The jury's actions became the basis for a Season 4 storyline in which Bruce Campbell played a cop whose father, a retired officer, was strangled to death by a suspect who was acquitted by a disinterested jury. The case also inspired the character of Blind Butchie on The Wire, a blind Baltimore drug dealer who was soft-spoken and not vicious (a complete contrast to the real-life Butchie Frazier). Officer Chris Thormann ( Lee Tergesen), a friend of Crosetti, was shot and blinded while on duty Crosetti took the incident personally and went to great lengths to find the shooter. The Cassidy story was worked into the first season of Homicide: Life on the Street and was the largest storyline for the character of Detective Steve Crosetti ( Jon Polito). McLarney felt a great deal of disillusionment by the way that the BPD seemed unable to understand or fully help Cassidy in the aftermath of the shooting. A drug dealer named Clifton "Butchie" Frazier was eventually convicted of attempted murder in the first degree and sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years. Although initially expected to die or be left completely disabled by his injuries, Cassidy made a full mental recovery but was left blind and without his sense of smell or taste. Gene Cassidy, a patrolman and close friend of Detective Sergeant Terry McLarney, was shot twice in the head at point-blank range in October 1987. The case of Calpurnia Church, in the first season of Homicide: Life on the Street, was based on Parrish's crimes. His experiences involved two attempts to locate and exhume one of Parrish's victims, both of which ended with the wrong man being dug up. She eventually pleaded guilty to four murders and was convicted of three assaults, receiving eight life sentences without parole.ĭonald Waltemeyer was the primary on this case, which played a large role in his transition from the mindset of a patrol officer to that of an investigator. Geraldine Parrish Ī woman named Geraldine Parrish took out life insurance policies on multiple relatives, including her five husbands and a 13-year-old niece, then arranged for them to be murdered so she could collect the benefits. Simon described it as "the spine of the book". The Adena Watson case in Homicide: Life on the Street was based on this case, and the travails on it of new Detective Tim Bayliss were based on Pellegrini's experiences. Tom Pellegrini was the primary detective on the case, which remains unsolved. The case of Latonya Kim Wallace, an 11-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted and murdered, is perhaps the most notable case in the book. The book is notable for the detailed look it gives into the professional lives of police detectives and the mix of quirky, absurd, and sometimes tragic cases they investigated. 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. Although detectives are typically portrayed as noble characters who care deeply about their victims, Simon believed real detectives regarded violence as a normal aspect of their jobs. Simon said he was particularly interested in the demythification of the American detective. The book was published in 1991, during which Baltimore saw a record 353 murders. Ī total of 567 murders occurred in the city for the years 19 combined, the period during which Simon wrote Homicide. Baltimore recorded 234 murders during the year Simon spent with the Homicide Unit. He had persuaded the Baltimore Police Department to allow him access to the city's Homicide Unit for calendar year 1988, and throughout that year he shadowed one shift of detectives as they investigated cases, conducted interrogations, executed search and arrest warrants, and testified at trials. It later also provided inspiration for Simon's HBO television series The Wire (2002–08).ĭavid Simon, a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, spent four years on the police beat before taking a leave of absence to write this book. Many of the key detectives and incidents portrayed in the book provided inspiration for the first two seasons of the show, with other elements surfacing in later seasons as well. The book was subsequently fictionalized as the NBC television drama Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99), on which Simon served as a writer and producer. The book received the 1992 Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category. 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 Unit.
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