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    Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America
    Unavailable
    Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America
    Unavailable
    Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America
    Audiobook13 hours

    Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America

    Written by Jill Leovy

    Narrated by Rebecca Lowman

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, USA TODAY, AND CHICAGO TRIBUNE • A masterly work of literary journalism about a senseless murder, a relentless detective, and the great plague of homicide in America

    NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • The Boston Globe • The Globe and Mail • BookPage • Kirkus Reviews

    On a warm spring evening in South Los Angeles, a young man is shot and killed on a sidewalk minutes away from his home, one of the thousands of black Americans murdered that year. His assailant runs down the street, jumps into an SUV, and vanishes, hoping to join the scores of killers in American cities who are never arrested for their crimes.

    But as soon as the case is assigned to Detective John Skaggs, the odds shift.

    Here is the kaleidoscopic story of the quintessential, but mostly ignored, American murder—a "ghettoside" killing, one young black man slaying another—and a brilliant and driven cadre of detectives whose creed is to pursue justice for forgotten victims at all costs. Ghettoside is a fast-paced narrative of a devastating crime, an intimate portrait of detectives and a community bonded in tragedy, and a surprising new lens into the great subject of why murder happens in our cities—and how the epidemic of killings might yet be stopped.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJan 27, 2015
    ISBN9780449009727
    Unavailable
    Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America

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    Reviews for Ghettoside

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      This is a rare, well rounded, well researched, and universal crime related non-fiction book. It describes an ordinary murder squad of detectives in a Los Angeles police precinct, how and why the members of the squad became homicide detectives, and their varying array of personalities, motivations, and set of circumstances which led them in to and will eventually make them leave this squad.
      Ok ok, welcome to most any "true crime" novel? Book? Right? Author embeds with police or prosecutor, author likes the added power and deference they gain by association or mistake while working with police... Author decides they are a police officer, then writes book accordingly. Without bothering to fact check much of what they've been fed by police, prosecutors, and their public relations officers.
      This book is different, it uses specific cases to humanize all involved, including perpetrators, victims, police, and community leaders. Then the author uses scholarship and statistics to try and figure out why this particular area is so ordinary in some ways, while being an outlier (or even unique) in others. But the answer is elusive, and the stuff that seems to work best is unpopular with the politically powerful.
      Great book.
    • 5/5
      This book made me cry at times, and at other times made me physically ill. Normally not a recommendation, but in this case, it is. It treats those murdered and those who cared about them as people (which they are, of course), and the pain caused by their loss is in extreme contrast to the cold statistics we normally see, at best.
    • 5/5
      Excellent Book! Although it reads like a Murder mystery, there stories are real.
    • 5/5
      At first glance, Ghettoside and The Train to Crystal City don’t appear to have much in common. Ghettoside tells the story of a detective determined to solve the murder of a fellow officer’s son and highlights the fact that a disproportionate number of murder victims in America are young, black men. It falls squarely in the true crime genre and reads like a gritty police procedural. The Train to Crystal City is a book about our history, specifically the only family internment camp in America during WWII, home to families (including American-born children) some of whom were exchanged for American POWs against their will. What made me choose to review these books together is that they are both exemplary works of narrative nonfiction.

      These books reminded me of quote from E. B. White: “I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time.” These books got of bed and did both. Despite the different tones and plots, both of these books fascinated me. Both told incredibly interesting stories and were engagingly well-written. I couldn’t put either of them down! They also had in common meaningful topics. Ghettoside is certainly more relevant today, covering events which took place in the 2000’s, but reparations have yet to be made to German internees at Crystal City, so both are calls to action.

      In both books, I enjoyed the many direct quotes the authors included. Direct quotes from people who were there are one of my favorite things in narrative nonfiction. They add emotional depth to a story, while simultaneously showing that the author has done their research. I also admired both authors’ ability to incorporate peoples’ back stories into the narrative without getting sidetracked. Both of these authors shared personal details about the people involved in a way which made me feel like I knew them without losing the thread of the main story. I find it incredibly impressive when authors manage to achieve this blend of entertainment and education, research and good writing. These books are both truly wonderful examples of the narrative nonfiction genre and I highly recommend them.

      This review first published at Doing Dewey.
    • 4/5
      This was an important story to tell and gave a perspective on the so-called "black on black crime epidemic" I had not considered before - the lack of solving crimes in high density black communities leads to more crime as those left defenseless defend themselves. I read the Advanced Readers copy and it definitely needed some more editing as it tended to be redundant at times and could have used a less circular narrative style. Overall, Ghettoside enhanced my knowledge about policing in poor, black communities. A recommended read.
    • 5/5
      “She ain't a [prostitute] no more....She's some daddy's baby” or “'NHI – No Human Involved,' the cops used to say. It was only the newest shorthand for the idea that murders of blacks somehow didn't count.”Which attitude would you want the officers investigating the murder of someone you love to have?This nonfiction story of murder of black, mostly men in LA is eyeopening. It explains why ALL of us should care, why we shouldn't take the attitude that if one gangbanger kills another gangbanger, who cares? It follows the story of the murder of a homicide detective's son, but that is only a part of the story. There are seemingly endless recounts of murders of lower profile people, those who don't even merit a paragraph in the local paper.It also explains why the poor black communities take the law into their own hands, the rich history of the US legal system marginalizing them at best. And, very much connected to that, why solving murders of those same people is difficult, even when it is attempted, and how often those attempts are superficial.Occasionally the author's prose got a bit too flowery or sentimental, but mostly this was a clearly written look at why ignoring the violence problem and the underlying issues not only does a severe injustice to the people of those communities but affects all of us who think we are not connected to such problems.The statistics are getting better. The statistics are still unacceptable.This is one of those books that I didn't just read, but I marked and notated. It made me look at a problem from a perspective I had not considered before, and I am grateful for that.I was given an advance reader's copy of this book for review, and the quote may be different in the published edition.
    • 4/5
      Ms. Leovy has written a very interesting book that weaves facts and information about the homicide rate in America with the tragic story of a murder and the detectives who tirelessly worked to solve it. After finishing the book , I found that I became more aware of the slant on how current events are handled and I have a greater understanding that what is covered in the news in only a small fraction of what many people in America are handling on a daily basis. Although the author attempts to explain different possible causes to the problem, a solution was not as clear or as easily implemented. I can only hope that by helping to shed some light on the topic and making people aware, we can move in the right direction.
    • 5/5
      This is a very powerful book about black on black murders in LA. It describes the senseless magnitude of the problem and traces the investigation of the murder of a LA homicide detective's son. The book is heartfelt and sad. The sad truth bleeds from each page. I highly recommend it.
    • 4/5
      This is a story that people really need to hear, so I'm glad Jill Leovy decided to write it down. It was a very in-depth look at how homicides are investigated in the most violent parts of Los Angeles, and all the challenges that surround an area where gangs rule. I really enjoyed the character development of the detectives and their colleagues, though it got to be a little tedious in the beginning before the story actually started. The description of the investigation of the main case focused on in the book was very quick to get through and really kept me engaged. The trial at the end of the book was a bit slow as well, but I do understand that's just how the case concluded, without much climax and then it just kind of faded away. I did really like this book, but I do think it focused a little too much on the tactics and specific characteristics of each detective and didn't focus enough on the victims, their families, and other residents of the area that are affected by the violence.
    • 5/5
      Ghettoside is a remarkable and tragic account of black-on-black crime in South Central L.A. Levoy's book was an eye-opening and shocking description about the grim reality of being a young black man in a high concentration crime area like South Central L.A. Levoy tackled difficult subjects and realities that tend to be ignored.
    • 5/5
      This is an excellent non-fiction book. It's the story of murder in what used to be called South Central Los Angeles (now re-branded without the 'Central'), with the worst-hit group being young black men. This was an educational read for me, in light of some of the recent deaths in Missouri, New York, etc. The author posits that the answer isn't more patrolmen, it's more detectives. So the law needs to take black homicides more seriously, value their lives more and solve the murders. That way, there's less reason for the law to be taken into their own hands. Without it being the right kind of law, she refers to it as a state monopoly on violence, we're not going to dig our way out of the epidemic of violence we find ourselves in. (So don't worry about someone illegally selling cigarettes, worry about the person shooting his/her neighbor.)
    • 1/5
      This Book reads more like a high school term paper than a novel. The story tries to be gritty while trying to soften the characters and it just doesn't work. It's a cookie cutter novel that brings nothing new to literature. And the author asks why African Americans don't trust police instead of delving into the fact that unarmed African Americans are gunned down by police everyday and those same police go unpunished. It's a bland story that tries to turn cops into the heroes they are not and exaggerates an attempt to understand a world not at all complicated. And of course the author chooses the a single murder of a young black man and thinks that supposed to mean something when in reality the only reason anyone tried to solve his murder was because his father was also a cop. If he'd had no connection to the police like anyone else the cops wouldn't give a damn.
    • 3/5
      The idea behind the book is excellent. Unfortunately the writing didn't always stand up to that same standard. The first half of the book was, at best, rather mind-numbing with the constant barrage of statistics that could have been incorporated more smoothly. At about chapter 14 or 15, it was almost as if a different author took over, the narration was more focused and stream-lined, without the repetitive digressions of the first chapters. Overall a good book, one that will hopefully open our eyes to the relentless onslaught of inner-city violence.
    • 5/5
      Great read. If you have any preconceived ideas about black-on-black homicides, gang culture, police brutality or harassment, you are almost guaranteed to have some of those ideas challenged in this book, and perhaps even changed. There's not much I can add to the previous reviews since I agree with all the positive ones. This is a story that should be recommended reading, especially in the "white-cop/black-crime", "professional-race-baiter" climate of the day. I received a free copy of this book with the expectation of an honest review.
    • 4/5
      Really interesting book, looking at both the methodology and the struggles of trying to be a cop in LA. It also shines a light on how racial prejudice has allowed some police officers to effectively ignore crimes. A good read and recommended.
    • 5/5
      This was a really excellent books for those interested in sociological or cultural/racial issues.
    • 3/5
      Ghettoside was an eye opening book that revealed the oppression and Jim Crow like justice system that is currently in place for young black men. The main story is about a Homicide Detective John Skaggs who will stop at nothing to solve his cases. If only more detectives were like him and if only all the resources were available. I enjoyed the story and the background about John Skaggs, however, I wish the statistics and all the pounding of the racism, media portrayal etc was not so in your face but instead woven into the story better. I like to come to realizations and not have them beaten into me.
    • 5/5
      Firstly, credentials: author Jill Leovy wrote a daily crime column called The Homicide Report for the LA Times.This is a true crime story. True, and a crime, that so many black lives are lost for no reason other than racism, poverty and easy access to cheap guns.Leovy writes primarily about homicide detectives, who are most surely a breed apart from police who patrol the South Central streets. The priority of the homicide detectives is to find out and gain confessions for the myriad senseless (though does any killing really make any sense) murders. Although the residents say, "Everybody knows", most witnesses are petrified to identify and testify, with very good reason - fear for their lives and the safety of their families.The primary case here is a tragic story of a homicide detective who believes in his neighborhood and in staying to help keep it as a good place for all to live. But when his son is murdered, Detective Tennelle berates himself for his decision. John Skaggs is the detective assigned to the case. By befriending a brave witness, he changes her life and those of the defendants.Quotes, from the author: "Police had long functioned in the US preoccupied with control and prevention, obsessed with nuisance crime, and lax when it came to answering for black lives."And from scholar William Stuntz: "Poor black neighborhoods see too little of the kinds of policing and criminal punishment that do the most good, and too much of the kind that do the most harm."This book belongs on the same exalted shelf as "The New Jim Crow" and On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City. All three are essential to understanding why "Black Lives Matter" is a most valid battle cry in the war against indifference and evil outcomes.
    • 4/5
      Black lives matter. It's an interesting experiment for anybody, regardless of color, to read that three letter sentence and explore the first thought that came to mind. I am a privileged, forty something year old white female. This book was given to me in the Early Reviewers give-away and I am thrilled to offer my thoughts on it. Given today's climate, this book couldn't have come out at a more timely date. Although it is non-fiction, it reads like fiction with story-telling and facts intertwined that are both riveting and interesting. I compare Levoy's writing style to somebody like Ann Rule, who not only lures readers in with suspense and information given at the right moments but also is able to provide a well written window that allows us a vivid picture where the stories take place. It's an important book. it is a raw look into real black lives and the problems they face and the culture of violence and murder in our country. "How is this MY problem" you might ask yourself. A simple change of mind set might eventually be the missing piece to this puzzle. Black Live Do Matter. Get a glimpse into their world and it will be clear that many, many factors have not been in the right places for far too long.
    • 4/5
      Ghettoside takes a unique look at a societal problem by focusing on a particular case in Los Angeles. As a fan of true crime books, I like the approach that Jill Leovy does in telling the story behind and during the case. It is said that these type of cases continue to happen to happen. There isn't a lot of heavy, over the top, descriptions about police procedure and law which makes it easy for everyone to read. I enjoyed it.
    • 4/5
      What a sad, sad book. It covers the murders of blacks against blacks in the area of LA known as Watts (among other names). The murder rate in this neighborhood was astonishing and it was mainly black men killing black men. This book is also about a few detectives who relentlessly try to get justice for these victims and their families. There is one case that is followed throughtout the book; the murder of a police officer's son. This case, among others are discussed, but this one is followed through until the end. This is really a great study on why these murders happen and how the perseverance of these few underpaid, overworked officers have helped to drop this murder rate in the past few years.
    • 5/5
      You may as well buy a first edition of this book now before they all get bought up because this book is deadlock for the Pulitzer Prize. Its combination of clear, detailed reporting on and important but under-reported topic make it a likely nominee for literary prizes. In the spirit of Stalin's quote, " One death is tragedy, a million are a statistic ," Leovy uses the murder of a nineteen year old man to reveal the larger tragedy of black-on-black murder rates in LA and the whole country. The slaying of Bryant Tennelle is so awful and the grief of his family so palpable that this almost had me chocked up at times. The muckraking author not only presents her readers with a nation problem but a solution as well. My one criticism is this book lacked any footnotes or bibliography. I highly recommend this book.
    • 5/5
      This is an amazing look at Los Angeles County where there is a murder nearly every day. This reporter for the Los Angeles Times specifically looks at the murders that occur when one black young man kills another black young man – “ghettoside” murders. She spends a great deal of time with the detectives who work in these high crime areas as they seek to buck the national trend and actually solve these cases. It is these detectives theories that gangs do not cause these high murder rates, that instead gangs occur when the real police do not solve these crimes leaving those living in those areas vulnerable, so that they create and join gangs to feel safe and protected in their neighborhoods. This book looks at what happens when police solve “ghettoside” murders and how gangs become replaced by the proper authorities in several specific cases. This is a very timely look at what has become a national problem. Excellent book.
    • 5/5
      Leovy offers a sobering, mostly just-the-facts look at the how detectives in South Central Los Angeles do their jobs, with a particular focus on a detective working to solve the murder of a policeman's son. The author is explicit about the history and current weight of racial injustice in America, but she offers a diagnosis that has been uncommon in a year with a lot of media focus on excessive force and police shootings of young black men. Without denying those concerns, Leovy argues that inadequate police attention to predominantly black neighborhoods is also a great injustice - when police departments don't give their detectives adequate resources or staffing to solve murders of black men, they implicitly devalue black lives, and create a social dynamic in which residents turn towards a hyper-violent underground justice system. Having not read the academic literature on this topic, I have no idea if it backs up Leovy's analysis. On the other hand, whether or not her argument is right, the book offers a real insight into how homicide detectives, particular in low income communities with a lot of violence, understand their work. There's also a couple amazing scenes of detective interrogating their suspects - these gave me a helpful sense of what that involves, and a renewed appreciation for the protections provided by the US Bill of Rights, even pared back as those have been by the US Supreme Court.
    • 5/5
      Ghettoside is an ARC I received as part of the Goodreads review program. I was a little hesitant getting into this one as it's a book about black-on-black gang violence written by a white woman and I thought it might wind up being...what internet users would call concern troll-y ("look what these people keep doing to each other, whyyyyyyy??") but actually found the book gratifyingly insightful and compelling! Leovy delves into the history of black-on-black crime and its dismissal by majority-white American justice systems (and dismissal by the media - "'There's a perception that blacks are doing it to blacks, and if I'm white, it doesn't affect me'") and posits that murder rates always tend to soar among minority groups whenever there is a culture of "lawlessness" and "family justice" caused by lack or mistrust of law enforcement/government. She balances the need to keep things engaging and readable with the impression that the work is very well-researched; I never felt like the author was "reaching" on a particular point. Aside from the history of minority community violence, there's also a lot of interesting analysis and critique of American policing, specifically LA officers and detectives, and the entire book is connected by several specific murder investigations and prosecutions, mainly focusing on the fatal shooting of a (black) police officer's son outside of his home. Leovy does a really good job of emphasizing the humanity of not only the victims of these shootings and their families but the perpetrators, and of illustrating how the gang/honor culture has become so pervasive in these communities.
    • 5/5
      Sometimes I read a book full of alarming statistics, but it fails to move me. Then other times I read a book like this one, when the author weaves statistics and research into a story, when the writing is vivid and the details compelling, when I feel like I've learned something in a way that matters, and when that knowledge has, on some level, changed how I think. Jill Leovy is a gifted writer. She puts words together in a way that paints a portrait of images and emotion. I didn't just read the words, I felt the anger and desperation of the people caught in this cycle of violence. Perhaps more importantly, Leovy's writing shines a new light on an old situation. Being a white girl from middle class suburbs, I've never had much interaction with gangs or extreme poverty - with any race. And though I read a lot on crime and sociology, I have never come across a book that so expertly dissects the cause and effect of gang violence and black-on-black murders. This book reads like the best crime novel. We have two hero cops, going far beyond anyone's expectations while risking ridicule from their coworkers. We have the victims, innocent kids caught in the crossfire. And we have the killers, not much more than kids themselves, struggling to survive in a kind of inner city Wild West, with no one and nothing to rely on beyond their own code of ethics. Ghettoside is a powerful statement on our indifference and assumptions. It's an unflinching look at racism and survival. It's a compelling piece of writing that needs to be read by every person, everywhere.
    • 5/5
      Extremely captivating story, as suspenseful as any fiction work. Leovy has turned out one of the best non-fiction reads I've come across in a while!
    • 5/5
      We are all thinking this January 2015 about relationship between the minority – in particular, black – communities and the police. Ghettoside by Los Angeles reporter, Jill Leovy, is a timely addition to the conversation.The homicide rate in Los Angeles, in Watts and in South Central in particular, consists of young black men killing other young black men. The clearance rate for these murders is very low. Because of the difficulties in finding witnesses willing to testify and a culture that put a low premium on their lives, many police resorted to arresting those they knew were guilty of murder but against whom they had insufficient evidence, of “proxy crimes.” These crimes included public drinking, possession of drugs, and parole violations. These arrests did get killers off the streets, but they were often viewed as harassment.Ghettoside is the story of two murders and of John Skaggs, the white police detective who solved both. Skaggs was the detective who actually cared and he and his partners preserved until both cases resulted in convictions. Leovy chose as victims the son of a black police detective and a tenth grader son of a single mother home health care worker. Neither were gang affiliated. One would expect effort to solve the case concerning a fellow police officer, but given the culture of the L.A. police at the time, not the other. Skaggs worked through police budget cuts and the lack of resources his entire career. He and his first partner and later those they trained cared. They cared about the families, the victims and the witnesses. They solved homicides. Leovy gives us a small glimpse into what makes Skaggs tick, but I never learned enough to understand why he was different, why he was driven to solve these crimes that few others cared about.The unfolding of the investigations reads like a mystery story. Some may get confused about the multiple characters, but I found it no more confusing than reading Ngaio Marsh or Agatha Christie. I did find that Leovy’s digressions into the roots of both black on black crime and white indifference distracting and, in the end, superficial. Leovy is not an historian or sociologist and the strength of this book is her reporting on the crimes and the investigations. She began a blog for the Los Angeles Times called the “Homicide Report” in 2007. The report chronicles every homicide in the city to the current day. Every city should have a similar blog.Ghettoside ends with a quote from William J. Stuntz. Stuntz was a Harvard Law School Professor who studied the criminal justice system and died much too young. “Poor black neighborhoods see too little of the kids of policing and criminal punishment that do the most good, and too much of the kinds that do the most harm.” This also sums up Ghettoside.I highly recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      Eye opening and thought provoking. I really enjoyed this book. I remember seeing the riots when I was a kid and the occasional South Central Cops episode, but as a white person from the East Coast, the plight of young, black men in dangerous Los Angeles neighborhoods isn't something I think about often. Great detail and story telling, as well as being pretty open minded and fair to both police and troubled youths.
    • 4/5
      This is a very well researched book! The author proves her points: America suffers from a plague, which is the phenomenon of black on black murders. Also, the lax enforcement of laws and punishment for the crimes makes the life of a black man "cheap". She does not simply state these points, although she repeats them numerous times, but she documents the actual case of a murder doggedly pursued by an uncommonly devoted L.A. detective.