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The book I read is Ghettoside by Jill Leovy

I picked this book because I like crime and it is about the murders that happened during the 2000s in Los Angeles

The story is focused on Detective John Skaggs and his journey solving the case of Bryant Tennelle. John Skaggs is a very dedicated detective who is dedicated to getting the job done.

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1. John Skaggs started working as a patrol officer doing ghettoside policing. This type of policing is when you work in underserved, high risk neighborhoods. He continued on this path even as he made detective and it showed his commitment to the job.

2. During the Dovon Harris case, Skaggs delivered Dovon’s sneakers to his mother. He saw firsthand how the death of another human had such an impact on people. He decided that every victim deserved the same empathy and dedication.

3. Skaggs got handed the Bryant Tennelle case. This case involved a fellow detective’s son and it exposed him to how some cases just got less resources and attention. This is another thing that caused him to want equal justice for all victims regardless of where they live, or what their race is.

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This story takes place during the early to mid 2000s as Skaggs works on multiple homicides across South L.A.

Back when Black homicides were dismissed often as “No Human Involved” the story follows Detective Skaggs’ fight for more resources to these homicides.

The places that this story takes palce impacted the people in the story because in L.A. resources were often scarce and homicides were just brushed off as “NHI” (No Human Involved”.

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The lesson that the author wants people to learn is that the epidemic of homicides come from police under treating these cases. It only increases the amount of homicides that happen.

I know this because of this quote from the story, “This is a book about a very simple idea: where the criminal justice system fails to respond vigorously to violent injury and death, homicides becomes endemic” (Leovy 8).

The author’s personal life impacted why she chose to wrote this book because she spent more than two decades as a crime reporter for L.A. Times. She saw firsthand how many cases get overlooked, which is why she is calling for equal treatment to all cases.

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The author uses ethos by using her 24 years as an L.A. Times crime reporter to show readers that her firsthand experiences helped her write this story.

She uses pathos by visually describing scenes and using extensive imagery to catch the readers’ emotions during some of these scenes in the story.

She uses lots of statistics in the story. An example is saying Black men make up just 6% of the U.S. population but about 40% of murder victims. The LAPD only solves around 38% of those cases.

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The most importation quotation from the book that best summarizes the theme is, “This is a book about a very simple idea: where the criminal justice system fails to respond vigorously to violent injury and death, homicide becomes endemic” (Leovy 8).

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One song that best connects to the themes of this book is “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar (clean version).

This song connects to the book because it is about police violence and neglect, which is very similar to what Jill Leovy is talking about in her story.

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Leovy, Jill. Ghettoside. One World; Reprint Edition, 2015. p. 384.

"South L.A. Map." Wikimedia, upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Map_South_Los_Angeles_region_of_Los_Angeles%2C_California.png. Accessed 7 May 2025.

"Homicide Investigation." CDN, cdn.abcotvs.com/dip/images/5740228_120819-kabc-9am-dtla-homicide-vid.jpg?w=1600. Accessed 7 May 2025.

Venkatesh, Sudhir. "Review: ‘Ghettoside’ Focuses on One L.A. Murder to Make Case for More Policing." L.A. Times, 22 Jan. 2015, www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-jill-leovy-20150125-story.html. Accessed 7 May 2025.

"Ghettoside Book Cover." Amazon, www.amazon.com/Ghettoside-True-Story-Murder-America/dp/0385529988. Accessed 7 May 2025.

"Author Jill Leovy at the First-Year Experience® (FYE) 2016 Random House Luncheon." Youtube, uploaded by CommonReads, 26 Apr. 2016, youtu.be/-_XxyWfolfM?si=KJqX7Pr7AU0AWQbE.

"Jill Leovy's "Ghettoside" Examines Why Murders of Black Men Often Go Unpunished." KQED, www.kqed.org/forum/201502100900/jill-leovys-ghettoside-examines-why-murders-of-black-men-often-go-unpunished. Accessed 7 May 2025.

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Author Jill Leovy at the First-Year Experience® (FYE) 2016 Random House Luncheon