Homicide a year on the killing street

The word Homicide is derived from a Latin word where homo refers to man while cide refers to cutting. Thus, Homicide means the killing of a man by a man. While culpable Homicide is punishable in the eyes of the law, Homicide can be unlawful and lawful.

Homicide is a general term that refers to the killing of one human being by another. It is a noncriminal as well as a criminal act of murder. Some homicides are considered justifiable, like killing a person to aid a representative of the law or to prevent a severe felony. Homicides are excusable when a person kills in self-defense. 

Criminal Homicide is not regarded as justifiable or excusable by the court of law. 

A homicide requires a deliberate act by another person that results in death. A homicide can result from reckless, accidental, or negligent acts, even if the intent is not to cause any harm. Homicides are divided into legal categories, including murder, killing in war, manslaughter, justifiable Homicide, capital punishment, and euthanasia, depending on the circumstances and nature of death. Some homicides are treated and acted upon differently in our human societies; At the same time, some are considered a criminal act. Others are permitted and even ordered by the court of law.  

Section 299 and Section 300 of the Indian Penal Code deal with murders and culpable homicides. All culpable homicides are not murders, but all murders are culpable homicides. Culpable Homicide is a genus, but murder is the species; thus, all culpable Homicide is not murder, but all murders are culpable homicides. 

Review of the Book:

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets is quite a poetic and gritty, hard-hitting story. While on a sabbatical from his job as a reporter at The Baltimore Sun, David Simon spent 1988 shadowing the homicide squad in the Baltimore Police Department.

Twice every three days, a citizen is shot or stabbed to death in Baltimore, the charming city. The homicide unit is at the center of the crime of the city, where a small brotherhood of men is seen fighting for whatever justice possible in this deadly world.

The creator of the stunning masterpiece, David Simon, was the first-ever reporter to have gained unlimited access to a homicide unit. The book tells the true story of the violent streets in the American city. The story narrative follows a veteran investigator Donald Worden; a black detective Harry Edgerton in the white unit; and an earnest rookie Tom Pellegrini who takes on the most challenging case of the year -the murder and brutal rape of an eleven-year-old girl.

Homicide became the acclaimed television show of the same name. Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets was written by David Simon in 1991. It describes the year spent with detectives of the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit. The book also received the Edgar Award in the year 1992.  

It is a classy, stunning example of immersing journalism as David Simon gets under the suspects' skin, detectives, witnesses, lawyers, medical examiners, and even receptionists in one of most drug and heavy crime cities. Most of the analysis is ideological or theoretical, but David Simon saw it with his eyes offering a perspective that just not was possible in any other way.

The realities of the fact that cops don’t like juries have become very clear because finding one good man is quite hard, but finding twelve at the same time and in the same place is a miracle in itself. This is the ninth rule of the Homicide Lexicon, ten informal rules that David Simon mentions so often.

The emotional and physical danger of facing the detectives is very real. The section on the shooting of officer Gene Cassidy, who was left to be permanently blind whilst his wife was pregnant, and the murder and rape of the 11-year-old Latonya Wallace, which is pretty much the book’s focus.

Detective Tom Pellegrini on the case is broken down with the mental pressure, and his obsession with problem-solving in the case impacts his health physically. The detectives possess a very dark sense of humor, but David Simon has shown how and why they have to because reality would be too depressing if you can’t laugh.

In one of the cases, a detective noticed a clean-shaven, handsome, and smart-looking sailor with a bearded man who looked ragged. It took hours to close the case when the sailor was found dead. Simon explained, this to be down to good analytic skills, but newspapers put it to just luck.

The reality that is shown in the book of the desolate and bleak row-houses of Baltimore and the women and men who have made it a duty to protect the people within is powerful and made possible due to the excellent story narration by David Simon. This book indeed is a definite must-read.

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Author: Ankita Agarwal