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"Homicide 37" series: bleak and powerful

By Mark Obbie

Despite a frustrating Web presentation that obscures the project's ambitions, this New Orleans Times-Picayune series by Brendan McCarthy -- touted in E&P as a refreshing contrast with the Washington Post's recent "Who Killed Chandra Levy?" serial (which is unfair to the Post's excellent series) -- is pure urban despair. It's written in eight short takes as a procedural narrative following a murder investigation typical of "so many others in a city that year after year posts among the highest per-capita murder rates in the nation: young black male, shot at night, right in the street, right in front of people." The series is gripping, a testament to shoeleather reporting. McCarthy is with the cops and the victim's family at key moments, and he writes it well, from the dynamite opening through today's sorrowful conclusion. Each part is too short to explore the deeper issues, but that's not the series' purpose. This is pure storytelling based on invaluable eyewitness reporting that illuminates the issues by example. And it should serve as inspiration to cops reporters everywhere.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on August 03, 2008 (boomark / email).