NCJ Number
131781
Date Published
1991
Length
599 pages
Annotation
Focusing on the daily work of three police detectives, this narrative uses dialogue, anecdotes, vignettes, and background facts to detail the daily work of the homicide unit of the Baltimore police department during 1988.
Abstract
The author, a newspaper reporter, received unlimited access to the city's homicide unit and followed one shift of homicide detectives throughout 1988. The three detectives profiled in detail are Donald Worden, a longtime investigator; Harry Edgerton, a black detective in a mostly white unit; and Tom Pellegrini, a rookie. Written in chronological order, the descriptions cover the observations of experiences and interactions at crime scenes, hospital emergency rooms, interrogations, autopsies, and other settings, focusing on the roles and attitudes of police, laboratory technicians, prosecutors, judges, elected officials, government workers, victims, offenders, and witnesses. During that year, Baltimore recorded 234 murders. (Publisher summary modified)