Homicide. David Simon

      Listening to the U.S. Senator:

      “… the poverty, the ignorance, the greed … all the things that kill little girls … she was an angel to us all, the angel of Reservoir Hill.”

      Listening to small, brief details of a child’s life:

      “… attended this school from age three until the present time with a perfect attendance record … such involvements as student council, school choir, modern dance, majorette … Latonya’s goal was to become a great dancer.”

      Listening to a eulogy, to reasons that never sounded more hollow, more empty:

      “She is home now … because we are not judged by the fleetest of foot or the strongest, but those that endure.”

      Edgerton follows the crowd that gathers behind the white casket as it is carried toward the front door. Already back at work, he corners a white-gloved usher to ask about obtaining a copy of the mourners’ book, signed by those in attendance. From a surveillance van on the opposite side of Park Avenue, a technician begins discreetly taking photographs of the departing crowd in the hope that the killer might muster enough remorse to risk an appearance. Edgerton stands at the base of the church steps, scanning the male faces as the crowd files slowly into the street.

      “‘Not the fleetest of foot or the strongest, but those that endure,’” he says, pulling out a cigarette. “I like that part … I hope he was talking about us.”

      Edgerton watches the last of the mourners leave the church before walking back to his car.

      MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8

      Donald Worden sits in the coffee room and scans the metro section of the paper, half listening to the roll call taking place in the outer office. Wordlessly, he sips his coffee and takes in the headline:

      LEADS ELUSIVE IN DEC. SLAYING OF FLEEING SUSPECT; FOCUS ON OFFICERS SHIFTS TO CIVILIAN.

      The article itself begins with a question:

      Who killed John Randolph Scott, Jr.?

      Baltimore homicide detectives have asked the question hundreds of times since December 7, when Mr. Scott, 22, was shot in the back while being pursued on foot by police.

      For several weeks, the investigation appeared to be focusing on officers who had been in the area when the young man—fleeing from a stolen car that had been chased by police—was gunned down in the 700 block of Monroe Street.

      But now, investigators appear to be considering another possible suspect—a civilian who lives in that neighborhood, and whose mother, girlfriend and son have been questioned before the city grand jury, according to police sources.

      Worden lets his eyes drift slowly down the entire column, then turns the page and begins reading the jump on 2D. It only gets worse:

      A police source said that a man living near Monroe Street has been extensively interrogated in connection with the death …. The same man—pointed out to police by another resident of the area—had told investigators that he saw a police car leaving Monroe Street the morning of the shooting at a high rate of speed, with its lights out.

      No evidence was found to substantiate that claim, the source said, and now investigators believe the man may somehow be responsible for the shooting—or at least know more than he has been willing to divulge.

      Worden finishes his coffee and hands the newspaper to Rick James, his partner, who rolls his eyes and grabs the newspaper from the older detective.

      Wonderful. For the first time in two months they catch a break in this star-crossed case, only to have Roger Fucking Twigg, the morning paper’s veteran police reporter, spray it across the front page of the city section. Lovely. For two months, no one in the neighborhood around Fulton and Monroe will admit to knowing anything about the murder of John Scott. Then, a week ago, Worden finally digs out a reluctant witness—possibly an eyewitness—for the grand jury. But before prosecutors can lean on this man, pressuring him to testify under threat of a perjury charge, the Baltimore Sun calls him a suspect. Now it’ll be hell getting this guy’s story into the grand jury room, because if he reads the newspapers—if his lawyer reads the newspapers—prudence suggests that he invoke the Fifth Amendment and remain silent.

      Twigg, you miserable bastard, thinks Worden, listening to D’Addario run through the day’s teletypes. You did me. You really did me on this one.

      That Worden has come up with any kind of witness is testament to how hard he has worked the case. Since the discovery of John Scott’s body in early December, he has conducted four separate door-to-door canvasses of the area around the 800 block of Monroe Street, with the first three efforts producing little. It was only on the fourth canvass that Worden learned from a neighbor the name of a possible eyewitness, a resident of the 800 block who had parked his car on Monroe Street next to the mouth of the alley and had told several others that he had been outside when the shooting occurred. When Worden got to the man, he found a middle-aged laborer who lived with his girlfriend and elderly mother on Monroe Street. Nervous and reluctant, the man denied that he was on the street when the incident occurred, but he admitted that he heard a gunshot, then from his window saw a police car leaving the 800 block with its lights out. He then saw a second police car turn onto Monroe Street from Lafayette and stop near the mouth of the alley.

      The man also told Worden that after police began gathering in the alley, he had called his son to tell him what was happening. Worden then interviewed the son, who remembered the phone call and remembered further that his father had been quite specific: He had seen a police officer shoot a man in an alley across the street from his house.

      Worden went back at the witness, confronting him with his son’s statement. No, said the man, I never told him that. He stood by his previous account involving the two cars.

      Worden suspected that his newfound witness had seen a good deal more than the arrival and departure of the radio cars, and the detective had two possible explanations for the man’s obvious reluctance. First, the witness was genuinely afraid of testifying against a police officer in a murder trial. Second, there never was a radio car that fled down Monroe Street with its headlights out. The witness had instead seen a confrontation between John Scott and another civilian, a neighbor or friend, perhaps, whom the witness was now trying to protect. For that matter, the confrontation could have involved the witness himself, who had parked his own car at the mouth of the alley a few minutes before the shooting.

      Technically then, this morning’s newspaper article is correct in asserting that the witness can also be considered a potential suspect. But what Roger Twigg does not know—or has not been told by his sources—is that this new witness was not discovered in a vacuum; other evidence is leading Worden back in the opposite direction, back toward the police.

      It’s more than the shirt buttons found at the edge of the alley. And it’s more than the fact that too many of the officers involved seem to be having trouble keeping their stories straight. The most unnerving piece of evidence in Worden’s case file is a copy of the Central District radio tape, which had been sent to the FBI for audio enhancement. Deciphered by the detectives and transcribed weeks after the murder, it revealed a strange sequence of radio transmissions.

      At one point on the tape, a Central officer can be heard broadcasting a description of the suspect seen running from the passenger seat of the stolen car.

      “It’s a number one male, six foot, six-foot-one, dark jacket, blue jeans … last seen at Lanvale and Payson …”

      Then, a Central District sergeant, a seven-year veteran named John Wylie, cuts in. Having followed the chase into the Western District, it is Wylie who first found the body of John Scott.

      “One-thirty,” Wylie says, giving his unit number. “Cancel that description at the eight-hundred block of Fulton … or Monroe.”

      One of the officers involved in the early chase breaks in, assuming that the suspect is in custody: “One twenty-four. I can ID that guy …”

      Moments later, Wylie comes