Ghettoside

Starred review from September 15, 2014
This absorbing first book from journalist Leovy traces the investigation and prosecution of a 2007 murder in South Los Angeles, registering along the way a powerful argument about race and our criminal justice system. Eighteen-year-old Bryant Tennelle was “just another black man down.” His shooting death inspired neither press attention nor vigorous police action—until, that is, his case was handed to Police Detective John Skaggs, the central figure in Leovy’s narrative. By following the relentless Skaggs, fleshing out all his quirks, and rendering the perpetrators, survivors, and witnesses of the murder vividly, Leovy spins a good yarn and illustrates how, by her lights, black-on-black homicide should be dealt with (but too seldom is). The state fails “to catch and punish even a bare majority of murderers” in urban black enclaves, and the result is “street justice”—informal legal systems, replete with their own laws and codes and punishments. Gang violence, in Leovy’s account, is thus not a cause of lawlessness; rather, it is “a whole system of interactions determined by the absence of law.” Like most ghettoside cases, the Tennelle case was eminently solvable—merely awaiting a determined investigator to whom the lives of black men were valuable, their murders something to be answered for. Readers may come for Leovy’s detective story; they will stay for her lucid social critique.

January 1, 2015

Urban murders tend to be reported as lump sums, statistics with the descriptor "gang-related" attached. A homicide connected to a gang lets those watching the nightly news relax a little by assuming that the victim was involved in nefarious activities and is perhaps partly to blame for his death. Reporter Leovy started the Los Angeles Times' Homicide Report blog to combat the inattention paid to the victims from poor, predominantly African American neighborhoods in South Central L.A. Here, the author digs deeply into the story of one particular murder, exploring the long history of racism, discrimination, and poverty that created both the shockingly high murder rate for young black men and the indifferent response to those crimes. Like the best narrative nonfiction, the book burrows into both heart and brain, resulting in the reader reeling for the families left behind and more suspicious of news reports that paint slain teenagers as brutal career criminals. VERDICT An important book for anyone interested in crime in America. Academics and casual viewers of police procedurals alike will find this a worthwhile read. [See Prepub Alert, 7/28/14.]--Kate Sheehan, C.H. Booth Lib., Newtown, CT

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