Ghettoside Essay

Megan Urbanski
3/8/16
Final Book Report
Word Count: 2029
Prior to reading Ghettoside, I had originally thought that Ghettoside would look at how murder is plaguing American society; but instead the author focused primarily on the detectives of a specific ghetto in South Central Los Angeles and the types of crimes they encounter. Typically, ghettos are mostly composed of black people with low socioeconomic status and a lot of informally run by the gangs that inhabit these neighborhoods. Much of this book focused on the how the detectives fight with the community members to find out who the criminals are. These detectives find it hard to connect and gain the trust of the neighborhood because of the fear that gangs inflict on the communities

they conducted their criminal business in.
The book Ghettoside focuses on the relationship between the LAPD homicide detective and the communities in South Central LA. The amount of murders and gang violence that goes on in South Central LA. It shows that it is hard for detectives to connect with the victims’ families because in the ghettos there is a stigma about police officers in that they do not care about helping out the victims or solving the crimes. The two detectives that the book focuses on are Skaggs and Tennelle. Both detectives make it a priority in their profession to find offenders who have committed all of the murders and shootings that happen in the community of Watts located in South Central Los Angeles.
Police need to crack down on the amount of murders that are happening all over America. The only problem with the need for a murder crack down is that there has constantly been a lack of trust between the police and the black community. While the police are trying to do their jobs and decrease the crime in these neighborhoods, citizens do not show respect for the officers that patrol their communities. There has always been a divide between police and inner-city communities.
Gang-related violence is, in my opinion, is one of the top reasons for the increase in murders across America. An interesting fact about the book in one of the reviews states that there only six percent of African-American males in America; but forty-percent of that population are the people who are being murdered. Gang-violence within inner city ghettos can be one of the main reason why all of these black males are being murdered. Young black boys grow up only knowing how to survive within a gang setting. These violent settings are no way for a child to grow up. They learn at a very young age about violence and how to get what you want through violence. Once these young black males grow up to be men they are well-versed in gang laws.
Wally Tennelle, who is one of the main characters in Ghettoside, always told his sons to stay on the straight and narrow and never be influenced by the surrounding gangs in their neighborhood. Wally was one of the only detectives that actually lived the same district that he patrols as a police officer. The 77th district has a longer history of numerous shootings and murders that occur almost every day. Wally enforced strict rules on his children to make sure that they did well in school and were able to find good jobs that allowed them to leave the dangerous district that they grew up in. Many parents in these situations try to discipline their children that way Wally does, but it does not always work. The gangs find a way to influence these young, naïve boys to join their gangs. Many gang members start to “recruit” new members when they are young, and this causes children to begin to disobey their parents and get swayed by the gang to join them. With every type of discipline measure in the books, children grow up and in their teenage years and they begin to fall into the black hole that is the gang life. This type of life leads to a life of violence and it is hard to deter these young men to not get involved in this type of gang. Unfortunately, this happens to be the case of Wally Tennelle and his son Bryant. Even with all of the rules and “security checks”; Bryant still ended up in the wrong part of town, got caught in a cross fire and was murdered.
Police officers have a hard time doing their job to the fullness of their ability without the support of their community. Recently the police force has been getting a lot of hate for their biased police work, especially in cases in Ferguson, MO and Baltimore, MD. It has been difficult for police officers to gain the trust of their community and that is deflecting them from keeping on track on their investigations. The attempt to earn the trust of their communities is making it harder for them to complete their investigations and to investigate to their fullest ability.
I knew that there was a problem with gang violence and black on black murder.

Growing up and going to high school in Baltimore, I have seen the type of living conditions that the people live in. I understand that there is a hierarchy when it comes to living in a gang- run neighborhood. Even though Ghettoside takes place in a ghetto in South Central Los Angeles, there are some parallels between the two locations. Both locations are part of a subsection of a larger area, where not as many crimes exist. It would be interesting to specifically look at the criminal activity that happens in these specific ghettos around America to see which areas have the highest criminal activity in America. Regardless of who has the highest criminal activity, there needs to be a change in order to decrease this specific type of

crime.
Most of the crimes that happen in the Ghettoside go unsolved. Police officers do not take the time or have the energy to fully analyze each individual case. Most of the cases involve gang-related incidents. The rate at which shootings and subsequent murders happen is fast. While the population of black men in America is only about six percent; forty percent of those individuals end up a murder victim due to gang violence. There are random shootings, such as drive-bys and long-range shots. Most of the time the victims are not even the target of the shooting, but they just happen to fit the description of the actual target.
The small group of detectives who make it their life’s work to figure out these unsolved cases and find the guilty parties and bring them to justice. One of those detectives is Detective Skaggs. Skaggs works his entire career in search of the truth. He gets in on the Bryant Tennelle case and works to interview every potential witness and suspect. The problem with trying to find potential witnesses and suspects is that the neighborhood does not trust the police and are scared of the gangs that illegally set the laws within their neighborhoods. Even if they do end up finding suspects it is always hard to convict them of murder.
It has become increasing hard to convict of murder, detectives try to find other ways and crimes to convict these gang members. They use drug crimes, gang injunctions, and parole and probation measures. Since a lot of the crimes that happen in these neighborhoods are shootings, detectives attempt to trace the bullets to guns and to the owners of those guns; but most of the guns used in these shootings are illegal and unregistered guns. All of these roadblocks, force these detectives to take measure into their own hands to get a proper conviction.
Once the suspect is discovered, the detectives do their best to try to get a confession, but it takes time. Another problem that detectives face are lying witnesses. Detectives go through numerous interviews and interrogations in order to figure out the truth behind their lies. Suspects are smooth liars and they are either violent or gentle; there is no in between. These suspects are also afraid that their gang will no longer accept them if they confess and give up potentially incriminating evidence on the other gang members.
These detectives do their best to make sure that the law is brought into these neighborhoods. If the gangs continue to run these neighborhoods the violence will never stop and more and more people will die. Sometimes the neighborhood residents believe that community programs will help to decrease the violence in these neighborhoods, but that is only a temporary fix. The only way to decrease the violence in these types of neighborhoods all of the United States is to enforce the law and to put the violent actors behind bars or they will continue to cause harm to everyone in the neighborhood. Even if the residents are not directly affected by the overwhelming gang violence in their neighborhoods, they either no someone who was affected, or they are indirectly affected and scared for their lives that one day they will directly be affected.
While these detectives do their best to find the culprits of these horrific crimes, they always end up finding roadblocks that prevent them from catching the criminal and putting them behind bars.

If detectives do no learn how to connect and build trust with the communities that they work in, there is no hope for the future of getting a handle on the level of gang violence in America. Although this is not a one-way street, in order for police officers to build trust with the different residents, the residents need to begin to trust the police officers who enforce the law in their neighborhood. While some police officers wish to make a connection with their community members, most police officers see gang violence in ghetto communities as a lost cause. These detectives do not have the resources nor the energy to close every murder and attempted murder cases that happen in these communities. The only hope that the American public can have in decreasing these types of murders is that there are still detectives who make it their life’s work to find the root cause of every case that comes through their

department.
The book has aligned with my conceptions of police officers, in that they are capable of fully bonding with their community member, even in gang infested communities. Even though there are still community unrest with the amount of gang violence, that some police officers try their best to overcome this and enforce the laws to protect the community. It however sis not line up with my preconceptions that all police officers do their very best Ghettoside gave a good inside look at the hard lives of detectives. While it only focused on one case in one ghetto in America, it is very easy to generalize this case study to the rest of American ghettos. Ghettoside also focused on the national problem of black on black violence and how the police are hard pressed to find answers to why this type of violence is continuing to happen. The reason for the increase of murder in inner city ghettos is due to the low socio-economic status, lack of schooling, lack of job opportunities, and so much more that is deterring individuals from bettering their lives. These aspects of these neighborhoods can increase their reason for joining gangs and getting involved in drug-related crimes.
In conclusion, Ghettoside was a good book to read for anyone who is interested in how gang violence is ruining neighborhoods across America. The interactions between police officers and communities members are a crucial part in creating a safe environment for families to grow, children to play, and people to create relationships. It becomes hard for the laws to be enforced if there is not a good relationship between the police and the community. Detectives need to take a good hard look at the cases that they oversee and really try their best to find the culprits and get justice for the victims. Until this happens, there is no hope to decrease gang violence in America.