puller and Sergeant Michael A. Fry of the department’s legal affairs unit.

I would also like to thank Chief Medical Examiner Dr. John E. Smialek and others in the medical examiner’s office for advice and assistance; and Dr. Smialek and Michael Golden, spokesman for the state health department, for providing access to the OCME. In the city prosecutor’s office, I am indebted to State’s Attorney Stuart O. Simms, Chief of the Violent Crimes Unit Timothy V. Doory, and Chief of the Trial Division Ara Crowe.

On the editorial side, this book comes into the world only through the determined and devoted efforts of John Sterling, editor in chief at Houghton Mifflin, who saw the possibilities from the outset and simply refused to let any of them slip away. His patience, talent and expertise are responsible for much of what may be called good writing in these pages; I plead guilty to the rest. This book also benefited immensely from the efforts of Luise M. Erdmann, who proved that manuscript editing, when done well, is more art than craft. My thanks also to Rebecca Saikia-Wilson and everyone else at Houghton Mifflin who gave this project such strong support.

I am also grateful to my editors at the Baltimore Sun, who granted me leave to complete the work and were unswervingly supportive of the project, even after I blew a deadline or three. My thanks to James I. Houck, managing editor; Tom Linthicum, metropolitan desk editor; Anthony F. Barbieri, city editor; and writing coach Rebecca Corbett, who has been a source of advice and encouragement ever since I began making nightshift police rounds at the Sun eight years ago.

I would like to thank Bernard and Dorothy Simon, my parents, whose help over the last three years was essential, as well as Kayle Tucker, whose love and unstinting support was of equal value.

Most important, this book could not exist without the assistance of homicide shift lieutenants Gary D’Addario and Robert Stanton and the forty detectives and detective sergeants who served in their 1988 commands. They took the real risk here, and I hope they feel now that it was in some way worth it.

Finally, a note on one last ethical dilemma. Over a period of time, familiarity and even friendship can sometimes tangle the relationship between a journalist and his subjects. Knowing that, I began my tenure in the homicide unit committed to a policy of complete nonintervention. If the phone in the main office rang and there was no one but me to answer, then it was not meant to be answered. But the detectives themselves helped to corrupt me. It began with phone messages, then grew to spelling corrections and proofreading. (“You’re a writer. Take a look at this affidavit.”) And I shared with the detectives a year’s worth of fast-food runs, bar arguments and station house humor: Even for a trained observer, it was hard to remain aloof.

In retrospect, it’s good that the year ended when it did, before one of the detectives provoked me to intervene in some truly harmful way. Once, in December, I found myself crossing that line- “going native,” as journalists say. I was in the back seat of an unmarked car cruising Pennsylvania Avenue, accompanying Terry McLarney and Dave Brown in their search for a witness. At one point, the detectives suddenly pulled over to the curb to confront a woman who matched the description. She was walking with two young men. McLarney jumped from the car and grabbed one man, but Brown’s trenchcoat belt became caught in the car’s shoulder harness and he fell back into the driver’s seat. “Go,” he yelled at me, still struggling with the harness. “Help Terry.”

Armed with my ball-point pen, I followed McLarney, who was struggling to get one man up against a parked car while the second eyed him angrily.

“DO HIM!” McLarney yelled at me, gesturing toward the second man.

And so, in a moment of weakness, a newspaper reporter shoved a citizen of his city against a parked car and performed one of the most pathetic and incompetent body searches on record. When I got down to the guy’s ankles, I looked up over my shoulder at McLarney.

He was, of course, laughing hard.

David Simon

Baltimore

March 1991