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\section{\label{}}
\section{Introduction}
Charmless hadronic two-body $B$ decays are a rich source of flavour physics information and are particularly well suited to the study of $CP$ violation. The theoretical description of these decays is hampered by the need to separate the long distance physics of hadronization from the short distance electroweak physics of interest. QCD factorization (QCDF) \cite{hep-ph/9905312,hep-ph/0006124,hep-ph/0104110} is a theoretical framework suitable for the study of these decays. At leading order (LO) in $1/m_b$, it allows for a clean separation of scales; the long distance physics is parametrized in terms of form factors and decay constants which can be related to other processes, while the short distance physics, including strong phases, is perturbatively calculable. The effective field theory formalism necessary to go beyond LO in $1/m_b$ is the Soft Collinear Effective Theory (SCET) developed
by Bauer, Fleming, Pirjol and Stewart. \cite{hep-ph/0401188}
QCDF was supplemented by an effective field theory description, SCET, giving further credibility to the factorization result first put forward in the context of QCDF. A modern view of QCDF, that we adopt in this short review on the status of QCDF, would be that QCDF is the application of SCET to two-body B decays. We therefore use the terms QCDF and SCET interchangeably throughout the review. In the application of the theory, two approaches exist: the original approach of Beneke, Buchalla, Neubert and Sachrajda (BBNS), often called QCD factorization (QCDF) and the approach advocated by Bauer, Pirjol, Rothstein and Stewart (BPRS) often referred to as SCET.
Although this article will make reference to both approaches, emphasis will be placed on that of BBNS. The discussion reflecting recent results from the BPRS perspective has been covered at this conference by Christian Bauer in his presentation on SCET.
In the next section we give a basic description of charmless two-body hadronic $B$ decays in the QCD factorization formalism and describe the differences which exist between the BBNS and BPRS approaches. In Section \ref{BVV}, we discuss a recent application of QCD factorization to $B \to VV$ decays. In Section \ref{NLO}, we discuss the theoretical situation at NLO, including both $1/m_b$ and $\alpha_s$ corrections, some recent work towards the NLO perturbative corrections and what work remains to be done.
\section{The Basics of Factorization}
At LO in $1/m_b$, the amplitude for $B \to M_1 M_2$ decay factorizes,
\begin{eqnarray}
\label{LOeqn}
\langle M_1 M_2|O|\bar B\rangle &=& F^{B\to M_1}T^\mathrm{I}*f_{M_2} \Phi_{M_2} + M_1 \leftrightarrow M_2 \nonumber \\
&\,& \hspace{-2em}+ T^\mathrm{II} *f_{B} \Phi_{B}*f_{M_1} \Phi_{M_1}*f_{M_2} \Phi_{M_2}.
\end{eqnarray}
$T^\mathrm{I}$ and $T^\mathrm{II}$ are hard scattering kernels that depend on the specific process
being considered, but are perturbatively calculable in an expansion in $\alpha_s(m_b)$ and $\alpha_s(\mu_i)$, where $\mu_i$ is the intermediate scale $\mu_i=\sqrt{\Lambda_\mathrm{QCD}m_b}$.
$f_M$ and $f_B$ are light and heavy decay constants, while $\Phi_M$ and $\Phi_B$ are light cone distribution amplitudes (LCDA). They are universal and do not depend on the decay process. They are determined from QCD sum rules, lattice QCD, or experiment. Although this formula is valid only at LO in $1/m_b$, it is valid to all orders in $\alpha_s$. A systematic treatment of the higher order corrections can be given using SCET.
\subsection {The BBNS and BPRS Approaches}
As discussed in the introduction, there are two main approaches which we refer to as BBNS
\cite{hep-ph/9905312,hep-ph/0006124,hep-ph/0104110}
and BPRS \cite{hep-ph/0401188}.
Below, we outline several of the important differences, which have been discussed at great length in \cite{hep-ph/0411171, hep-ph/0502094}.
Perhaps the most important difference between the two approaches is the treatment of the so-called charming penguin contributions (see Fig. \ref{CP}). BPRS argue that since $2m_c\sim m_b$, there are configurations with almost on-shell charm quarks leading to long distance effects. As a result, they parametrize the penguins and fit them from data.
\begin{figure}
\caption{\label{CP}A typical charming penguin contribution}
\includegraphics{charm_peng.eps}
\end{figure}
BBNS maintains that charming penguin diagrams factorize in the formal $1/m_b$ limit and should not be given special treatment.
In the BBNS approach a subset of higher order $1/m_b$ corrections are typically included that are deemed to be numerically large. This is in contrast to BPRS, where calculations are consistently performed to a fixed order in the $1/m_b$ expansion.
It has been the philosophy of BBNS that the inputs used to make predictions for $B \to M_1 M_2$ decays do not come from these decays themselves; rather, the form factors and decay constants enter from other observables, lattice calculations, or some other external source. BPRS on the other hand impose no such restriction and use not only external sources but also the $B\to M_1 M_2$ decays themselves as inputs.
In particular, BPRS has up to this point chosen to fit the SCET form factor, $\Xi$ (see below), rather than perturbatively expanding it and relating it to other observables.
BBNS and BPRS also differ in the counting of the soft overlap and hard scattering terms in (\ref{LOeqn}).
In both cases these terms are counted as leading order in $1/m_b$, but
BBNS assumes that soft overlap is dominated by soft contributions without $\alpha_s(\mu_i)$ suppression, and is thus assumed to be larger.
The differences given above leave the BBNS approach more predictive than BPRS, but at the cost of being less conservative.
We will see that when NLO corrections are taken into account, some of these differences will disappear.
\section{\label{BVV} Recent Results for $B \to VV$}
QCDF had been used to predict the branching ratios and $CP$ asymmetries of a large number of two-body charmless $B \to PP$ and $B \to PV$ decay modes
\cite{hep-ph/0210085, hep-ph/0308039}.
In a recent work, Beneke, Rohrer and Yang \cite{hep-ph/0512258} have examined $B \to VV$ decays in the context of QCD factorization.
According to naive factorization, the ratio of longitudinal, negative and positive helicity $B \to VV$ decay amplitudes scale as \cite{hep-ph/0405134}
\begin{equation}
A_0:A_-:A_+ = 1:\frac{\Lambda}{m_b}:\left(\frac{\Lambda}{m_b}\right)^2.
\end{equation}
Although this scaling is well obeyed by $B\to\rho\rho$ decays, it is badly broken by penguin dominated decays such as $B \to K^* \rho$ and $B \to K^* \phi$, which have anomalously large transverse polarizations \cite{hep-ex/0603003}
Beneke, Rohrer and Yang have identified a novel contribution to $B \to VV$ decays that had not been previously taken into account. This contribution, a contribution to the transverse electromagnetic penguin amplitudes, is given by the diagrams in Fig. \ref{Q7diags}.
\begin{figure}
\caption{\label{Q7diags}New contributions to $B \to VV$ decay}
\scalebox{1}[1]{\includegraphics{fig_rhopen.eps}}
\end{figure}
Although this contribution is in fact $\mathcal{O}(m_b)$ enhanced over the leading terms, it is also $\alpha_\mathrm{em}$ suppressed. As a result, it is the dominant contribution to the transverse helicity modes, but is not large enough to
explain the puzzle of the large transverse polarizations of $K^*\rho$ and $K^*\phi$.
Although insufficient to resolve the discrepancy between theory and experiment, the new contribution has pronounced effects, as demonstrated in the examples below. These examples make use of the current experimental data to estimate the QCD penguin contributions to the decay amplitudes. QCD factorization is used to estimate all other contributions, including the electroweak penguin effects. (Several other approximations are also necessary as explained in \cite{hep-ph/0512258}.)
As a first example, consider the ratio of $CP$ averaged helicity decay rates
\begin{equation}
S_h = \frac{2\bar \Gamma_h(\rho^0 \bar K^{*0})}{\bar \Gamma_h(\rho^- \bar K^{*0})}=\left|1-\frac{P_h^{EW}}{P_h}\right|+\Delta_h,
\end{equation}
where $h$ denotes the polarization ($h = 0, -, +$), $P_h^\mathrm{EW}$ is the electroweak penguin contribution calculated in QCDF and $P_h$ is the QCD penguin contribution whose magnitude is determined from the Br and $f_L$ of $\bar B \to \rho^- \bar K^{*0}$ (note that $A_h(\rho^- \bar K^{*0})=P_h$). $\Delta_h$ is a small contribution from the
color-suppressed tree amplitude (with some dependence on $P_h^\mathrm{EW}$). Without the effects of Fig. \ref{Q7diags}, $S_-$ takes on the value $0.7 \pm 0.1$, but is increased to $S_- = 1.5 \pm 0.2$ when the new effects are introduced.
Also consider the ratio
\begin{equation}
S'_h = \frac{2\bar \Gamma_h(\rho^0 \bar K^{*-})}{\bar \Gamma_h(\rho^- \bar K^{*0})}=\left|1-\frac{P_h^\mathrm{EW}}{P_h}\right|+\Delta'_h.
\end{equation}
As before, $|P_h|$ is determined from the Br and $f_L$ for $\bar B \to \rho^- \bar K^{*0}$.
This analysis leads to $S_- = 0.5 \pm 0.1$ with the new contribution and $S_-=1.2 \pm 0.1$ without.
Here it is possible to compare this result to experiment. The above ratio of branching ratios is related to the ratio of polarization fractions $f'_h \equiv f_h(\rho^0 \bar K^{*-})/f_h(\rho^- \bar K^{*0})$ so long as the $CP$ asymmetry is assumed to be zero. Using theory to estimate this asymmetry leads to the results
\begin{eqnarray}
f'_0 &=& 1.3 \pm 0.1 \;\;\; [1.1 \pm 0.1 \mbox{(without)}] \nonumber \\
f'_- &=& 0.4 \pm 0.1 \;\;\; [0.8 \pm 0.1 \mbox{(without)}].
\end{eqnarray}
The experimental results for these ratios are
\cite{hep-ex/0307026, hep-ex/0408017, hep-ex/0408093, hep-ex/0307014, hep-ex/0503013, hep-ex/0505039}
$f'_0=1.45^{+0.64}_{-0.58}$ and $f'_-=0.12^{+0.44}_{-0.11}$.
As can be seen, the effects of the new operator can be large (as is the case for $f'_-$) and would seem to bring theory further in line with experimental expectations.
\section{\label{NLO}NLO Corrections in $\alpha_s$ and $1/m_b$}
In this section, we examine current status and outlook for the NLO corrections to the factorization formalism (be it SCET or QCD factorization). The NLO corrections include both perturbative corrections to the calculable kernels ($T^\mathrm{I}$ and $T^\mathrm{II}$), as well as power corrections ($1/m_b$) to the leading order result Eq. (\ref{LOeqn}).
The primary motivation to include the NLO corrections is simple: to reduce overall uncertainties. Both perturbative and power corrections are expected to be of order $\sim 20\%$.
Thus, to reduce theory uncertainties below this level and remain competitive with experiment, it becomes necessary to include both these corrections.
There are also observables for which the NLO corrections are indispensable.
$CP$ asymmetries will receive large corrections at NLO, if at LO the ``tree'' amplitudes (for definition see e.g. \cite{hep-ph/0601214}) do not originate from the $Q_{1,2}$ operators of the effective electroweak Hamiltonian.
For $\Delta S=1$ modes such as $B_s^0 \to \pi^0 \eta^{(\prime)}$ or $B^- \to \bar K^0 \pi^-$ we expect large $\mathcal{O}(1)$ corrections to their $CP$ asymmetries. This situation is even more extreme for $\Delta S=0$ modes such as $B^- \to K^0 K^-$ or $\bar B^0 \to K^0 \bar K^0$, where no CKM hierarchy exists between the ``tree'' and ``penguin'' amplitudes.
\subsection{Status of NLO corrections}
Typical power corrections are of the order $\sim 20\%$, and will likely introduce many new parameters. SCET is the theoretical framework necessary to describe the $1/m_b$ corrections, but almost no $1/m_b$ corrections have been considered. Exceptions include the annihilation contributions and chirally enhanced contributions that have been taken into account by BBNS. Much work remains to be done for these corrections.
Unlike the power corrections above, almost all of the order $\alpha_s$ corrections have been calculated. To examine these corrections, it is useful to rewrite the basic QCDF formula (\ref{LOeqn}), by writing $T^{II}=H^{II}*J$,
\begin{eqnarray}
\langle M_1 M_2|O|\bar B\rangle &=& (F^{B\to M_1} T^I+\Xi^{B\to M_1} *H^{II}) \nonumber \\
&\,&\hspace{1 em}*f_{M_2} \Phi_{M_2} + M_1 \leftrightarrow M_2
\end{eqnarray}
where
\begin{equation}
\Xi^{B\to M_1} \equiv J * f_{B} \Phi_{B}*f_{M_1} \Phi_{M_1}
\end{equation}
$T^\mathrm{I}$ and $T^\mathrm{II}$ are hard coefficients, calculable in $\alpha_s(m_b)\sim0.2$ where perturbation theory is expected to be valid. The LO contribution to the hard coefficients is in general $\mathcal{O}(1)$.
The jet function, $J$, is perturbatively calculable in $\alpha_s(\mu_i)$ and differs from the hard coefficients in two important ways: the LO contribution to $J$ is $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s(\mu_i))$ and $J$ depends on only one of the two final state mesons, and so can be related to other processes. In particular, the same jet function occurs in semi-leptonic decay.
As of the last FPCP conference, FPCP 2004, the hard kernel
$T^\mathrm{I}$ was known to $\mathcal{O}(\alpha^2_s(m_b) \beta_0)$ (NLO+)
\cite{hep-ph/0101190, hep-ph/0102219, hep-ph/0202128, hep-ph/0504024},
$H^\mathrm{II}$ was known to $\mathcal{O}(\alpha^0_s(m_b))$ (LO),
and $J$ was known to $\mathcal{O}(\alpha^2_s(\mu_i))$ (NLO).
\subsection{Corrections to $H^\mathrm{II}$}
Recently a subset of the $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s(m_b))$ (NLO) corrections to $H^\mathrm{II}$ have been calculated \cite{hep-ph/0512351}. This calculation involved matching the effective electroweak Hamiltonian onto leading order SCET operators at one loop. In this calculation, only the operators $Q_{1,2}$ of the electroweak Hamiltonian were matched, leaving the remaining operators for a future work.
Taken with the earlier results for the NLO calculation of the jet function $J$, $\Xi^{B\to M_1}$ became known to NLO for a subset of operators.
As a phenomenological application of these new corrections, the authors re-calculated the predicted $\pi \pi $ branching ratios.
The amplitudes for these decays are given by ($C=i \,\frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}} m_B^2 f_\pi f^{B\pi}_+(0)$)
\begin{eqnarray}
\sqrt2\,{\cal A}_{B^-\to\pi^-\pi^0}
&=& C
\left\{ V_{ub} V_{ud}^*\Big[\alpha_1+\alpha_2\Big]\right\}\!,
\nonumber\\
{\cal A}_{\bar B^0\to\pi^+\pi^-}
&=& C
\left\{ V_{ub} V_{ud}^* \Big[\alpha_1 + \hat \alpha_4^u \Big] +
V_{cb} V_{cd}^* \,\hat \alpha_4^c\right\}\!,
\nonumber\\
-\,{\cal A}_{\bar B^0\to\pi^0\pi^0}
&=& C
\left\{ V_{ub} V_{ud}^* \Big[\alpha_2
- \hat\alpha_4^u\Big] -
V_{cb} V_{cd}^*\,\hat\alpha_4^c \right\}\!,
\nonumber
\end{eqnarray}
where the $\alpha_i$ are the amplitude coefficients defined in \cite{hep-ph/0308039}.
Only the tree amplitudes $\alpha_{1,2}$ are affected by the new contributions; they become,
\begin{eqnarray}
\alpha_1(\pi\pi) &=& 1.015 + [0.025+0.012i\,]_{V}- [0.009]_{\rm tw3}
\nonumber \\
&\,&- \,0.014_\mathrm{LO}- \, [0.024+ 0.020 i\,]_{\rm NLO}
\nonumber\\
&=& 0.992^{+0.029}_{-0.054}+(-0.007^{+0.018}_{-0.035})\,i,
\end{eqnarray}
\begin{eqnarray}
\alpha_2(\pi\pi) &=& 0.184 - [0.152+0.077i\,]_{V} + [0.056]_{\rm tw3}
\nonumber \\
&\,&+ \,0.088_\mathrm{LO} + \, [0.029+ 0.034 i\,]_{\rm NLO}
\nonumber\\
&=& 0.205^{+0.171}_{-0.110}+(-0.043^{+0.083}_{-0.065})\,i.
\end{eqnarray}
Here the leading order (tree) terms are given no subscript, the NLO ($\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s)$) vertex corrections are denoted with a subscript V, the included subset of power corrections are denoted with the subscript tw3, while LO and NLO denote the LO and NLO (new) spectator scattering corrections. As can be seen, the new corrections contribute important new strong phases to the amplitudes.
The above numbers offer an important insight into the validity of perturbation theory at the intermediate scale $\sqrt{\Lambda_\mathrm{QCD} m_b}$. In $\alpha_2(\pi\pi)$, the NLO spectator scattering terms are smaller than the LO terms in agreement with naive expectations. In $\alpha_1(\pi\pi)$, the NLO corrections appear to be enhanced over the LO term, and may lead one to believe that perturbation theory is breaking down. This is not a valid conclusion however as the LO term is suppressed as it is proportional to a small Wilson coefficient. These corrections therefore suggest that perturbation theory is valid at the intermediate scale.
In trying to reproduce the $\pi\pi$ branching ratios (see Table \ref{Brs}), the data favours inputs where
\begin{eqnarray}
|V_{ub}|f_+^{B\pi}(0) &=& 8.10 \times 10^{-4} = 0.775 \left[|V_{ub}|f_+^{B\pi}(0) \right]_\mathrm{def},
\nonumber\\
\frac{f_\pi f_B}{m_b f_+^{B\pi}(0) \lambda_B} &=& 1.96 \left[ \frac{f_\pi f_B}{m_b f_+^{B\pi}(0) \lambda_B}\right]_\mathrm{def},
\end{eqnarray}
with the subscript def. refering to the default values used in the determination of $\alpha_{1,2}(\pi\pi)$ above.
These inputs are consistent with values of the form factor and $\lambda_B$ smaller than their default values \cite{hep-ph/0512351},
\begin{eqnarray}
f_+^{B\pi}(0) &=& 0.22 \;\;\;\;[0.28\pm0.05]_\mathrm{def},\nonumber \\
\lambda_B &=& 0.23 \;\;\;\;[0.35\pm0.15]_\mathrm{def},
\end{eqnarray}
and brings the form factor closer to the BPRS value: $0.176\pm0.036$ \cite{hep-ph/0401188, hep-ph/0601214}.
As well, these values remain consistent with what is found using lattice and semi-leptonic data \cite{hep-ph/0509090}.
\begin{table}
\caption{\label{Brs}CP-averaged branching fractions ($\times 10^{-6}$) Val. denotes the central theory prediction, CKM, hadr. and pow. denote the theory uncertainty associated with CKM matrix elements, hadronic parameters and power corrections respectively, and expt. denotes the present experimental value.}
\begin{tabular}{|c|cccc|c|}
\hline
Mode & Val. & CKM & hadr. & pow. & expt. \\
\hline
$B^-\to \pi^-\pi^0$ & 5.5 & $^{+0.3}_{-0.3}$ & $^{+0.5}_{-0.4}$ & $^{+0.9}_{-0.8}$ & $5.5\pm 0.6$ \\
$\bar{B}^0\to \pi^+\pi^-$ & 5.0 & $^{+0.8}_{-0.9}$ & $^{+0.3}_{-0.5}$ & $^{+1.0}_{-0.5}$ & $5.0\pm 0.4$ \\
$\bar{B}^0\to \pi^0\pi^0$ & 0.7 & $^{+0.3}_{-0.2}$ & $^{+0.5}_{-0.2}$ & $^{+0.4}_{-0.3}$ & $1.5\pm 0.3$ \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\subsection{At NLO, BBNS - BPRS = ?}
It is instructive to ask what differences remain between the BBNS and BPRS approachs once NLO corrections are taken into account? At least one of the differences is no longer present at NLO. In the BPRS approach at LO, the SCET form factor $\Xi^{B\to M_1}$ was fit from $B \to M_1 M_2$ data.
At NLO one can no longer fit for $\Xi^{B\to M_1}$; there is a non-trivial convolution and not simple moments as at LO. One
is forced to follow the path of BBNS and expand $\Xi^{B\to M_1}$ in terms of the jet function $J$ as well as other long distance factors.
The question as to whether the soft overlap function should be fit from $B\to MM$ data (BPRS) or be determined by use QCD sum rules or lattice QCD (BBNS) remains unresolved. BBNS may be moving in the direction of BPRS in that the value of $\lambda$ seems to be determined from fit to $B \to \pi\pi$ modes.
One issue that remains unchanged is what to do with the charming penguins. For the near future, the disagreement as to whether the charming penguins should be considered to have long distance effects and fit (BPRS) or whether they are assumed perturbative and calculated (BBNS) will remain an open question. Fitting the charming penguins is always a valid procedure, but lacks the predictive power of perturbative calculation. A comparison of theoretical predictions between the two approaches should one-day resolve the issue.
\section{Conclusions}
QCD factorization is an important tool in the study of flavour physics.
Reduction of the theoretical uncertainties associated with QCD factorization predictions requires NLO corrections to be computed.
Although the complete set of NLO in $\alpha_s$ corrections is almost complete, only a handful of $1/m_b$ corrections have been considered.
In this work we presented a brief summary of the QCD factorization formalism as well as some recent developments and discussed its similarity to SCET. We examined several of the differences between the approach put forth by Beneke, Buchalla, Neubert and Sachrajda (BBNS) and the approach advocated by Bauer, Pirjol, Rothstein and Stewart (BPRS). We concluded that many of the characteristics that differentiate between the two approaches are not applicable when NLO corrections are taken into account.
\bigskip
\begin{acknowledgments}
The author is indebted to the organizers of FPCP06 for a stimulating and enlightening conference, to Craig Burrell for reviewing the manuscript and to Jure Zupan for invaluable discussion and feedback. This work was supported in part by the United States Department of Energy under Grants No.\ DOE-ER-40682-143 and DEAC02-6CH03000.
\end{acknowledgments}
\bigskip
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 1,498 |
What you need to know about drinking Scotch Whisky, according to an expert
By Press Association Share
By Sam Wylie-Harris
Bestowed with the revered title of Master of the Quaich by Keepers of the Quaich (the global Scotch whisky society) for his "exceptional contribution" to whisky, Ian Wisnieski is back with his latest book, The Whisky Dictionary.
It's a comprehensive A-Z of whisky, from history and heritage to distilling and drinking. "I'm very inquisitive," Wisniewski writes. "As a whisky writer, I'm continually asking: 'Why do you do it like that?'"
We caught up with Wisnieski to ask a few 'whisky whys' ourselves...
What's your first memory of drinking whisky?
"It's a very special memory, as this began my love of whisky. I had a tasting of The Balvenie after touring the distillery, which was my first time in a malt whisky distillery. The Balvenie was so elegant, with honey and vanilla notes, that I immediately asked, 'Where do those flavours come from?' And this led to my fascination with the production process."
Out of all the dark spirits, what do you think makes whisky so special? Compared to rum say or Cognac?
"Whisky has been the most innovative category, particularly Scottish malts, over the past 20 years. Scotch whisky has an extraordinary range of flavours, with the extra option of peated styles that offer smoky, earthy, peaty, barbecue notes, which rum and Cognac don't have."
What sets Scotch apart from Irish, American bourbon or Japanese whisky?
"Scotch whisky has a particular mystique, though whisky from each country has its own specific appeal and status. Production regulations vary in each country which means different opportunities for each style of whisky, and it's fascinating to see how distillers innovate within the rules. Scotland's dramatic, romantic landscapes also provide a very special home for Scotch whisky."
When tasting Scotch whisky, what should we look for?
"Enjoyment and a great experience. Analysing the palate to identify flavours and trying to work out how they were created can be very rewarding, but so is sitting back and just letting the whisky take you to a special place."
What's the difference between a blended whisky and single malt, and which should we try first?
"A single malt is the product of one single distillery, which it is usually named after. Blended Scotch combines malt whisky (distilled from malted barley) and grain whisky (distilled from corn or wheat) from various distilleries.
"Blends are typically mellower, and malts more intense, so they offer different experiences. Where you begin depends on your preferences, but as blends and malts complement each other, it's worth exploring both."
How do you take your whisky? Neat, on the rocks or with a mixer?
"I usually drink whisky neat as I want to know the flavour of the whisky, but everyone should drink however they prefer. One reason I don't add water is that I prefer the intensity of undiluted whisky, which also showcases the mouthfeel.
"This is an important part of a whisky's character, as the mouthfeel varies from soft and delicate to silky, velvety, creamy and juicy. However, I also like to experiment and see how adding water or ice changes a whisky's character."
Are cocktails a good way to experiment? And which would you recommend?
"Definitely, cocktails create a natural sense of occasion, as does opening a bottle of whisky, so this is a great combination. Cocktails are a stylish way to enjoy whisky in another format, and I love the freshness of a mint julep and the richness of a Manhattan."
What is a Master of the Quaich and what does it mean to you?
"It means an enormous amount because this is awarded by a special committee, based on what you've done in the Scotch whisky world over a 10 year period, so it's a fantastic endorsement from Scotch whisky peers. Receiving my medallion at a banquet in Scotland was a highlight of my career."
If money was no option, which whisky would you drink?
"I would like to try everything, ideally on location at the distillery of origin, and in the company of the master distiller who produced it."
Numbers selected for Mrs Gibraltar Classic
Video games 'setting kids up for addiction' with loot boxes - mental health boss
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Karpov gives masterclass in 'famous' Gibraltar Chess Festival | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 3 |
La Meilleure Façon de marcher est un film dramatique français réalisé par Claude Miller en 1976.
Premier long-métrage du réalisateur, qu'il a co-écrit avec Luc Béraud, en s'inspirant d'une interview d'Ingmar Bergman sur l'humiliation et d'une colère de Miller contre l'intolérance, La Meilleure Façon de marcher, dont l'action se déroule principalement au début des années 1960, raconte la relation ambiguë entre deux moniteurs d'une colonie de vacances aux méthodes pédagogiques diamétralement opposées lorsque l'un, après avoir découvert l'autre grimé en femme, se met à soupçonner ce dernier d'être homosexuel.
Miller confie le rôle de Marc, moniteur à la grande gueule, sportif et macho à Patrick Dewaere alors en pleine ascension après les succès consécutifs des Valseuses et Adieu poulet, tandis que le personnage de Philippe, collègue plus réservé de Marc, est dévolu à Patrick Bouchitey, dont c'est l'un des premiers rôles importants au cinéma. Christine Pascal, actrice révélée par Bertrand Tavernier, joue le rôle de Chantal, petite amie de Philippe. Claude Piéplu prête ses traits au directeur de la colonie de vacances, tandis que Michel Blanc, relativement peu connu du grand public, tient l'un de ses premiers rôles sur grand écran.
Le film est tourné à l'été 1975 en Auvergne. Miller parvient à finaliser le montage grâce à un apport financier de l'AMLF, qui distribuera le film à sa sortie en salles le . Bien accueilli par la critique, le film connaît un succès commercial relativement modeste à sa sortie avec plus d'un demi-million d'entrées en salles. Nommé à sept reprises à la Cérémonie des Césars 1977, notamment dans les catégories meilleur film et meilleur acteur pour Patrick Dewaere, il ne remporte que le César de la meilleure photographie pour Bruno Nuytten.
L'excellent accueil critique et commercial de La Meilleure Façon de marcher confirme l'ascension de Dewaere et révèle Bouchitey au grand public. Il permet également à Claude Miller de se faire connaître et d'entamer une carrière prestigieuse de réalisateur.
Résumé détaillé
Auvergne, été 1960. Les moniteurs dans une colonie de vacances pour garçons appliquent chacun à leur manière leur pédagogie aux groupes d'enfants dont ils ont la charge. Parmi eux, Marc, grande gueule et sportif qui s'appuie sur ce qu'il pense être sa supériorité, et Philippe, assez réservé et cérébral et également fils du directeur. Pendant que Philippe initie son groupe au théâtre, Marc, quant à lui, organise des marches et pratique sportives aux enfants dont il s'occupe. Par une nuit de pluie orageuse, Marc participe à une partie de poker en compagnie d'autres animateurs, tandis que Philippe regarde un film à la télévision avec un autre moniteur du camp, Deloux, vu comme un lèche-bottes du directeur aux yeux de ses collègues, avant d'aller se coucher.
Une coupure de courant pousse Marc, muni d'une lampe torche, à se rendre dans la chambre de Philippe pour lui demander des bougies. Après s'être annoncé, Marc entre et surprend Philippe travesti en femme. Bien que soupçonnant ce dernier d'être homosexuel, Marc décide de garder le secret et retourne à sa partie de poker. Se sentant coupable et apeuré à l'idée que Marc ne dévoile son goût particulier, Philippe essaie d'en faire son ami. Il tente d'associer leurs deux groupes pour faire des activités ensemble, mais la mise en commun échoue. Par la suite, Philippe connaît une relation ambiguë avec Marc, dont il essaye toujours de faire un ami. Victime des brimades et coups bas de Marc, Philippe surréagit aux allusions de ce dernier en se faisant des idées en pensant à tort qu'il a parlé aux autres moniteurs. La visite de sa petite amie, Chantal, ne parvient pas à calmer les angoisses de Philippe, ce qui entraîne l'échec de leur première relation sexuelle. La jeune femme vient rendre régulièrement visite à Philippe à la colonie de vacances les dimanches où elle fait la connaissance de Marc, qui tente de la courtiser. Mais les espoirs de Marc sont vains car Chantal n'aime pas son caractère arrogant et égocentrique. De retour avec Chantal à la colonie, le directeur organise autour de la piscine une réunion d'adieux pour Deloux, renvoyé du camp après la découverte de photos pornographiques dans ses effets personnels. Marc décide de balancer Philippe dans la piscine, qui manque de se noyer sous les yeux de Chantal, qui commence à avoir des doutes sur les humiliations.
À l'approche de la fin des vacances, le directeur veut organiser une fête d'adieux. Philippe suggère l'organisation d'un bal costumé, qui est accepté. Alors que Chantal, présentée et vêtue d'un costume d'homme, et Marc, déguisé en danseur de flamenco, sont présents, Philippe débarque, déguisé et maquillé en femme et invite Marc à danser, ce qu'il accepte, jouant le jeu. Philippe renverse alors la situation et provoque Marc. Excédé, Marc se met à frapper Philippe devant le public assistant au bal. Philippe commence à répliquer à la confrontation qui s'achève quand le jeune homme se munit d'un couteau et le plante dans la cuisse gauche de Marc.
Quelques années plus tard à Paris. Philippe se rend dans un appartement neuf en compagnie de Chantal. Le couple retrouve leur agent immobilier, s'avérant être Marc, qui depuis s'est marié. Il est révélé que la relation entre les deux hommes s'est apaisée avec le temps.
Fiche technique
Titre : La Meilleure Façon de marcher
Titre anglais ou international :
Réalisation : Claude Miller, assisté de Luc Béraud et Michel Such
Scénario et dialogues : Claude Miller et Luc Béraud
Musique : Alain Jomy
Décors et costumes : Hilton McConnico
Maquillage : Joël Lavaud
Photographie : Bruno Nuytten
Son : Paul Lainé
Montage : Jean-Bernard Bonis
Régisseur général : Armand Barbault
Production : Mag Bodard et Jean-François Davy, Maurice Bernard (co-production), Hubert Niogrey (exécutive)
Sociétés de production : Filmoblic, Cinémag et Contrechamp
Sociétés de distribution : AMLF (France), Specialty Films (États-Unis)
Pays d'origine :
Langue originale : français
Format : couleur (Eastmancolor) — 35 mm — 1,66:1 — son monophonique
Genre : drame
Durée :
Dates de sortie :
France : , ressorties en salles le puis le dans une version restaurée
États-Unis : présentation au Festival de Chicago en , sortie le à New York
Mention CNC : tous publics, Art et essai (visa d'exploitation délivré le 30 juillet 1992)
Distribution
Patrick Dewaere : Marc
Patrick Bouchitey : Philippe
Christine Pascal : Chantal
Claude Piéplu : Le directeur de la colonie
Marc Chapiteau : Gérard
Michel Blanc : Raoul Deloux
Michel Such : Léni
Franck d'Ascanio : Hervé
Nathan Miller : gamin aux lunettes
Et les enfants de "L'Atelier" de Saint-Saturnin
Production
Genèse et développement
Le point de départ de La Meilleure Façon de marcher est née d'une idée de Claude Miller, à l'époque assistant réalisateur et directeur de production notamment pour François Truffaut. La lecture d'une interview du réalisateur Ingmar Bergman dans lequel il évoque l'humiliation et une colère profonde de Miller contre l'intolérance raciale et sexuelle constatée dans son cercle proche lui ont donné l'idée de s'en servir pour écrire et réaliser son premier long-métrage. Avec son co-scénariste Luc Béraud, Miller se plonge dans ses souvenirs de jeunesse.
Pour le rôle de Marc, Miller songe le confier à Philippe Léotard, mais n'arrive pas à trouver l'acteur susceptible d'incarner Philippe. Un jour, Juliet Berto conseille à Miller le nom de Patrick Bouchitey, qui jouait la pièce Vol au-dessus d'un nid de coucou. Miller se rend alors chez Bouchitey après la représentation. L'acteur, qui garde toutes les bobines de ses essais, lui projette celui réalisé pour Les Caïds, dans lequel il était en concurrence avec Patrick Dewaere pour un rôle que Bouchitey a finalement obtenu. Miller est impressionné par Dewaere. Encouragé par Bouchitey, Miller, qui ne pensait pas engager d'acteurs connus, envoie le scénario à Dewaere. Le soir même, l'acteur contacte le réalisateur et lui dit avoir apprécié le scénario et veut jouer dans le film. Dewaere obtient le rôle de Marc et adore l'idée de jouer un personnage antipathique. Les deux rôles principaux confiés, Miller donne le rôle de la petite amie de Philippe à Christine Pascal, révélée par Bertrand Tavernier et celui du directeur de la colonie de vacances et père de Philippe à Claude Piéplu.
C'est Patrick Dewaere qui a suggéré le nom de Michel Blanc à Claude Miller après l'avoir vu sur scène au théâtre du Splendid.
Tournage
Le tournage du film s'est déroulé en cinq semaines en Auvergne, essentiellement à Cellule, ancienne commune du Puy-de-Dôme à l'été 1975. Malgré la présence de Dewaere au casting, le film connaît des problèmes de financement, qui a été tourné , qui a servi pour payer l'indispensable tels que la pellicule et la location de matériel. Tellement motivé par le projet, Dewaere accepte de ne pas être payé, tout comme le reste de l'équipe, dont Miller. Cependant, il lui manque de l'argent pour payer le montage du film et n'a même pas de distributeur. Jean-Louis Livi, alors agent et admiratif des courts-métrages réalisés par Miller, lui propose de payer plusieurs jours de montage pour faire une bande-annonce avec toutes les scènes comiques et la montrer à Claude Berri, qui était à la tête de l'AMLF, l'une des plus grosses sociétés de distribution de l'époque en France. La bande-annonce fait marrer à l'AMLF, pensant avoir affaire à un film comique. Les membres de la société, suffisamment conquis lors de la sortie de la projection, acceptent d'entrer dans le financement du film, ce qui permet à Miller de faire le montage et finir le film.
Sortie et accueil
Réception critique
La Meilleure Façon de marcher sort dans les salles en France le avec une interdiction aux moins de 13 ans et bénéficie de bonnes critiques au moment de sa sortie<ref name="Dewaereonline">{{Lien web|url=http://dewaere.online.fr/la-meilleur.html|titre=La Meilleure façon de marcher - Fiche du film|site=dewaere.online.fr|consulté le= 28 juillet 2020}}</ref>. Le critique Jean de Baroncelli écrit dans Le Monde qu', et José-Maria Bescos de Pariscope juge que .
François Truffaut fait également l'éloge du film : .
Box-office
: (sortie initiale et reprises en salles)
Le film prend la treizième place du box-office français la semaine de sa sortie avec , dont sur Paris, où il occupe la quatrième place du box-office. Aidé par le bon accueil critique, La Meilleure façon à marcher parvient à se hisser en cinquième place des meilleures entrées en seconde semaine avec , lui permettant de cumuler . Le long-métrage atteint les fin mars 1976 et les près d'un mois plus tard. Le film quitte le top 30 après dix semaines d'exploitation avec . Au cours de sa première année d'exploitation, La Meilleure Façon de marcher totalise , ce qui lui permet de se hisser à la place du box-office annuel. Pour sa première exploitation en salles, il totalise , dont plus de rien qu'à Paris, tandis que sa reprise en août 2008 lui a permis de réunir . Pour sa reprise en version restaurée en mars 2019, le long-métrage enregistre 66 entrées pour son premier jour en salles sur une copie, tandis que pour son premier week-end, il totalise 459 entrées sur une copie. L'exploitation en salles du film en 2019 attire 1 487 spectateurs.
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed centre" style="text-align: center; width: 80%;"
|+Box-office des premières semaines d'exploitation du film, semaine par semaine, en France<small>Source :
« Box-office hebdomadaire France 1976 » sur Les Archives du Box-office, d'après le CNC</small>
! colspan="2" | Semaine
! Rang
! Entrées
! Cumul
! du box-office hebdo.
|-
|1|| au ||13||47 125||47 125||rowspan="3"|Les Dents de la mer
|-
|2|| au ||5||82 759||129 884
|-
|3|| au ||9||76 530||206 414
|-
|4|| au ||11||55 097||261 511||L'Alpagueur
|-
|5|| au ||12||44 311||305 822||rowspan="2"|Vol au-dessus d'un nid de coucou
|-
|6|| au ||14||35 124||340 946
|-
|7|| au ||17||35 131||376 077||A nous les petites Anglaises
|-
|8|| au ||16||34 167||410 244||rowspan="3"|Vol au-dessus d'un nid de coucou
|-
|9|| au ||27||21 040||431 284
|-
|10|| au ||29||15 783||447 067
|}
Autour du film
Le titre du film fait référence à une chanson scoute devenue un classique des colonies de vacances : (notamment audible dans les films Les Randonneurs, La Petite Voleuse et La Classe de neige).
Claude Miller s'est inspiré de ses propres expériences en colonies de vacances pour certaines scènes. Il y est allé trois fois avec la ville de Montreuil. Ainsi, le moniteur invite les enfants à se coucher du côté droit (façon un peu hypocrite, dans les années 50-60, d'entraver la propension à se masturber des garçons préados, la majorité d'entre eux étant droitiers).
Le , Philippe Caloni reçoit Patrick Dewaere sur France Inter pour la sortie du film La Meilleure Façon de marcher. L'acteur dévoile qu'il a instantanément accepté le rôle, dès la lecture du scénario, ce qui est alors inédit pour lui. Concernant la très révélatrice et intense dernière séquence du film réalisée en fin de tournage où son personnage macho et primaire dévoile son trouble, face au jeune homme sexuellement ambigu joué par Patrick Bouchitey, qu'il avait continuellement agressé au cours de l'histoire, Dewaere déclare : « C'est la plus grande scène du film. Je n'ai tourné tout le film que pour cette scène-là ». Le journaliste soulève la question du risque de tourner avec Claude Miller que personne alors ne connaît vraiment. Dewaere répond avec malice : « Non. Ce n'est pas un risque. C'est un bon calcul ! ». La journaliste Sophie Dumoulin précise qu'il vient d'achever le tournage de F comme Fairbanks de Maurice Dugowson. Il compare : « Dans le film de Claude Miller, je suis un type que rien n'abat alors que pour le film de Dugowson, je deviens fou à la fin », soulignant combien les événements dramatiques d'une existence peuvent affecter un être humain aussi fragile et sensible que le personnage de F comme Fairbanks. Concernant sa technique d'acteur, Dewaere confirme qu'il refuse de « faire semblant ». Il prétend que ce serait plus simple et qu'il procéderait ainsi par paresse. Il confirme littéralement vivre les émotions du personnage et agir en fonction du rôle. Il réfute en revanche, la notion d'improvisation et confirme un choix délibéré, une réflexion et une certaine préparation.
Dans Nos jours heureux des scènes font écho au film notamment quand Truman lance le petit Pichavent dans la piscine et lorsque les animateurs lisent les messages des enfants.
Le pyjama rayé de Marc rappelle la tenue rayée des déportés en général et des homosexuels déportés, les triangles roses, en particulier, dans les Camps de concentration nazis . C'était déjà le cas du pyjama rayé de certains personnages du film à sketchs Le Lit à deux places dont certaines scènes ambiguës évoquent l'homosexualité.Claude Miller était sensibilisé par la Shoah du fait de l'histoire de sa famille. Il l'avait abordé directement avec le film Un secret et indirectement dans ses autres films. Interview de Claude Miller par la publication France-Amérique :« France-Amerique: Durant toute votre carrière, vous n'aviez jamais abordé ce thème de la Shoah…Claude Miller: Je ne l'ai jamais abordé directement, mais il y a des tensions, une atmosphère d'anxiété et de peur latente qui peut venir d'une enfance qui a été marquée par ce qui s'était passé.»
Prix et nominations
Césars 1977 :
César de la meilleure photographie pour Bruno Nuytten
nomination au César du meilleur film
nomination au César du meilleur réalisateur pour Claude Miller
nomination au César du meilleur scénario original ou adaptation pour Luc Béraud et Claude Miller
nomination au César du meilleur acteur pour Patrick Dewaere
nomination au César du meilleur son pour Paul Lainé
Restauration en HD 4K
Film restauré en 4K à l'initiative de LCJ Éditions et Productions en 2015 par les Laboratoires Eclair
Film numérisé et restauré avec le soutien du CNC dans le but de sauvegarder et de diffuser l'œuvre dans les meilleurs standards techniques actuels.
Notes et références
Notes
Références
Liens externes
Film français sorti en 1976
Film réalisé par Claude Miller
Film dramatique français
Film tourné en 1975
Bisexualité au cinéma
LGBT au cinéma en France
Travestissement au cinéma
Film mettant en scène des comportements sadiques
Film se déroulant dans les années 1960
Film se déroulant dans les années 1970
Film tourné dans le Puy-de-Dôme
Film se déroulant dans le Puy-de-Dôme
Colonie de vacances au cinéma
Film avec un César de la meilleure photographie
Premier long métrage sorti en 1976
Film interdit aux moins de 12 ans en France | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 483 |
Q: How to integrate $\int_0^{\theta}\frac{x}{(1-x^2)(1-x)}dx$?
How to integrate $\displaystyle\int_0^{\theta}\frac{x}{(1-x^2)(1-x)}dx$ ?
If $\theta\in(0,\frac{1}{2})$
$$
\begin{align}
& \int_0^{\theta}\frac{x}{(1-x^2)(1-x)}\,dx \\[8pt]
= & \int_0^{\theta}\frac{x}{(1-x)(1+x)(1-x)}\,dx \\[8pt]
= & \int_0^{\theta}\frac{1}{(1-x)^2}\frac{x}{1+x}dx \\[8pt]
= & \int_0^{\theta}\frac{1}{(1-x)^2}\Big(1-\frac{1}{1+x}\Big) \, dx \\[8pt]
= & \int_0^{\theta}\frac{1}{(1-x)^2}-\displaystyle\int_0^{\theta}\frac{1}{(1-x^2)(1-x)} \, dx
\end{align}
$$
LHS is OK, but RHS ?
A: How about partial fraction decomposition?
$$\begin{align} \displaystyle\int_0^{\theta}\frac{x}{(1-x^2)(1-x)}dx & = \int_0^\theta \frac x{(1-x)(1+x)(1 - x)} \,dx \\ \\ & = \int_0^\theta \frac x{(1+x)(1-x)^2}dx \\ \\ & = \int_0^\theta \left[ \frac A{1+x} + \frac B{1-x} + \frac C{(1-x)^2}\right]dx\end{align}$$
A: Hint
The partial fraction decomposition is:
$$\frac{x}{(1-x)^2(1+x)}=\frac{1}{4(x-1)}-\frac{1}{4(x+1)}+\frac{1}{2(x-1)^2}$$
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 9,476 |
San Cipriano is een metrostation in het stadsdeel Vicálvaro van de Spaanse hoofdstad Madrid. Het station werd geopend op 1 december 1998 en wordt bediend door lijn 9 van de metro van Madrid.
San Cipriano | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 6,857 |
Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (2005/29) - Cyprus
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The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Laws of 1996 and 1999 (L.93(I)/1996)
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THE UNFAIR BUSINESS-TO-CONSUMER COMMERCIAL PRACTICES LAW of 2007
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Recourse 1/2010
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Directive Part: Annex I, 14. Chapter 2, Article 5, 5. Chapter 2, Article 5, 1.
Decision type: Administrative decision, first degree
Decision date: 09/11/2010
Recourse 1/2010 link Annex I, 14. Chapter 2, Article 5, 5. Chapter 2, Article 5, 1." Administrative decision, first degree" 09/11/2010
Joint Criminal Appeals 143, 144 & 145/2011
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National ID: 136/2011
Common Name: 136/2011
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National ID: Recourse 11/2014
Directive Part: Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (d)
Recourse 11/2014 link Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (d)" Administrative decision, first degree" 18/08/2014
Directive Part: Annex I, 12. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1.
Recourse 55/2015 link Annex I, 12. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1." Administrative decision, first degree" 10/11/2015
Recourse 2016/08
National ID: Recourse 2016/08
Directive Part: Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b), (ii) Annex I, 10. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b), (i) Annex I, 9. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (a) Chapter 1, Article 3, 2. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 1. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (d) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (c) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (b) Chapter 1, Article 2, (d) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (g) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (f) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (e) Chapter 2, Article 5, 5. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1. Chapter 1, Article 2, (a)
Recourse 2016/08 link Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b), (ii) Annex I, 10. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b), (i) Annex I, 9. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (a) Chapter 1, Article 3, 2. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 1. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (d) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (c) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (b) Chapter 1, Article 2, (d) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (g) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (f) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (e) Chapter 2, Article 5, 5. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1. Chapter 1, Article 2, (a)" Administrative decision, first degree" 09/09/2016
Recourse 2016/16(AP)
National ID: Recourse 2016/16(AP)
Directive Part: Chapter 1, Article 2, (k) Chapter 1, Article 3, 1. Chapter 1, Article 2, (b) Chapter 1, Article 2, (e) Article 3, 1. Chapter 1, Article 2, (d) Chapter 1, Article 2, (h) Chapter 2, Article 5, 2., (a) Chapter 2, Article 5, 2., (b) Chapter 2, Article 5, 4., (a) Chapter 2, Article 5, 4., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1. Chapter 2, Article 5, 1. Chapter 2, Article 5, 2. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b), (ii) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b), (i) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 3. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 2. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 1. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (d) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (c) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (g) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (f) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (e) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4., (c) Chapter 1, Article 2, (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4., (d) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4., (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4., (e) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 5.
Recourse 2016/16(AP) link Chapter 1, Article 2, (k) Chapter 1, Article 3, 1. Chapter 1, Article 2, (b) Chapter 1, Article 2, (e) Article 3, 1. Chapter 1, Article 2, (d) Chapter 1, Article 2, (h) Chapter 2, Article 5, 2., (a) Chapter 2, Article 5, 2., (b) Chapter 2, Article 5, 4., (a) Chapter 2, Article 5, 4., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1. Chapter 2, Article 5, 1. Chapter 2, Article 5, 2. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b), (ii) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b), (i) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2., (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 3. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 2. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 1. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (d) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (c) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 2. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (g) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (f) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (e) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4., (c) Chapter 1, Article 2, (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4., (d) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4., (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4., (e) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 5." Administrative decision, first degree" 24/10/2016
Recourse 2016/17 (AP)
National ID: Recourse 2016/17 (AP)
Directive Part: Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6 Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 2. Chapter 2, Article 5, 5. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 1. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (d) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (c) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (g) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (f) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (e)
Recourse 2016/17 (AP) link Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6 Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 2. Chapter 2, Article 5, 5. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 1. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1. Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (d) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (c) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (b) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (a) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (g) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (f) Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (e)" Administrative decision, first degree" 10/11/2016
One document found. for "Other Material"
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Questions and Answers for Consumers
Title: Questions and Answers for Consumers
Emanating from: Consumer Protection Service
Questions and Answers for Consumers Consumer Protection Service | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 3,265 |
This story takes place after the "happily ever after" of Snow White. She met Prince Charming, got married had a baby and then Charming died. Snow White is left alone to grieve the loss of her dear husband and plan a wedding for her daughter. To say she wasn't really all in with the wedding planning is an understatement. She stumbles upon the room of her stepmother, with the mirror that shows more than just your reflections.
I thought this was a nice novella. The story moved at a nice pace and it wasn't that difficult to get into. David Meredith has a great style of writing that was easy to like. I liked that this book touched on a subject that's tough to read sometimes, grief.
I felt bad for Snow White because I couldn't imagine that happening. I usually don't like retellings of fairy tales probably because it's done so much now but I did like this one. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 8,365 |
{"url":"https:\/\/www.gradesaver.com\/textbooks\/math\/algebra\/intermediate-algebra-for-college-students-7th-edition\/chapter-9-section-9-3-logarithmic-functions-concept-and-vocabulary-check-page-700\/9","text":"## Intermediate Algebra for College Students (7th Edition)\n\n$5-x\\gt0$\nRECALL: The domain of the function $y=\\log_b{x}$ is $x \\gt 0$. This means that if $x$ is replaced by $5-x$ and $b=2$ to have the function $g(x)=\\log_2{(5-x)}$, then the domain of this function can be found by solving the inequality $5-x \\gt 0$","date":"2018-07-20 16:49:29","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.6875659227371216, \"perplexity\": 64.16022874599803}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 20, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2018-30\/segments\/1531676591718.31\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20180720154756-20180720174756-00432.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
package org.wso2.carbon.identity.core.util;
import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
import org.wso2.carbon.identity.base.IdentityConstants;
import org.wso2.carbon.utils.CarbonUtils;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Properties;
/**
* Parser to parse the identity_log_tokens.properties
*/
class IdentityLogTokenParser {
private static IdentityLogTokenParser identityLogTokenParser;
private static Map<String, String> logTokenMap = new HashMap<>();
private static String filePath;
private static final Object lock = new Object();
private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(IdentityConfigParser.class);
private IdentityLogTokenParser() {
boolean readProperties = Boolean
.valueOf(System.getProperty(IdentityConstants.IdentityTokens.READ_LOG_TOKEN_PROPERTIES));
if (readProperties) {
buildConfiguration();
}
}
/**
* Instantiate a new instance and get it or get the available instance.
* @return IdentityLogTokenParser
*/
static IdentityLogTokenParser getInstance() {
if (identityLogTokenParser == null) {
synchronized (lock) {
if (identityLogTokenParser == null) {
identityLogTokenParser = new IdentityLogTokenParser();
}
}
}
return identityLogTokenParser;
}
/**
* Get the properties as a map.
* @return Map{String String}
*/
Map<String, String> getLogTokenMap() {
return logTokenMap;
}
private static void buildConfiguration() {
if (filePath == null) {
filePath = CarbonUtils.getCarbonSecurityConfigDirPath() +
File.separator +
IdentityConstants.IdentityTokens.FILE_NAME;
}
FileInputStream fileInput = null;
try {
File file = new File(filePath);
fileInput = new FileInputStream(file);
Properties properties = new Properties();
properties.load(fileInput);
for (String propertyName : properties.stringPropertyNames()) {
logTokenMap.put(propertyName, properties.getProperty(propertyName));
}
} catch (IOException e) {
log.error("An error occur while reading the file", e);
} finally {
try {
if (fileInput != null) {
fileInput.close();
}
} catch (IOException e) {
log.error("Error while closing the file", e);
}
}
}
} | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 8,132 |
Az-Zumar (Língua árabe: سورة الزمر) Os Grupos, é a trigésima nona Sura do Alcorão com 75 ayats.
Alcorão | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 6,384 |
Why is FE Invest the fastest growing DFM on platform?
FE's discretionary model portfolio service was first launched on a single platform just over three years ago to offer Advisers a new breed of model portfolios; created jargon-free with a view to enhancing the Adviser – Investor relationship.
Since then, FE Invest has surpassed the £1 billion AUM mark with hundreds of advice firms using the service for their investment research and portfolio management needs. This has resulted in FE Invest being named the fastest growing DFM (discretionary fund manager) on platform according to the latest research from Platforum*.
The same research from Platforum also indicates that there is no shortage of DFM solutions available to Advisers today – 77 DFM model portfolio providers are available on at least two platforms. So, what makes FE Invest stand out in this crowded market and be the fastest growing last year?
FE Invest uses a robust quantitative and qualitative based methodology that draws on FE's data collection history, renowned ratings and a global team of analysts. Driven by data and guided by the principle of managing risk for optimal returns, we have built a portfolio optimiser that aims to maximise the diversification ratio based on a set of parameters, thereby ensuring maximum market exposure for any given level of risk. The portfolios are then aggressively tested by our analysts to ensure consistent adherence to risk budgets. The process has been verified by CASS business school as a superior way of building portfolios.
FE Invest is built with the end investor in mind. We understand their needs are varied and hence offer an inclusive range of portfolios that suit a variety of investor risk profiles, investment objectives and investment time horizons. This includes four portfolio ranges Active (five risk levels), Hybrid (five risk levels), Responsibly managed (three risk levels) and a dedicated Income portfolio.
Although built with the end investor in mind, the FE Invest service is designed to add value to the Adviser's business. A key part of the service is ensuring that Advisers are better informed and have the right resources to demonstrate the value of their advice.
We produce a range of documentation for Advisers who use our service including fund reports, portfolio reports, portfolio reviews every time we make a change, weekly market commentaries, technical governance report and quarterly market outlooks. All of which can be white labelled.
We have also introduced an Adviser portal that provides the latest insights from the analyst team including blogs, fund manager interviews and the ability to contact the analyst team directly. A suite of research documentation on the portfolios and the individual funds are available for download. The information is presented in an easy to understand format, that can be forwarded on to investors- so whilst we have a nine-page analyst report underpinning each fund recommendation the fund report presented to investors is limited to just a page!
The Adviser ultimately decides what is best for the investor. We work in 'partnership' with Advisers to support this. We are not prescriptive in nature and believe in giving Advisers all the tools, data and support required to ensure investment success and regulatory compliance.
All the FE Invest portfolios are integrated into the FE Analytics system so that advisers can conduct full due diligence on them versus multi asset funds, indices or even other DFMs through the FE Transmission DFM analysis service. Advisers also benefit from being able to drill down into our fees and individual fund fees including transactional ex-ante costs– rest assured that our reporting is fully MiFID and COBS 4 compliant.
This partnership-based approach has won the loyalty of many Advisers over the last 3 years, including those who have historically never outsourced their investments to a third-party provider, or used a DFM. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 5,418 |
document.addEventListener('deviceready', onDeviceReady, false);
function onDeviceReady() {
document.addEventListener("resume", onResume, false);
last_click_time = new Date().getTime();
document.addEventListener('click', function (e) {
click_time = e['timeStamp'];
if (click_time && (click_time - last_click_time) < 1000) { e.stopImmediatePropagation();
e.preventDefault();
return false;
}
last_click_time = click_time;
}, true);
$.mobile.defaultPageTransition = 'none';
$.mobile.defaultDialogTransition = 'none';
$(".spinner").show();
var connectionStatus = false;
connectionStatus = navigator.onLine ? 'online' : 'offline';
document.addEventListener("showkeyboard", function(){ $("[data-role=footer]").hide();}, false);
document.addEventListener("hidekeyboard", function(){ $("[data-role=footer]").show();}, false);
// Workaround for buggy header/footer fixed position when virtual keyboard is on/off
$('input, select')
.on('focus', function (e) {
$('header, footer').css('position', 'absolute');
})
.on('blur', function (e) {
$('header, footer').css('position', 'fixed');
//force page redraw to fix incorrectly positioned fixed elements
//setTimeout( function() {
//window.scrollTo( $.mobile.window.scrollLeft(), $.mobile.window.scrollTop() );
// }, 20 );
});
$(document).keydown(function (eventObj){
getKey(eventObj);
});
var email = localStorage.getItem("email");
var ciao = "";
var ciao1 = "";
var distanza = "";
var Categoria="";
var Provincia="";
var model = device.model;
var Badge10 = localStorage.getItem("Badge10");
var db;
var dbCreated = false;
//$("#radio").attr("href", "maps:saddr="+ localStorage.getItem("ciao") +","+ localStorage.getItem("ciao1") +"&daddr=Via di Acilia,17,Roma");
var email = localStorage.getItem("email");
var Badge10 = localStorage.getItem("Badge10");
$("#badde3").attr("data-badge", Badge10);
$("#badde3").html('<img id="carro3" src="img/CartW.png" width="20px">');
if (Badge10 > 0){
$('#badde3').removeClass('badge2').addClass('badge1');
}
if((email=="")||(!email)){
$("#btnprofilo3").attr("href", "#page4");
$("#btnprofilo3").attr("onclick", "javascript:checklogin();");
}else{
$("#btnprofilo3").attr("href", "#mypanel");
$("#btnprofilo3").attr("onclick", "#");
}
$("#ProfiloPersonale").html(localStorage.getItem("Nome") + " " + localStorage.getItem("Cognome") + "-" + localStorage.getItem("Indirizzo") + "," + localStorage.getItem("Civico") + " , <b>Punti:" + localStorage.getItem("Punti") + "</b>");
if(connectionStatus=='online'){
//$('#rati1').raty({ score: 3 });
$(".spinner").hide();
mostrapunti();
seleziona();
}
else{
$('#noconn').show();
var tabella = "<table align='center' border='0' width='100%' height='120px'>";
tabella = tabella + "<tr><td align='center'><a href='javascript:riparti()' class='btn'><font color='#fff'>Aggiungi</font></a></td></tr>";
tabella = tabella + "</table>";
$('#noconn').html(tabella);
$(".spinner").hide();
}
}
function seleziona() {
var landmark2="";
$(".spinner").show();
$.ajax({
type:"GET",
url:"http://www.gtechplay.com/pizzaxte/www/check_Mietransazioni.asp",
contentType: "application/json",
data: {email:localStorage.getItem("email")},
timeout: 7000,
jsonp: 'callback',
crossDomain: true,
success:function(result){
$.each(result, function(i,item){
if(item.ID==0) {
landmark2 = landmark2 + "Nessuna transazione registrata.";
}
else{
var anno = item.Data.slice(0,4)
var mese = item.Data.slice(4,6)
var giorno = item.Data.slice(6,8)
var comp = anno + "/" + mese + "/" + giorno
landmark2 = landmark2 + "<table height='30px' border='0' width='320px'><tr><td align='left' colspan='2'><font size='4' color='#454545'><img src='img/delivery2.jpg' width='18'>"+ comp +"</font></td></tr><tr><td align='left' colspan='2'><font size='2' color='#454545'>"+ item.Ordine +"</font></td></tr><tr><td align='left' colspan='2'><font size='2' color='#454545'>"+ item.Tot +"€</font></td></tr></table><br><table class='div3' width='100%'><tr><td></td></tr></table>";
}
});
$(".spinner").hide();
$("#recensione1").html(landmark2);
$("#noconn").hide();
myScroll.refresh();
},
error: function(){
$(".spinner").hide();
navigator.notification.alert(
'Possibile errore di rete, riprova tra qualche minuto', // message
alertDismissed, // callback
'Attenzione', // title
'Done' // buttonName
);
},
dataType:"jsonp"});
}
function AggProd(prod) {
var aggiornamento = 0;
var msg;
var prezzo;
var test;
var P1 = '110';
if (prod==1){
msg="Pizza";
prezzo="6.50";
}
else if (prod==2){
msg="Panino";
prezzo="4.50";
}
else{
msg="Menu";
prezzo="8.00";
}
localStorage.setItem("Badge10", parseInt(localStorage.getItem("Badge10"))+1)
var Badge10 = localStorage.getItem("Badge10");
$('#badde3').removeClass('badge2').addClass('badge1');
$("#badde3").attr("data-badge", Badge10);
db.transaction(function (tx) {
tx.executeSql('UPDATE Ordine set Qta=Qta+1, Descrizione=Descrizione + '+ prezzo +' where id='+ prod +'', [], function (tx, results) {
aggiornamento = 1;
alert("Prod:" + prod);
}, null);
});
if(aggiornamento==0){
agg2(prod)
//alert("Prod:" + prod);
}
}
function agg2(prod){
db = window.openDatabase('mydb', '1.0', 'TestDB', 2 * 1024 * 1024);
var msg;
var prezzo;
var test;
var P1 = '110';
if (prod==1){
msg="Pizza";
prezzo="6.50";
}
else if (prod==2){
msg="Panino";
prezzo="4.50";
}
else{
msg="Menu";
prezzo="8.00";
}
db.transaction(function (tx) {
tx.executeSql('CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS Ordine (id unique, IdProdotto, Qta, Descrizione, Nome)');
tx.executeSql('INSERT INTO Ordine (id, IdProdotto, Qta, Descrizione, Nome) VALUES ('+ prod +', 1, 1, "'+ prezzo +'", "'+ msg +'")');
});
}
function SottProd(prod) {
var aggiornamento = 0;
var azione=0;
var msg;
var prezzo;
var test;
var P1 = '110';
if (prod==1){
msg="Pizza";
prezzo="6.50";
}
else if (prod==2){
msg="Panino";
prezzo="4.50";
}
else{
msg="Menu";
prezzo="8.00";
}
var Badge10;
db.transaction(function (tx) {
tx.executeSql('SELECT * FROM Ordine where id='+ prod +'', [], function (tx, results) {
var len = results.rows.length, i;
for (i = 0; i < len; i++){
if (parseInt(results.rows.item(i).Qta) > 1){
tx.executeSql('UPDATE Ordine set Qta=Qta-1, Descrizione=Descrizione - '+ prezzo +' where id='+ prod +'', [], function (tx, results) {
alert("Prod:" + prod);
localStorage.setItem("Badge10", parseInt(localStorage.getItem("Badge10"))-1)
Badge10 = localStorage.getItem("Badge10");
$("#badde3").attr("data-badge", Badge10);
}, null);
}
else{
tx.executeSql('DELETE FROM Ordine where id='+ prod +'', [], function (tx, results) {
alert("DEL");
$(".buttonOrdine").hide();
localStorage.setItem("Badge10", parseInt(localStorage.getItem("Badge10"))-1)
Badge10 = localStorage.getItem("Badge10");
$("#badde3").attr("data-badge", Badge10);
}, null);
}
}
}, null);
});
//seleziona();
}
function cambiap() {
window.location.href = "index.html";
}
function getDistance(lat1,lon1,lat2,lon2) {
var R = 6371; // Radius of the earth in km
var dLat = deg2rad(lat2-lat1); // deg2rad below
var dLon = deg2rad(lon2-lon1);
var a =
Math.sin(dLat/2) * Math.sin(dLat/2) +
Math.cos(deg2rad(lat1)) * Math.cos(deg2rad(lat2)) *
Math.sin(dLon/2) * Math.sin(dLon/2)
;
var c = 2 * Math.atan2(Math.sqrt(a), Math.sqrt(1-a));
var d = R * c; // Distance in km
return d;
}
function deg2rad(deg) {
return deg * (Math.PI/180)
}
function apri() {
var ref = window.open('http://maps.apple.com/?daddr=via ostiense,38,roma&saddr=via stamira,7 roma', '_blank', 'location=yes');
}
function alertDismissed() {
$(".spinner").hide();
}
function token(){
navigator.notification.alert(
'buttone disattivato', // message
alertDismissed, // callback
'Attenzione', // title
'OK' // buttonName
);
}
function verificawifi(){
$("#verifica").click();
}
function onResume() {
onDeviceReady();
}
function onConfirm(button) {
$(".spinner").hide();
$("#mySelect").val("01");
$("#mySelect").selectmenu("refresh");
if (button==1){
window.location.href = "Token.html";
}
}
function getKey(key){
if ( key == null ) {
keycode = event.keyCode;
} else {
keycode = key.keyCode;
}
if (keycode ==13){
document.activeElement.blur();
$("input").blur()
return false;
}
}
function saldopunti(){
var loggato = localStorage.getItem("loginvera")
if((loggato=="")||(!loggato)){
//alert("No")
window.location.href = "Login.html";
}else{
//window.location.href = "profilo.html";
//window.location.href = "Login.html";
/*localStorage.getItem("Nome")
localStorage.getItem("Cognome")
localStorage.getItem("Punti")
localStorage.getItem("Indirizzo")
localStorage.getItem("Citta")
localStorage.getItem("Telefono")
localStorage.getItem("email")*/
var tblProfile = "<tr><td><b>PROFILO</b></td></tr><tr><td>" + localStorage.getItem("Nome") +" "+ localStorage.getItem("Cognome") +"</td></tr><tr><td>" + localStorage.getItem("Indirizzo") + "</td></tr><tr><td> </td></tr><tr><td>SALDO PUNTI: "+ localStorage.getItem("Punti") +"</td></tr>"
$("#profile").html(tblProfile)
$("#profile").show()
}
//localStorage.setItem("email", "")
//localStorage.setItem("loginfacebook", "NO") @
//localStorage.setItem("loginvera", "NO")
/*navigator.notification.alert(
'hai 19 punti al momento, se raggiungi 32 punti una bibita in omaggio', // message
alertDismissed, // callback
'Saldo Punti', // title
'Chiudi' // buttonName
);*/
}
function mostrapunti(){
var loggato = localStorage.getItem("loginvera")
var tblProfile;
if((loggato=="")||(!loggato)){
tblProfile = "<tr><td><a href='javascript:saldopunti()' id='#' data-role='button' class='ui-btn ui-corner-all ui-btn-inline ui-icon-check ui-btn-icon-left' data-theme='b'>Login</a></td></tr>"
}else{
tblProfile = "<tr><td><b>PROFILO</b></td></tr><tr><td>" + localStorage.getItem("Nome") +" "+ localStorage.getItem("Cognome") +"</td></tr><tr><td>" + localStorage.getItem("Indirizzo") + "</td></tr><tr><td> </td></tr><tr><td>SALDO PUNTI: "+ localStorage.getItem("Punti") +"</td></tr><tr><td><a href='javascript:uscire()' id='#' data-role='button' class='ui-btn ui-corner-all ui-btn-inline ui-icon-delete ui-btn-icon-left' data-theme='b'>Logout</a></td></tr>"
}
$("#profile").html(tblProfile)
$("#profile").show()
}
function uscire(){
localStorage.setItem("loginvera", "")
localStorage.setItem("email", "")
window.location.href = "index.html";
}
function gomappa(){
var addressLongLat = '41.862321,12.692804';
window.open("http://maps.apple.com/?q="+addressLongLat, '_blank');
//window.location.href = "http://maps.apple.com/?q="+addressLongLat
//var ref = window.open('http://maps.apple.com/?q=Via di Acilia, 7', '_system');
}
function riparti(){
onDeviceReady();
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 5,640 |
A NEVERENDING VICIOUS CYCLE IN SPITE OF ALL HIS HARD WORK - (The Story of Mr. Park)
In the late 1990s, Mr. Park was born just as the Great Famine swept through North Korea. He was born into a nightmare of desperation, surrounded by people who could only think of the shadow of death, in Yusun Hamkyungbookdo.
All he knew was trauma and hunger. As he got a little older, he was desperate to find some way to earn a little money for food, even if it put him in great danger. The strict North Korean laws against going to China to make money could not stop Mr. Park, whose only alternative was starvation.
And so, when he found an opportunity to be a puppy merchant and to do trade in China, he took the risk of being classified as a smuggler. He knew that he could be sentenced to be put in prison, or execution by gun - but starvation is a strong motivation!
Now, Mr. Park was on the North Korean authority's blacklist. He was under surveillance 24/7, and because of this, no work site would ever receive him as their worker. The doors to all legal work were now closed to Mr. Park because of the great fear that all the employers had. And yet, if you don't work in North Korea, you have to go to the labor correctional institution - where you receive "mental reformation" according to the system in North Korea.
Life was an endless circle of being incarcerated, tortured, released, and returned again to the correctional prison. Mr. Park does not remember ever having a proper meal during all these long years of hopelessness. And so, he found a way to escape - and crossed over the Tuman River to China, 4 months ago.
Mr. Park already knew the horrors of the correctional facility. He knew that forced repatriation would be many times worse. The legendary tortures of repatriation were so frightening that he always carried a knife, and kept poison in his pocket - that he could die, rather than go back to North Korea.
Mr. Park found a way into our safe house, and he is on his way to South Korea. What will it feel like to have a nutritional meal? What will it feel like to be able to work at an honest job, earning money for food, without being sentenced to mental torture? All he ever wanted to do was to work hard and earn the right to live. This hope is now possible because of merciful contributions from those who donate to the work of NAUH.
Daily Threats of Forced Repatriation - (... | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 7,044 |
Relax and enjoy the comfort and charm of the Garden Inn. See why it is known as "New Castle's finest."
The Garden Inn is conveniently located just 40 minutes from the Indianapolis airport. Ask about transportation. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 6,686 |
Wojciech Łowicki (ur. 11 czerwca 1972 roku w Lipnie) – znawca, marszand i popularyzator komiksu, kurator sztuki. Główny kurator wystaw Międzynarodowego Festiwalu Komiksu i Gier w Łodzi. Dyrektor toruńskiego Festiwalu Kultury Popularnej DwuTakt.
Życiorys
Absolwent Muzealnictwa i Zabytkoznawstwa na Uniwersytecie Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu. Od końca l. 80 do pocz. l. 90. XX w. związany z toruńskimi klubami fantastyki. W latach 1990-91 współorganizator Toruńskich Dni Fantastyki Piernicon oraz współredaktor zina literackiego Formy Chaosu. W latach 90. XX w. założyciel, a od drugiego numeru redaktor naczelny pisma satyrycznego Qriozum.
Również w latach 90. XX w.: prezes stowarzyszeń studenckich na Uniwersytecie Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu (Koło Naukowe Kultury Kresowej i Grupa Kultury Masowej), współzałożyciel Bazy Rysowników przy agencji Val-Press w Warszawie, organizator warsztatów dziennikarskich dla młodzieży oraz współautor koncertów charytatywnych.
W roku 1997 zorganizował (wraz z dr. Marcinem Jaworskim) pionierską wystawę dotyczącą historii komiksu polskiego: Komiks polski 1957–1991. Premiera w Muzeum Okręgowym w Toruniu. Była to pierwsza w Polsce i zarazem największa wystawa opowiadająca o historii polskiego komiksu.
W roku 1998 założył i prowadził (do 1999 r.) pierwsze w kraju zbiory komiksu polskiego (dział Komiksu Polskiego w Muzeum Okręgowym w Toruniu).
Od 2011 roku kurator autorskiego cyklu wystaw Cztery pory roku z satyrą i komiksem (w ramach którego tworzy ekspozycje dla muzeów i galerii w kraju: m.in. Centralnego Muzeum Włókiennictwa w Łodzi, IPN "Przystanek Historia" w Warszawie, Muzeum Techniki i Komunikacji w Szczecinie, Muzeum Okręgowego im. Leona Wyczółkowskiego w Bydgoszczy). Dewizą wystaw jest pokazanie gatunków sztuki popularnej poprzez pryzmat ciekawostki i anegdoty, a także łączenie ich z dziejami Polski. Przy tej okazji przez artystów, których działalność jest prezentowana, tworzone są specjalnie oryginalne dedykacje dla widzów.
Od 2011 roku główny kurator wystaw Międzynarodowego Festiwalu Komiksu i Gier w Łodzi.
W 2012 roku mianowany ministrem komiksu w rządzie Partii Dobrego Humoru, prowadzonej przez satyryka Szczepana Sadurskiego.
Pomysłodawca, dyrektor oraz autor formuły toruńskiego Festiwal Kultury Popularnej DwuTakt. Wspólnie z Tomaszem Marciniakiem opracowali jeszcze w 2013 roku koncepcję imprezy, która miała łączyć różne gatunki sztuk popularnych.
Członek Gildii Komiksu. Scenarzysta. Autor popularnych esejów pod wspólnym tytułem Historie z dymkiem, czyli cała prawda o komiksie – bogato ilustrowana. Pisał o komiksie dla Sadurski.com i Gildia.pl.
Honorowy członek Asocjacji Komiksu w Toruniu (AKT).
Autor spisu zaginionych prac komiksowych, szczególnie z okresu PRL-u (tzw. "lista Łowickiego").
Konsultant telewizyjnego serialu dokumentalnego "Komiks - Superbohater PRL"
Prekursor polskiego rynku oryginalnych plansz komiksowych (w tym zakresie m.in. współpraca z domami aukcyjnymi Desa Unicum i Sopocki Dom Aukcyjny). Jego wystawa Komiks polski i jego twórcy (Galeria Orient w Szczecinie, 2013 r.), na której wystawiono ponad 600 prac komiksowych, uznana została za forpocztę wejścia oryginalnych plansz komiksu na polski rynek sztuki.
Działacz na rzecz założenia pierwszego w kraju muzeum i galerii komiksu polskiego.
Do 2015 roku, przez blisko 20 lat, współpracował z dr. Tomaszem Marciniakiem (1966-2015) – kultową postacią współczesnego komiksu polskiego. Jeden z ich ostatnich wspólnych projektów to: Komiks orbitalny. 540. rocznica urodzin Astronoma z okazji Roku Mikołaja Kopernika (2013).
Promotor ufundowania naukowej Nagrody im. Dra Tomasza Marciniaka na Festiwalu Kultury Popularnej DwuTakt.
Autor popularyzującej komiks w Polsce strony internetowej komiksisatyra.pl
Ważniejsze ekspozycje z cyklu Wojciech Łowicki & Marcin Jaworski prezentują
1997 – Komiks polski 1957–1991 (premiera w Muzeum Okręgowym w Toruniu)
1998 – Współczesny komiks polski 1991–1997 (premiera w Muzeum Okręgowym w Toruniu)
Ważniejsze ekspozycje z autorskiego cyklu Cztery pory roku z satyrą i komiksem
2011 – Tytus – najsłynniejszy harcerz Rzeczypospolitej, czyli historia Tytusa, Romka i A'Tomka (premiera w Muzeum Regionalnym im. Wł. Golusa w Ostrzeszowie)
2012 – Propaganda PRL w komiksie (premiera w Muzeum Regionalnym w Szczecinku)
2012 – Religia w komiksie (premiera w Muzeum Ziemi Pyzdrskiej w Pyzdrach)
2013 – Fantastyka w komiksie, komiks w fantastyce (premiera na Festiwalu Gier i Fantastyki Copernicon w Toruniu)
2014 – Edward Lutczyn: stare i… nowe (premiera w Galerii Chłodna 20 w Suwałkach)
2014 – Historia Polski według komiksu (premiera w Muzeum im. Aleksandra Kłosińskiego w Kętach)
2014 – Smoki, fiaty i rakiety (premiera w Muzeum Techniki i Komunikacji – Zajezdnia Sztuki w Szczecinie)
2014 – Kajko i Kokosz – najdzielniejsi woje Mirmiła (Galeria Satyrykon w Legnicy)
2015 – Jacek Fedorowicz. To tylko żarty (premiera w Galerii Chłodna 20 w Suwałkach)
2016 – Szczepan Sadurski – rysunki na dobry humor (premiera w Galerii Chłodna 20 w Suwałkach)
2017 - "Miłosne przypadki słynnych komiksowych bohaterów" (premiera w kościele pw. św. Piotra i św. Pawła w Chełmnie)
2018 - "Kreski ekstra mocne, czyli rysunki Marka Raczkowskiego" (premiera w Galerii Chłodna 20 w Suwałkach)
Wybrane ekspozycje poza cyklami
2012 – Apokalipsa w komiksie (Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie)
2013 – Komiks polski i jego twórcy (Galeria Orient w Szczecinie)
2015 – Historie obrazkowe. Osiem dekad polskiego komiksu (Muzeum Okręgowe im. Leona Wyczółkowskiego w Bydgoszczy)
2015 – Kajko i Kokosz – komiksowa archeologia (Muzeum Archeologiczne w Gdańsku Oddział Grodzisko w Sopocie)
2017 - Świat "Tytusa, Romka i A'Tomka" Papcia Chmiela – Instytut Wszechzbytków profesora Talenta (premiera w EC1 Łódź)
Ważniejsze ekspozycje na Międzynarodowym Festiwalu Komiksu i Gier w Łodzi
2011 – Janusz Christa. Życie i twórczość
2011 – Edward Lutczyn. Tylkomiks
2011 – Tadeusz Raczkiewicz. Tajfun story
2012 – Przemysław TRUST Truściński. Misterium
2012 – 30 lat "Fantastyki"
2014 – Lucky Luke – rewolwerowiec szybszy od własnego cienia
2015 – Projekt Wiedźmin (CD Projekt RED)
2018 – Bogusław Polch. 60-lat pracy twórczej
Wybrane publikacje
1997 – Siedmioro wspaniałych, w: Komiks polski 1957–1991, Qriozum 1997
2011 – Czy powinniśmy wstydzić się polskiego komiksu?, Gildia.pl
2012 – Kosmiczny striptiz, Gildia.pl
2012 – Miliony i klątwa Supermana, Gildia.pl
2014 – Edward Lutczyn: stare i… nowe, Komiksisatyra.pl
2014 – Doktor Esperanto (rys. Daniel Baum), Centrum im. Ludwika Zamenhofa 2014
2015 – Jacek Fedorowicz. To tylko żarty, Komiksisatyra.pl
2015 – O Tomku Marciniaku kilka prywatnych wspomnień, Czas Fantastyki nr 2/2015
2015 – Doktor od komiksów, Zeszyty Komiksowe nr 20/2015
2015 – Tytus wyeksponowany, w: Papcio Chmiel i jego podopieczni, Muzeum Karykatury im. Eryka Lipińskiego 2015
2015 – Najszybszy karykaturzysta świata, Komiksisatyra.pl
2019 – Mateczki (rys. Jacek Przybylski), Muzeum Historyczne w Przasnyszu 2019
Nagrody i wyróżnienia
2012 – Odznaka Zasłużony dla Kultury Polskiej
2015 – Złoty Puchar im. Janusza Christy
Przypisy
Ludzie związani z Toruniem
Urodzeni w 1972
Polscy kuratorzy sztuki
Ludzie urodzeni w Lipnie | {
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Q: prometheus_python instrumentation - Bucketing in histogram I am trying to instrument API health using python-prometheus lib. I was using prometheus histogram for API response times as directed in documentation and doing a http export of metrics
Expected behaviour
I went through the bucketing logic in the code I am expecting a histogram of pre-set buckets of response times. I defined buckets for 1,3,5,10,Inf (greater than 10s) (i.e, less than or equal to 1s/3s/5s)
So if I there is only one request that took 2s, the 3s bucket will have a frequency of 1 and other buckets are zero.
Code Snippet on bucketing
def observe(self, amount):
'''Observe the given amount.'''
self._sum.inc(amount)
for i, bound in enumerate(self._upper_bounds):
if amount <= bound:
self._buckets[i].inc(1)
break
I think break ensures bucketing happens only once for an instance.
Response times:
Before
After
For a sample request that took 3.1s if we could subtract the latency sum from before and after,
5s , 10s and Inf buckets are getting updated too. I am looking to find where and how buckets >= 3.1s are getting updated.
Other Details:
python - prometheus is used on multiprocess mode
Version Info:
*
*Python - 2.7
*prometheus_client [Python] - 0.0.21
A: The le stands for less than or equal to, so this is the expected behaviour. The histogram_quantile function handles this automatically, so you shouldn't need to worry about this implementation detail.
This reason it is this way is so that if a histogram has too many buckets, you can safely drop some them on the ingestion side.
| {
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Shirley Hazzard (Sydney, 30 januari 1931 – New York, 12 december 2016) was een Australisch-Amerikaans schrijfster.
Geboren in Australië heeft zij het grootste deel van haar leven verdeeld tussen New York en Capri (Italië). In 1963 trouwde zij met Francis Steegmuller; hij overleed in 1994.
Hazzard schreef de romans The Evening of the Holiday (1966), The Bay of Noon (1970), The Transit of Venus (1981), en The Great Fire (2003), novellen die verzameld zijn in Cliffs of Fall and Other Stories (1963), en People in Glass Houses (1967), de verhandelingen Defeat of an Ideal (1973) en Countenance of Truth (1990) en de biografie Greene On Capri (2000), over de schrijver Graham Greene.
De werken van Hazzard hebben diverse prijzen behaald. The Transit of Venus werd onderscheiden met de National Book Critics Circle Award. The Great Fire, haar eerste roman na meer dan twintig jaar, kreeg de American Book Award, de National Book Award en de Miles Franklin Award, kreeg een "Boek van het Jaar"-nominatie van The Economist en The Washington Post en werd een "opmerkelijk boek" genoemd in The New York Times.
Amerikaans schrijver
Australisch schrijver | {
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{"url":"http:\/\/math.stackexchange.com\/questions\/139330\/difference-between-a-class-and-a-set?answertab=active","text":"# Difference between a class and a set\n\nI know what a set is. I have no idea what a class is.\n\nAs best as I can make out, every set is also a class, but a class can be \"larger\" than any set. (A so-called \"proper class\".)\n\nThis obviously makes no sense whatsoever, since sets are of unlimited size. It's not like you get to 25 elements and go \"oh, hey, sets are limited to a maximum of 20 elements, so we'll have to call this 25-element thing something else\".\n\nDoes anybody know what the actual difference between a set and a class is?\n\nEdit: Several people have pointed out that you can write paradoxes which involve sets. I get that. But where do classes come into the picture?\n\n-\nI think it depends on what system you are working in, but in ZFC it's not a formally defined notion: it pretty much means \"a collection of objects which we can define and talk about, but which can't be a set because otherwise things would break\". \u2013\u00a0Tara B May 1 '12 at 10:24\nI do not find your attitude towards something you don't understand productive. A lot of very smart people have thought very hard about set theory and concluded that there is a useful distinction to make between sets and proper classes, so to dismiss it as obviously making no sense whatsoever seems to me extremely arrogant. \u2013\u00a0Qiaochu Yuan May 3 '12 at 20:50\n@QiaochuYuan I didn't say that the notion of classes makes no sense. I said defining a class as \"like a set, but bigger\" makes no sense. As the answers indicate, apparently the real definition is much more specific than that. \u2013\u00a0MathematicalOrchid May 4 '12 at 8:33\n@MathematicalOrchid: \"like a set, but bigger\" is an intuition, and I think it holds water (although of course not all intuitions will make sense to all people). The point is that collections like $\\{ x : P(x) \\}$ where $P(x)$ is some property generally form a proper class, whereas collections like $\\{ x : x \\in S, P(x) \\}$ where $S$ is some set form a set. I think you would agree that there is a strong intuitive sense in which the former is bigger than the latter. \u2013\u00a0Qiaochu Yuan May 4 '12 at 14:35\n\nYour intuition about size limitations is wrong. Think about finite sets: there are sets which are finite but as large as you would want them, $6$ elements, $25$ elements, $216$ elements, whatever. But does that mean that the set of natural numbers is a finite set?\n\nThe idea behind the transfinite is what happens after you've gone to infinity and beyond. So there are sets and they grow larger and larger, then they become infinite, and they continue to grow larger and larger... eventually you have gone \"all the way\". There comes a question - is the collection of everything you have accumulated so far is a set? If so, we can keep on going. Classes tell us that eventually (which is a pretty far eventually) we have to stop somewhere.\n\nIn the naive approach to mathematics we think that every collection we can talk about is a set. Simply because in the naive approach there is no definition of a set.\n\nHowever once axiomatic set theory came into play we have the seemingly circular definition: Sets are elements of a model of set theory.\n\nFor example, one of the axioms about sets is that they have power sets. One of the theorems linking a set and its power set is that there is no surjective function from a set to its power set.\n\nSuppose the collection of all sets, $V$ was a set itself, what would its power set be? Well, every subcollection of $V$ is a set and therefore in $V$. This means that $P(V)\\subseteq V$. However this means that there is a surjective function from $V$ onto its power set!\n\nCantor's paradox (as above), as well Russell's paradox (all sets which are not elements of themselves is a collection which is not a set), and so several other paradoxes tell us one thing: not all collections we can define are sets.\n\nIn ZFC classes are simply definable collections of sets. What does it mean definable? It means \"all sets which has a property which we can describe in the given language\".\n\nOne simple way to describe the difference between sets and classes in ZFC is that sets are elements of other sets. Classes are not elements of any other class, so if $A\\in B$ then $A$ is a set.\n\nThe first thing to want from a foundational mathematical theory (one which you hope to later build most of your mathematics on) is that if you have a certain property, then you can talk about all the things in your universe with this property. The various paradoxes tell us that in ZFC (and its spawns) some of these collections are not sets. The notion of \"proper class\" tells us that we can still talk about this collection, but it is not a set per se.\n\nFor example, we can talk about ordinals (which are a transfinite generalization of the natural numbers in some sense), the collection of all ordinals is a proper class. We can still talk about \"all the ordinals\" or prove that some property holds for all of them, despite that this is not a set.\n\n-\nSo what you're saying is \"if calling this thing a set would yield a paradox, call it a class instead\". (?) How does that fix the actual paradox? \u2013\u00a0MathematicalOrchid May 1 '12 at 12:54\n@MathematicalOrchid: Because sets are actual things in your universe. Classes are collections which are not actual objects in the universe. These are formulas, syntactic objects. \u2013\u00a0Asaf Karagila May 1 '12 at 13:06\nGreat answer (+1), but \"The first thing to want from a mathematical theory is that if you have a certain property, then you can talk about all the things in your universe with this property.\" is a bit of an exaggeration. I don't think that's the first thing everyone wants or should want. :-) \u2013\u00a0ShreevatsaR May 1 '12 at 14:21\n@ShreevatsaR: Let me make my point clearer, then. This is one of the first things you would want from a foundational theory, i.e. a theory on which you would later want to build the rest of the mathematical universe you will work with. :-) \u2013\u00a0Asaf Karagila May 3 '12 at 19:04\n@AsafKaragila: Ah, that I can easily agree with. :-) \u2013\u00a0ShreevatsaR May 3 '12 at 20:20\n\nFrom what I understand, the notion of class was invented in order to distinguish those objects that can be described by the language used in Set Theory but which cannot be a set because it can lead to contradictions.\n\nFor analogy, consider that it is possible in the English language to create sentences that are grammatically correct but which make no sense at all or are contradictory. Examples would be: \"The planet is reading stones inside the glass.\" or \"The red blueberry is colored yellow.\"\n\nIf a language is sufficiently sophisticated, then it is possible to create sentences with that language which does not have any meaning or which would lead to contradictions. The language used in Set Theory is of that kind. It can create descriptions of sets that cannot exist. The canonical example is: \"The set that contains elements which are not elements of themselves.\" Russel showed that this particular set would lead to a contradiction in that the application of elementary logic would lead to $x \\in x \\leftrightarrow x \\not\\in x$.\n\nTo save Set Theory one solution is to invent a new mathematical object called class which is defined as any object describable by the language of Set Theory. One then shows that not all classes can properly be called sets. One then states that the axioms of Set Theory apply only to sets and not to classes.\n\nAnother solution is to restrict the construction of sets such that it is only possible to construct a set from members of already existing sets. This is the approach used by books where the Axiom of Abstraction is replaced by the Axiom of Separation.\n\nIf you ask me I would rather have the second solution instead of adding another mathematical object to the things we have to keep in mind. But what do I know? I am not a mathematician!\n\n-\n\nIn my site http:\/\/settheory.net\/ I provided detailed explanations about the difference between sets and classes.\n\nTo sum it up, there is a metamathematical time order between possible theories and universes that form an endless hierarchy, where each theory can only study a past universe and add itself to it for forming a later universe. Thus the idea that the purpose of set theory is to modelize this open hierarchy or flow of time. Then the difference between sets and classes takes meaning in an open, dynamical way : contrary to sets, a class remains potentially able to contain elements that do not yet exist (even if we cannot always know it for sure).\n\nThis explanation provides a justification for some axioms of set theory, for which it can be shown that some classes are sets because they have a well-known extension, with no risk to receive in the future any further yet unknown element that would still satisfy the given property. The powerset axiom is the main exception, the one axiom that cannot be properly justified. This fact is the key to many paradoxes in the foundations of mathematics.\n\n-\n\nIf you are familiar with first-order logic, this may help.\n\nIf we look at a model $M$ of ZFC from the outside, as in model theory, a \"class\" is simply a definable subset of the model. However, there may or may not be a element in the model whose extension is exactly that class. If there is, we say that the class \"is a set\" (in the context of that model). Otherwise, the class \"is not a set\", it is a \"proper\" class.\n\nFor example:\n\n\u2022 In any model of ZFC, there is an empty set, which corresponds to the class $\\{x : x \\not = x\\}$. Therefore this class is a set.\n\n\u2022 In any model of ZFC, there is never a set in the model whose extension contains all the sets in the model, no $x \\in M$ such that $y \\in x$ for all $y \\in M$. Therefore the class $\\{x : x = x\\}$ is not a set, it is a proper class.\n\nWhere does the \"too big\" idea come from? There are several ways to understand it. Here is one. First, we can verify that if $M$ is a model of ZFC, $C$ is a class from $M$, and $x$ is a set in $M$, then $x \\cap C$ is a set in $M$. This is exactly what the axiom of separation says if you read it in this way. Thus, the only way that $C$ could fail to be a set is that there is no $x \\in M$ with $C \\subseteq x$, and in this sense a proper class is \"too big\" to be a set in $M$.\n\n-\n\nUnfortunately, your intuition is failing you! Don't worry though, Cantor thought the same thing when he invented it :).\n\nThere are, in fact, classes which are \"too big\" to be sets. For example, the class of \"all sets\" is too big to be a set by the famous Russell's paradox, which directly counters your intuition from earlier. It is called a paradox because it defies the very intuition you were using: Russell's paradox shows us that if \"the set of all sets\" exists as a set, then set theory contains false statements (and is therefore inconsistent and worthless). It's a major problem and the primary motivation for why we study axiomatic set theory in the first place.\n\nWhen you start studying the hierarchy of infinities, you learn quickly that there is no \"set of all ordinals\" as it is too large to be a set! That is the Burali-forti paradox. When you dive into set theory, you run into a lot of examples.\n\nThe technical term for what you are speaking of is a \"proper class\", but you should be aware that the ones I've mentioned here are proper classes in the system ZFC (where the use of ANY proper classes is NOT ALLOWED). If you want to study proper classes further in detail I suggest you read about NBG set theory and New Foundations, where proper classes are allowed to be used.\n\n-\nHere is a decent (5 minute long) Youtube video that explains Russell's paradox pretty well: youtube.com\/watch?v=KdK0SDrm_24 \u2013\u00a0tomcuchta May 1 '12 at 10:21","date":"2013-05-23 17:15:44","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.7192226052284241, \"perplexity\": 253.74093597576993}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2013-20\/segments\/1368703635016\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20130516112715-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
Moon / September 16, 2016 / L.A. ALL DAY!
I'm finally settled into my new home in L.A. and I'd been wanting to find a good organic produce delivery service, so when I saw Farm Fresh To You at the Rose Bowl Flea Market last weekend I had to sign up. I got my first box this week and I'm really happy with it. Everything is organic and everything tastes organic and real! You can customize your box as well, I did. I think it's a great service as it saves you time, money, and keeps you from making bad food choices (i.e. ordering mediocre Indian food at 11p cause you have no other options). Farm Fresh To You doesn't have all the regular grocery items you will need, but I've been using Instacart for things like paper towels, quinoa, almond milk, drinks, etc. Here are two other services that are organic and I will be trying Grub Market and Farm Box. These may just be California based organic food delivery services, but hopefully you can find one in your area. If you know of any please leave links in the comments below.
Going to the grocery store is not the worst thing in the world especially if you have a cute, local organic market accessible to you. Just really make sure that you are always buying organic, your body and taste buds will thank you later. I only buy organic at the grocery store as I like to avoid ingesting poisons like pesticides, herbicides, and petroleum whenever possible, don't you? The PLU numbered sticker is one major way to tell if your fruits and vegetables are organic.
If the PLU sticker starts with the number 9 and has 5 digits (like the apple photo below), then it is safe and organic, yay!
If the PLU starts with an 8 and has 5 digits (i.e. 84208), those are genetically modified, boo!
If your produce has 4 digits, usually starting with a 2, 3, or 4 (i.e. 2041, 3048, 4011), it means that it was conventionally grown, but not organic (wash thoroughly if you have to buy this).
If you take anything from this it's only buy organic, organic food box delivery services are super convenient, and if you do choose to make it to those crazy parking lots only buy produce that starts with the number 9. | {
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Andesklyde () er en fugleart, der lever i Andesbjergene - fra det sydlige Peru til det nordvestlige Argentina.
Noter
Avibase - the world bird database
Eksterne henvisninger
Andesfugle
Mågevadefugle | {
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# **THE USER'S JOURNEY**
STORYMAPPING PRODUCTS THAT PEOPLE LOVE
Donna Lichaw
**_The User's Journey_**
_Storymapping Products That People Love_
By Donna Lichaw
Rosenfeld Media, LLC
457 Third Street, #4R
Brooklyn, New York
11215 USA
On the Web: www.rosenfeldmedia.com
Please send errors to: errata@rosenfeldmedia.com
Publisher: Louis Rosenfeld
Managing Editor: Marta Justak
Illustrations: Eva-Lotta Lamm
Interior Layout Tech: Danielle Foster
Cover Design: The Heads of State
Indexer: Sharon Shock
Proofreader: Sue Boshers
© 2016 Rosenfeld Media, LLC
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 1-933820-31-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-933820-31-6
LCCN: 2015956989
Printed and bound in the United States of America
_For Erica, who begged me to speak and write so that I would channel my energy and stop pestering her with my crazy ideas. I love you._
## HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
This book is meant to be read from cover to cover. It's short and highly scannable, so don't be intimidated. Each chapter builds on the last, introducing concepts and then expanding on how to apply what you've learned to your own practice. This book will also work as a reference after you've read it. The diagrams and illustrations provide you with scannable, short-hand versions of the concepts so that you can go back and jog your memory when needed. So grab a comfy chair and blanket or get comfy on your next flight, sit back, and enjoy. Then keep this book handy for the future because it will likely change the way you work.
### **Who Should Read This Book?**
This book is for anyone who wants to engage an audience by creating things that people want to use, use often, and recommend to others. "Things" can include websites, software, apps, digital or non-digital, for-profit or non-profit services, or even physical goods. I'll collectively call those "things" _products_ throughout this book. Whether you are an entrepreneur, designer, product or account manager, content strategist, communications or marketing professional, student, teacher, or engineer, chances are you are someone who can use _story_ and its underlying structure and mechanics to make better and more successful products.
### **What's in This Book?**
There are eight chapters in this book grouped into three areas:
• Chapters 1 and discuss how story works and how you can use it to engage your audience not by _telling_ stories, but by _creating_
stories.
• Chapters 3– discuss how story flows through different types of products in different contexts and customer lifecycle journey stages.
• Chapters 6– delve into how to uncover, improve, and use your stories both strategically and tactically.
### **What Comes with This Book?**
This book's companion website ( **rosenfeldmedia.com/books/storymapping** ) contains a blog and additional content. The book's diagrams and other illustrations are available under a Creative Commons license (when possible) for you to download and include in your own presentations. You can find these on Flickr at **www.flickr.com/photos/rosenfeldmedia/sets/**.
## FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
#### **Is this book about storytelling?**
No. And yes. This book is about much more than what you traditionally think of when you think of storytelling. It won't teach you how to _tell_ a story. Rather, it will teach you how to _use_ story and its underlying structure to craft intended experiences of use that are optimized for audience engagement, similar to what screenwriters and TV writers do with short- and long-form movies and TV shows. Plot point by plot point.
#### **Why story?**
We use story because it's one of the oldest and most powerful ways that humans have to communicate with and understand the world. It governs how we do or don't see meaning, value, utility, and affordances in both ideas and things. Story structure and its underlying principles will help you build better products. And it's how you can get your target audience to relate to your product (see **Chapters 1** and **** ).
#### **Is everything a story?**
Yes. Walking down the street? Story. Using an app? Story. Thinking about a product? Story. Using online checking through your boring old bank? Story. Once you start thinking and working like a storymaker, you will ask yourself not _if_ something is a story, but if it is or should be a _good_ story. The better the story, the more engaged your users will be. Structure is how story engages the human brain (see **Chapter 2** ).
#### **Who is the hero of the stories you map: the business or the user?**
As much as you want your business to be the hero of the story, your users are the real heroes. Imagine if _The Wizard of Oz_ were about Dorothy, a damsel in distress who is saved by a knight in shining armor. It wouldn't be her story—it would be the knight's story. Dorothy needs to be the hero as much as your customers need to feel like heroes when they find, use, and recommend your product to their friends and family. When you map stories, you're mapping the story you want someone to have with your product. Think of your product as Dorothy's ruby slippers. Without your product, she would never be able to solve her problem. **Chapter 2** goes into more detail about how to engineer heroes.
#### **Is storymapping some new process I have to learn?**
No. Storymapping is something you can and should seamlessly weave into your existing practice. I want you to start thinking like a storyteller—or story _maker—_ so that you can create products that resonate with your target audience. When you start thinking about the story, you'll find that it's the first thing you do at the beginning of any project and something you can easily fold into your existing process. What's the story? You will answer this question by uncovering, mapping, and then testing the story until you get it right (see **Chapters 6** and **** ).
#### **How do I get started with storymapping?**
All you need are some Post-it notes or note cards, a wall or table, some markers, data, and an imagination and understanding of how story works. Once you start seeing stories in your favorite products, you'll see them everywhere. Once you start seeing them everywhere, you'll see how to weave stories into your own work so that you create more successful and engaging products that people love, use often, and recommend to others. **Chapters 3** , **** , and **5** walk you through how to map different types of stories to solve different types of business and user engagement problems. **Chapter 6** tells you how to find stories through research and hypothesis development. **Chapter 7** shows you how to use your stories once you've developed them.
#### **What is the difference between _storymapping_ and _Agile user story mapping_?**
While many people often use the shorthand _storymapping_ when referring to Agile user story mapping, they are quite different. Storymapping is as simple as it sounds: literally mapping out an intended experience of use just as you would a story—plot point by plot point. Agile user story mapping is a method that Agile developers use to organize and chart the course for large bodies of work comprised of smaller "user stories (for more on incorporating story development into Agile development, see **Chapter 7** )." Although the two approaches look similar (Post-its on a wall or cards on a table), they are quite different. Storymapping is a way to engineer increased engagement in your products. Agile user story mapping is a way for engineers to work.
## CONTENTS
How to Use This Book
Frequently Asked Questions
Foreword
Introduction
**CHAPTER 1**
**Mapping the Story**
Making Things Go BOOM!
Why Story?
**CHAPTER 2**
**How Story Works**
Story Has a Structure
Building Products with Story
**CHAPTER 3**
**Concept Stories**
What Is a Concept Story?
How Concept Stories Work
Avoiding the Anticlimactic
Supporting the Story
Mapping a Concept Story
Finding the Concept Story at FitCounter
**CHAPTER 4**
**Origin Stories**
What Is an Origin Story?
How Origin Stories Work
Mapping an Origin Story
Case Study: Slack
Case Study: FitCounter's Origin Story
**CHAPTER 5**
**Usage Stories**
What Is a Usage Story?
How Usage Stories Work
Case Study: Twitter
Mapping the Usage Story
How Big Should Your Story Be?
Case Study: FitCounter
**CHAPTER 6**
**Finding and Mapping Your Story**
Listen
Use the Smile Test
Measure
Case Study: SmallLoans—a Cliffhanger
Innovate: What If?
Borrow: Stories as Proofs of Concept
**CHAPTER 7**
**Using Your Story**
Illustrate Your Story with Strategic Tools
Write Your Story
Act It Out
Elevator Pitch
Putting It All Together
**CHAPTER 8**
**Rules of Thumb**
Stories Are Character-Driven
Characters Are Goal-Driven
Goals Can Change
Goals Are Measurable
Conflict Is Key
Math Is Fun
Choose Your Own Adventure
Make Things Go **_Boom!_**
**Index**
**Acknowledgments**
**About the Author**
## FOREWORD
I was one of those kids who played _Dungeons and Dragons_ (D&D), a fantasy role-playing game that involved going on quests to battle monsters, discover magical items, and drink lots of mead. My friends and I memorized spell books, castle layouts, and Elvish runes, paying more attention to types of armor than we did to types of conjugation for the next English quiz.
In D&D there are two main roles: the player character, who goes on quests in the world of the game; and the Dungeon Master, who operates that world and guides the player characters in their journey.
The first character I played was a wizard. I imagined him being tall, bearded, and wise like Gandalf in _The Lord of the Rings..._ but I was young enough that he owed a lot more to Mickey Mouse in _The Sorcerer's Apprentice._ Either way, he was vanquished while trying to cast a sleeping spell on a rather surly bugbear.
Then I tried playing dark, gritty characters like thieves and assassins—they talked tough and fought tougher. Why, my 7th-level Rogue wouldn't give a bugbear the time of day! Even so, he met his fate while pick-pocketing an unusually large stone giant who, drunken on mead, sat on him.
When I became a Dungeon Master, I didn't want the players in my game to die as quickly as mine always did. Rather than crushing my players' dreams with an overly hostile world, I wanted them to have a chance of reaching their goals. That would make for a more interesting game and a far better story. But with my limited experience (I was 13), I didn't know how to start telling the tale.
You may feel the same way. If you build products or design services, you know how easy it is to get ambushed by constraints, surprised by your competition, and buried in strategies dark and deep. You may find that coming up with that next iteration is much harder than you thought, or you may get usability feedback that changes your entire approach. You may face indecision or conflicts on your team that keep you from moving forward. And even when you're armed with data and research, it can often seem like you're on a quest with an uncertain ending.
Donna Lichaw is here to help. Drawing on her experiences with Fortune 500 companies, public radio, filmmaking, and more, Donna helps you navigate the oft-treacherous waters of product development. She helps you not just to _tell_ stories or _use_ stories to promote your product, but to build your products _as if they were stories themselves._
Why stories? Because they're our oldest, best tools for communicating, teaching, and engaging with people. Because they help us understand the landscape of how people interact with our products. And because they help us understand the people themselves.
Using Donna's approach, you'll cast your users as the heroes of the story so that everything you do supports them in their journey. And when you help your heroes overcome their challenges, surpass their obstacles, and make progress toward their goals, you'll also take steps toward your own.
Like Donna says, "I wish it were more complicated, but it really is that simple."
So ready your armor, grab a cup of mead, and roll the dice. Here there be dragons, but fear not—Donna gives you the key to defeating them: _story first._
—Jonathon Colman
Product UX + Content Strategy, Facebook
_Note: All content and viewpoints expressed here solely reflect the thoughts and opinions of the author._
## INTRODUCTION
**"How do you build your storyline? By using 3 × 5 cards."**
**—Syd Field,**
** _Screenplay_**
In his classic tome on screenwriting, Syd Field claimed that he could not teach aspiring filmmakers how to write a screenplay. "This is not a 'how-to' book," he explained. "People teach themselves the craft of screenwriting. All I can do is show them what they have to do to write a successful screenplay. So, I call this a _what-to_ book..."
### **What Would MacGyver Do?**
MacGyver, the eponymous star of the 1980s television show of the same name, could solve any problem or get out of any situation with a needle, some thread, and bubble gum.
Storymapping is much the same. If MacGyver built products, he would map stories. Storymapping can help you solve any engagement-related problem with your product or even create a successful product by mapping the story before you design or build anything.
_How do you map a story for your product?_ All you need are some Post-it notes or note cards, a marker or pen, a whiteboard or wall, data or an imagination, and an understanding of how story works. Then you map your story. Plot point by plot point. There is some trial-and-error involved at first, but once you build your story muscle, you'll be storymapping like a champ.
I wish it were more complicated, but it really is that simple. And fast. You can do it alone, but I recommend doing it with a team for maximum efficiency and buy-in. While I can't tell you much more in the _how_ department, I can show you _what_ it takes to build a successful story that works—for you, your customers, your product, and your business. I can also show you how to apply stories once you've created them and give you some rules of thumb to set you on the right path.
Let's say that you want to build a new product, but aren't sure if it's a good idea? That's a story. You want to help people find your product?
Also a story. You want to get people to try your product out? Yup, story. You want to figure out how your product should work? Story. People try your product, but don't return to use it again? That's a story, too. A cliffhanger of a story and one that you can easily fix with some props and ingenuity. Just like MacGyver.
You'll learn how to ask three simple questions before you start any new project:
• What's the story?
• Who is the hero?
• What is the hero's goal?
After a while, you won't just be asking what the story is, but whether it's a _good_ story. Because a good story isn't just a random series of events—that's a flow chart or a terrible student film. A good story makes things go _boom_! For your customers. And for your business.
### **Because Structure Is Key**
The book is split into three parts. In the first part (Chapters 1–), you'll learn why story matters for things that aren't just entertainment, fiction, or movies, as well as how story functions in products and services. In the second part (Chapters 3–), you'll learn about different types of stories and how those frameworks flow through successful products. Finally, in Chapters 6–, you'll see how to apply stories to your own work, in different contexts, so that you can build successful products that resonate with your target audience. By the end of this book, you'll think like a story _teller_ and work like a story _maker_.
## CHAPTER 1
**Mapping the Story**
**Making Things Go BOOM!**
**Why Story?**
**"You need a road map, a guide, a direction—a line of development leading from beginning to end. You need a story line. If you don't have one, you're in trouble."**
**—Syd Field,**
** _Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting_**
In 2004, I presented my year-end documentary film in graduate school to an audience of around 100 people. As soon as the film ended, before the lights went up, one of my classmate's hands shot up. I will never forget the first words he uttered—they're etched into my brain.
_I can't believe you made me sit through that. What was the point?_
My film was a dud. It had nothing holding it together: no conflict, no climax, and no resolution—ergo, no story. As a result, I failed to engage my audience. I somehow forgot one of the foundational tenets of filmmaking: if you want to engage your audience, your film _must_ have a story at its foundation.
A website, software, app, service, or campaign—for brevity's-sake I'll use the term _product_ for the rest of the book—is similar to a film. They are all things that humans _experience_. Just like with a film, if you want to engage your audience, your product must have a story at its foundation. You can do this by accident like I did when I created films that people loved. (I did have a few of those, I promise.) Or you can map the story with deliberate care and intent like I eventually learned to do, both as a filmmaker and more recently as someone who helps businesses build products that people love.
### **Making Things Go BOOM!**
Vince Gilligan, creator of the television show _Breaking Bad,_ knows a thing or two about using story to engage an audience. In this photo (see Figure 1.1), he is seated in front of the story map for Season 4.
TV writers are smart. They map the story out _before_ they write a line of dialogue or shoot a single scene. TV shows are large, complex things that are built with large, distributed teams over a long period of time. With so many people, scenes, episodes, and seasons to manage, it's hard to stay focused on the big picture. Mapping the story on a wall helps TV writers plot a course while keeping the big picture in mind.
**FIGURE 1.1**
**Vince Gilligan, creator of _Breaking Bad_ , in front of a story map for season 4.**
Mapping the story also helps TV writers build a product that engages an audience by adhering to a millennia-old architecture designed for engagement: a well-crafted story. You'll learn more about story architecture in Chapter 2, but in the meantime, consider this meticulously placed card near the end of the storyline for _Breaking Bad,_ Season 4 (see Figure 1.2). This card has one word written on it: "BOOM." If you've seen Season 4 of _Breaking Bad_ , you know what this refers to. If you haven't, you can imagine. Mapping the story helps TV writers make things go BOOM. And it will help you, someone who builds products, make things go BOOM as well.
Story is why people tune in and stayed tuned in, whether you're creating a TV show, a movie, or a website. Storymapping is how you make that story happen, whether you're a screenwriter or a product person.
**FIGURE 1.2**
**A close-up of a story card for _Breaking Bad_.**
Storymapping is just what it sounds like: mapping out an intended experience of use for a product, plot point by plot point. This concept of mapping stories is not new. It's something that Aristotle started doing a very long time ago as he sought to understand what it was about Greek dramas that enraptured audiences, so their success could be reproduced. It's something screenwriters have been doing for years. It's something I eventually learned to do for films and more recently with products. And it's something that you can do on your next project or product.
### **Why Story?**
Story is one of the most powerful tools that humans use to understand and communicate with the outside world. Part evolutionary feature, part survival mechanism harking back to Paleolithic times, part communication tool—story powers the human brain. Story-based cognitive function is so powerful that neuroscientists have a term for it when it doesn't work: _dysnarrativia_ , the inability to understand or construct stories. Narrative cognition is so central to how humans operate that not having it is debilitating. Like living with amnesia, it is difficult, if not impossible, to function normally. Story, and its underlying architecture, powers the ability to understand what happened in the past, what happens in the moment, or what will happen in the future. It's a framework and a lens with which humans comprehend everything.
Whether you plan for it or not, your customers use their story-driven brains to understand your product and what it's like to use your product. They also use their story-driven brains to tell others about your product. The better the story, the better the experience, the better the word of mouth.
More specifically, when people experience something with a story at its foundation—whether it entails watching a movie, riding a roller-coaster, or using a website—their brains are activated. They are more likely not just to have a _good_ experience, but to:
• Remember the experience.
• See value in what was experienced.
• See utility in what they did during that experience.
• Have an easier time doing whatever they were trying to accomplish.
• Want to repeat that experience.
All of this fits under the umbrella of _engagement_.
If you're in the business of building products that engage, it's your job to consider the story that you and your business want your customers to experience. In this book, you will learn how to map that story—or stories—and align everything you and your business do so that it supports that story. For your customer. And your business.
It works for movies, and it will work for you.
**NOTE** **_THE_ OR _A_ STORY VS. STORY**
**It may look as if I've made a mistake throughout this book by using the word "story" without an article in front of it, i.e., _the_ story. It's no mistake. Story is as much of a tool and framework as it is a discipline. Like art. Or science. When I use "story" without the article, I'm talking about story as a tool. For example, I might say "use story to turn data into insights." However, if I refer to "a story" or "the story," I'm referring to the thing you will create and weave throughout your work.**
## CHAPTER 2
**How Story Works**
**Story Has a Structure**
**Building Products with Story**
**"For, the more we look at the story (the story that is a story, mind), the more we disentangle it from the finer growths that it supports, the less shall we find to admire. It runs like a backbone—or may I say a tape-worm, for its beginning and end are arbitrary."**
**—E. M. Forster,**
** _Aspects of the Novel_**
Humans are sense-making creatures, and story is our most critical sense-making tool. As humans, we've evolved and innovated story over millennia as a way to understand our world. For example, there is evidence that ancient cave dwellers learned how to trap an animal and not go hunting alone through the use of stories.
Given how long we've lived with story, it's not surprising that Aristotle uncovered a working model for it long ago. Basically, he said that every story needs three things: characters, goals, and conflict. What weaves these elements together is a structure or a series of actions and events that have a shape to them.
Fortunately, story and its underlying structure is straightforward, simple, and can be easily learned. That's why it's so powerful—for books, films, and products.
**NOTE** **STORY VS. NARRATIVE VS. PLOT**
**Don't think that you're alone if you confuse the words story, storyline, plot, and narrative as they are often used interchangeably. Even the dictionary will define them similarly. While story or narrative can refer to the broader version of events, and plot or storyline breaks down the "plan" or series of actions and events that lead up to the story, I use them in this book interchangeably. The reason for this is that a story without a plot or storyline (i.e., without a structure) is just a random series of events. Random series of events don't make for good stories and definitely won't engage your target audience. Your story must engage your audience. And in order for it to do so, it must have a structure at its foundation.**
### **Story Has a Structure**
First, every story has a beginning, middle, and end—with the middle typically taking up a longer period of time than the beginning or end, as shown in Figure 2.1.
**FIGURE 2.1**
**The parts of a story.**
Next, every story has a structure, similar to what you see in Figure 2.2. It's typically called the _narrative arc_ or _story arc,_ which is a chronological series of events.
**FIGURE 2.2**
**A story arc.**
While the X-axis in Figure 2.2 represents time, the Y-axis represents the action. In other words, you can visually see in the figure that the story builds in excitement, the pace of its action increases over time until it hits a high point, and the story winds down before it ends. When the story doesn't wind down and instead ends while the action is still rising or at a peak, the story is called a _cliffhanger._
Every narrative arc has specific key plot points and sequences, as shown in Figure 2.3.
Let's dissect the narrative arc of a story. Narrative arcs are comprised of the following elements:
• Exposition
• Inciting incident or problem
• Rising action
• Crisis
• Climax or resolution
• Falling action or denouement
• End
**FIGURE 2.3**
**Plot points on a story arc.**
#### **Exposition**
During the exposition, you are introduced to the world of the story, the characters, and some kind of big goal. There is a main character, and that character wants something. Big. The exposition functions not only to set the stage of a story, but also to get the person on the other end— _you_ , the viewer—interested and engaged with the main character or characters and what drives them. At its most powerful, a good exposition will compel you to see yourself in and identify with a character or a set of characters. At the very least, it compels you to empathize with them.
Take for example the 1985 feature film, _Back to the Future._ In the exposition, you meet Marty McFly, who lives in Hill Valley—any suburb USA. His family isn't very ambitious, but Marty has plans. He's going to make something of himself. Marty has a friend, Doc—a mad scientist who built a time machine (see Figure 2.4). All very cool.
**FIGURE 2.4**
**In the exposition to _Back to the Future_ , you are introduced to Marty, Doc, and their time machine.**
In a movie like _Back to the Future_ , you're compelled to empathize with Marty. You don't have to _like_ him. You just have to understand him, his goals and why he wants to pursue them.
#### **Inciting Incident or Problem**
The inciting incident is the moment where something changes or goes dramatically wrong in the world of the story. A problem surfaces and gets in the way of the character meeting his big goal. The moment when the hero is thrust into leaving his safe world in order to fix the problem is called the _call to action_.
Neuroscientists have shown that when you listen to or watch a story, it's as if you are experiencing the story in real time. As action rises, your pulse might quicken or your palms get sweaty. Something startles you, and you jump. Stories are not just about looking or listening, they are about _being._ The inciting incident is the first hook or trigger point in a story that amplifies _if_ and _how_ you identify with the main character, what problems he has, and what he has to go through to fix that problem and meet his goal. It's what gets you hooked. When the main character is called to action, it's as if you, the viewer, are called to action. Your brain starts working in overdrive to figure out what will happen next and how the hero will right the wrong.
In _Back to the Future_ , the excitement of a time machine doesn't last long; militants shoot Doc in a parking lot in an attempt to retrieve plutonium that he stole from them (see Figure 2.5). Not good. In an attempt to escape, Marty ends up driving the time machine to 1955 and then finds out that he can't get home. That's a problem—a meaty enough problem to name the movie after. Marty's call to action is simple: to get back to the future.
**FIGURE 2.5**
**Inciting incident: this is the point in _Back to the Future_ where the story kickstarts into action.**
#### **Rising Action**
After the problem surfaces in the inciting incident, the protagonist of the story goes on a journey to right that wrong. We spend the rest of the story not just _seeing_ how it all pans out, but also _feeling_ how it pans out. A good story escalates during the rising action, creating new tensions and conflicts that help move the story forward. As the story builds, the audience's anticipation and excitement builds simultaneously.
During the rising action of any good story, there is also plenty of conflict to keep the audience engaged. Without conflict, endings come too easily, and the audience is unconvinced or bored or both.
In this sense, humans are easy—because to keep them engaged, you save the best for last.
In _Back to the Future_ , Marty sets out to find 1955 Doc. They try to get Marty home. But they can't solve the problem, or the movie would end. So things get weird. Marty meets the younger version of his mom. His mom has a crush on him (see Figure 2.6). Marty meets his dad's nemesis, Biff. Biff becomes Marty's nemesis. Things get tense. And more tense. And as a result, more engaging. We become more and more invested in how Marty will get back to the future, scene by scene.
**FIGURE 2.6**
**In this scene, Marty starts to realize that his mom is taking an interest in him and his Calvin Kleins.**
#### **Crisis**
The story culminates at the point (or series of points) of maximum conflict—the crisis. It's the point of no return. Nothing the hero has done has worked, and he is further from the goal than ever. The story either has to right itself or end in tragedy. If the story ends with neither, then it's a cliffhanger and is incomplete. At this point, the main character has gotten so far and is so close to meeting his goal that it's impossible to just give up. Defeat or success is the only option.
In _Back to the Future_ , the crisis starts when Marty is close to figuring out how to get back to the future. But because his mom falls in love with him instead of falling for his father, there is the chance that he will never be born in the future. Because he might never be born, Marty begins to disappear (see Figure 2.7). The only way to get over this hurdle is to make sure that his parents end up together. But how? And then what? Once he overcomes this obstacle, he still has to figure out how to get home. How will this all play out, you wonder, as you are now totally invested in the outcome of the story.
**FIGURE 2.7**
**Marty starts to disappear while he's on stage at a school dance. Will he or won't he get his parents together so that he can live? Suspense!**
#### **Climax or Resolution**
Just as it sounds, the climax occurs at the top of the story arc. It's the most important part of the story. It's the high point. The final showdown. This is the point at which the hero's fate and the direction of the story are determined. As such, it is also the most exciting part of the story. It's the point at which all of that tension and _will he or won't he_ from earlier scenes culminates in you jumping out of your seat, cheering, laughing, feeling satisfied that you solved the mystery before the main character, or simply smiling because well...that was awesome.
Climax is why you are glad that you tuned in and stayed tuned in.
Sometimes, this point is also called the _resolution_ , which occurs when the main problem from the inciting incident and the hurdle from the crisis are resolved. Problems and hurdles are either resolved or they're not, and you're left with that tragedy or cliffhanger.
In _Back to the Future_ , the climax begins when Marty's parents kiss at the high school dance. At the very least, this means that he can finish playing his song on the guitar. Excellent.
But wait!
There's more!
There's a clock tower and lightning (see Figure 2.8). The underlying problem still needs to be solved: Marty needs to figure out how to get home. In a bolt of lightning, boom, Marty gets catapulted back to the future. Even more excellent.
**FIGURE 2.8**
**Climax and resolution in _Back to the Future._ Doc figures out how to get Marty home by harnessing lightning to power the time machine from atop a clock tower.**
Think of the climax as a sort of pay-off. This is why you sat through one hour and 30 minutes. It's exciting. It's suspenseful. It's satisfying. The climax is not only the best part of the story, but it's what you remember most. It's why you come back. It's like a reward, or a thank you for tuning in and staying tuned in.
But then what? Imagine if Doc managed to harness the power of lightning, get Marty home, and the movie just ended. Stories can't just end on a high point, or they're as unsatisfying as a cliffhanger. Once Marty gets back to the future, he still needs to actually get home. For that, you have the falling action or denouement.
#### **Falling Action or Denouement**
Have you ever listened in frustration to someone having a conversation on her mobile phone? If you had to listen to the entire conversation in person, with both participants audible, it wouldn't be nearly as frustrating. You could probably tune the conversation out or listen and just not care. It turns out that the main reason why these conversations are so frustrating is that your brain naturally wants to complete the conversation. Just hearing half triggers an automatic, unsatisfying response that leads to frustration. Researchers call this phenomenon a _halfalogue_ : half of a conversation that your brain naturally and uncontrollably tries to complete.
Humans, it turns out, need closure. Stories, likewise, need closure so that humans can _feel_ closure.
Imagine if _The Wizard of Oz_ ended after Dorothy had defeated the wicked witch. Goal met. The end. You'd be frustrated. Your brain would jump into overdrive as you wondered _what then? What about Kansas?_ Your mind would jump full circle as you started to remember the exposition of the story and wanted to know not just how evil was defeated, but how the story _ended._ What happened to Dorothy after she defeated the witch? For this reason, stories need not just to resolve their conflict and show characters meeting their goals, but also to have a fancy ending called a _denouement,_ a word derived from the French meaning "to unknot." This is the part of the story when the conflict is resolved and the action starts slowing down in pace and excitement toward the closing scene. It's how everything in the story gets wrapped up.
The line between the climax/resolution, falling action, and ending can be blurry and happen so quickly that it's hard to discern the difference between one and another. What matters is that the climax is exciting, and it resolves the major conflict or problem—the falling action leads to closure. In _Back to the Future_ , Marty McFly goes home (see Figure 2.9). This is the falling action for many adventure tales: the hero goes home.
Tension releases. Ah...all is good in the world.
And...it's important that home is better than when the story started and where the character left it. In this case, it's _much_ better. Marty's parents are successful. Biff is his family's servant. Marty got the truck he always wanted. Not bad.
Ideally, the falling action or denouement should happen as quickly as possible. As much as humans need closure, they're also impatient beings. Once the action has died down, there is only so much that can keep your attention. Just because you want closure, doesn't mean it needs to be dragged out with a 10-minute long ticker-tape parade. (I'm looking at you, George Lucas.)
**FIGURE 2.9**
**After his adventure through time, Marty lands back home in his present-day Hill Valley.**
#### **End**
Quite literally, the end _is_ the end. Characters grow throughout a story and should be changed by the end. Remember that big goal established in the exposition? How did it all work out? At this point, the character should meet her goal and hopefully learn something along the way. Along the same lines, just like your cave-dwelling ancestors, _you_ should be changed and have had a new experience, or have learned something by the end of a good story.
In _Back to the Future_ , the story ends with Marty's girlfriend asking him if everything is OK. "Everything," Marty says, "is perfect." They embrace (see Figure 2.10). Now, if this were a classic Hollywood film, the two would kiss, the screen would fade to black, and the credits would roll. The end.
**FIGURE 2.10**
**All is well. Marty and his girlfriend embrace.**
But as you may remember, this is the first installment of what would become a trilogy. Before you get too comfortable in your plush movie seat or sofa, you see a flash and Doc running up the driveway. Something's not right. There's a problem and Doc needs help. Where does he want to take them? To the future! And so a new story is kickstarted...a sequel. Just because a story has comes to an end and has closure doesn't mean it can't lead to another story...and another. We call those _serial stories._ Serials keep us engaged episode by episode. Serials are fun.
### **Building Products with Story**
**"...in real life we each of us regard ourselves as the main character, the protagonist, the big cheese; the camera is on us, baby."**
**—Stephen King,**
** _On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft_**
Let's face it: you probably don't make multi-million dollar epic movies like Star Wars; instead, you make websites, software, digital or non-digital services—all things that people don't just consume, but actually use. Just as with a movie, story flows through how people find, think about, use, and recommend your products.
Consider this photo for a moment (see Figure 2.11). It tells a story of an Apple product that comes installed on every iPhone. You can probably guess what product it is.
**FIGURE 2.11**
**A still image from an Apple commercial showing two people using a built-in iPhone app.**
Assuming you guessed FaceTime, you are correct. If you guessed "Tinder for seniors," that's not an Apple product. But, as some of my past workshop attendees have demonstrated, a product like that also has a compelling story to it: a story that you can easily use to prototype to test out a design hypothesis. What we see in this still photograph is an entire story encapsulated in one simple frame. Rather than spell it out for you, I want you to take a moment to consider this narrative within the framework I've laid out so far.
What do you see?
How do you know that these people are using FaceTime?
Well, they're older, so maybe they're grandparents. They're smiling. What makes grandparents smile? Grandchildren? And? Maybe their grandchildren are far away, and they want to see them. Why can't they see them? It's too expensive to fly and not realistic to do that on a regular basis. Why not call them up? They already have an iPhone or an iPad and use it to play the crossword puzzles all day. And so forth...they _are_ calling them up. Just with video. Using FaceTime is as easy as using the phone. It _is_ a phone. But with video. You just look at it instead of holding it up to your ear...like magic.
This is the type of computational math that your brain makes during a series of microseconds when you look at a photograph like this and try to understand what you see. Your brain seeks out a story in the data it consumes. And that story has a structure to it, whether you realize it or not. This behavior is so natural that you probably don't even notice that you do it.
Story is not only a tool your brain uses to understand what you _see_ , it's a tool your brain uses to understand what you _experience_. In other words, the same brain function that you use to understand what you _see_ in a photograph is the same brain function you would use if you were one of those grandparents _using_ FaceTime. Life is a story. And in that story, you are the hero.
In _Badass: Making Users Awesome_ , Kathy Sierra argues that creating successful products is not about what features you build—it's about how _badass_ you make your user on the other end feel. It's not about what your _product_ can do, but instead about what your _users_ can do if they use your product.
_Amazon_ , for example, is not a marketplace with lots of stuff. It's a way for you to have a world of goods at your fingertips. Using this perspective, you can see how your job building products comes down to creating _heroes_. When I rush-order toothpaste with one-click on Amazon to replace the toothpaste I used up this morning—as boring as it sounds, I'm a hero in my household.
This job you have of creating heroes isn't just an act of goodwill. In the time I've spent over the past two decades helping businesses build products that people love, I've seen what happens when people feel good about what they can do with your product. They love your product. And your brand. They recommend it to others. They continue to use it over time...as long as you keep making them feel awesome. They even forgive mistakes and quirks when your product doesn't work as expected, or your brand doesn't behave as they'd like. People don't care about your product or brand. They care about themselves. That's something that you can and should embrace when you build products.
What's great about story and its underlying structure is that it provides you with a framework—a formula, if you will—for turning your customers into heroes. Plot points, high points, and all. Story is one of the oldest and most powerful tools you have to create heroes. And as I've seen and will show you in this book, what works for books and movies will work for your customers, too.
## CHAPTER 3
**Concept Stories**
**What Is a Concept Story?**
**How Concept Stories Work**
**Avoiding the Anticlimactic**
**Supporting the Story**
**Mapping a Concept Story**
**Finding the Concept Story at FitCounter**
**"Stories are about people, not things."**
**—Chris Crawford,**
** _Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytellin_ g**
When the first iPhone came out in 2007, the iPod was a popular device. If you were like me, you carried an iPod in one pocket and a mobile phone in another. Sometimes, you joked about how you wished you could duct tape them together so they could be one device. But really, you wanted Apple to invent an iPod that was also a mobile phone.
When Steve Jobs gave his keynote presentation in January of 2007, that is exactly what the media and pundits expected him to announce. And he did announce an iPod that made phone calls. Sort of. What he demonstrated to the world in that presentation surprised people because it was much, much more.
During his keynote presentation, Jobs presented a problem: smartphones are no good. Then he revealed a new smartphone that not many people expected—it consisted of not one, but _three_ products:
• A widescreen touchscreen iPod
• A revolutionary new mobile phone
• An Internet communicator
As he cycled through three slides in his presentation that illustrated these three points, he repeated them a few times. "An iPod...a phone... and an Internet communicator..." he repeated this phrase until he finally asked the audience, "Are you getting it?" At this point, the audience erupted in applause as he announced that Apple was not launching three, but one singular device that did all three things. They were going to call it the _iPhone._
No one had asked for a three-in-one communication device. Actually, most iPod owners in 2007 would have been content with an iPod that let them make phone calls. This moment in Apple's keynote presentation was not just momentous because it changed the world of mobile computing, but also because it was the inciting incident that kick-started a storyline that flowed through everything from the actual product itself to the rest of the presentation that hooked and engaged not just the audience, but much of the world. What bolstered the presentation, more specifically, was a _concept story_.
### **What Is a Concept Story?**
A concept story is the conceptual story model of your product: it illustrates the big picture overview of what a product is. At the highest level, it also outlines how your customers _think_ about that product. It is the foundational story and structure that you will use to identify and communicate your core concept and value proposition both internally and externally, as well as weave into everything you eventually build.
Concept stories, when used to define products, help you answer the following questions:
• Who is this product for?
• What is their problem?
• What is their big goal? Secondary goals?
• What _is_ this product?
• What is the competition?
• Why might someone _not_ want to use this product?
• How is this product better than the competition?
• What does this product need to do?
• What is the straightforward solution to the problem?
• What is the _awesome_ solution to the problem?
**NOTE** **WHAT CONCEPT STORIES DO**
**At the very least, good concept stories get people excited about your product. As a requirement, the stories live within your product and how you shape it. At their best, they get people _talking_ about your product. Concept stories help you achieve three goals:**
• **Communicate a shared vision**
• **Align toward that shared vision**
• **Innovate and prioritize against that shared vision**
### **How Concept Stories Work**
Because concept stories illustrate how your target customers do or could think about your product or service, they are either based on real data or are aspirational. Think of them as the mental calculation that someone makes when they first hear about your product. The story might only last a few seconds as your customer puts together the important pieces of what your product is and what they can do with the product. Even though it lasts a few seconds, this story sets the stage for your customer being intrigued or excited by what your product is.
Concept stories operate like this (see Figure 3.1):
• **Exposition:** The current state of things
• **Inciting Incident/Problem:** The problem your product will solve
• **Rising Action:** The product name and a brief description or market category
• **Crisis:** The competition
**FIGURE 3.1**
**How a concept story is structured and operates—this is how people think about and see value in your product.**
• **Climax/Resolution:** The solution and value proposition or competitive advantage
• **Falling Action:** The takeaway
• **End:** The goal met
#### **Exposition**
Exposition reflects the current state of things for your user who personifies your target audience (see Figure 3.2). Who is that user? What does he want? What does she need to do?
In the case of the first iPhone, the story exposition began with a character who loved her iPod and her mobile phone, but wanted a device that would let her listen to music and make phone calls on the go. If you asked why she wanted those things, you'd see that both of these things fall under the umbrella of communication: a basic necessity. Your character doesn't want a two-in-one device, per se, but just needs to communicate with the world.
**FIGURE 3.2**
**Identify your main character or user.**
**NOTE** **WHAT'S IN A NAME?**
**While writing this book, I struggled with what to call the main character. This "person" can go by many names: person (obviously), character, hero, user, customer, target audience, persona, etc. In the end, I settled for using the words _character_ or _user_ , as those two names seemed most apropos. A _character_ is typically characterized in a story, and a _user_ typically represents the business customer. If I used other words occasionally, they are intended to mean the same thing.**
#### **Inciting Incident/Problem**
The inciting incident is the problem or need that your users have. They have a big goal, but...wait...there's a problem. Why can't they meet their goal?
If there isn't a problem, then there is no solution...and without either, there is no story. The problem doesn't have to be very serious or a matter of life and death. It can be as simple as boredom. This problem might be one the users know they have or one that you need to show them they have. Both are valid. Additionally, this is a problem that they can likely solve through other means. Rarely will you be inventing a product that is exploring completely uncharted territory. Even the iPhone was solving a problem that other competitors were trying to figure out: it's difficult to communicate while on the go.
In the case of the iPhone, the problem that the user knew she had was that it sucked to carry two devices. The problem that the iPhone ultimately solved, however, was more broadly focused on improving mobile communication. In this case, Apple solved a problem that people didn't know they had. As such, the 2007 keynote, as well as the device itself, not only had to _tell_ the world what their problem was, but also _show_ what the problem was and _highlight_ how the solution could look and function.
#### **Rising Action**
The rising action occurs when your product, service, or feature comes to the rescue. The product should have a name, a brief description, or a market category (see Figure 3.3). For example, the iPhone is a smartphone, specifically, and a mobile communication device, more broadly. Because concept stories are short and conceptual in nature, the rising action shouldn't be too complicated or wordy.
**FIGURE 3.3**
**Give your product an identity as well.**
**NOTE** **CONCEPT STORY: A VISUAL ELEVATOR PITCH**
**Think of a concept story as a way to visualize and bolster a short, impactful, bulletproof elevator pitch. Both concept stories and pitches describe your product, brand, or business, as well as purpose, market, value propositions, competition and competitive advantage (more on elevator pitches in Chapter 7, "Using Your Story").**
#### **Crisis**
Think of the crisis as the competition. This competition can be another product, service, or feature. It can be abstract, as in an alternative way that people currently solve their problems or meet their needs. Or it can also be something emotional, such as resistance to change or people not wanting to adopt something new.
In the case of the first iPhone, the crisis involved a little bit of all of the above. Users might already own an iPod, mobile phone, or both and not want to buy a new device. If they were interested in buying a new device, however, they might not want to pay a lot for it. If they'd ever used a touchscreen device before, knowing that the iPhone featured a touchscreen was also a huge crisis: touchscreens were as awful as the smartphones they accompanied those days. Wouldn't a touchscreen make the iPhone difficult to use? And no keyboard? Typing would be impossible. At least that's what the few people who owned Blackberrys and Palm Treos thought at the time.
#### **Climax/Resolution**
The climax is where the problem outlined in the inciting incident and the additional hurdles that surface during your crisis are resolved and overcome. The way that your product enables users to resolve these problems becomes its value proposition. Implicit in the value proposition is that it's not only different, but also better than the alternative ways your customer has to solve this problem. A concept without a conflict and a resulting climax is a flat story—literally just a line.
In the case of the iPhone, if the character wanted a two-in-one device to communicate, what they get with the iPhone was the _best_ way to communicate. With the iPhone, not only could they listen to music and make calls, but they could also access the Internet, maps, and email.
Granted, other smartphones would let them do some of these tasks, but as Steve Jobs emphasized over and over during his keynote presentation, the iPhone worked like magic. It was easy to use. Those simple capabilities and value propositions fit neatly on a business school competitive advantage graph, like the one Jobs mentioned in his keynote. And they gave a strong climax to his story at the conceptual level. Who doesn't want a bit of magic in their lives?
#### **Falling Action**
The falling action is the part of the story where your hero has some kind of takeaway—when he envisions a path to try out, use, or purchase the product. Think of this as the _then what_? or... _and_? Your product solves a problem and overcomes the competition in a compelling way. So what? If a product falls in a forest and no one hears it, what's the point? Use the falling action of your concept story as a chance to empathize with your character and imagine how you want that person to think or feel. Is what you want to happen plausible? If so, how? If not, why?
For the iPhone, the falling action for the character at the center of this story was that either she was convinced that she wanted this device (early adopters, fanboys, and fangirls), was intrigued and needed more convincing to try it out (she might wait and buy the iPhone 2), or she stayed skeptical but curious (your grandparents waited a long time and eventually bought an iPhone). Falling action for concept stories should still remain in the realm of thought, rather than action. Your customer hears about what she can do with your product and _thinks_ something. In the next chapter, you'll see how you can move that person from _thinking_ to _doing_.
Without this falling action, the story is either not complete enough or the target market isn't right for the product. As with all plot points, if you use real data to build your story, it will be that much more powerful. If you posit this falling action as a hypothesis, you should test it with real people. For example, if you think that people would want this device, but aren't sure, test your story out by talking to or surveying your customers or testing a prototype in the wild (more on story validation in Chapter 7).
**NOTE** **DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT PERSONAS?**
**If you find that the concept stories for different personas are drastically different from one another, you can draft them each separately. Likely, you'll be able to draft them together and note the differences. Those differences will come in handy as you move into drafting origin and usage stories (discussed in Chapters 4, "Origin Stories," and 5, "Usage Stories").**
#### **End**
Simply put, at the end, your customers can see themselves meeting their goal. At this point, your high-level business goal or mission must also resonate with the story. For example, if your business's mission is to help people find love, and your user's goal is to find love, great. The story works for both your user and the business. Even if your business's goal is to sell ad space, and your user's goal is to learn something, your story works for both. All of the plot points that lead to this moment make sure that it all comes together.
With the iPhone, the character knows that she can get her music and phone all in one place _and_ communicate with the world around her (see Figure 3.4). And at the very highest level, Apple helps people communicate better. This mission is lofty, which is good. In the following chapters, we'll discuss how to get people to start using your product.
**FIGURE 3.4**
**The concept story model for the first iPhone.**
### **Avoiding the Anticlimactic**
Six months before the iPhone 1 announcement, Apple filed a patent for a different kind of device—one that looked and would function drastically differently than what they would eventually launch. The patent drawings for what could have been the first iPhone were a logical solution to a known problem. The device was essentially an iPod that made phone calls (see Figure 3.5).
**FIGURE 3.5**
**A diagram from Apple's patent application for what could have been the first iPhone.**
If you lay it out like a story, you can see that the prototype illustrated in the patent specifications is _anticlimactic_ (see Figure 3.6). Literally, it lacks a climax:
• **Exposition:** I love my iPod; I love my mobile phone.
• **Inciting Incident/Problem:** I don't love carrying two devices, and I wish I could have my iPod and phone all in one.
• **Rising Action:** iPhone to the rescue!
• **End:** I now have a way to have my iPod and phone in one device.
This story lacks gravitas or dignity. It has a structure, but when you visually assess the story as a diagram, you can see that the structure isn't very tall. Both the diagram and the concept for what could have been the first iPhone lack two key plot points that give stories their height: crisis and climax. The story is so flat that Steve Jobs mocked the prototype by jokingly announcing a product that looked very similar to the prototype before unveiling the actual iPhone during the 2007 keynote.
Our brains don't like flat. Our brains need structure in order to get excited about things before, during, and after experiencing something, whether the experience involves thinking about or actually using the thing.
**FIGURE 3.6**
**The anticlimactic concept story for what could have been the first iPhone.**
Contrasting what could have been with what actually became the first iPhone helps you see how concept stories aren't just ideas, but rather stories embodied in the things you build.
_A simple solution, an iPhone that made phone calls, was flat._
_A climactic solution, an iPhone that did everything, worked like "magic."_
One was a 2-in-1 device, the other 3-in-1. One helped you play music and make phone calls, the other was a communication powerhouse.
### **Supporting the Story**
**"It's easy to come up with something pointless. But in any good storytelling, every scene has a function and a purpose and a point. If it doesn't, you cut it out."**
**—Vince Gilligan,**
**Creator: _Breaking Bad_**
The conceptual story of the first iPhone bolstered the entire keynote presentation that Steve Jobs delivered. But the story wasn't just a marketing pitch or shiny packaging—it drove everything from _what_ the product requirements were to _how_ the iPhone worked.
And more importantly: concept stories don't just help you figure out how to _talk_ about a product, but how to _build_ the product.
There was a good reason why the iPhone launched with fancy animation but no cut-and-paste functionality. Its concept story necessitated an advanced presentation in order to embody the device's value proposition, like communication-enabling apps and a touchscreen. And in order for the touchscreen to be user-friendly (which Palm Treo touchscreens were not), Apple's strategy was to employ animation and cutting-edge technology that enabled people to tap, rather than to interact with their device using a stylus.
Animation supported the story. Cut-and-paste did not.
All of the marketing in the world cannot grow a business or a product line that doesn't deliver on the story that using the device promises.
**NOTE** **THE EARLY TOUCHSCREENS FLOPPED**
**If you ever used a Palm Pilot or Treo phone, you'll recall how difficult it was to use a touchscreen without a stylus. It was hard to tap the right touch target on a screen, and there was a delay in the system giving you feedback that you just pressed something. It was easy to get lost from screen to screen and equally difficult to navigate around the system. Palm Pilots and touchscreen smartphones were a novel idea, but they didn't have a huge market, nor were they in high demand. They simply weren't easy to use, and that wasn't a very good story.**
### **Mapping a Concept Story**
There are a few different times you might want to map out a concept story for your product. For example, let's say you are working on a brand new product or feature. You could map out a concept story in order to brainstorm or define your product from scratch. Or you could map the story out in order to assess whether or not an existing idea was any good or could possibly engage your target audience.
Let's say you're not working on an entirely new product, but are instead working on a marketing strategy, user flow, app, or website for an existing product (more in Chapters 4 and ). In that case, before you got deep in the weeds, you would first map out a concept story so that you and your team fully understood what your product was, as well as its core value proposition. Doing so would help you ensure that those elements were incorporated and communicated in each and every story you mapped out thereafter.
In order to map out your concept story, you must answer these questions by plotting them onto your narrative arc.
• **Exposition:** The current state of things:
• Who is your target customer?
• What's good in her world as it relates to your product or service?
• What is her big goal as it relates to your product or service?
• **Inciting Incident/Problem:**
• What is her problem or pain point?
• **Rising Action:** The name of the product
• What is the name of your product?
• What type of product is it?
• **Crisis:** The competition
• What does the competition look like?
• What mental hurdles might keep her from adopting your solution?
• **Climax/Resolution:** The value
• What will help her resolve her problem _and_ overcome a crisis moment or resistance?
• What's your product's primary value proposition or differentiator?
• **Falling Action:** The takeaway
• What do you want people to think, feel, or envision after learning about your product?
• **End:**
• What happens when the user meets her goal?
• This is where the business meets a high-level goal or fulfills its mission, too. What's the business goal? How will you know you're on the right path?
As you can see with the Slack concept story, much like with the first iPhone, there is always a simple solution to every story, which can look like a straight line. People want to communicate and collaborate? So give them a better communication and collaboration tool. However, while you might want to design solutions that are simply _better_ than whatever else is out there, "better" isn't always enough. Having a product be "simple" isn't always the most compelling or motivating story.
With Slack, you see something that maps out well within a structurally sound story. The company could have built an online messaging platform instead that was "easier to use" than email, for example. Often, clients and stakeholders on projects ask—what's our requirement? Make it "easy to use!" Or what's the problem? "Oh, our product is difficult to use." But "easy to use" is a pretty boring story when difficulty isn't really the problem.
**An Example: Slack**
Here's how you would map out the concept story for the online collaboration tool, Slack (see Figure 3.7). _The answers to the questions are in italics._
• **Exposition:** The current state of things
• Who is your target customer? _Busy professionals_
• What's good in their world as it relates to your product or service? _Communication and collaboration at work is easier and happening more than ever before. They've got more tools to get their job done—i.e., email, Twitter, Facebook, SMS, instant messaging, video chat, online project management software with built-in messaging—a plethora of ways to get in touch, stay in touch, communicate, share, and collaborate with their team._
• What is their general goal as it relates to your product or service? _To communicate and collaborate with a group of people._
• **Inciting Incident/Problem:**
• What is their problem or pain point? _Communication and collaboration is a pain. While it's easier and more accessible than ever, it's still difficult to keep track of everything or keep it all in one place. This means that what should be easier ends up being harder, wasting their time and money._
• **Rising Action:** The name of the product
• What is the name of your product? _Slack._
• What type of a product is it? _An online collaboration tool._
• **Crisis:** The competition
• What does the competition look like? _Free online services like Gmail or IM. Existing services that people might already pay for like Basecamp. There's a very long list here._
• What mental hurdles might keep them from adopting your solution? _What, sign up for another online service? Ack. No._
• **Climax/Resolution:** The value
• What will help them solve their problem and overcome a crisis moment or resistance? What's your product's primary value proposition or differentiator? _Unlike the competition, Slack is a one-stop solution. Have your communication in one place. And the best part: they can access it all anywhere, anytime, from their desktop, web browser, phone, or tablet._
• **Falling Action:** The takeaway
• What do you want people to think, feel, or envision after learning about your product? _They imagine themselves using Slack with their teammates...and maybe never using email again. That would be cool._
• **End:**
• This is where the users meet their goal. _To communicate and collaborate with a group of people._
• Oh, and it's where the business meets its high-level goal, too. What's the business goal? _Broadly, to help people better communicate and collaborate with a group._
**FIGURE 3.7**
**The concept story for Slack. This is both the story that people hear when they hear about Slack through newspaper articles or word of mouth, as well as the story they remember once they start using the product and experience its value.**
In fact, plenty of products aren't _easy to use_ , but they have such a solid concept story behind them that customers _love_ them. When you build a concept story using this framework, it requires you to meticulously assess and identify the root of a user or potential customer's problem so that you can effectively design a solution that not only gets people excited, but also maps out how their brains see the world.
### **Finding the Concept Story at FitCounter**
**NOTE** **FICTION THY NAME IS FITCOUNTER**
**"The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent."**
**Although FitCounter is based on my own experiences with real companies and clients, it is solely a product of my imagination. It is _not_ a real company, nor a real product. However, as a case study throughout the book, I will write it as if FitCounter were a real company, using details and facts that might make it seem real.**
When I first started working with FitCounter, a health and fitness start-up, it had a really great idea and a noble, if not vague, mission: to help people get up-to-the-minute information and news about fitness, sports, and training. Initially, it started out as a Web and mobile-based fitness and workout tracker to help customers track their runs and workouts, but unfortunately it didn't have much success in an already saturated market. FitCounter did, however, produce these great, little, timely exercise, fitness, and health-related videos that people loved. Anytime there was a new trend in fitness, they were on it.
The year before I started working with the company, it decided to realign its tracking tool and revenue model around a new approach: FitCounter would become a content provider, and hopefully, people would sign up and pay for access to its content. Some people signed up, but very few people paid. Things were not looking good.
The problem was that while the free videos got lots of traffic and views, very few website visitors signed up to become members, and even fewer of the members paid for premium access. Although many video content providers, such as YouTube or CNN, use advertising to build revenue from free content, advertising was not an option in this case. The board and investors did not want the business to get into advertising. Software as a service—that's what we were asked to build, not an ad-driven content platform.
If you're at all confused about this business model, imagine how confused website and app store visitors were. They didn't understand what the product was, why they should sign up, and what paying for a service would get them. The business was pursuing a freemium _software as a service_ revenue model, where you try a product out for free at first, love it so much that you use it a lot, and then either pay to be able to use it more frequently or to unlock premium features or services.
But while the business saw a product that people could use, visitors just saw content. And visitors expected this content to be free, like the content they could find on YouTube. Why pay for access when there was probably a decent alternative out there that was free? We had to figure out how to engage users so that they would not only use the product, but also see the value in it and eventually upgrade. If we couldn't figure this out, the business would fail.
What we needed, we eventually learned, was a story—to drive the business, the team, and our potential customers. Actually, we needed a _concept story._
The story of FitCounter is a perfect example of making the story fit the users. While FitCounter had a hard time acquiring _new_ users, it did have a core group of devoted, paying customers—we called them "superfans." They _loved_ the product. But, in all honesty, we didn't understand why they loved the product. These superfans logged in to the Web and mobile apps several times per week and spent lots of time using them. We hoped we could—at the risk of sounding completely megalomaniacal and creepy—engineer more superfans like them.
But in order to do so, we needed to fully understand who they were, what their pain points were, what they did with the product, how it solved their problems, and why they loved it. We knew that talking to customers was the first step toward solving this puzzle.
However, what we found when talking to these customers surprised us.
After listening to our customers, testing hypotheses, and drafting and redrafting stories, we eventually realized that FitCounter's concept story looked something like this (see Figure 3.8).
• **Exposition:** The main characters are active, tech-savvy self-starters. Their general goals are to get or stay fit, and they are visual learners who like to use training plans to do so. They love video for fitness training because they can _see_ how to do something and follow along as they try out different exercises.
• **Inciting Incident/Problem:** It's hard to find good video training plans because many of them are cookie-cutter applications and not applicable to what customers need to learn or their level. Sometimes, customers come up with their own training plans or work with a trainer to write one, but those plans aren't visual. They often find how-to or training videos on YouTube and make training playlists that way, but the quality is low and the effort is high.
• **Rising Action:** FitCounter is an online training platform that people can use to find good-looking, high-quality fitness videos and playlists, package this content into their own training plans, and share them with others.
• **Crisis:** Is it worth it to go through the effort to use this product to make the training plans? Should they go back to producing their plans manually by scouring YouTube for free videos?
• **Climax/Resolution:** The training plans they create look great—in fact, way better than what they could produce or find on YouTube. And they can personalize them and tailor them for their needs/level. The training plans are made of bite-sized videos that customers can easily fit into a regimen, and they are also easy to share and can be accessed anytime on the go.
• **Falling Action:** Customers see the value in using FitCounter and how it fits into their lives.
• **End:** They can see themselves using the product to get or stay fit and want to try it out.
**FIGURE 3.8**
**The concept story that we gleaned from talking to customers that illustrated how FitCounter fit into people's lives.**
What we had here was a solid story for a concept for a product—one that we tested by talking to customers, running ads, and measuring with customer feedback, clicks, and eventually acquisition funnels that manifested different facets of this story. At the conceptual level, a product that embodied this particular story was something that people wanted and would pay for.
But this was not the concept behind our current product. That product, again, was video news about health and fitness. It was basically a way to watch exercise videos so that you could get fit. You could watch the videos, save the videos, and you had to pay to access more videos. And sharing was difficult. Finding content? Also difficult because the product was now structured more like a blog with posts, archives, and categories. It wasn't organized around helping people create or share training plans.
Could we, perhaps, build an actual product around this concept? And was this something that people would _actually_ use and pay for? For that, we needed an origin story.
## CHAPTER 4
**Origin Stories**
**What Is an Origin Story?**
**How Origin Stories Work**
**Mapping an Origin Story**
**Case Study: Slack**
**Case Study: FitCounter's Origin Story**
**"The character must for some reason feel compelled to act, effecting some change..."**
**—John Gardner,**
** _The Art of Fiction_**
In 2011, I got an email inviting me to join the social bookmarking site, Pinterest (see Figure 4.1). The email wasn't pretty. The copy wasn't mind-blowing. Still, this email caught my attention. It called me to action and helped me become a converted and dedicated Pinterest user within a few minutes. This email was an integral part of my _origin story_ , or the story of how I started using Pinterest to do things like decorate, cook, and garden.
**FIGURE 4.1**
**An invitation to join Pinterest.**
While this might not seem earth shattering, this is the origin story that 100 million people around the world have with Pinterest, one of the fastest-growing social networks at the time. How did an otherwise innocuous-seeming email convert so many people? In order to understand how, you need to understand how origin stories function.
### **What Is an Origin Story?**
An origin story is the story of how someone becomes your customer for the first time—it's how that person goes from hearing about your product to actually using it. For you, it occupies the space between how you market a product and design the actual product itself. For your customer, it occupies the space between what they _think_ about your product and what they _do_ with your product.
As such, an origin story acts as a bridge between your _concept story_ and your _usage story_ —bridging the gap between the concept of a product or service and the actual usage of it. It's where and when potential customers not only _see_ what they can do with a product, but also how they can take an action with it.
Let's look at how the Pinterest email worked to create my personal origin story. First, the subject line of the email was pretty straightforward: "Check out my stuff on Pinterest." Next, in the body of the email, I could see that it was sent on behalf of my partner, Erica. The copy read:
**"Hi,**
**I set up a Pinterest profile where I can share the things I like and I want you to follow me so you can see it! Once you join Pinterest, you'll be able to create your own collections and share your taste.**
**Thanks,**
**Erica"**
Finally, there was a link I could click to sign up, which I did without hesitation. But why was I so eager to sign up? A few key words in the email resonated with me and supported what could be my story if I signed up.
Here is the origin story broken down into the story format of a Pinterest user like me, as shown in Figure 4.2:
• **Exposition:** I love to cook and am redesigning my living room. I collect and share things like recipes and home decor inspiration by reading blogs, using my browser bookmarks, emailing them to others, and occasionally tweeting or posting to Facebook.
• **Problem:** Collecting and sharing is a pain. I can never find things after I've saved them. And bookmarking and sharing is typically text-based, whereas home décor and food are visual, so it's hard to find things after I've saved them.
• **Rising Action:** I get an email invitation to join Pinterest. So I joined. What did I have to lose?
• **Crisis:** What? Another thing to sign up for? I already have ways to collect and share things. Maybe I should rethink this?
• **Climax/Resolution:** Someone wants to share something visual with me! It's visual! And social! It sounds simple, but this is a very big deal. All the email has to do is say these two words, and I'm sold: share and see.
• **Falling Action:** I sign up.
• **End:** I collect and share something. I get to experience how awesome this thing is. I'm hooked!
**FIGURE 4.2**
**The origin story of how someone becomes a Pinterest user.**
**NOTE** **CREATING SUPERHEROES**
**Life is a story. And in this story, you are the hero. If your customers are the heroes in their stories using your product, then just like comic book superheroes, they get an origin story—that's the story of how they became a hero for the _very first_ time.**
Origin stories like the one that included the Pinterest email can be that simple: a few lines of copy in an email that help the business grow astronomically. Apparently, I'm not the only one who wants to collect and share visual things. Are you really going to go out and build the next Pinterest? Probably not. Can you really credit Pinterest's email strategy and design for its explosive growth and new user acquisition at the time? Of course not. Many factors play into precipitous and even viral growth like this, such as word of mouth, press coverage, or paid advertising.
But what you can do is reverse-engineer an origin story framework by looking at successful products and how and why they acquired users. Then you can consciously engineer, build, and test an origin story for your own product or project.
### **How Origin Stories Work**
Origin stories operate much like concept stories. The biggest difference is that where a concept story helps you define your product and its value proposition, the origin story helps you figure out how to communicate your value proposition, get people to take action, and get your customer to experience that value proposition for the very first time. You'll even notice that because your origin story relies so heavily on elements you uncover and outline in your concept story, you can reuse some of the plot points.
Origin stories generally work like this (see Figure 4.3):
• **Exposition:** The current state of things (same as your concept story)
• **Inciting Incident/Problem:** The problem or emotional trigger (same as your concept story)
• **Rising Action:** The acquisition channels
• **Crisis:** The resistance or impediments that the user experiences
• **Climax/Resolution:** Why the user cares
• **Falling Action:** The user takes some kind of action
• **End:** The goal met—the end...for now
**FIGURE 4.3**
**The mechanics of an origin story.**
#### **Exposition**
During the exposition, you're introduced to the world of the character or user. You find out who the user is and what he wants (his big goal). What does he need to do?
**NOTE** **YOU'RE NOT SEEING DOUBLE (OR TRIPLE)**
**The material in the exposition is the same in all three stories: origin, concept, and usage.**
#### **Inciting Incident/Problem**
The inciting incident is the problem or need that your user has. This might be a problem she knows she has, or one that you need to show her that she has. Both of them are valid. And most likely, it's a problem that she usually solves through other means.
**Concept Stories vs. Origin Stories**
Where concept stories describe why someone might want to use a product, origin stories illustrate how they find it and then why and how they use it for the very first time. _A concept story is big picture, while an origin story starts to get tactical._ Additionally, an origin story provides a complete story for your users with a beginning, middle, and end.
#### **Rising Action**
Your rising action is represented by your acquisition or brand awareness channels—for example, how your customer hears about or finds your product. The rising action occurs when your story starts transforming from conceptual to something more like a journey with actual events. Here, your customer might find your product in a variety of ways:
• Hears about your product or service from a friend through word of mouth
• Does a Google search
• Sees an advertisement on TV
• Reads a tweet, Facebook, or other social media post
• Receives an email
#### **Crisis**
At the crisis point, the conflict and tension start to build. You might have uncovered potential crises when you developed your concept story. If so, consider and include them here.
Remember, conflict and tension are good; they make stories more enjoyable and satisfying for the person experiencing the story, whether they are watching a movie or even becoming a customer. If there is no tension, then your solution is probably not very exciting.
In origin stories, much like concept stories, these crisis moments will most likely happen in people's heads as they think about why they shouldn't take some kind of action. Or the crisis moment might be something that you uncover and want to avoid, like confusing copy on your website or in an email. Think about your customer's journey. What might get in the customer's way or what hurdles might she face? These hurdles can include the following:
• Competitor products or brands
• Other solutions (like doing things themselves or analog solutions)
• General resistance to trying something new or taking action
• Fears surrounding safety or security
#### **Climax/Resolution**
In a concept story, the climax occurs when your customer _understands_ the value of a product; in an origin story, it happens when the user _sees_ the value of a product. (As you'll see in the next chapter, the climax of a usage story is where the user _experiences_ the value of a product.) The user doesn't solve her problem yet or meet her goals, but she sees that she can use your product to do so.
Because this is now an actual step in her journey, you need to consider carefully where this happens. Where do you want her to land after she first hears about you or heads out on her journey? This is the point when all of your story engineering manifests into some kind of interface, whether it be digital, print, or even a customer service script that a salesperson will communicate over the phone. If digital, you've got a few moments at best to grab someone's attention and make him care. These can take place in a variety of ways:
• Home pages
• Landing pages
• App Store pages
• Brick and mortar stores
• Calling a phone number
• And a plethora of other key touchpoints
#### **Falling Action**
What then? She just saw that she can solve her problem by using your product. What do you want her to do now? You'll want to consider one primary action that you ideally want people to take—a _happy_ _path_ , if you will—but also consider and plan for multiple actions and potentially branching paths. Broadly, you've talked to your customers, looked at your analytics and funnel traffic, and parsed your stories from all of the data, so what primary action do you want this person to take once she is sold on using your product?
Is there a secondary action she might take? You might want her to sign up for something, but what if she just wants to get more information instead? No matter what the action is, this is the point at which you not only want her to take an action, but you also have to get her to experience some kind of value. Nothing says "not coming back" like a sign-up form that takes you to a "thank you" page.
Think like a storyteller. How can this episode come to a close in a way that satisfies both your customer and the business? You don't need to go into too much detail for the falling action. What you might find is that the falling action is probably its own story that warrants closer inspection (more on that in the next chapter).
Here are some common falling actions, each of which merits its own story:
• Try out a demo
• Sign up for an account
• Learn more
• Call a phone number
#### **End**
This is where she meets her goals. It's also where the business meets its key goals. The key to developing successful origin stories is that you call your main character to action and determine how to measure that action once they acquire their goal and in every step that leads to the end.
### **Mapping an Origin Story**
After you've drafted a concept story, you're ready to start working on an origin story. Draft an origin story in any project where you are trying to figure out how to acquire or convert customers. Marketing strategies, landing pages, even something as specific as naming buttons and calls to actions all benefit from a clear and structurally sound origin story.
Map an origin story for any and all of your markets, personas, or customer behavior types that you are targeting, as well as the key touchpoints and acquisition funnels you need to explore. For example, the story of how a customer type finds your home page, landing page, or app through a Google search? Map out that story. The story of what happens after someone sees your TV advertisement or Facebook ad and then decides to buy or try your product out? That also gets a story. That home page that isn't converting enough new users? Map out that story, too. Chances are, there is a cliffhanger in there that you can identify and troubleshoot.
When mapping out an origin story, you want to ask yourself these questions:
• **Exposition:** The current state of things (same as your concept story)
• Who is your target customer?
• What's good in his world as it relates to your product or service?
• What is his goal as it relates to your product or service?
• **Inciting Incident:** The problem or emotional trigger (same as your concept story)
• What is his problem or pain point?
• **Rising Action:** The acquisition channels
• How might people hear about your product? How does this path toward discovery relate to their pain point? Acquisition channels and paths can include things like:
• Hears about your product or service from a friend
• Does a Google search
• Sees an advertisement on TV
• Reads a Tweet, Facebook, or other social media post
• Receives an email
• **Crisis:** The resistance or impediments that the user experiences
• What might get in their way or what hurdles might they face?
• **Climax/Resolution:** Why the user cares
• Where do you want users to land after they first hear about you and head out on their journey? These can be places like:
• Home pages
• Landing pages
• App Store pages
• Brick and mortar store
• Calling a phone number
• This is the point when someone lands on a critical screen or step in his discovery process. How will you get him to care about what you have to show him? What parts of your story will you show him to make what he sees resonate? This is the point when all of your story engineering manifests into some kind of interface, whether it be digital, print, or even a customer service script. If digital, you've got a few moments at best to grab someone's attention and make him care.
• **Falling Action:** The user takes some kind of action
• What action do you want him to take at this point in time?
• Try out a demo
• Sign up for an account
• Learn more
• Call a phone number
• **End:** The user meets his goal
• What is the user goal?
• What is the high-level business goal or mission? It should be something that is measurable (see Chapter 7).
• How will the user know he has met this goal?
**NOTE** **WHO OWNS THE STORY?**
**For this reason, origin stories are where marketing, sales, business development, and advertising intersect with product design, and development. Uncovering and enabling a great origin story is not the job of one person or department, but rather an interdisciplinary, cross-functional effort.**
### **Case Study: Slack**
Here's how an origin story might map for a product like Slack, the online collaboration tool outlined in the previous chapter (see Figure 4.4)—the answers are in italics.
• **Exposition:** The current state of things (same as your concept story)
• Who is your target customer? _Busy professionals_
• What's good in her world as it relates to your product or service? _Communication and collaboration at work is easier and happening more than ever before. They've got more tools to get their job done—for example, email, Twitter, instant messaging._
• What is her general goal as it relates to your product or service? _To be in touch with her team._
**FIGURE 4.4**
**Slack's origin story, reverse-engineered.**
• **Inciting Incident:** The problem or emotional trigger (same as your concept story)
• What is her problem or pain point? _Communication and collaboration is a pain. While it's more accessible than ever, it's difficult to keep track of everything. This means that what should be easier, ends up being harder, wasting your time and money._
• **Rising Action:** How can she find you or the acquisition channels?
• What event or events will happen that maps out onto this pain point? _Hears about your product or service from a friend._
• **Climax:** Why should she care?
• Where do you want your customer to land after she first hears about you and heads out on her journey? _Home page_
• How will you get her to care about what you have to show her? What parts of your story will you show her to make what she sees resonate? _On their home page, Slack literally spells it all out for you (seeFigure 4.5): "Slack is a platform for team communication: everything in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go." In case you don't read (what? never!), no worries, you can see photos of people like you using the product._
**FIGURE 4.5**
**Slack's home page spells out its value proposition, which is the high point of this origin story.**
• **Falling Action:** The user takes some kind of action
• What action do you want her to take at this point in time? _You want her to sign up._
• **End:**
• This is where she meets her goal: _to communicate and collaborate with a group of people._
• How will you measure success? _The increased percentage of new sign-ups? The total amount of registered users? Both are valid, but it's important that you choose one as your marker for success._
If you haven't signed up for Slack or joined an existing Slack group, I highly recommend trying it out. Much like Pinterest, it is a great example of story architecture that doesn't end with a simple sign-up flow and a bored user. Falling action, in the case of Slack, works as its own little story, because a new user is introduced to the concept, prompted to try things out and interact with the service, and sees the value and outcome of what she signed up for. Much like Pinterest, she doesn't just get the promise of communicating, but she actually does it. As with a usage story that you'll learn about in Chapter 5, "Usage Stories," she not only _sees_ the value, but also _experiences_ it. Just like a good story.
### **Case Study: FitCounter's Origin Story**
At FitCounter, the concept story was something we stumbled upon during research. We initially thought the company was in the business of producing short, up-to-the-minute exercise and fitness videos, essentially maintaining a blog and directory of content. But the business couldn't figure out how to make money off this model without selling advertising, which was not an option. Most people were not signing up for new accounts, nor were they paying for premium content. But what we did know was that a core group of devoted (and paying) customers had a universal story: with FitCounter, they could get fit and stay fit.
#### **Refocusing Our Vision**
Once we identified this concept story, it helped us refocus our strategic vision and fully understand what the product was and could be for customers and potential customers. This simple story helped us develop, adapt, and reconfigure our product roadmap to align with it. As a strategic vision, the story was most valuable because it provided us with a foundation on top of which we could build the product anew. The product the way it was built before was mostly unsalvageable. We had to, shudder, redesign it.
Typically, I stay away from big product, website, or software redesigns because they are costly, take too much time, and are too risky. For example, what if you relaunch, and you were wrong about something? Next thing you know, data shows that you're not meeting your goals—or worse yet, performing worse than before—and the product needs to be fixed all over again.
In this case, however, we decided to redesign the product because it didn't feel as risky as it could have been. After all, we had a story, and it was a good story that a core set of passionate customers had uncovered for us. Plus, it was a story that we had tested and validated with a new set of potential customers to make sure that we were on the right track.
Our concept story helped us find a strategic vision and direction, as well as feeling more confident about our overall direction and product market fit. But even though redesigning the product felt less risky, it was still risky. It would take months, all of our budget, and we could fail, which would mean going out of business.
#### **Testing Our New Vision**
To mitigate this risk, we decided to build, prototype, and test our new story in a tangible way so that we could validate it on a larger scale than with small in-person tests. If our superfans found value in what they could do with this product, we hoped that this story would resonate with a larger group of people.
After conducting a series of small tests, like running Facebook ads to see what people clicked on and radio ads to see what drove new customers en masse, we felt confident enough to start our redesign with the smallest body of work that would give us the highest impact: redesigning the product's home page. We wanted to see if we could utilize our concept story to increase our conversion rate and get more people to sign up for the service. We didn't care about them paying to upgrade to premium at this point; we just wanted to know if they would sign up. Could this be a viable ending to a potential customer's origin story?
If our home page experiment worked, we would see if we could engineer our story into everything from branding and identity to marketing and messaging, to content strategy and product strategy, as well as the actual product itself. While doing all of that was still risky, it would be less risky knowing that the story was validated on our home page. And if we couldn't validate this story on our home page, we would figure out Plan B. But we didn't think too hard about that because we were confident in what we were about to do.
#### **The Plan**
With our concept story in hand, we set out to map our origin story and build the front door to an online training platform that communicated everything our superfans told us they needed. This platform would help people train and get fit. This product was no longer a way to watch videos about the newest, shiniest running trend. Instead, it was a way to learn how to train yourself or others for something like running a marathon. Before we could build a product that did that, we needed to communicate to a new set of visitors what they _could_ do with this product if they signed up to use it. For that, we drafted an origin story.
What we needed to determine at this stage of product development was the following information:
• **How would potential users (we called them** _**visitors**_ **until they signed up) find us?** In other words, what were all the possible channels and touchpoints where they could first access us? For example, did they find us through word of mouth and direct traffic to our home page or an App Store landing page? Did they look for something specific in a search engine and first encounter the product by landing on a lower-tier video page? All of the above? What else? We outlined all of the journeys and scenarios we could think of.
• **What value should we communicate at each of these points of entry?** Whatever we previously communicated either didn't work to get people using the product or if it did, it just confused them afterward. We decided to tell people directly why this thing was awesome. Plain English. Or maybe other languages? Evaluating channels would help us figure that part out.
• **What affordances should we show?** For example, what should people see that they could do with the product? (And we didn't just mean buttons, although buttons might be a solution for calls to action.)
• **How should this first-time encounter story end?** People knowing what they could do with a product wouldn't save the business. We needed to figure out what the first action would be that we needed them to take. Did we want them to sign up, use the product, convert to premium, or all of the above? Each ending had a different strategy associated with it and we needed to consider them all.
#### **The Cliffhanger**
In order to answer these questions and determine our origin story (or stories), we started by looking at some quantitative data. We involved our SEO team and analyzed search engine queries and traffic so that we could see what kinds of keywords people searched for when they first found us. We also looked at our Web analytics. Did people find us through word of mouth and go directly to our home page? Or did they find us through Google or social media sharing? We needed to identify the stories our data was telling us. Were new users having experiences with our product that meshed with the stories we heard from our superfans?
Luckily, the data substantiated what our superfans told us: most of our visitors found us by searching Google. Instead of wanting to find out things like who won the NYC marathon (like we initially thought), they were searching for things like "how to train for a marathon." We also saw this trend in our internal Web and mobile analytics. By far, the most highly consumed content was training related, not news or special interest. People were using the product to train, but the product never told them they could do so. _We needed to change that._
The story that our data showed us was that while our superfans had a complete story with our product—one with a beginning, middle, end, inciting incident, climax, etc.—our data illustrated an incomplete story. Here's how the origin story played out for someone finding the home page for the first time (see Figure 4.6):
• **Exposition:** People want to train themselves or someone else, and they prefer to replace or just supplement the in-person interaction with online training.
• **Inciting Incident/Problem:** Making high-quality training videos or finding them on YouTube and then compiling them into a series is a pain. There must be a better way.
• **Rising Action:** They find the FitTracker on Google by searching for something like "how to train for a 5k" or "fitness training."
• **Crisis:** They go to the home page, and don't see what they're looking for, so they bounce. Instead of seeing something that tells visitors that they can use this product for fitness training, they see a website that asks you to sign up to get up-to-the-minute news on sports, fitness, training, and exercise.
As you can see, this story is a cliffhanger, because it ends at the moment of crisis near the top of the arc.
**FIGURE 4.6**
**The FitCounter cliffhanger: people signed up, but rarely used the product.**
This cliffhanger appeared in other origin stories, too. Like the one with the email invitation as the rising action. Or the one that took place in the Apple App Store. Or the one that happened when someone would come across a single video page, watch a video, and leave. All cliffhangers. We needed to complete this origin story, not just for the business, but also for our potential customers. Without a complete story, the goals weren't being met.
#### **The Story**
Based on our customer interviews and quantitative data analysis, we hypothesized that potential customers wanted online fitness training. And we knew that we could offer that if we redesigned the product. But we just needed to make sure that we were on the right track, starting with how a potential customer would first convert to being a registered user. Just like a superhero.
What we needed to design for was an origin story that looked more like what you see in Figure 4.7 and let people do these things:
• **Climax/Resolution:** I see that I can use FitCounter to get and stay fit. In particular, with FitCounter, I can get personalized training plans that utilize bite-sized, high-quality videos. I can train on my own time, anywhere, and do so alone or with others.
• **Falling Action:** Sign up to try it out.
• **End:** Get fit (and help others get fit).
Unlike before, our story was now complete. The story contains all of the values and high points that we outlined in our concept story based on what our superfans told us. Our hope with this was that if people experienced a story like this, the first-time encounter with the product wouldn't be a cliffhanger for them or for the business. Once we had a clear idea of what our origin story was, we set out to redesign the home page so that visitors not only knew what to think about our product, but also what they could do with it. As you can imagine, this is when our marketing, product, and design teams all became best friends as we aligned toward a single vision and a single story.
**FIGURE 4.7**
**An ideal (and climactic, we hoped) origin story for FitCounter.**
#### **The Solution**
Outlining an origin story is only the first step toward building a path to discovery and conversion (or whatever your goal might be on a given project). We needed the home page to embody this origin story. And then we needed visitors to experience this story. Much like any design project, we set out to build a new home page and measure its success. We wanted to see if potential customers' words (we would test designs out in-person with potential users) and actions (in this case, clicks and conversion rates) mapped out to an origin story that we heard and believed could happen for more people than just our superfans.
As you can see in Figure 4.8, the content for the former home page tells you that you could "sign up" and "stay up-to-date on all things training and fitness." But, as we now knew, this is something that very few people want or need to do. What you can see instead in Figure 4.9 is a schematic for a home page that embodies a different story for a visitor. It literally spells out what they can do with it: "Get fit, stay fit, and start training."
**FIGURE 4.8**
**A rough outline of the former home page.**
**FIGURE 4.9**
**An ideal (and climactic, we hoped) origin story for FitCounter (the new rendition).**
In addition to clearly communicating what visitors could do with the product, as well as its value propositions, it echoed this story with testimonials from our...you guessed it: superfans. Our marketing and content teams wrote words that communicated a story, and we collectively chose our users' words so that they could tell their own stories of how they got fit using FitCounter. As a visitor, you could now see what your story might be: get fit, stay fit.
#### **The Results**
This home page is not perfect, and it is something that the business still tests and iterates today, but as we found out, it was a pretty great start. Good enough to get 40% more people to click on the sign-up button than before, which is something we had never been able to do previously. And we did that by building around an origin story that we first heard from our customers and then repeated for a broader set of people. We built this page story-first, as opposed to being built on best guesses and intuition. Finally, our site resonated with people.
In this case, qualitative and quantitative data were essential in diagnosing, understanding, and hypothesizing FitCounter's origin story. We didn't just listen to our superfans and build what they told us. Rather, we saw their stories echoed in our analytics as we looked at usage data, traffic patterns, and funnels. We heard a story from our superfans, posited it as an _educated_ guess (hypothesis informed by real life data), then prototyped it, and tested it to see how it performed.
We also used the origin story to determine requirements that supported the story (more in Chapter 7). For example, we outlined that the home page needed to do these things:
• Include photos of people doing things that matched our primary persona's behavior, using materials we gathered during our initial research when we found our concept story. These were regular people who wanted to get fit or stay fit, not professional athletes with already toned and chiseled bodies. It was important that the imagery be identifiable but obtainable.
• Communicate persona goals as something attainable: they could get fit or help others train and get fit.
• Clearly articulate what our target personas could do with the product. The page's primary call to action should reflect what they _could do_. Visitors rarely sign up for a product or service as a goal in life. The call to action like "start training" maps to the potential users' origin story, whereas "sign up" does not.
• Search engine optimization: now that we had a better idea of what people could use our product for, we could optimize for queries like "fitness training" or "how to train for a marathon."
We also used the framework of an origin story to plan for, design, build, and test ideas for many different contexts, user types, channels, and paths with similar results. We drafted origin stories and requirements for journeys involving the App Store, deep-linked back doors (directly to video content), social media sharing, paid advertising, and email invites. We also drafted and tested origin stories for different types of personas to make sure we accounted for different goals. We even used our master origin story as the foundation of a radio ad that performed extremely well. In developing a product with a solid story structure, not only did we make new customers happy, but we also made our ad agency happy.
We went not just story-first, but story-crazy. In the best possible way.
And for good reason: it worked. Building story-first helped us figure out what we were as a concept and how we fit into our users' lives upon first contact. Not only could we better understand what the product was, but we also knew what the story of someone discovering and seeing potential in _using_ a product could be.
But as we knew would happen, without a fully fleshed out product behind the front door of the home page (or any of the other back doors), our origin story was incomplete. In other words, we finally validated that people would sign up to use a training platform. But once they signed up and tried the product, they didn't complete their journey.
Instead of getting fit or giving the product a test run and seeing that they could potentially get fit if they kept on using it, they struggled to use the product. Behind the front door, the product was still a platform for getting up-to-the-minute news on fitness and training. We solved our first crisis and resulting cliffhanger of people not signing up, but we now had a new one to solve: how to build an online training platform that let people get fit or train others and help them get fit. For that, we moved onto _usage stories_.
## CHAPTER 5
**Usage Stories**
**What Is a Usage Story?**
**How Usage Stories Work**
**Case Study: Twitter**
**Mapping the Usage Story**
**How Big Should Your Story Be?**
**Case Study: FitCounter**
**"The same core features appear in the rules of narratives and in the memories of colonoscopies, vacations, and films."**
**—Daniel Kahneman,**
** _Thinking Fast And Slow_**
In the 1970s, researchers conducted a series of experiments on how humans experience pain. Their subjects were patients who underwent colonoscopies. While the technology and overall procedure is now less painful than it used to be, back then it was not just unpleasant, but extremely painful. What the researchers wanted to know was if the _duration_ of a procedure affected the overall experience. In other words, if a painful procedure was twice as long, did a patient consider it to be twice as painful? Or if it was half as long, was it half as painful? The researchers learned that while duration plays a slight role, other factors play a bigger role in shaping experience: peaks and ends.
The researchers used self-reporting mechanisms to record how patients felt both during and after the procedure. Test subjects were asked to rate their pain level on a scale from 1 to 10 on regular intervals, 1 being the least and 10 being the most painful. After the procedure, they were then asked how it was overall and how likely they were to choose to have the procedure again in the future. Researchers assumed that the more painful and longer the procedure, the less likely a subject would want to repeat it.
It turns out, however, that if two patients rated their pain level as consistently high throughout the procedure, the patient with the shorter procedure was no more or less likely to rate it differently than the other patient. Both rated it as awful and were not likely to want to repeat it. If a patient experienced extreme pain for three quarters of the way through the experience and then felt that pain gradually ease until the procedure ended without pain, the results were drastically different. That particular patient was more likely to rate the overall pain level as being lower than the other patients. And these patients were also more likely to say that they would have this procedure in the future.
What researchers extrapolated from this and other studies like it is that humans remember, not duration, but rather the peak of an experience and whatever happened closest to the end. This phenomenon is called the _peak-end rule_ (see Figure 5.1). A peak can be painful, as in the case of a colonoscopy, or it can be enjoyable as with a vacation, a film, or—gasp—the experience you have using a website, app, product, or service. Everything—even the experience you have when you use billpay through your bank's website or app—is a story. It's up to you as someone who designs or builds things to determine if that story is going to be a good one or not.
**FIGURE 5.1**
**The peak-end rule not at all coincidentally mirrors the structure of a narrative arc.**
As Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who worked on this study, points out, there is a reason why our brains have evolved to give shape to how we comprehend and communicate experiences. There is no such thing as an _actual_ experience. All you have are moments in time. A moment ago? It's already gone. The moment you took to read this sentence is already gone by the time you reach the end of the sentence. Time is fleeting. All you have is the memory of events that happened in time and the ability to stitch together and parse meaning from those data-points into a coherent narrative.
This real-time processing is what sets apart humans from other animals. The foundation of this cognitive function is story. And story has structure. Story is how you make sense of the world around you—before, during, and after an experience. When you consume a story, whether it involves listening to a story or parsing life as a story in real time, your brain is activated. If what you just experienced maps out to a narrative structure, with a beginning, hook, middle, peak, and end, it maps out to how your brain is pre-programmed to understand the experience. When you experience something like a story, it affects comprehension, utility, perception of usability, memory, and choice. In other words, you're more likely to understand something, see it as useful, find it easier to comprehend or use, remember what you just experienced, and want to repeat the experience again. Even painful medical procedures. Or sign-up flows.
### **What Is a Usage Story?**
Usage stories are exactly what they sound like: the story of someone using your product or service—step by step. It's the actual steps that make up the story for your user, plot point by plot point. The steps in a usage story can involve screens, if you're working on a screen-based website, app, or software. Or the steps can be things that happen outside of the screen if you're working on something that is entirely non-screen-based, such as an experience strategy for a university welcome center.
More than likely, anything you build a usage story for will be a combination of screen and non-screen-based steps. For example, that university welcome center might have screen-based kiosks that help visitors find what they're looking for, as well as signage and other affordances—oh, and humans who might hang out at a service desk. That app you're building might have a user flow with steps that take place outside of the screen, such as when a customer calls customer service for help. It is essential to consider usage stories within their broader context of who, what, when, where, and why someone is doing something. And, of course, it is essential to consider, assess, and plan for the intended story of use. Plot point by plot point.
### **How Usage Stories Work**
You can employ usage stories to figure out how to structure journeys, long and short. A usage story can take place over a period of seconds, minutes, days, weeks, or years. They help you figure not what a customer should think about your product or how they find your product, but how and why he will use, experience value in using, and continue to use your product in one sitting or over time.
Just as with concept and origin stories, your usage stories can be based on real data or sketched out as a hypothesis. For example, if you are troubleshooting a checkout flow and want to figure out why people add items to their cart but rarely check out, you can use real data. You might get that data from your web analytics, in-person user interviews, usability testing, or all of the above. If you're inventing a product from scratch and figuring out how a key flow works for the very first time, you might base it on data gathered from market or user research or use stories as a way to think outside the box and get creative with how you envision your product working. Or both.
Here is how they operate (see Figure 5.2).
• **Exposition** —current state of things (same as your concept and origin stories)
• **Inciting Incident/Problem** —event, trigger, or call to action (CTA)
• **Rising Action** —a series of steps
• **Crisis** —potential hurdle or hurdles
• **Climax/Resolution** —the high point when value is experienced
• **Falling Action** —then what? Final step in the flow
• **End** —the end...for now
**FIGURE 5.2**
**The model for a usage story.**
#### **Exposition**
Exposition represents the beginning of the story. There is a main character with a broad goal (which is the same as your concept and origin stories). Where are they at the beginning of the story? Are they using an app, website, in-person service, or all of the above? If you are working on a journey for a business that employs all three as part of their customer service strategy, you might keep your story high level and consider how it works for all three at the same time. For example, the high-level story for someone who is thinking about applying to college is the same whether she is working with a guidance counselor at her high school or doing online research alone. Your character is someone, and she wants something. Does she want to find the right school so she can become a veterinarian someday? Or does she want to find a school that will let her explore career opportunities? Or does she not care about career opportunities and want to study with like-minded people? Does she want to learn more about your school or apply to school? Each exposition is the beginning of a very different story.
#### **Inciting Incident/Problem**
The inciting incident is an incentive, trigger, or call to action—something to kick-start this journey. This step should map out onto the problem you outlined in your concept story. If your character is on your home page and her goal is to find a school that will let her explore her interests, how will you kickstart her journey? First, you want to remind yourself what her problem is. Why can't she meet her goal? Because she doesn't know where to start and is overwhelmed by the post-secondary educational landscape, options and opportunities? This is the point where you need to get her to look, listen, and take action. How will you do that? Or if her goal is to apply for the next calendar year, how will you kickstart that journey? As you can start to see, there are many journeys that your user will go on throughout their lifetime of engaging with your product or brand. Each gets its own story as you figure out how to help people meet their goals.
#### **Rising Action**
The rising action represents a series of steps or actions the person must take to meet his goal. Each step should build the user's interest and become more interesting or relevant than the last step. This is where the Y-axis of a structurally sound story is especially important. Things don't get good or bad for your user. They get better and better. Just like a good movie, your user should want to continue onto the next step, screen by screen. Action rises and tension rises as your user gets more and more engaged as he tries to meet his goal.
#### **Crisis**
The crisis is the impediment that must be overcome for the user to get to the high point of this experience. Impediments can include things like the following:
• Requiring sign-up
• Requiring payment or sensitive billing information
• Mental hurdles, such as boredom, unmatched mental models, or a lack of value
• Poor usability
• Other mysteries—sometimes analytics show a drop-off in funnel completion, and it's necessary to do some research and storymapping to figure out why people are dropping off
#### **Climax/Resolution**
The problem is solved, and the crisis averted. What matters most for a usage story is not just that the problem is solved, but how it is solved. This is where the user experiences value or just feels good about what he is doing. It's the high point of this flow. If just solving a problem is awesome enough, the story will flow well, yet be anti-climactic. Sometimes, however, you need an extra flourish to raise the action level of this plot point to make it more memorable. This "raising of the bar" can be something as simple as an animation for a digital flow, amazing customer service, or a gift for a non-digital service flow.
#### **Falling Action**
Falling action occurs when the user finishes the flow. The flow can't just end on a high point—it has to go somewhere and take the user with it. In the case of a sign-up flow, for example, imagine if it ended with a Thank You page. What then? Ask yourself that question every time you build a usage flow and be sure to figure out how it should end.
#### **End**
In the end, just like with a concept and origin story, the user's goal is met. The flow is over, and the user should be in a better place than when he started. If you intend for this story to continue at this point, you can consider this stage to be where the goal is met...for now. Just because the hero saves the village doesn't mean that he won't have to undertake a new journey in the next episode. Additionally, in a good story, the main character never just ends up at home after a journey, he should have learned something, found something, or generally grown as a character so that when he arrives back home, he is changed forever and is closer to meeting his big goal or goals.
### **Case Study: Twitter**
One of my favorite examples of a usage story is Twitter's former sign-up flow. While they have since updated this flow, I like using this illustration because it is an excellent example of story structure supporting a flow of screens and interactions. Additionally, this sign-up flow was responsible for not just activating hundreds of millions of new users, but also users who were more valuable and likely to stay engaged with the service over time. While it was not explicitly engineered as such, this on-boarding flow reads (and functions) like a good story.
**NOTE** **TWITTER: ORIGIN OR USAGE STORY?**
**A few of my workshop attendees always ask why this Twitter case study isn't an example of an origin story. I categorize it as a user story because while an origin story would help you figure out how someone goes from _thinking_ about your product to _using it_ , this flow simply illustrates how someone uses it. For the very first time. As such, this usage story is the falling action of someone's origin story with Twitter.**
#### **The Problem: Low Repeat Engagement**
Several years ago, Twitter had a problem: it was starting to grow its user base at a steady clip. But unfortunately, Twitter acquired many new users who tried the service once and then never returned. Twitter's research team talked to users who did return to find out why and what mattered to them.
The answer: people were more likely to log in and engage with the service if they followed others on Twitter who were in their social and professional circles or related to their hobbies and interests. While Twitter's previous sign-up flow was simple, fast, and friction-less—it was only three steps—it didn't do enough to help new users see the value in the service so that they would return.
#### **The Solution: First-Time Use as a Story**
Often, there is a rule of thumb that you want to design frictionless experiences so that people get through a flow or process more easily. The easier something is to do or use, the more quickly people will get through it and the more delightful (or less painful) the experience will be, this line of reasoning goes. _Make it easy to use!_ is the phrase that your client or stakeholder might outline as a requirement for that flow in the app that you're building anew or redesigning for better conversion. If you think about a usage flow as a story, however, you can see that friction is a good thing. If you think about scientific studies on painful medical procedures, you can also see that shorter isn't necessarily better. What the sign-up flow that Twitter eventually came up with shows is that making something more difficult and longer can be better as long as it reads like a story. Here's how the longer, more complex sign-up flow breaks down as a story:
#### **Exposition**
You're visiting the Twitter homepage, which means that you want to know what this Twitter thing is all about (see Figure 5.3). Twitter as a business has the flipside of that goal: it wants to _show_ you what Twitter is all about. It also has a more specific goal: to get you to follow relevant accounts so that you are more likely to return in the future.
**FIGURE 5.3**
**The first screen in the flow sets up an exposition: it reminds you why you came here and then incites you to act with a call to action.**
#### **Inciting Incident**
You see that Twitter is a way to "Start a conversation, explore your interests, and be in the know." Cool, those are all things that you'd like to do. You sign up.
#### **Rising Action**
First, you are introduced to the concept of a "tweet," as seen in Figure 5.4. You are on a screen that looks much like what the Twitter app will look like when you are finished. Only there are instructions on the left sidebar and a not-yet-populated area on the right. Someone named the "Twitter Teacher" explains that what you're looking at is a "tweet." You can also see that there are many more tweets awaiting you. You click on the "next" button.
**FIGURE 5.4**
**The first step in the rising action of Twitter's sign-up flow is to learn about a tweet.**
Next, you are introduced to the idea of your "timeline" (see Figure 5.5), which you can "build." If you click on a person on the left, you can see one of his tweets show up in the timeline on the right. Click on another, same thing happens. This is how Twitter works—you follow people, and their tweets show up in your timeline. But Twitter doesn't just tell you all of this; you have to actually _do_ it a few times before you can go on to the next step.
**FIGURE 5.5**
**In the second step of Twitter's sign-up flow, you learn about a timeline.**
Now Twitter invites you to "see who's here," as shown in Figure 5.6. While it asks you to "find and follow well-known people," what it is also illustrating is that there are different types of people to follow, depending on your interests. Even though the previous step let you follow celebrities, now you can have a little more control over who those celebrities are—basketball players, for example. The more you follow, the more your now empty timeline fills up again.
**FIGURE 5.6**
**The third step of Twitter's sign-up flow shows you how to find and follow people.**
#### **Crisis**
At some point, after spending a few minutes on this sign-up flow (they claim it only takes 60 seconds, but I never completed it that fast), which is eons in Internet time, you might start to get bored. How many more people do you need to follow? How many more interests and hobbies can you think of? You understand what a tweet and timeline are and how the system works. Why follow more people? Not only that, but is reading tweets from Mariah Carey and Brad Pitt all that Twitter is about? You hit the next button.
#### **Climax/Resolution**
Now, Twitter invites you to find people you know (see Figure 5.7). My friends are here? Oh, OK, Twitter isn't just about following celebrities. I can also follow my friends and see what they're up to. That's how Twitter helps me be in the know.
**FIGURE 5.7**
**In what could be a crisis moment of Twitter asking you to add contacts, the climax of the story is when you see that your friends are there.**
#### **Mini-Crisis**
I want to see which of my friends are on Twitter, but is this secure? I don't want Twitter to spam my friends or steal my contact information. As I scan down past the call to action buttons on the left side of the screen, I come to a block of text that allays my fears: I can see exactly how this works. It's safe and secure. Good. I search for and add my contacts from Gmail or wherever.
#### **Falling Action: Add Character**
I've learned about tweets, followed celebrities, expressed some of my interests, found my friends, and filled out a timeline. I'm part of this community now. I see everyone's smiling faces and the things they say. I may as well add my avatar and a little bio (see Figure 5.8). I know it should be short because tweets are short. Unlike all of the previous steps in this sign-up flow, I can skip this if I don't want to add my information.
What I don't know is that Twitter _already_ got me to do everything it needed me to do—filling out my personal info is nice to have, but not a must-have. Again, what matters is that I understand how "following" works, and I can see the results of following people. At this point, I can add my information or skip it. Falling action like this can be its own story, as with the end of Slack's on-boarding flow (see Chapter 3, "Concept Stories").
**FIGURE 5.8**
**For the falling action, you can personalize your profile. This part is optional, however, since you've already experienced the value of Twitter: it's social.**
#### **End**
I'm home (see Figure 5.9). Logged in home. This home page is different than the home page where I started this journey. Before I signed up for an account, the home page _told_ me that I could be in the know. After signing up for an account, the home page _shows_ me what it's like to be in the know. I see a timeline full of tweets from people and organizations that I'm interested in about topics that I care about.
**FIGURE 5.9**
**At the end of this story, you arrive home (logged in home). But home is better than when you started (logged out home).**
What becomes obvious in the story of Twitter's on-boarding flow is that it never once prompted you as a new user to actually try sending a tweet. Instead, at the end of the journey, when you end up home, you can just sit back and consume what's in your timeline without ever sending a tweet. This is a story of following people, consuming content, and being in the know. The story supports not only your user journey, but also a strategic business goal: to get more people to consume content. As Twitter transitioned from a service based on broadcasting to consumption, the story followed along. Traditionally, people are more likely to consume rather than generate content using social media services like Twitter. This flow and resulting story has optimized the story that users are more likely to have and that the business wants them to have.
While the old flow converted new users, the new flow converts quality users—ones who are more likely to engage. You can think of the previous, shorter, simpler flow as the flat or anti-climactic version (similar to the iPhone), or the simple solution for getting people to sign up. The updated flow, on the other hand, is the one that reads more like a story that resonates with the right type of user in the right type of way.
In the end, Twitter is a way to "start a conversation, explore your interests, and be in the know," as millions of people who signed up for the service using this flow found out. Even though you may not have started a conversation yourself, you can see a timeline full of conversations from people whom you are interested in. By the end of this sign-up flow, you're in the know and have had an engaging time getting there.
### **Mapping the Usage Story**
Usage stories can be broad or compact. I recommend starting out with the broadest first and working your way down until you've uncovered all you need. In my experience, each usage storyline you develop should be as simple and straightforward as possible. At the point that you're mapping out many subplot points and getting complex, you should ask yourself if you can break your storyline into smaller stories. Then you should address each separately, starting with the largest first.
Imagine if a TV writer tried to plot out a season-long storyline at the same time as a specific scene from a specific episode. As you can imagine, it's difficult to stay high- and low-level at the same time. Focusing your scope and approaching one storyline at a time will not only improve the quality of your usage stories, but will also help you move faster as you retain focus.
To create a usage story large or small, answer these questions:
• **Exposition:**
• Who is your target customer?
• What are her goals as they relate to your product?
• What is the problem or impediment standing in the way of this person meeting her goal?
• **Inciting Incident:**
• What will kick-start the customer on this specific journey? This will probably be some kind of call to action or event.
• **Rising Action:**
• What is the first action that the user should take?
• What's next?
• And next?
• **Crisis:**
• What might get in her way of solving her problem and meeting her goal? It could be something tangible, like a paywall, or emotional, like boredom. For each usage flow, you're likely to have a list of possible barriers.
• **Climax/Resolution:**
• What is the high point of this experience or flow?
• How will her problem be resolved?
• What value do you want the user to experience during this flow?
• What will make all of her conflict, crisis, and work she puts in so far be worthwhile? Value can be functional or more abstract, like brand value.
• **Falling action:**
• What then? Humans like closure. You don't want to just leave them at a high point and suddenly end the story. Now that her problem is solved, how will you wrap this episode up as quickly as possible so that the user is that much closer to meeting her goal?
• **End:**
• Where does the user end up—both in terms of character development and logistics? How has she grown? What has she learned? Where is she? What's next? Is this really the end or perhaps the starting point of her next story?
### **How Big Should Your Story Be?**
Stories can be big. And they can be small. They can happen one at a time. They can happen in serial. There is no right or wrong way to scope out the timeline for your stories. Sometimes, you'll scope out a very large story that lasts over a period of years in your customer's journey with your product. Sometimes, you'll focus on a tiny story that lasts only a few seconds. Scope your story so that it answers whatever questions you need to answer.
Maybe your question is "How do we get customers to stay active after a few years so they don't keep dropping off?" In that case, you'll map out an epic journey that lasts a few years. Maybe your question is "How do we get people to come back next time? And the time after that?" In that case, you'll map out something that looks like a serial or a soap opera. Maybe your question is "How do we get people to keep coming back and using our product to do this one core task when there are competitors out there that also do the same thing?" In that case, you'll map out a micro-story. In each case, you have the same plot points and overall structure—only the timeline is different.
#### **Epic Journeys**
Epic journeys take place over a long period of time. That timeline can be a day, a week, months, or many years. These journeys are epic because they traverse single sittings or interactions with a product. Maybe you want to map out the lifelong journey from when someone starts using your product to infinity. For example, I worked on a project where we needed to assess the content for a nonprofit educational program—all of its content. That was a lot of content! They wanted to go digital and didn't know what to digitize, what to keep, and what to get rid of.
When we mapped out the user journey over a period of seven years to figure out what content needed to be digital so it could support the story, we saw that there was a lack of content supporting the story around year five, in general. This coincided with a drop-off the nonprofit saw with member engagement, which usually happened around five years after starting to work with the program.
Structuring this journey like a story enabled us to quickly assess strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities in their content and program structure. What it also helped us do was to put an "end" point to the member journey so that we could start to envision ways to help members start a new journey with the program after five to seven years. What we found was that after five years, many members dropped off, while others instead became evangelists for the program, disseminating information and training new members. Mapping the journey helped us see that we could plan for not just one epic that lasted five to seven years, but a second story that could last another five to seven years for the user.
#### **Serials and Soap Operas**
Sometimes, you will explore your stories in serial. What treating stories in this fashion helps you do is see the relationship between single interactions with a product as a series of stories (see Figure 5.10), rather than just an epic. Doing so will help you figure out how or why to hook people in, get them invested, and stay invested over time as they want to find out what comes next or see what they missed since the last time they tuned in. Just like a soap opera—or _The Wire_ or _Breaking Bad,_ if that's more your thing—serials are great ways to visualize, plan for, and troubleshoot long-term engagement with a product or service.
**FIGURE 5.10**
**In a serial narrative, there are mini-stories or episodes that string together over time. Each requires its own beginning, middle, end, and plot points to move the action and user forward.**
What visualizing serial stories helps you see is that stories as episodes need to get better for your users over time. If they don't get better, it's much harder to keep users engaged over the long term. Treating stories in this matter also helps you visualize the relationship between different _episodes_ or stories.
For example, I once worked for an organization that put on annual events like conferences, workshops, and online seminars. We used serial structure to assess why devoted repeat-attendees attended the first time and chose to return...or not return. The business was selling lots of tickets to its events, and the owners wanted to know if it could do even better. Mapping customer journeys as serial narratives helped us see clearly why people attended (problems and inciting incidents), as well as the value and takeaways that these customers got year-to-year. Mapping serials also enabled us to see the cliffhangers where customers dropped off, as well as gaps and opportunities where the business could add value not just as a whole, but episode by episode.
#### **Micro-Stories: Core Tasks**
No flow or task is too small to be treated like a narrative. If you're designing a core task for a system and want to make sure it's memorable and wows your user, thinking in a narrative fashion is a great way to add a layer of complexity and excitement to an interaction—even a simple, seemingly trivial one like adding a calendar event.
The most effective story-driven core task interactions I've seen don't happen during activities like checkout flows. Instead, they are core tasks that are central to a product or service, like sending a message or "liking" something on Facebook. Core tasks are interactions that you want and expect users to perform over and over again.
Consider the iOS Calendar app that comes standard with every iPhone. The story of performing the core task of entering a calendar event works like this:
• **Exposition:** You're having coffee with Jane at 2 p.m. tomorrow. You want to make sure you remember this event.
• **Inciting Incident:** You tap the "Add Event" button to add the event to your calendar.
• **Rising Action:**
• You type an event name.
• Add a location.
• Select a time.
• **Crisis:** Tap...tap...tap...you have to tap so many times to complete this otherwise simple task.
• **Climax/Resolution:** You tap to save the event, and the screen slides down out of view to let you know that the action is complete. It's valuable to know that the system is saving your event and animation supports the story.
• **Falling Action:** Where did your event go? There is nothing on the screen that shows you where your event went or how to return to it if you want to edit it. You hope you saved and entered everything in correctly. This can be a crisis or a cliffhanger, depending on how it plays out in real life.
• **End:** If you're like me, you probably added the event to the wrong day, oops. Or you take a leap of faith and assume that you entered it correctly and will be at coffee on time.
Here's how the same core task works in another iOS calendaring app, Fantastical:
• **Exposition:** You're having lunch with Elon in Palo Alto tomorrow. How exciting. You definitely don't want to miss this.
• **Inciting Incident:** You tap the "Add Event" button to add the event to your calendar (see Figure 5.11).
**FIGURE 5.11**
**The inciting incident or call to action of adding a calendar event to Fantastical: a button that lets you add a new event.**
• **Rising Action:** You start typing "Lunch with Elon in Palo Alto" (see Figure 5.12), and the screen starts to fill in your location information on a timeline visualization that shows you when and where lunch is (see Figure 5.13). How smart—it assumes that lunch is at noon. When you're done adding your event, you tap the _Add_ button (see Figure 5.14).
• **Crisis:** There is none because...
**FIGURE 5.12**
**Rising action for Fantastical: the text you type animates to indicate that something is happening.**
**FIGURE 5.13**
**Rising action for Fantastical: you see that the app automatically parsed your event type and location for noon in Palo Alto.**
**FIGURE 5.14**
**Rising action for Fantastical: saving your calendar event.**
• **Climax/Resolution:** The event shrinks and animates onto the correct day in the calendar (see Figure 5.15), and at the end of that animation, it glows red (see Figure 5.16) before the red fades away (see Figure 5.17). It's such a subtle, fast animation, but it's helpful to see feedback after you complete a task. Feedback in this case _communicates_ that your event was added and added to the correct day. The animation also supports the mental model of events being placed on a calendar. "Fast and friendly" is how Fantastical's developers describe the app, and this climax embodies that description. They say it in their marketing materials, and you experience it in the micro-interaction.
**FIGURE 5.15**
**Fantastical: crisis averted. Animation communicates system feedback that your event has been saved.**
**FIGURE 5.16**
**Fantastical: crisis averted. The rest of the animation communicates that your event has been saved on the correct date: tomorrow, October 18.**
**FIGURE 5.17**
**Fantastical: All done. The end...for now.**
• **Falling Action/End:** You have no doubt that this calendar event was added, not just to your calendar, but also to the correct day. Task complete. You're glad you downloaded this app to use instead of the Calendar app, which is so _not_ smart.
Something as simple as a calendar app, with a core task that you want users to repeat and repeat, can benefit from this structure. Otherwise, your core task flow falls flat, just like the built-in iOS Calendar app did. Is Apple in trouble? Not at all. Unless calendaring becomes core to their business and engagement strategies.
When software is your service and your primary means for acquiring and retaining customers, you need to make sure that everything, no matter how small, reads like a story. Contrast something seemingly trivial like iOS's Calendar app to the unboxing experience for the iPhone. The latter absolutely reads like a story, from the moment you rip off the plastic wrap to the minute you turn on your phone... and then continues into the setup UI. The iPhone is core to Apple's strategy. The iPhone is built on story. Many stories. When it matters, you should plot even the smallest and seemingly trivial core tasks story-first.
For even the smallest interactions, good design incorporates affordances, minimizes steps to completion, and gives users feedback. Story does all of those things, as well.
_A good story is good design._
### **Case Study: FitCounter**
In the case of the start-up, _FitCounter_ , as we ideated, tested, and gathered qualitative and quantitative feedback from existing and potential customers, we started to feel like we had a product-market fit with the _concept_ of what the product and service could be. We also successfully envisioned and engineered _origin stories_ that helped visitors find the product, want to use it, and start on their journey of becoming more fit. But having that concept and the first contact was not enough. We needed to create a product that people actually used. Eventually, we also had to see if people would pay to use it, but our hunch was that they needed to try it out first before they could decide whether or not to pay for the upgrade.
In order to see if we had a viable product, we needed to envision, assess, test, and build a minimum representation of a product and service that delivered on this promise of helping people get fit, stay fit, and help others get and stay fit. Our front door was inviting enough for potential customers to want to sign up, but now we needed to get them to actually sign up, do something, and _experience_ value.
#### **The Problem: Broken Funnel... and No Engagement**
Much like Twitter, FitCounter's previous sign-up flow was only a few steps. The team designed it that way to be as fast and frictionless as possible. The sign-up flow even had a progress bar so that new users knew what steps there were in the process and how much longer they had to go.
Despite the flow being straightforward, simple, and easy to use, the funnel completion rates were rather low overall, as well as being low from one step to the next (see Figure 5.18). Not many new users who started the flow completed the sign-up process. And of those few who did sign up, even fewer ever tried using the product afterward. Why was this happening?
**FIGURE 5.18**
**FitCounter's problematic on-boarding funnel shows the drop-off from step to step and overall.**
The team had been iterating on this flow for quite some time, and they only seemed to improve things by a couple of percentage points each time they tried.
When you map out the previous sign-up funnel as a story, it looks more like what you see in Figure 5.19, which is a cliffhanger.
**FIGURE 5.19**
**The cliffhanger of this funnel is clear when visualizing it as a story. A majority of visitors who started the funnel were signing up, but not continuing after the next step.**
#### **Data Tells a Story**
Both analytics funnels and stories describe a series of steps that users take over the course of a set period of time. In fact, as many data scientists and product people will tell you, data tells a story, and it's our job to look at data within a narrative structure to piece together, extrapolate, troubleshoot, and optimize that story.
In the case of FitCounter, our gut-check analysis and further in-person testing with potential users uncovered that the reason our analytics showed a broken funnel with drop-off at key points was because people experienced a story that read something like this:
• **Exposition:** The potential user is interested in getting fit or training others.
• **Inciting Incident:** She sees the "start training" button and gets started.
• **Rising Action:**
• She enters her username and password. (A tiny percentage of people would drop off here, but most completed this step.)
• She's asked to "follow" some topics, like running and basketball. She's not really sure what this means or what she gets out of doing this. She wants to train for a marathon, not follow things. (This is where the first drop-off happened.)
• **Crisis:** This is where the cliffhanger happens. She's asked to "follow" friends. She has to enter sensitive Gmail or Facebook log-in credentials to do this, which she doesn't like to do unless she completely trusts the product or service and sees value in following her friends. Why would she follow them in this case? To see how they're training? She's not sure she totally understands what she's getting into, and at this point, has spent so much brain energy on this step that she's just going to bail on this sign-up flow.
• **Climax/Resolution:** If she does continue on to the next step, there would be no climax.
• **Falling Action:** Eh. There is no takeaway or value to having gotten this far.
• **End:** If she does complete the sign-up flow, she ends up home. She'd be able to search for videos now or browse what's new and popular. Searching and browsing is a lot of work for someone who can't even remember why they're there in the first place. Hmmm...in reality, if she got this far, _maybe_ she would click on something and interact with the product. The data told us that this was unlikely. In the end, she didn't meet her goal of getting fit, and the business doesn't meet its goal of engaging a new user.
Why was it so important for FitCounter to get people to complete this flow during their first session? Couldn't the business employ the marketing team to get new users to come back later with a fancy email or promotion? In this case, marketing tried that. For months. It barely worked.
With FitCounter, as with most products and services, the first session is your best and often only chance to engage new users. Once you grab them the first time and get them to see the value in using your product or service, it's easier to get them to return in the future. While I anecdotally knew this to be true with consumer-facing products and services, I also saw it in our data.
Those superfans I told you about earlier rarely became superfans without using the product within their first session. In fact, we found a sweet spot: most of our superfans performed at least three actions within their first session. These actions were things like watching or sharing videos, creating playlists, and adding videos to lists. These were high-quality interactions and didn't include other things you might do on a website or app, such as search, browse, or generally click around.
With all of our quantitative data in hand, we set out to fix our broken usage flow. It all, as you can imagine, started with some (more) data...oh, and a story. Of course.
#### **The Plan**
At this point, our goals with this project were two-fold:
• To get new users to complete the sign-up flow.
• To acquire more "high-quality" users who were more likely to return and use the product over time.
As you can see, getting people to pay to upgrade to premium wasn't in our immediate strategic roadmap or plan. We needed to get this product operational and making sense before we could figure out how to monetize. We did, however, feel confident that our strategy was headed in the right direction because the stories we were designing and planning were ones that we extrapolated from actual paying customers who loved the product. We had also been testing our concept and origin stories and knew that we were on the right track, because when we weren't, we maneuvered and adapted to get back on track. So what, in this case, did the data tell us that we should do to transform this story of use from a cliffhanger, with drop-off at the crisis moment, to a more complete and successful story?
#### **Getting to "Why"**
While our quantitative analytics told us a "what" (that people were dropping off during our sign-up funnel), it couldn't tell us the "why." To better answer that question, we used story structure to figure out why people might drop off when they dropped off. Doing so helped us better localize, diagnose, and troubleshoot the problem. Using narrative structure as our guide, we outlined a set of hypotheses that could explain why there was this cliffhanger.
For example, if people dropped off when we asked them to find their friends, did people not want to trust a new service with their login credentials? Or did they not want to add their friends? Was training not social? We thought it was. To figure this out better, once we had a better idea of what our questions were, we talked to existing and potential customers first about our sign-up flow and then about how they trained (for example, alone or with others). We were pretty sure training was social, so we just needed to figure out why this step was a hurdle.
What we found with our sign-up flow was similar to what we expected. Potential users didn't want to follow friends because of trust, but more so because it broke their mental model of how they could use this product. "Start training" was a strong call to action that resonated with potential users. In contrast, "follow friends," was not. Even something as seemingly minute as microcopy has to fit a user's mental model of what the narrative structure is. Furthermore, they didn't always think of training as social. There were a plethora of factors that played into whether or not they trained alone or with others.
What we found were two distinct behaviors: people tend to train alone half the time and with others half the time. Training alone or with others depended on a series of factors:
• Activity (team versus solitary sport, for example)
• Time (during the week versus weekend, for example)
• Location (gym versus home, for example)
• Goals (planning to run a 5k versus looking to lose pounds, for example).
This was too complex of a math equation for potential users to do when thinking about whether or not they wanted to "follow" people. Frankly, it was more math than anyone should have to do when signing up for something. That said, after our customer interviews, we were convinced of the value of keeping the product social and giving people the opportunity to train with others early on. Yes, the business wanted new users to invite their friends so that the product could acquire new users. And, yes, I could have convinced the business to remove this step in the sign-up process so that we could remove the crisis and more successfully convert new users. However, when people behave in a certain way 50% of the time, you typically want to build a product that helps them continue to behave that way, especially if it can help the business grow its user base.
So instead of removing this troublesome cliffhanger-inducing step in the sign-up flow, we did what any good filmmaker or screenwriter would do: we used that crisis to our advantage and built a story _with_ tension and conflict. A story that we hoped would be more compelling than what we had.
#### **The Story**
In order to determine how our new sign-up flow would work, we first mapped it out onto a narrative arc. Our lead designer and engineer wanted to jump straight into screen UI sketches and flow charts and our CEO wanted to see a fully clickable prototype yesterday, but we started the way I always make teams and students start: with a story diagram. As a team, we mapped out a redesigned sign-up flow on a whiteboard as a hypothesis, brick by brick (see Figure 5.20).
**FIGURE 5.20**
**A story map from a similar project with the storyline on top and requirements below.**
This was the story, we posited, that a new user and potential customer should have during her first session with our product (see Figure 5.21). As you can see, we tried to keep it much the same as before so that we could localize and troubleshoot what parts were or weren't working.
• **Exposition:** She's interested in getting fit or training others. (Same as before.)
• **Inciting Incident:** She sees the "start training" button and gets started. (Same as before.)
• **Rising Action:**
• She enters her username and password. (This step performed surprisingly great, so we kept it.)
• Build a training plan. Instead of "following" topics, she answers a series of questions so that the system can build her a customized training plan. Many questions—ultimately extending the on-boarding flow by 15 screens. 15! There is a method to this madness. Even though there are now many more questions, they get more engaging, and more relevant, question by question, screen by screen. The questions start broad and get more focused as they progress, feeling more and more relevant and personal. Designing the questionnaire for rising action prevents what could be two crises: boredom and lack of value.
• **Crisis:** One of the last questions she answers is whether or not she wants to use this training plan to train with or help train anyone else. If so, she can add them to the plan right then and there. And if not, no problem—she can skip this step and always add people later.
• **Climax/Resolution:** She gets a personalized training plan. This is also the point at which we want her to experience the value of her new training plan. She sees a graph of what her progress will look like if she sticks with the training plan she just got.
• **Falling Action:** Then what? What happens after she gets her plan and sees how she might progress if she uses FitCounter? This story isn't complete unless she actually starts training. So...
• **End:** She's home. Now she can start training. This initially involves watching a video, doing a quick exercise, and logging the results. She gets a taste of what it's like to be asked to do something, to do it, and to get feedback in the on-boarding flow and now she can do it with her body and not just a click of the mouse. Instead of _saying_ how many sit-ups she can do by answering a questionnaire, she watches a short video that shows her how to best do sit-ups, she does the exercise, and she logs her results. While humanly impossible to fully meet her goal of getting fit in one session, completing the story with this ending gets her that much closer to _feeling_ like she will eventually meet her goal. Our hope was that this ending would function as a teaser for her next story with the product, when she continued to train. We wanted this story to be part of a string of stories, also known as a _serial story_ , which continued and got better over time.
**FIGURE 5.21**
**The story of what we wanted new users to experience in their first session with FitCounter.**
Once we plotted out this usage story, we ran a series of planning sessions to brainstorm and prioritize requirements, as well as plan a strategic roadmap and project plan. After we had our requirements fleshed out, we then sketched out screens, comics, storyboards, and even role-played the flow internally and in person with potential customers. We did those activities to ideate, prototype, and test everything every step of the way so that we could minimize our risk and know if and when we were on the right path.
We were quite proud of our newly crafted narrative sign-up flow. But before we could celebrate, we had to see how it performed.
#### **The Results**
On this project and every project since, we tested _everything._ We tested our concept story, origin story, and everything that came after and in between. While we were very confident about all of the work we did before we conceived of our new usage story for the sign-up flow, we still tested that. Constantly. We knew that we were on the right path during design and in-person testing because at the right point in the flow, we started getting reactions that sounded something like: "Oh, cool. I see how this could be useful."
Once we heard that from the third, fourth, and then fifth person during our in-person tests, we started to feel like we had an MVP that we were not only learning from, but also learning _good_ things from. During our concept-testing phase, it seemed like we had a product that people might want to use. Our origin story phase and subsequent testing told us that the data supported that story. And now, with a usage story, we actually had a product that people not only _could_ use, but _wanted_ to use. Lots.
As planned, that reaction came during our in-person tests, unprompted, near the end of the flow, right after people received their training plan. What we didn't expect was that once people got the plan and went to their new home screen, they started to tap and click around. A lot. And they kept commenting on how they were surprised to learn something new. And they would not only watch videos, but then _do_ things with them, like share them or add and remove them from plans.
But this was all in person. What about when we launched the new sign-up flow and accompanying product. This new thing that existed behind the front door. The redesign we all dreaded to do, but that had to be done.
I wish I could say that something went wrong. This would be a great time to insert a crisis moment into this story to keep you on the edge of your seat.
_But the relaunch was a success._
The story resonated not just with our in-person testers, but also with a broader audience. So much so that the new sign-up flow now had almost double the completion rate of new users. This was amazing, and it was a number that we could and would improve on with further iterations down the line. Plus, we almost doubled our rate of new user engagement. We hoped that by creating a sign-up flow that functioned like a story, the result would be more engagement among new users, and it worked. We not only had a product that helped users meet their goals, but it also helped the business meet its goals of engaging new users. What we didn't expect to happen so soon was the side effect of this increased, high-quality engagement: these new users were more likely to pay to use the product. Ten times more likely.
We were ecstatic with the results. For now.
A business cannot survive on first-time use and engagement alone. While we were proud of the product we built and the results it was getting, this was just one usage story: the first-time usage story. What about the rest? What might be the next inciting incident to kick off a new story? What would be the next beginning, middle, and end? Then what? What if someone did not return? Cliffhangers can happen during a flow that lasts a few minutes or over a period of days, months, or years. Over time, we developed stories big and small, one-offs and serials, improving the story for both customers and the business. Since we started building story-first, FitCounter has tripled in size and tripled its valuation. It is now a profitable business and recently closed yet another successful round of financing so that it can continue this growth.
## CHAPTER 6
**Finding and Mapping Your Story**
**Listen**
**Use the Smile Test**
**Measure**
**Case Study: SmallLoans—a Cliffhanger**
**Innovate: What If?**
**Borrow: Stories as Proofs of Concept**
**"Ideas come from everything"**
**—Alfred Hitchcock**
Where do stories come from? Stories are not something that you make up (although there is a place for that, as you'll see later in this chapter). Stories for products come from data—data that your business already has or data that you seek through qualitative and quantitative research. Mapping stories isn't a creative endeavor—it's a strategic business tool and activity tied not just to real data but also to real results, metrics, and KPIs. Mapping stories helps you figure out what is and what can be for your product, your customers, and your business.
But how do you see stories in your data? The short answer is that the stories are already there. They are just waiting for you to uncover and do something with them. In order to learn how to craft a story, you must first learn to _see_ stories. Once you start looking for them, you will begin to see them everywhere. The question you will begin to posit isn't _what's the story?_ But, rather: _Is this story any good?_
For example, think about your competitor's product that is doing really well. You'll find on closer examination that concept, origin, and usage stories probably run through it. The relationship you have with your favorite product or brand? Also a story—the story of why you like it, why you continue to use it, and why you recommend it to others. Stories can be found in how your customers use your products (or competitor's products), how they talk about your product and the problems it helps them solve, and how they experience using your product or engaging with your brand. Looking for stories is the first step you take toward not just finding but building stories into the things (products or whatever) you put out into the world.
### **Listen**
Listening for stories usually takes the form of getting out of the building and talking to your customers or those people you hope will eventually be your customers. Who are they? What is good in their world? What problems do they have? What might call them to action or solve their problems? How do they do things? What makes them tick? After you start talking and listening to your customers, you will start to hear patterns and themes emerge that you can parse together with structure. These are their stories—on the conceptual level and the behavioral level. And they become the storyline of your product.
Your brain already uses story structure to make sense of other people's words and actions. Now is your chance to get deliberate about it. Map your customers' stories as you hear them, plot point by plot point. Make sense of their stories. Find the patterns. Find the gaps. See where you can improve their stories. More specifically, see how your product can support their stories.
When doing research, you can parse, make sense of, and map out the stories that you hear on a wall (see Figure 6.1) or on a computer, if your team is remote (see Figure 6.2). Or you can map out your stories on the fly as little squiggles as they emerge during and after you talk to customers (see Figure 6.3). At their most powerful, storylines are strategic tools for uncovering patterns, as well as opportunities.
**FIGURE 6.1**
**If you map out findings from user research on a wall with Post-it notes, you can use plot points to organize your thoughts and insights.**
**FIGURE 6.2**
**If your team isn't co-located, you can use a spreadsheet or online collaboration tool like BoardThing to map out insights from research.**
**FIGURE 6.3**
**These storylines visualize insights gathered while doing remote research.**
### **Use the Smile Test**
When I map out storylines with teams, I often see one key smiley face scribbled on it, usually in the same place: the climax (see Figure 6.4). It's what you hope will be the high point of an experience with a feature, flow, or overall product. If you uncover your storylines from existing customers or by mapping out real behavior that real people do, this smile might be something that you observed doing field research, usability testing, or customer interviews. Once you've got a working prototype at any level of fidelity, you can test out your story to ensure that your climax is something that really makes your customers smile.
**FIGURE 6.4**
**A storymapping exercise that helped the team imagine and test _why_ people would use the product in the first place. This became the business's origin story for its core customers.**
**Smiling at FitCounter**
At FitCounter, we designed the on-boarding flow to teach customers how the system worked and give them a taste of the value—something they could use to train in bite-sized chunks, on their own time or with others. Our hope was that if they _felt_ what it was like to use the service, they would interact with it some more during their first session. Our data told us that if customers took five actions in their first session (either watching videos or logging data or a combination of both), they were more likely to convert to a long-term and paying customer. But we didn't want new users to just do five things; we wanted them also to experience the value of doing those things. We placed little smileys at the climaxes of our story diagrams to remind us during the ideation and development process that we needed to make the customers feel like they had just spent the last five minutes of their lives wisely and gotten something out of it.
We prototyped these stories as quickly as possible in the lowest fidelity we could think of—conversations—and then worked our way up to paper, clickable lo-fi prototypes, and eventually code. Each time we would graduate to a new level of fidelity, we tested our prototype in person with existing customers and people who could be future customers. What we found during each round of testing was that we would see customers grin at the right point, validating our hunch that we were not just solving a problem but also providing value. Sometimes, the smile was accompanied by a statement like, "Oh, that was neat" or "Ah, I get it."
Before we had redesigned our product, we got comments like "I don't get it," or worse yet, long pauses, grimaces, and polite yet insincere "hmm...interesting..." as people played around with the product. Afterward, smiles trumped words—we not only heard we were onto something, but we could _see_ it.
### **Measure**
Stories can be found in qualitative data you gather from your customers as well as the quantitative data that you collect from your business intelligence and analytics tools. Consider funnel analytics that you find in typical software like Google Analytics. When do people drop off? Those are your cliffhangers.
When you see a cliffhanger in your analytics, you see the _what_ : data. Stories tell you the _why._ Imagine that you are analyzing a checkout flow, and you see that there is a significant drop-off at step 3. Let's say, step 3 is when your business asks users to enter their payment information. There might be many reasons why users drop off at this point. Maybe they are new users who don't trust your business enough to enter their credit card details. Maybe they have questions and would rather chat on the phone with a sales representative. Maybe they live in a foreign country or are underage and don't have access to a credit card. Maybe the checkout flow is confusing, and they thought they submitted their order, when they never actually did. I've worked on products that have had all of these scenarios as the _why_ behind why checkout conversion wasn't as high as the business wanted it to be. Each of the scenarios has a simple fix because each of the scenarios is a simple story. For every cliffhanger and crisis moment, there's a climax that can resolve that problem.
**Someone wants to do something. Something gets in their way. Something can help them overcome this obstacle. They get what they want. The end.**
Next time you uncover the _what_ while looking at data and analytics, ask yourself _why_? Sometimes, you'll find that you can whip up a quick story map as a hypothesis to answer the why (which you then have to test). Plot point by plot point. What might seem obvious or mysterious is usually not what you think or is completely solvable once you map it out as a story. Often, you won't be able to answer the why on your own, and you'll have to leave the building and talk to a few customers or watch them using your product. What you will uncover will be their story, plot points, cliffhanger, and all. And what you'll craft as your solution or fix will be a better story—one that has a beginning, middle, _and_ an end.
### **Case Study: SmallLoans—a Cliffhanger**
While you can find stories in your funnel analytics, you can also find them in complex data sets and business intelligence data. Take, for example, a mobile micro-lending start-up that a colleague of mine used to work with. I'll call it SmallLoans to protect the innocent. SmallLoans provides micro-loans to people in developing countries via a simple mobile Web interface. Because bandwidth is low and technology is old in developing countries, the service needs to function seamlessly, with as few errors and blips as possible. Phone calls to customer service and jumping on a desktop computer to troubleshoot are not options for these customers when something goes wrong. If anything goes wrong during the SMS-based loan application process, it taxes the customer service team, or worse yet, compels potential customers to go elsewhere for their loans.
Early in the life of this start-up, things were going very wrong: it was getting inundated with customer service requests and needed to figure out how to minimize the volume. Potential customers were also slamming customer service with SMS texts, which was taxing the system and the team. It's difficult enough to have complex text-based conversations with your friends and family—imagine trying to conduct customer service triage in 160 characters or less.
People were signing up for the service because they knew that they could use it to secure a small loan quickly. But after a day, they simply wanted to know the status of their loan. Not knowing is hard—especially if your livelihood depends on it. SmallLoans tried to figure out ways to ping new applicants after they had signed up to pre-empt issues, or ways to train their customer team to handle these requests better with canned responses.
On the more complex side, they started to look at their data to see if they were taking too long to approve loans and how they might fix that. The solution they arrived at was much simpler than all of these solutions, and it tapped into the concept story of the service at its core.
SmallLoans prided itself on a fast turnaround time for loan approval—maybe a few days, maximum. But when the customer service requests multiplied, they looked at their data and saw that their turnaround time for loans was 36 hours.
That was fast. Much faster than the team had thought.
They knew their technology and process were good, but not that good. Think about it—imagine if you knew that you could be approved for a loan within 36 hours. No back-and-forth with application forms. No phone calls to loan officers. No waiting weeks or months.
36 hours.
That's the high point of a pretty good experience—it's not just fast, but 36 hours fast—it was their _climax_.
That climax is part of the story that SmallLoans eventually communicated, not during the process or after an application was submitted, but _before_ someone applied for a loan.
SmallLoans took what was a crisis in their customer's origin stories—a cliffhanger if they decided to go with a competitor instead—and used that potential conflict to make the exposition of the customer journey that much more compelling. They started to let potential customers know up-front, right before step 1, that the loan process was not just fast but guaranteed to take no more than 36 hours.
With this little change in how they crafted their origin story for new customers, they ended up decreasing customer service complaints and increasing conversion and funnel completion significantly. SmallLoans not only crafted a more structurally sound story for the sake of making things better, but it also saw measurable results.
Sometimes, all you need to do is find the story in your data and communicate and amplify it for your customers.
### **Innovate: What If?**
**"The most interesting situations can usually be expressed as a _What-if_ question: What if vampires invaded a small New England village? What if a policeman in a remote Nevada town went berserk and started killing everyone in sight?"**
**—Stephen King,**
** _On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft_**
Storylines should be data-driven, but they can also be magical, fantastical, or simply delightful.
When interviewing users, I often ask this question: "What if this product worked like magic?" At first, people are startled. Then they're confused. "Magic," they ask? "What do you mean?" Once they get over the mental hurdle of essentially being asked to design the product for me, they eventually have fun with their answers. "It would just know what I want!" they might say. "It would order dinner for me without me having to choose what to eat." "It would tell me what's good so I don't have to seek it out." "It would tell me what I need to learn and when I need to learn it."
**Imagining _What If_ with FitCounter**
With FitCounter, the answer to the "what if" question was something like this: "It would give me a training plan based on my level of fitness, my short- and long-term goals, the time I have to devote to training, and the times of the day and week I prefer to work out." Most importantly, however, the answer came down to "It will make me work out and stick with it over time."
When we redesigned FitCounter, apps like RunKeeper allowed you to track your workouts and set goals. Apps like Couch to 5K gave you more detailed plans, but started you at ground zero, even if you could already run a mile without stopping, and forced you to continue onto 5K, even if your goal was just to run two miles. In-person trainers could personalize a plan for you, but they were expensive and required travel. _What if_ we could build a product that asked you a few questions, built a personalized plan for you, and checked in to make sure that you were staying on track. And if training with others helped you stay on track, you could use FitCounter with your friends.
While this seemed like a tall order, this was something that our engineering team could figure out and build by crafting an on-boarding flow that collected key data from people and then built them a training plan based on that data we collected. In fact, this is something that fitness trainers—the human kind—do every day with new clients. They talk to clients, find out what their goals are, how much time they have to devote to training, what types of exercises they do and don't enjoy, and build a plan accordingly. Then, over time, the trainer works with people to make sure that they stick with the plan.
_What if_ was our question. Mapping the story out gave us our answer. We heard the story from our customers. We saw stories while looking at the competitive landscape. We vetted them internally as we collected team members' _what-if_ scenarios they had been imagining for years. Then, once we had a story—many stories, we _used_ them. In the next chapter, you'll see how.
### **Borrow: Stories as Proofs of Concept**
Sometimes, you or your business will invent a new product or feature based on a bout of inspiration. _What if,_ you ask, _I could order a taxi at the tap of a phone screen?_ That's a story, yup. Often, however, you see that filmmakers and science fiction writers have done all of the creative work for you. In that case, you can see storylines that flow through fictional products that excite you. Then you can map them out to assess their strengths, weaknesses, and product-market fit. Doing so will not only help you build the right product but also build it for the right market.
#### **1989...and 2001: An iPad Odyssey**
For example, recently I stayed in London in a different time zone than my family. At the end of a long day working, I returned back to my apartment, bored and lonely. I took my iPad with me so that I could catch up on _Star Trek the Next Generation,_ while my partner, Erica, did the same, five hours after me back in Brooklyn, where we lived. I was watching _Star Trek_ partly for fun, but more so for research. I wanted to see how the characters used wearable technology, like eyewear, in this fictionalized future. I was working on a project about the future of devices like Google Glass, and hoped I would find some answers by doing one of my favorite things: watching TV.
The episode I watched, which originally aired in 1989, centered on a little boy who lost his parents and was alone on the Starfleet Enterprise. In one scene, he missed his mom and pulled out this tablet device that looked an awful lot like an iPad so that he could watch old home movies. This was the only way he had to connect with her—so wherever he was, his mom was with him. At this moment in the scene, I took a photo (see Figure 6.5).
What you see in this photo is me using my iPad to watch a moving picture of a boy using an iPad-like device to watch a moving picture. The use cases were similar, and the stories that flowed through those use cases were solid: someone wants to connect or communicate with someone or something far away. With the iPad (the product), the person can connect (the story).
**FIGURE 6.5**
**A photograph of me using my iPad to watch a character on _Star Trek_ watch a home movie on a touchscreen device that looks uncannily like an iPad.**
Tablets like the iPad solve problems and move action forward in storylines both in science fiction and real life. And people who build technology are no strangers to these props and images from science fiction. Steve Jobs even "borrowed" the name of the iPad from the NewsPad featured in _2001: A Space Odyssey_ (see Figure 6.6). In that story, the characters used this device to communicate with home using newsfeeds and video. It was a pretty powerful device. But more so, the storyline behind using the device as a prop within the film was sound. As any filmmaker will tell you, everything that happens in a film _must_ move the story forward or it gets cut.
**FIGURE 6.6**
**A still from _2001: A Space Odyssey_ showing someone using a device in much the same way someone would use an iPad today.**
#### **2014: A Google Glass Odyssey**
Contrast the stories of something like the iPad with a proof of concept like Google Glass, which is essentially a computer that you wear on your face. I have spent probably 100 hours over the past couple of years trying to figure out if, why, or how a device like Glass and apps built on that platform could be viable. At first, I was convinced that the device was a dud and that consumers would never need it or pay money for it. Actually, this has turned out to be true. Google discontinued the program and is no longer producing or marketing Glass as a consumer device. However, when you look at sci-fi, you see a different story. Wearable technology, like Glass, has a product-market fit. It's just not a mass-market-fit.
There are three storylines to be exact (see Figure 6.7):
• Someone needs her hands free so that she can do her job (like fight aliens, paramilitary, surgery, or police work—e.g., _They Live_ , _Terminator, Iron Man, Star Trek: The Next Generation, RoboCop_ ).
**FIGURE 6.7**
**Clockwise from top, left, characters use wearable technology to: perform a medical procedure ( _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ ), see concealed alien communication ( _They Live_ ), navigate ( _RoboCop_ ), and see ( _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ ).**
• Someone is moving very fast and needs his hands free so that he can use his hands for other things...and do his job ( _Iron Man, RoboCop)._
• Someone has a physical impairment and this technology gives him an ability to see and hear ( _Star Trek: The Next Generation, RoboCop)._
What looking at these storylines uncovers is that a device like Glass is not a mass-market consumer device. It is best suited for work or being human when you have some kind of impairment. Furthermore, this type of technology already exists in these contexts to help people get stuff done and be human. For example, while I sit here writing, I am wearing glasses—the oldest form of wearable face technology out there. And the military, police, soldiers, firefighters, and doctors have been wearing technology on their bodies for years. This takes the form of helmet-mounted displays and lighting mechanisms, body-mounted video cameras, and surgical loupes (see Figure 6.8). When you've got a job to do and need your hands free to do it, technology can help. _And that's a structurally sound story._
**FIGURE 6.8**
**Clockwise from top, left, people in real life use wearable technology to perform a medical procedure (surgical loupes), see at night (infrared goggles), navigate (helmet-mounted heads-up display or _HUD_ ), and hear (hearing aid).**
If you're working on an entirely new product or feature, you don't have to get stuck imagining storylines from scratch. Learn from what came before you. Hollywood produces some of the most expensive proofs of concepts and prototypes in the world. They're called _props_. And each prop is a key player in a structurally sound storyline. See how filmmakers use these products to support the story. Glean meaning from how characters use them to be heroic and save the day.
When you're finding stories in the real world, whether they are in movies or your customers' lives, remember to first see and hear your stories; then build them. Think like a storyteller and learn from and borrow from what other creative people—filmmakers and even your customers—out there are doing before you chart your course anew. Or if you must, chart your course anew. You might call this paving the cow path, building empathy, or being creative. I call this _storymapping_.
## CHAPTER 7
**Using Your Story**
**Illustrate Your Story with Strategic Tools**
**Write Your Story**
**Act It Out**
**Elevator Pitch**
**Putting It All Together**
**"As for the story, whether the poet takes it ready made or constructs it for himself, he should first sketch its general outline, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail."**
**—Aristotle,**
** _Poetics_**
When I first started to teach people how to map out stories for product and service design and development, I gave them the choice: use your story as a loose guide, or plot methodically onto a narrative arc diagram. I don't like to dictate process, nor do you want to be told exactly how to do your work. That said, I will tell you this—at least while you're starting out using this technique, map _everything_. And do so visually. On a squiggly narrative arc. Then as you explore your stories in different mediums and fidelities, expect that story to change. Your story maps are more like guides than skeletons—they are loose paths for how you _intend_ for people to experience something. As such, they can and should evolve as you explore, as you plan, as you build, and as people interact with what you put out into the world.
I map stories out on a narrative arc because it's my preferred (read: _simple_ ) story diagram of choice and the one that most of my clients and team members grasp most quickly. The narrative arc also models how humans interact with products as moments in time with its linearity and peak near the end. Mapping concepts and flows onto a narrative arc helps you see the flow of ideas and interactions as your users might emotionally experience them.
If you have a background in film or creative writing, you might have another type of diagram you prefer. If so, use that. There are almost as many permutations of narrative architectural diagrams as there are stories. Just remember: the key to all of this is making sure that you have a story that flows through everything you build, not what type of diagram you use.
Squiggly lines on a piece of paper or a whiteboard are cheap. Not having a storyline or losing your thread is expensive. Once you've got that squiggly yarn, you can and should thread, prototype, test, and build it into many of the things that you already do: diagram, sketch, write, pitch, analyze, communicate, prototype, build, test... everything. You can explore and evolve your stories on your own or with a group—on the fly or as an organized workshop.
### **Illustrate Your Story with Strategic Tools**
One way to bring your storylines to life is to explore them visually. It might start as a squiggle and then grow into something much bigger and more complex. Activities like diagramming, storyboarding, or journey mapping are strategic tools you might already have in your arsenal. They are each that much more powerful when you use them to uncover, support, or convey your story with your team, stakeholders, or clients.
#### **Diagram**
Flow charts and diagrams are visual stories. You can start off a flowcharting session on a whiteboard by inserting your storyline so that you remember what the story is.
If you do so, as you should do with all flow charts, remember to build around your "happy path" or ideal storyline of how you want someone to experience something. Then, if need be, consider branching paths, edge cases, and alternate scenarios. Systems are branching, and time and experience are linear. Always plan for how you want things to work out and then deviate accordingly. Doing so will not only help you retain your sanity while creating diagrams, but will also remind you how to help people navigate what otherwise might be really complex spaces and systems.
#### **Storyboard**
You can also turn your storylines into story _boards_ or comics, a visual representation of your story that is laid out as panels in a grid. You can use storyboards to visualize the big picture of how someone thinks about or uses your product (see Figure 7.1) or how to get more detailed and map out specific steps in a flow or interface.
It's best to keep your storyboards as short as possible—ideally, no more than nine panels. Doing so helps you ensure that your story is there, because it's easy to lose your storyline when your scope gets too big or your details too plentiful. Keeping your storyline to nine panels also helps you remember to get to the point—plot points. When illustrating a storyboard, you'll want to make sure that your inciting incident happens as quickly as possible and that your climax or resolution leads to a very swift ending. This means that the inciting incident and climax should happen on the second and seventh panel, respectively (see Figure 7.2). Nothing is worse than a beginning or an end that drags on longer than it needs to, whether it is in the telling of a story or experiencing it. Storyboards, just like your squiggles, are essentially a prototype of an experience. Visualizing in this way helps you make sure that your scope and pacing are tight.
**FIGURE 7.1**
**Panels from a sample storyboard. (Courtesy of _See What I Mean_ by Kevin Cheng)**
**FIGURE 7.2**
**Storyboarding in nine panels helps you see the key inciting incident and climax plot points, as well as keep your scope manageable.**
#### **Strategic Storymapping**
**"There's always going to be an entertainment factor that goes into what you're designing. [But] no matter what, you're designing to support the story."**
**—Tim Flattery,**
**"Future Consultant," _Back To The Future Part II_**
Storymapping is an excellent way to visually map out a customer or user journey. It will also help you quickly, effectively, and collaboratively assess all the things you need to support the story and make that journey successful for your user and your business. You might already do similar mapping exercises: _journey mapping_ , _customer journey mapping, user journey mapping, experience mapping_ , or _agile user storymapping_. I'm sure I'm missing a few names here. No matter what you call it or how you do it, if you want to engage your audience, start with a story map as your framework. Then build on (and under) that map to determine what you need to support your story for your user and your business. Literally, map out the story first and then flesh it out and fill it all in afterward with Post-it notes or cards (see Figure 7.3).
**FIGURE 7.3**
**Mapping exercises start with a storyline (left) and can then build into something more complex (right).**
Here are some ways that you can use story maps to solve different problems:
• **Gap analysis** (see Figure 7.4) **:** You might want to figure out how to get more customers to sign up or get through a flow. Mapping the story as a gap analysis exercise is a great way to visualize the gap between the current state of a journey and the future state that you will build.
**FIGURE 7.4**
**Gap analysis: Using story to visualize the gap between a cliffhanger (left) and a flat story (right) and complete stories that meet user and business goals.**
• **Behavior analysis:** Sometimes, you want to know what the story is for different types of users. In this case, you might map out your story using different color Post-it notes on an arc (see Figure 7.5). Each color would be for a different user type. Or maybe you want to analyze a more complex set of data so that you can figure out what the story is. In this case, you might map out lots of data points as a narrative (see Figure 7.6).
**FIGURE 7.5**
**A behavior analysis for multiple user types.**
**FIGURE 7.6**
**A behavior analysis for multiple user types organized as a table.**
• **Needs assessment:** What are all the things you need to support your story? Visualizing your story on a wall will help you map out your requirements. This can be simple, where you add Post-it notes as you see fit, or more complex with different rows for different things like _front-end_ requirements and _back-end_ requirements, or _haves_ and _don't-haves_ (see Figure 7.7).
**FIGURE 7.7**
**A needs assessment broken down by different categories.**
• **SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis:** Storylines are a powerful, yet lightweight way to explore and visualize strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in a journey and more importantly in a product or service. Mapping your storylines out in this way will help you uncover not only what a story could be, but also what works, what doesn't work, what's missing, and what could be (see Figure 7.8).
**FIGURE 7.8**
**A visual analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis. This can be used to assess a concept or a journey. Visually mapping the story in this way helps you see when you are missing things like a high point or a value and perhaps have many threats to consider.**
### **Write Your Story**
While visualizing stories is the first step toward making sure that you've got a solid, good story, writing that story out helps you uncover additional strengths, weaknesses, gaps, and opportunities that you might otherwise miss. Writing stories out with words is also the first step toward doing something else: communicating your stories, both internally with a team or stakeholders and externally with the world and your users.
#### **Six-Word Stories**
No one is sure where the format originated, but there is an origin story that goes something like this: Ernest Hemingway was hanging out with his literary friends. He claimed that he could tell a story in under 10 words. They didn't believe him. Bets were placed. In a bout of inspiration, Hemingway wrote these six words:
"For sale: Baby shoes, never worn."
Hemingway won.
While this story might not actually be true, it has inspired an entire literary subgenre of microtales or _six-word stories_. When you write a story with words, you don't need to spell out every single thing that happens. Sometimes, you only need a few words to allude to something, and you can let your reader fill in the blanks. In fact, sometimes less _is_ more—more engaging, in this case, as your brain starts parsing meaning and completing the picture.
A short, minimally worded story, when carefully crafted, can act as a prototype for something much larger. More importantly, a short phrase or sentence can help you remember what your story is about as you find, explore, develop, and test it. Think of a short phrase in this case as your shorthand to use internally or externally.
For example, the book you're reading is a product. I've got a Post-it note on my wall reminding me what this book is about as I type. _Think like a storymaker._ I'm not a marketing professional, and that sentence might never see the light of day in any marketing capacity. But what it does is remind me of my goal, what I'm writing about, and keeps me on point. I want you to think like a story _maker_ and make awesome stories for your users and business.
At FitCounter, we had a shorthand sentence for our concept story: _bite-sized, personalized fitness training, on your own time._ It wasn't marketing-friendly copy by any means. But it kept us on track. Our origin story was something like: _feel what it's like to get fit_. It wasn't pretty, but it also kept us on track.
#### **Scenarios**
While short punchy phrases and sentences are helpful to get and stay on track while, during, and after you explore and build your stories, writing longer scenarios gets a different part of your brain functioning. Writing scenarios works much like journey mapping, except that it's a writing exercise rather than a visual exercise. Scenarios help you use words to uncover how someone might interact with your product or service, as well as what will be required to support the story.
#### **Use Cases and Agile User Stories**
Use cases and, more specifically, Agile user stories are a tool that technology teams, especially Agile development teams, use to organize, make sense of, and phrase requirements. Outlining use cases and user stories helps give context to what you build, why, and how. For developers, these tools are important because, much like other humans, developers are story-based creatures. They want to know what the story is before they spend hours, weeks, months, or [gasp] years building something. While Agile user stories are an excellent tool and artifact to envision, articulate, and communicate a body of work with a team, they're even more powerful if they have a story arc at their foundation. This architecture can bolster an entire body of work, as well as the smaller stories that make up that body of work.
Agile user stories typically are written out in this format:
As a [type of user], I want to/can [do something] so that [result].
At FitCounter, we used to have user stories that read like this:
As a [visitor], I want to [sign up for an account] so that [I can watch videos].
And you know what? No one wants to sign up for an account so that they can watch videos. That's a terrible story. I have the data to prove it—both quantitative and qualitative.
After we finally figured out what all of our storylines were and could be, we eventually started crafting stories that sounded more like this:
As a [visitor], I want to [sign up for an account] so that [I can save my personalized fitness plan for future use].
What we eventually figured out was that people would sign up for an account if they got _value_ (climax) rather than just got _access_ to something (anticlimax).
While most of this story development happened before we wrote our requirements out as user stories, we made sure that the story was apparent so that developers weren't building without context. This not only helped the product team align and communicate goals to designers and developers, but it also helped us quickly and effectively assess when our story was missing or when we were building things for no good reason.
### **Act It Out**
Once you've got an idea of what your stories and storylines can be, you can also act them out. Doing so helps you uncover _more_ strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities than you do visually or with written words. Additionally, acting your stories out is a great way to prototype and test your stories with real-life humans. Stories need structure, yes. Stories also need to be human-friendly.
#### **Improv and Role-Playing**
A good interaction between a person and a product or service functions like a good conversation. As such, you can and should test this conversation out with your team (or even stakeholders or clients) to make sure that the flow is not only sound, but also moves your story forward.
At FitCounter, we live-action prototyped our initial proof of concept, as well as many of our flows and storylines, internally and with potential customers to make sure that we were on the right track. We even reverse engineered stories from real-life conversations with physical trainers so that we understood how the product could work.
Here's how a real-life interaction with a trainer and our internal improvisation (improv) sessions played out: imagine you want to start training. You join a gym and get assigned a trainer. When you meet with your trainer for the first time, she might ask you a series of questions so that she can determine your goals and fitness level. At that time, she will make sure to hit on your pain points so that you really know why you're there (exposition).
Then she might affirm or adjust your goal and tell you that if you work with her, you can attain this goal (inciting incident). Next, you'll do a series of exercises (rising action) where your trainer might purposely test your strength, endurance, or agility to see how far you can go. These exercises should be easy enough to partially complete (more rising action), but difficult enough so that you either find them physically strenuous by the end or cannot complete them (crisis). Fear not, the trainer tells you. If you stick with her, within a few weeks, you'll be that much closer to running that 5K or easily doing 30 push-ups or whatever goal or obstacle you want to meet or overcome (climax). She might even show you a visualization that projects how well you will do if you stick with the plan and exercise a few times a week. At this point, you not only hear her words, but you also feel like you just did something and can see yourself coming back weekly to do this until you meet your big goal (falling action). The trainer gives you your 12-week plan, and you're on your way (end).
Improvising and re-creating stories like these are how we engineered everything from on-boarding to customer service scripts to payment flows. Conversations, role-playing, and improv sessions aren't just about two people talking and saying words aloud; they embody stories that resonate with people and get them that much closer to meeting a goal. If you try this kind of activity with your team, just remember to consider the story. Nothing is more boring for your customers than a conversation that doesn't go anywhere.
### **Elevator Pitch**
An elevator pitch is a short statement, sentence, or a few sentences you use to briefly describe a concept, product, or business. It's called an "elevator pitch" because it should be short enough that you can give the pitch in the time it takes to ride in an elevator with someone. Elevator pitches are not just marketing or sales tools—they are a strategic tool you can use to make sure you are clear on a product or project's objectives, market, and value to an intended audience. If you break the format of an elevator pitch down and consider it within the framework of a narrative, it is essentially a very short story.
You can use an elevator pitch to communicate your story to investors, stakeholders, customers, or team members in a fast, portable way that storymaps can't help you do. If you're at a cocktail party, meeting with investors, or simply want to get an idea across quickly and effectively, you won't always be able to draw or show story arcs. But you can speak a few words and see how people respond. Just remember, your story architecture should flow through your elevator pitches so that they are that much stronger. Just like a short and sweet story, your elevator pitch must grab people's interest, take them on a little journey, and make them see the value in what you're talking about.
Elevator pitches for products and services come in different formats and generally function like this:
For [target customer] who has [customer need], [product name] is a [market category] that [one key benefit]. Unlike [competition], the product [unique differentiator].
If you reverse engineer the format, you can see how this maps out onto and functions much like a concept story:
• Target customer = main character
• Customer need = inciting incident or problem
• Product name, category, one key benefit = rising action
• Competition = crisis and conflict
• Unique differentiator = climax, resolution, or what's _awesome_
• And the falling action and end = this is how it all comes together: a customer should be able to use a product not only to get something done, but also to see the benefit and the value. Conflict overcome, crisis averted.
### **Putting It All Together**
Once you've got a good idea of what your storylines can be, you'll want to continue to weave them into everything from the actual physical or digital prototypes that you build to the way you present your work to how you test your products with your target market. Stories aren't just something that should stay in your workplace or with your team—they eventually need to make it to the outside world. Weave them through everything you do related to creating a product, including pitching, presenting, and demonstrating your ideas.
#### **Build and Communicate**
Consider how story ultimately wove through the first iPhone. When Steve Jobs gave his keynote presentation in 2007 announcing the iPhone, he had a vision for the product, and knew how to weave that vision into everything from the design, the presentation, and even the prototype of the first iPhone. It turns out that the product he demonstrated that day to illustrate his point that Apple was reimagining the way we communicate wasn't an actual functioning iPhone—it was a semi-functional prototype. As such, the device was essentially a prop that supported the overall vision and story as he walked the world through a series of smaller storylines that introduced features and functionality like the ability to pinch and zoom into a high-resolution photo or search for Starbucks on a map, call the store, and order 1,000 lattes.
"And here we are...boom!"
Those are the words that Steve Jobs used during his presentation to narrate how you search for and locate something in the Google Maps app on the first iPhone as he demonstrated the device onstage. As behind-the-scenes accounts now tell us, the prototype was only marginally functional; it could barely catch a Wi-Fi signal, make a phone call, or operate without crashing. And as owners of the first iPhones remember, the phone was not at all fully featured compared to other smartphones on the market. The Palm Treo, which was the best-selling smartphone the year before, not only had features like cut-and-paste, but it also let you install apps and games. The iPhone did neither. But what the iPhone and in particular the cobbled-together prototype that Jobs demonstrated did do was go "boom." Just like a good story.
The perfectly timed "boom" during this demo and overall presentation was not a coincidence. In fact, it is just like that one plot point from the fourth season of _Breaking Bad_ : _BOOM_ (see Chapter 1, "Mapping the Story"). Only instead of actual explosions, the "boom" Jobs was narrating was a tiny animation that transpired when a pin dropped on a map (see Figure 7.9). This animation was so fast and tiny that if you weren't looking for it, you missed it. But if you spent years working at Pixar or being forced to watch and analyze scenes and sequences over and over, you noticed it. And if you spend some time after reading this book looking for and analyzing sequences and flows like the one for adding a calendar event in Fantastical, you'll start to notice them, too. Nothing is too small, fast, or insignificant to inject into a design or prototype as long as it supports the story. If the story is strong and compelling enough—like the ability to search anywhere on the globe using your phone, which was a revolutionary concept in 2007—you not only save that demo for last, but you also emphasize the story with narration. Just like Jobs did.
**FIGURE 7.9**
**While the first iPhone didn't have basic functionality like cut-and-paste, the pin-dropping animation was meticulously crafted for bounce and elasticity.**
Prototyping, demonstrating, and presenting your work, whether you are a designer, developer, product manager, executive, or founder is essential for conveying why your product is great _and_ for explaining how it works and why it matters. Plus, it's essential for getting buy-in, whether it is from an internal sponsor team, clients, or the world audience.
At FitCounter, we wove our storylines into everything from research to design, to strategy and presentations, demonstrations, and even board and investor pitch decks. And it worked. Without a story, our customers and potential investors were confused. With a story, they were excited. The great thing was that both investors and customers put their money where their mouths were. So much so that the actual start-up that the story is based on is doing great—they have a story and the revenue generation to show for it.
Again, this is not just film magic or some kind of smoke-and-mirrors illusion or sleight of hand. It's good old story craft that is built for how humans interact with and understand the world around them. It works for the idea of a product, the actual product, and how you present that product to the world. It not only helps you sell your products, but it also makes them better, overall. More importantly, a story-first approach helps your customers have a better experience with that product. There is not enough magic in the world that can make humans unwittingly fake that on their end. Designing with story is designing for humans.
If you ever want to learn from the master of product stories, I recommend sitting down for an hour one day and watching that first iPhone keynote address from start to finish. In that presentation, you will see how someone uses story and story structure to build excitement about concepts and use cases. In the presentation, the iPhone isn't the star—rather, _you_ are the star as you envision all of the things that you could do with this device in your hand. As an origin story, this story ends with you eventually buying the device as many people did and continue to do around the world. More importantly, however, it ends with you having a new and better way to do what you didn't realize you needed to do: communicate.
Was this presentation crafted with a clear overarching storyline and subplots? Absolutely. The best presentation experts in the world advocate using story architecture to bolster presentations. Was Steve Jobs aware of how powerful story structure could be when he demonstrated the smallest subplot or usage story for searching for and finding a location on a map? Undoubtedly. He spent years before going back to Apple working with Pixar—a bastion of visual storytelling and animation. As any filmmaker will tell you, everything you put in the scene must support the story.
While storytelling comes naturally to many of us, it is worthwhile to meticulously and carefully map out everything from how a prototype functions to how you ultimately present that prototype or a broader product idea to an audience. The better the story, the more engaging both your prototype and presentation will be.
#### **Test and Validate**
Stories are not just for building and communicating. They must resonate with your audience. Every step of the way, you must test your stories to make sure that you're on track. Diagrams, storyboards, written words, pitches, improv, prototypes, demos, presentations—these are all artifacts and activities you can use to test your stories with your target audience to make sure that you're on the right track.
How do you know you're on the right track? First, once you start to use story more in your work, you'll start to see when something is or isn't a solid story. Then, when you start putting your ideas in front of people, you'll start to get feedback. Maybe a story will or won't resonate with someone. Maybe people will tell you when something doesn't make sense to them. Maybe they'll smile at just the right time during a usability or concept test, validating your hunch that the climax was what you thought it would be. And if all goes well, maybe even journalists will hear about your product, use your product, and unwittingly echo your story.
When a story is structurally sound, it flows through _everything_. It's not only up to you to make sure that you engineer around the story, but also that the story resonates with and is echoed by the outside world.
## CHAPTER 8
**Rules of Thumb**
**Stories Are Character-Driven**
**Characters Are Goal-Driven**
**Goals Can Change**
**Goals Are Measurable**
**Conflict Is Key**
**Math Is Fun**
**Choose Your Own Adventure**
**Make Things Go _Boom!_**
**"The true writer is one for whom technique has become, as it is for the pianist, second nature."**
**—John Gardner,**
** _The Art of Fiction_**
A few years ago, I stormed into a CEO's office and proudly proclaimed my sudden epiphany: "We have no story. We need a story!" I continued. "So...what's the story?" This was the start-up that I have fictionalized as FitCounter in this book. Luckily, the CEO still talks to me today. But at that moment, he turned bright red and asked me to leave his office. Stories are powerful tools. When used well, they make things better. But use them carefully.
As I learned that day, no one likes being told that his product and something he's worked for years to build has no story. What people do like are products that are successful, customers who are happy, and metrics that help board members sleep at night.
Once you start working with story, you will weave it into your practice in many ways, shapes, and forms. You will wield story like a mighty sword as you break away and rebuild how you hope people will think about and experience your products. But remember—swords can hurt. What eventually worked for this CEO and most of my clients and teams ever since is not _telling_ , but _showing._ If you're fixing something that's broken, use story not just to show what _is_ , but also what can _be._ And if you're building something from scratch, use story to make some magic.
Here are some rules of thumb to guide you on your journey.
### **Stories Are Character-Driven**
Remember, in the case of the stories you build, whether they are visual, verbal, analog, or digital, your main character must be the person on the other end, i.e., the person experiencing the story. Everything you want that person to experience must drive the story forward. If it doesn't, you cut it out. Also remember that the characters in your stories are not fictional or hypothetical dream customers who don't exist in real life. They are based on real people, real goals, real behaviors, and real stories. If you don't have access to real people or real data, you can make it up—as long as you validate it later.
### **Characters Are Goal-Driven**
It is your job to drive your character's story forward. It is also your job to help that person meet his or her goal. There is nothing worse than a story with no purpose, whether it is for people in an audience watching a movie or for the people using your product. When crafting your story, make sure to move your character forward _and_ to help him (and your business) meet some kind of goal.
### **Goals Can Change**
Humans are fickle. In romantic comedies, the protagonist often starts out with a simple goal: to end up with the guy who is no good for her. Over time, she will probably learn that what she really needs to do is be with the nice guy. That said, what you _want_ and what you _need_ aren't always obvious in the moment and that's OK.
In 2006, people said that they wanted an iPod that made phone calls. In 2007, instead they got a new way to communicate. If you think you know what a character's goal is, consider asking "why" as many times as you can until you uncover the real goal at the core of your story. You want an iPod that makes phone calls? Why? Because it would be convenient. Why? Because you only want to carry one device. Why?...and so forth.
Also know that while goals can change, characters won't always know what their goal is until you uncover it for them. I have yet to meet someone who tells me that his goal is to communicate with the world around him. But I've worked on enough products where that is undoubtedly the main character's goal. Sometimes, it's your job to remind people and get them on the right track.
### **Goals Are Measurable**
Imagining stories that help people meet their goals isn't simply an exercise in creativity. Goals in the stories you create can and should be measured, both for your characters and your business. You can do this by measuring qualitatively (in-person conversations and observational studies) and quantitatively (surveys and analytics)—or using a combination of the two. You can measure actions, and you can measure sentiment, ideally both. Doing so requires measuring what people think and do, both of which are essential for stories to move forward and help characters meet their goals. Observing stories in action and measuring goal completion is how you know you're on the right track.
### **Conflict Is Key**
Once upon a time, there was a wooden doll named Pinocchio. He wanted to become a real human boy. So he went out, bought some magic, and transformed into a boy. The end.
Easy, right?
Of course not.
Stories wouldn't be stories without conflict. They would be a series of events—stuff happening. Just as stuff happening doesn't make for good stories, it definitely doesn't make for engaging experiences.
Every character and every goal in a story should always have some kind of force working in opposition to it. Conflict makes everything that happens in a story more suspenseful and ultimately rewarding, whether you experience a story by watching it from the outside or by participating in the story, as you do when you engage with products and services.
Designing stories for conflict helps you determine what should happen next as you strive for balance between a character trying to attain a goal (or set of goals) and running into obstacles along the way. When building products around stories, it is not your job to place obstacles in the way, but instead to consider them and plan around them as you help your protagonist jump hurdles, have a smooth ride, and ultimately meet his and your business goals.
### **Math Is Fun**
Here's a formula you didn't learn in math class. I use it all the time to make things better.
_A_ × _B_ = _C_
_**A**_ represents forward momentum, which is the force that a character exerts to meet his or her goal with your product or service. _**B**_ is the force or forces that act against your character and get in the way of that person using your product to meet his goal. If you multiply the forces, you get _**C**_ —and that's what will ultimately help the climax or the way that the customer uses your product to resolve this conflict (see Figure 8.1).
**FIGURE 8.1**
**Opposing forces collide to form a climax or a peak.**
I use the iPhone as an example to illustrate this law because it's so easy to refer to when I'm in meetings or too tired to think (which is often). If Force A is that you want a 2-in-1 device so that you can communicate better. And Force B is that you don't want to buy a new device or are afraid that it will be difficult to use. Then C is what wins: a 3-in-1 device that works like magic and is easy to use. It's so simple to use that Steve Jobs ordered 4,000 lattes from Starbucks at the tap of a screen around 3/4 of the way through his 2007 keynote presentation. He didn't just _say_ that it was a 3-in-1 device that worked like magic. He _showed_ how 3-in1 _was_ magic.
### **Choose Your Own Adventure**
Storylines are linear. The products you build are not. They involve complex systems, decision points, branching paths, interactions, feedback loops, dependencies, and infinite permutations. One question I'm often asked is how and why you would use such a simple, linear framework like story to envision and plan interactive products and services that are anything but simple. Shouldn't we plan for something that resembles more of a _Choose Your Own Adventure_ novel that you might have read when you were young? Or a modern corollary—video games?
While complex products have much in common with complex entertainment media like novelty books and video games, defining complexity as branching rather than linear is taking a system-centric approach. If you want to engage someone using your product, you want to design for the human experience, not the system. Systems are complex. Human experiences are linear. That's because experiences happen as a series of moments in time. Until flux capacitors and time-shifting Delorians are a reality, time is unfortunately linear.
Whether someone using your product chooses to sign up now or sign up later, visit this page or that page, perform this task or that task, and do so successfully or hit a roadblock or error, the constant for that person is time. As such, when using story to assess, envision, and plan for intended experiences of use, embrace complexity by thinking linearly, one story at a time. Each character, each use case, each scenario, the happy paths, the critical edge cases, they each get their own story. Different stories might intersect and have common features and plot points (see Figure 8.2). And seeing the intersections and commonalties can be valuable. But each story lives on its own and should be given due diligence. Something like a flow chart is wonderful for mapping out a system from a birds-eye view. Stories are a map of the human experience, from the human view. Yes, in reality, your users will choose their own adventures. And yes, you can and should plan ahead so that those adventures are as engaging as can be.
**FIGURE 8.2**
**Different storymaps comingle in an ecosystem of stories, each unique to a different character user type.**
### **Make Things Go _Boom!_**
Story structure works the way it does because humans need a little something near the end of an experience to help them pay attention, remember, learn from, and see value in what they just sat through or did. Or maybe humans evolved to need this something because of millennia of communicating through story.
No matter why, the fact remains: If you want to have maximum impact and help people and businesses meet their goals, make things go _boom_!
This _boom_ can be as seemingly insignificant as a little animation on a tiny screen or as big as a voucher for a free flight because someone sat on the tarmac on your company's airplane for three hours and complained to your customer service team via Twitter. As long as that little something is significant, delightful, or impactful, the experience will be memorable and the story repeatable...maybe even never-ending.
## INDEX
### **A**
_A_ x _B_ = _C_ representation of momentum, 136–137
acting out stories, 126–127
adventure, choosing your own, 137–138
Agile user storymapping,
Amazon,
animation,
anticlimactic, avoiding the, 31–33
Apple commercial,
### **B**
_Back to the Future_ , 11–17
_Badass: Making Users Awesome_ ,
behavior analysis, 120–121
BoardThing collaboration tool,
_Breaking Bad_ , 2–3,
building stories, 129–131
### **C**
call to action, and structure of story, 11–12
changed goals,
characters
character-driven story, 134–135
goal-driven,
identifying through exposition element,
names,
_Choose Your Own Adventure_ ,
cliffhanger
FitCounter, 59–61
story structure as,
climax
in concept stories,
as concept story element,
in origin stories,
as origin story element,
and structure of story, 14–15
in Twitter usage story,
in usage stories,
as usage story element,
communicating stories, 129–131
concept stories
anticlimactic, avoiding, 31–33
basic description of,
climax/resolution element,
concept of,
crisis element,
for different personas,
end of story,
exposition element,
falling action element, 28–29
FitCounter example, 38–42
inciting incident/problem element,
mapping, 34–35
model for iPhone release,
_versus_ origin stories, ,
rising action element,
Slack example of, 36–37
structure and operation of,
support,
visual elevator pitch,
what they do,
conflict. _See also_ crisis
designing stories for,
and rising action,
and structure of story,
core tasks (micro-stories), 86–90
crisis
in concept stories,
as concept story element,
as narrative arc element,
in origin stories, 49–50
as origin story element,
and structure of story,
in Twitter usage story,
in usage stories,
as usage story element,
customer journey mapping,
customer need,
### **D**
data and analytics,
data-based usage stories,
data-driven storylines, 107–109
denouement. _See_ falling action
diagramming, illustrating stories through,
### **E**
elevator pitch
communicating story through, 127–128
concept story as,
end of story
in concept stories,
as concept story element,
as narrative arc element,
in origin stories,
as origin story element,
and story structure,
in Twitter usage story, 81–82
in usage stories, 73–74
as usage story element,
engagement, story as framework powering the human brain, 4–5
epic journeys, 84–85
experience mapping,
exposition
in concept stories,
as concept story element,
identifying main characters,
as narrative arc element,
in origin stories,
as origin story element,
and structure of story,
in Twitter usage story,
in usage stories, 71–72
as usage story element,
### **F**
FaceTime,
falling action
in concept stories, 28–29
as narrative arc element,
in origin stories, 50–51
as origin story element,
and structure of story, 15–16
in Twitter usage story,
in usage stories,
as usage story element,
FitCounter
broken funnel problem, 91–92
cliffhanger, 59–61
concept story, 38–42
data analysis example, 92–94
new user experience story, 97–98
origin story, 56–66
product development plan,
refocus of vision, 56–57
sign-up flow plan,
smile test,
story map,
testing of new vision, 57–58
usage story, 90–100
flat story,
flow charts,
### **G**
gap analysis,
Gilligan, Vince, 2–3
goal-driven characters,
goals
changing,
measurable, 135–136
Google Glass,
### **H**
halfalogue,
Hemingway, Ernest,
### **I**
improvisation and role-playing, 126–127
inciting incident/problem
in concept stories,
as concept story element,
as narrative arc element,
in origin stories,
as origin story element,
and structure of story, 11–12
in Twitter usage story,
in usage stories,
as usage story element,
iOS Calendar app, micro-story structure, 86–90
iPad, 110–111
iPhone release
anticlimactic concept story, 31–33
building and communicating stories, 129–131
and climax/resolution element,
concept story model,
concept story support,
and crisis element,
and end of story element,
and exposition element,
and falling action element, 28–29
and inciting incident/problem element,
patent application,
release of,
and rising action element,
iPod,
_Iron Man_ ,
### **J**
Jobs, Steve, , , 32–33, ,
journey mapping,
### **K**
Kahneman, Daniel,
### **L**
listening to customers, 102–103
### **M**
main characters, identifying through exposition element,
mapping stories. _See_ storymapping
measurable goals, 135–136
micro-stories (core tasks), 86–90
moments in time,
### **N**
names, character,
narrative arc
elements of,
and story structure,
narrative cognition,
narrative _versus_ story,
needs assessment,
### **O**
origin stories
climax/resolution element,
concept,
_versus_ concept stories, ,
crisis element, 49–50
elements of,
end of story,
exposition element,
falling action element, 50–51
FitCounter, 56–66
inciting incident/problem element,
mechanics of,
rising action element,
Slack online collaboration tool, 54–56
story formats, 45–47
storymapping, 51–53
### **P**
panels, storyboard, 117–118
patent, iPhone release,
peak-end rule, 68–69
Pinterest
invitation to join,
origin story format, 45–47
plot points
organizing thoughts and insights,
stories intersected with common features and,
story arc elements,
plot _versus_ story,
Post-It notes,
problem. _See_ inciting incident/problem
product development plan, FitCounter origin story, 58–59
products, building with story, 18–20
proofs of concept, stories as,
### **R**
real-time processing,
resolution
in concept stories,
as concept story element,
in origin stories,
as origin story element,
and structure of story, 15–16
in Twitter usage story,
in usage stories,
rising action
in concept stories,
as concept story element,
as narrative arc element,
origin story element,
as origin story element,
and structure of story, 12–13
in Twitter usage story, 76–77
in usage stories,
as usage story element,
_RoboCop_ ,
role-playing and improvisation, 126–127
### **S**
scenarios, writing stories through,
serial stories, , 85–86
Sierra, Kathy,
six-word stories,
sketch-based usage stories,
Slack online collaboration tool
concept story storymapping example, 36–37
home page,
origin story storymapping example, 54–56
smile test, 104–105
soap operas, 85–86
_Star Trek Next Generation_ ,
story
acting out, 126–127
building and communicating, 129–131
character-driven, 134–135
as cliffhanger,
as framework powering the human brain, 4–5
intersected with common features and plot points,
narrative arc, 9–10
and narrative cognition,
_versus_ narrative _versus_ plot,
parts of a,
product building with, 18–20
as proofs of concept,
structure, 9–18
testing,
validation,
writing, 123–126
story arc
plot points,
and story structure,
storyboarding
illustrating stories through, 117–118
panels, 117–118
storymapping
Agile user,
behavior analysis method, 120–121
concept of,
concept story, 34–35
customer journey mapping,
experience mapping,
gap analysis method,
journey mapping,
needs assessment method,
origin story, 51–53
Slack example of, 36–37, 54–56
strategic,
SWOT analysis method,
usage story, 82–83
user journey mapping,
strategic storymapping,
structure
concept stories,
story, 9–18
superheroes,
support, concept story,
SWOT analysis,
### **T**
target customer,
_Terminator_ ,
testing story,
_They Live_ ,
touchscreens, early models,
TV writers, 2–3
Twitter usage story
climax/resolution element,
crisis element,
end of story element, 81–82
exposition element,
falling action element,
first-time use as story,
inciting incident element,
low repeat engagement,
rising action element, 76–77
### **U**
usage stories
climax/resolution element,
concept of,
crisis element,
data-based,
elements of,
end of story element, 73–74
epic journeys, 84–85
exposition element, 71–72
falling action element,
FitCounter case study, 90–100
inciting incident/problem element,
micro-stories,
model,
rising action element,
serial narrative, 85–86
sketch-based,
soap operas, 85–86
storymapping, 82–83
Twitter case story, 74–82
use cases, 125–126
user journey mapping,
user stories, 125–126
### **V**
validating story,
### **W**
wearable technology, 112–113
"what-if" question, 108–110
_Wizard of Oz_ ,
writing stories
micro-stories,
six-word stories,
through scenarios,
use cases and user stories, 125–126
visualizing story as first step toward,
## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For all of my students, workshop attendees, and clients who asked me for a book to read so they could hone their narrative craft for product design. There was no such book. For you, now there is.
For those who helped me start writing and counseled me through the way: Lou Rosenfeld, Kevin Hoffman, Karen McGrane, Christina Wodtke, Abby Covert, Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Rebekah Cancino, Matt Grocki, Tomer Sharon, Jeff Gothelf, Jonathon Colman, Russ Unger, and Dave Gray.
For those who read early drafts. You pushed me to do what I hate most and use my words to explain myself: Lis Hubert, Margot Bloomstein, Jane Pirone, Maya Bruck, Jonathan Berger, and Bill Gullo.
For those who contributed insight, ideas, and imagery along the way: Marta Justak, Eva-Lotta Lamm, Ajay Rajani, Lis Hubert, Michael Leis, David Malouf, Chris Noessel, Paul Rissen, and Senongo Akpem.
For my fellow campers. You know who you are. You remind me daily that it's OK to take up space.
And for Snowball, my cat, who passed away right before I decided to write a book. You taught me that a cardboard box is never just a box. It's whatever you want it to be.
## ABOUT THE AUTHOR
For more than 15 years, **Donna Lichaw** has guided startups, non-profits, and Fortune 500 brands in optimizing their digital products and services by providing them with a simplified way to drive user engagement through impactful storytelling. As a consultant, speaker, writer, and educator, she utilizes a "story first" approach to help teams define their value proposition, transform their thinking, and better engage with their core customers.
Donna developed her talent for storytelling and narrative development as a documentary filmmaker, from which she built a successful career as a digital product strategist for a number of emerging and established companies in New York and London. She has been recognized as a subject expert on storytelling and customer engagement strategies, speaking at design and technology conferences throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
Donna graduated from Northwestern University with an MFA in radio, film, and television, and completed her undergraduate degree in film and video studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She has taught courses and delivered seminars on design, communication, and user experience at New York University, Northwestern University, and General Assembly, and is an adjunct faculty member at the School of Visual Arts.
She currently works and resides in Brooklyn, New York with her partner, Erica, their crooked dog, Ralph, and doe-eyed, pointy-eared cat, Gizmo. You can find her at **www.donnalichaw.com** and on Twitter **@dlichaw**.
## **Footnotes**
### **CHAPTER 2 How Story Works**
**http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2010/05/half-heard-phone-conversations-reduce-performance**
### **CHAPTER 3 Concept Stories**
Jobs, Steven P., Scott Forstall, Greg Christie, Bas Ording, Imran Chaudhri, Stephen O. Lemay, Marcel Van Os, Freddy A. Anzures, and Mike Matas. Telephone Interface for a Portable Communication Device. Apple, Inc., Cupertino, CA (US), assignee. Patent 7860536B2. 28 Dec. 2010. **http://1.usa.gov/1GPdPpK**
Opening trademark statement from _Dragnet_ , a radio, TV, and motion picture series.
Note: This is a fictionalized version of a business.
### **CHAPTER 5 Usage Stories**
For full case study co-written by Lis Hubert, see _Storymapping: A MacGyver Approach to Content Strategy, Parts 1-3 UX Matters_ **http://bit.ly/1k2JckM**
### **CHAPTER 7 Using Your Story**
For more on creating storyboards and comics, see Cheng, Kevin. _See What I Mean: How to Use Comics to Communicate Ideas_. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Rosenfeld Media, 2012.
Trendacosta, Katharine. "Brand New Concept Art of _Back to the Future Part II_ 's 2015 Technology." io9. **http://io9.com/brand-new-concept-art-of-back-to-the-future-part-iis-20-1678913570**
For more on live-action improv, see Gray, Dave, Sunni Brown, and James Macanufo. _Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers_. Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly, 2010.
While there are many different types of elevator pitch formats, I like to use this one: **http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/elevator-pitch/**
Vogelstein, Fred. "And Then Steve Said, 'Let There Be an iPhone'." _The New York Times_ , 04 Oct. 2013.
## Contents
1. **Cover Page**
2. **Title Page**
3. **Copyright Page**
4. How to Use This Book
5. Frequently Asked Questions
6. Foreword
7. Introduction
8. **Chapter 1: Mapping the Story**
1. Making Things Go BOOM!
2. Why Story?
9. **Chapter 2: How Story Works**
1. Story Has a Structure
2. Building Products with Story
10. **Chapter 3: Concept Stories**
1. What Is a Concept Story?
2. How Concept Stories Work
3. Avoiding the Anticlimactic
4. Supporting the Story
5. Mapping a Concept Story
6. Finding the Concept Story at FitCounter
11. **Chapter 4: Origin Stories**
1. What Is an Origin Story?
2. How Origin Stories Work
3. Mapping an Origin Story
4. Case Study: Slack
5. Case Study: FitCounter's Origin Story
12. **Chapter 5: Usage Stories**
1. What Is a Usage Story?
2. How Usage Stories Work
3. Case Study: Twitter
4. Mapping the Usage Story
5. How Big Should Your Story Be?
6. Case Study: FitCounter
13. **Chapter 6: Finding and Mapping Your Story**
1. Listen
2. Use the Smile Test
3. Measure
4. Case Study: SmallLoans--a Cliffhanger
5. Innovate: What If?
6. Borrow: Stories as Proofs of Concept
14. **Chapter 7: Using Your Story**
1. Illustrate Your Story with Strategic Tools
2. Write Your Story
3. Act It Out
4. Elevator Pitch
5. Putting It All Together
15. **Chapter 8: Rules of Thumb**
1. Stories Are Character-Driven
2. Characters Are Goal-Driven
3. Goals Can Change
4. Goals Are Measurable
5. Conflict Is Key
6. Math Is Fun
7. Choose Your Own Adventure
8. Make Things Go **_Boom!_**
16. **Index**
17. **Acknowledgments**
18. **About the Author**
19. **Footnotes**
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| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaBook"
} | 3,522 |
A young woman was taking an afternoon nap. After she woke up, she told her husband, I just dreamed that you gave me a pearl necklace for Valentines day. What do you think it means?
Youll know tonight. he said.
That evening, the man came home with a small package and gave it to his wife. Delighted, she opened it–only to find a book entitled The meaning of dreams. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 3,508 |
Q: Numero repetido en matriz Quisiera saber como podría hacer para que cuando el usuario me ingresa dos números iguales en la apuesta le tire error que no se pueden repetir dos números en una misma apuesta:
static bool Agregar(int[,] m, ref int tope) //agregar una apuesta
{
bool disponible = true;
bool repetido = true;
int i = 0;
while (i < 5)
{
try
{
Console.Write("\n" + "INGRESE NÚMERO (" + (i + 1) + ") : ");
m[tope, i] = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());
repetido = true;
for (int x = 0; x < tope; x++)
{
if (m[tope, i] == m[tope, i])
{
i++;
}
}
if (repetido)
{
Console.WriteLine("repe");
}
disponible = true;
if (m[tope, i] >= 1 && m[tope, i] <= 48 && disponible == true)
{
i++;
}
else
{
disponible = false;
Console.WriteLine("Número no disponible para apostar (1-48)");
}
}
catch
{
Console.WriteLine("Número incorrecto");
}
}
tope++;
return disponible;
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
nombres = new string[cantidad];
int[,] matriz = new int[cantidad, 5];
i
while (!salir)
{
Console.Clear();
Console.WriteLine("----------------------");
Console.WriteLine("PRIMER OBLIGATORIO");
Console.WriteLine("----------------------");
Console.WriteLine("1- AGREGAR UNA APUESTA");
Console.WriteLine("2- AGREGAR UNA APUESTA SORPRESA");
Console.WriteLine("3- ELIMINAR UNA APUESTA");
Console.WriteLine("4- NÚMEROS DE UN APOSTADOR");
Console.WriteLine("5- LISTADO COMPLETO DE APUESTAS");
Console.WriteLine("6- NÚMEROS QUE NO HAN ESTADO EN APUESTAS");
Console.WriteLine("7- SALIR");
try
{
Console.Write("INGRESE OPCIÓN (1-7) : ");
opcion = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());
}
catch
{
Console.WriteLine("La opción es incorrecta (1-7)");
}
Console.Clear();
switch (opcion)
{
case 1:
Console.Clear();
Console.WriteLine("---------------------------------------------------------");
Console.WriteLine(" AGREGAR UNA APUESTA");
Console.WriteLine("---------------------------------------------------------\n");
if (tope < nombres.Length)
{
Console.Write("INGRESE NOMBRE : ");
nombres[tope] = Console.ReadLine();
if (nombres[tope] == "")
{
mensaje = mensaje + "Debe ingresar un nombre";
if (mensaje == "")
{
Console.WriteLine("Nombre ingresado correctamente");
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine(mensaje);
}
}
else
{
Agregar(matriz, ref tope);
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine("Se agrego correctamente su apuesta");
}
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine("No hay màs apuestas disponibes");
}
Console.ReadLine();
break;
....
lo que intente hacer yo esta mal , por las dudas!
A: Bien, en el método que nos pones tienes varios problemas:
*
*en lugar de guardar directamente en el array lo que ha introducido el usuario, debes meterlo en una variable temporal para comprobar si está repetido antes de meterlo: var numeroIntroducido = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());
*Una vez hecho esto, comprobar si el numero ya existe es sencillo. Simplemente, comparas el numero introducido con todos los que existen en el array,algo asi:
repetido = false;
for (int j=0;j<m.GetLength(1);j++)
{
if (m[tope,j]==numeroIntroducido)
{
repetido=true;
break;
}
}
*Por otro lado, usar try/catch para comprobar si lo introducido es correcto no está bien, es mejor usar Int32.TryParse
Con todo esto, el código para comprobar si el numero esta repetido mas o menos quedaría asi:
bool repetido=true;
while (repetido)
{
Console.Write("\n" + "INGRESE NÚMERO (" + (i + 1) + ") : ");
int numeroIntroducido;
if (Int32.TryParse(Console.ReadLine(),out numeroIntroducido))
{
repetido = false;
//en este bucle es donde se comprueba si el numero esta ya en el array
for (int j=0;j<m.GetLength(1);j++)
{
if (m[tope,j]==numeroIntroducido)
{
repetido=true;
break;
}
}
if(!repetido)
{
m[tope, i]=numeroIntroducido;
}
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine("Número incorrecto");
}
}
Te queda adaptar la comprobación de si está disponible y meterlo dentro del bucle que pide los 5 elementos.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 794 |
package gov.nih.nci.cabig.caaers.web.study;
import com.semanticbits.rules.utils.RuleUtil;
import gov.nih.nci.cabig.caaers.dao.StudyDao;
import gov.nih.nci.cabig.caaers.domain.CoordinatingCenter;
import gov.nih.nci.cabig.caaers.domain.FundingSponsor;
import gov.nih.nci.cabig.caaers.domain.OrganizationAssignedIdentifier;
import gov.nih.nci.cabig.caaers.domain.Study;
import gov.nih.nci.cabig.caaers.service.migrator.StudyConverter;
import gov.nih.nci.cabig.caaers.web.rule.notification.ReportDefinitionCommand;
import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
import org.springframework.validation.BindException;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.AbstractCommandController;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;
import javax.xml.bind.Marshaller;
import java.io.*;
/**
* @author Ion C. Olaru
*
* */
public class ExportStudyController extends AbstractCommandController {
protected final Log log = LogFactory.getLog(getClass());
protected StudyDao studyDao;
protected StudyConverter converter;
public ExportStudyController(){
setCommandClass(ReportDefinitionCommand.class);
}
@Override
protected ModelAndView handle(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, Object o, BindException e) throws Exception {
Integer studyID = Integer.valueOf(request.getParameter("id"));
Study study = studyDao.getById(studyID);
studyDao.initialize(study);
// START study export pre-population
study.setCoordinatingCenter(new CoordinatingCenter());
study.getCoordinatingCenter().setStudyCoordinatingCenter(study.getStudyCoordinatingCenter());
study.setFundingSponsor(new FundingSponsor());
study.getFundingSponsor().setStudyFundingSponsor(study.getStudyFundingSponsors().get(0));
for (OrganizationAssignedIdentifier id : study.getOrganizationAssignedIdentifiers()) {
if (id.getOrganization().equals(study.getFundingSponsor().getStudyFundingSponsor().getOrganization())) {
study.getFundingSponsor().setOrganizationAssignedIdentifier(id);
study.getFundingSponsor().getOrganizationAssignedIdentifier().setPrimaryIndicator(true);
break;
}
}
for (OrganizationAssignedIdentifier id : study.getOrganizationAssignedIdentifiers()) {
if (id.getOrganization().equals(study.getCoordinatingCenter().getStudyCoordinatingCenter().getOrganization())) {
study.getCoordinatingCenter().setOrganizationAssignedIdentifier(id);
study.getCoordinatingCenter().getOrganizationAssignedIdentifier().setPrimaryIndicator(false);
break;
}
}
// END study export pre-population
gov.nih.nci.cabig.caaers.integration.schema.study.Studies studies = converter.convertStudyDomainToStudyDto(study);
//Marshall the Data Transfer Object according to Study.xsd schema,
//and download it to the client machine.
try {
String tempDir = System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir");
String fileName = "ExportedStudy_" + study.getPrimaryIdentifierValue();
fileName = RuleUtil.getStringWithoutSpaces(fileName);
StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance("gov.nih.nci.cabig.caaers.integration.schema.study");
Marshaller marshaller = jaxbContext.createMarshaller();
marshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true) ;
marshaller.marshal(studies, sw);
BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(tempDir + fileName + ".xml"));
out.write(sw.toString());
out.flush();
out.close();
response.setContentType("application/xml");
response.setHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + fileName + ".xml");
response.setHeader("Content-length", String.valueOf(sw.toString().length()));
response.setHeader("Pragma", "private");
response.setHeader("Cache-control", "private, must-revalidate");
OutputStream outputStream = response.getOutputStream();
File file = new File(tempDir + fileName + ".xml");
FileInputStream fileIn = new FileInputStream(file);
byte[] buffer = new byte[2048];
int bytesRead = fileIn.read(buffer);
while (bytesRead >= 0) {
if (bytesRead > 0) outputStream.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
bytesRead = fileIn.read(buffer);
}
outputStream.flush();
outputStream.close();
fileIn.close();
} catch (Exception ex) {
log.error(ex);
ex.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
public StudyDao getStudyDao() {
return studyDao;
}
public void setStudyDao(StudyDao studyDao) {
this.studyDao = studyDao;
}
public StudyConverter getConverter() {
return converter;
}
public void setConverter(StudyConverter converter) {
this.converter = converter;
}
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 6,872 |
Q: How do I safely grant permission for Cloud Scheduler to create a Dataflow job? I have a Dataflow template that I can use for a Dataflow job running as a service account of my choosing. I've actually used one of Google's provided samples: gs://dataflow-templates/latest/GCS_Text_to_BigQuery.
I now want to schedule this using Cloud Scheduler. I've set up my scheduler job like so:
When the scheduler job runs it errors with PERMISSION_DENIED:
{
"insertId": "1kw7uaqg3tnzbqu",
"jsonPayload": {
"@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.scheduler.logging.AttemptFinished",
"url": "https://dataflow.googleapis.com/v1b3/projects/project-redacted/locations/europe-west2/templates:launch?gcsPath=gs%3A%2F%2Fdataflow-templates%2Flatest%2FGCS_Text_to_BigQuery",
"jobName": "projects/project-redacted/locations/europe-west2/jobs/aaa-schedule-dataflow-job",
"status": "PERMISSION_DENIED",
"targetType": "HTTP"
},
"httpRequest": {
"status": 403
},
"resource": {
"type": "cloud_scheduler_job",
"labels": {
"job_id": "aaa-schedule-dataflow-job",
"project_id": "project-redacted",
"location": "europe-west2"
}
},
"timestamp": "2021-12-16T16:41:17.349974291Z",
"severity": "ERROR",
"logName": "projects/project-redacted/logs/cloudscheduler.googleapis.com%2Fexecutions",
"receiveTimestamp": "2021-12-16T16:41:17.349974291Z"
}
I have no idea what permission is missing or what I need to grant in order to make this work and am hoping someone here can help me.
In order to reproduce the problem I have built a terraform configuration that creates the Dataflow job from the template along with all of its prerequisites and it executes successfully.
In that same terraform configuration I have created a Cloud Scheduler job that purports to execute an identical Dataflow job and it is that which fails with the error given above.
All this code is available at https://github.com/jamiet-msm/dataflow-scheduler-permission-problem/tree/6ef20824af0ec798634c146ee9073b4b40c965e0 and I have created a README that explains how to run it:
A: I figured it out, the service account needs to be granted roles/iam.serviceAccountUser on itself
resource "google_service_account_iam_member" "sa_may_act_as_itself" {
service_account_id = google_service_account.sa.name
role = "roles/iam.serviceAccountUser"
member = "serviceAccount:${google_service_account.sa.email}"
}
and roles/dataflow.admin is required also, roles/dataflow.worker isn't enough. I assume that's because dataflow.jobs.create is required which is not provided by roles/dataflow.worker (see https://cloud.google.com/dataflow/docs/concepts/access-control#roles for reference)
resource "google_project_iam_member" "df_admin" {
role = "roles/dataflow.admin"
member = "serviceAccount:${google_service_account.sa.email}"
}
Here is the commit with the required changes: https://github.com/jamiet-msm/dataflow-scheduler-permission-problem/commit/3fd7cabdf13d5465e01a928049f54b0bd486ed73
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 7,764 |
NIGHT SKIES: ORCHESTRAL MUSIC OF KATHERINE HOOVER - SLOVAK RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, WISCONSIN PHILOMUSICA
PERFORMER SLOVAK RSO, SUBEN
SLOVAK RSO, SUBEN
Night Skies: Orchestral Music of Katherine Hoover
Denisa Danielova (mezzo), David Perry & Suzanne Beia (violins)
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, The Wisconsin Philomusica, Joel Eric Suben, Vartan Manoogian
Night Skies includes four orchestral works of Hoover's, all first performed since 1987. Three of them -Two Sketches, Eleni: A Greek Tragedy, and the title work–are performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony orchestra under the direction of American conductor Joel Eric Suben. In Eleni the vocal soloist is mezzo-soprano Denisa Danielova. These recordings were supervised by the composer. The Double Concerto is played by a U.S. orchestra making its recording debut: the Wisconsin Philharmonia, conducted by Vartan Manoogian, with violin soloists David Perry and Suzanne Beia.
Night Skies was inspired by the famous Henri-Edmond Cross painting, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That painting, reproduced with the permission and assistance of the Museum, makes for most appropriate and impressive cover art. All of these compositions have been peformed successfully in the U.S. to critical and audience acclaim
Night Skies: "Hoover's music mixes elements of old and new, in a masterful blending of old and new into a cohesive whole." –Harrisburg Patriot-News
Two Sketches:"Hoover's Two Sketches scored with immediate accessibility and an impressive combination of depth, maturity, and power." –San Francisco Eraminer
Eleni:"The first standing ovation for a contemporary work in our orchestra's history." Carolann Martin, conductor, South East Kansas Symphony
Double Concerto: "It delighted our soloists, orchestra, and audience alike" –Paul Mori, conductor. Baltimore Bach Ensemble
Hoover: Double Concerto
Hoover: Night Skies
Hoover: Sketches (2) | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 4,633 |
const { assert, test, module: describe, only } = require('qunit');
const { FunctionNode } = require(process.cwd() + '/src');
describe('FunctionNode.isSafeDependencies()');
test('calls if dependencies are falsey, returns true', () => {
assert.equal(FunctionNode.prototype.isSafeDependencies(null), true);
});
test('calls if dependencies have all isSafe that are true, returns true', () => {
assert.equal(FunctionNode.prototype.isSafeDependencies([
{
isSafe: true
},
{
isSafe: true
},
{
isSafe: true
}
]), true);
});
test('calls if dependencies have any isSafe that are false, returns false', () => {
assert.equal(FunctionNode.prototype.isSafeDependencies([
{
isSafe: true
},
{
isSafe: false
},
{
isSafe: true
}
]), false);
});
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 3,465 |
The market for Asia-Pacific Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.14 % during the forecast period of 2019 – 2024. Major factors driving the market studied are increasing the use of plastics to reduce vehicle weight and enhance fuel economy, growing demand from the construction industry, and increasing applications in the healthcare industry. However, hazardous impacts on humans and the environment are expected to majorly hinder the growth of the market studied.
Pipes & Fitting's segment dominated the market in 2018. The demand for PVC pipes and fittings is driven by its increasing demand in the developing countries, especially in the agriculture-based economies, like India, China, Indonesia, etc.
Accelerating usage of electric vehicles and PVC recycling are likely to act as an opportunity in the future.
China dominated the market across the region in 2018.
The construction sector in the Asia-Pacific is the largest in the world, and is growing at a healthy rate, owing to the rising population, increasing middle-class income, and urbanization.
Increasing infrastructure construction activity is the major driver for the construction sector in the region. In addition, the entry of major players from the EU into the lucrative market of China has further fueled the industry's expansion. Owing to their business potentials, countries, like Indonesia, China, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea, have become hosts to numerous national and international events.
Huge consumer base and cheaper manufacturing costs in the Asia-Pacific region are drawing in high FDIs, with India and China being the major beneficiaries. In the 2016-2017 fiscal year, India had a total FDI investment of USD 60.08 billion, which was 8% higher than that in the previous year, with huge investments in real estate and infrastructure.
Such favorable business environment in the region has further accelerated the demand for hotels, shopping malls, high-rise buildings, arenas, and stadiums (both outdoor and indoor), thereby, boosting the construction industry in the region. Besides this, the residential construction has also been increasing in the region, which is driven by the growing population and rise in migration, owing to employment opportunities.
In recent years, China has become a global industrial and manufacturing hub. The Chinese market is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period, owing to the significant increase in the per-capita income of the middle-class population and resultant increase in the sales of consumer goods in the region.
China has planned many infrastructural development projects, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as infrastructural projects, which includes the development of airport (new Beijing airport), roads (30,000 km of highways, with bridges built or upgraded), 30,000 km of high speed rail covering (which is expected to cover more than 80 cities), and 60% of urbanization ratio with permanent residents.
The country is a leader in the electric car market in Asia-Pacific, as well as across the world. The country is expecting a total annual sales of 2 million electric and gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, by 2020.
The Chinese government is providing substantial financial and non-financial incentives to boost the sales of electric cars. The country's New Energy Vehicle (NEV) initiative is aimed at aiding the electrics reach 20% of the automotive market by 2025. However, the NEV sector is expected to grow rapidly, after the subsidies are terminated, by the end of 2020.
As China is the world's largest manufacturing economy, its packaging requirement is huge. In 2017, the industrial output in the country expanded by 6.6%, which had a positive influence on the packaging industry.
Moreover, the country witnessed a rapid growth in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market during 2017. The growth of the FMCG market was majorly driven by the increased spending on premium and healthier products by middle-class consumers in the country.
The market studied is highly fragmented, and consists of many Central Asian and ASEAN players. Some of these major players include Formosa Plastics Corporation, Xinjiang Tianye, East Hope Group, LG Chem, and Reliance Industries Limited. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 4,350 |
Crowdsourcing "Monopoly"
Curated on Posted on April 3, 2014 August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst
The Economist: "In 1904 a young American named Elizabeth Magie received a patent for a board game in which players used tokens to move around a four-sided board buying properties, avoiding taxes and jail, and collecting $100 every time they passed the board's starting-point. Three decades later Charles Darrow, a struggling salesman in Pennsylvania, patented a tweaked version of the game as "Monopoly". Now owned by Hasbro, a big toymaker, it has become one of the world's most popular board games, available in dozens of languages and innumerable variations.
Magie was a devotee of Henry George, an economist who believed in common ownership of land; her game was designed to be a "practical demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences." And so it has become, though players snatch properties more in zeal than sadness. In "Monopoly" as in life, it is better to be rich than poor, children gleefully bankrupt their parents and nobody uses a flat iron any more.
Board-game makers have had to find their footing in a digital age. Hasbro's game-and-puzzle sales fell by 4% in 2010—the year the iPad came to market—and 10% in 2011. Since then, however, its game-and-puzzle sales have rebounded, rising by 2% in 2012 and 10% in 2013. Stephanie Wissink, a youth-market analyst with Piper Jaffray, an investment bank, says that Hasbro has learned to become "co-creative…They're infusing more social-generated content into their marketing and product development."
Some of that content comes from Facebook. Last year, "Monopoly" fans voted on Hasbro's Facebook page to jettison the poor old flat iron in favour of a new cat token. "Scrabble" players are voting on which word to add to the new dictionary (at press time, 16 remain, including "booyah", "adorbs" and "cosplay"). "Monopoly" fans, meanwhile, are voting on which of ten house rules—among them collecting $400 rather than $200 for landing on "Go", requiring players to make a full circuit of the board before buying property and "Mom always gets out of jail free. Always. No questions asked"—to make official…"
CategoriesCollection TagsTOPICS: crowdsourcing, social media TagsSECTORS: international development TagsGOVERNANCE LEVEL: TagsREGION: TagsTYPES: | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 5,727 |
import {registerBidder} from '../src/adapters/bidderFactory';
const BIDDER_CODE = 'vmg';
const ENDPOINT = 'https://predict.vmg.nyc';
export const spec = {
code: BIDDER_CODE,
/**
* Determines whether or not the given bid request is valid.
*
* @return boolean True if this is a valid bid, and false otherwise.
*/
isBidRequestValid: function (bidRequest) {
if (typeof bidRequest !== 'undefined') {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
},
/**
* Make a server request from the list of BidRequests.
*
* @param {validBidRequests[]} - an array of bids
* @return ServerRequest Info describing the request to the server.
*/
buildRequests: function (validBidRequests, bidderRequest) {
let bidRequests = [];
let referer = window.location.href;
try {
referer = typeof bidderRequest.refererInfo === 'undefined'
? window.top.location.href
: bidderRequest.refererInfo.referer;
} catch (e) {}
validBidRequests.forEach(function(validBidRequest) {
bidRequests.push({
adUnitCode: validBidRequest.adUnitCode,
referer: referer,
bidId: validBidRequest.bidId
});
});
return {
method: 'POST',
url: ENDPOINT,
data: JSON.stringify(bidRequests)
};
},
/**
* Unpack the response from the server into a list of bids.
*
* Some required bid params are not needed for this so default
* values are used.
*
* @param {*} serverResponse A successful response from the server.
* @return {Bid[]} An array of bids which were nested inside the server.
*/
interpretResponse: function (serverResponse, bidRequest) {
const validBids = JSON.parse(bidRequest.data);
let bidResponses = [];
if (typeof serverResponse.body !== 'undefined') {
const deals = serverResponse.body;
validBids.forEach(function(validBid) {
if (typeof deals[validBid.adUnitCode] !== 'undefined') {
const bidResponse = {
requestId: validBid.bidId,
ad: '<div></div>',
cpm: 0.01,
width: 0,
height: 0,
dealId: deals[validBid.adUnitCode],
ttl: 300,
creativeId: '1',
netRevenue: '0',
currency: 'USD'
};
bidResponses.push(bidResponse);
}
});
}
return bidResponses;
}
}
registerBidder(spec);
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 8,562 |
We offer a range of screen services for your beef or dairy herd throughout the North West.
Forages and Feedstuffs:- Full suite of tests available to determine nutrional value of pasture, ensiled forages and concentrate feeds.
Dairy herd disease screen Service based on bulk milk samples collected 3 times per year (100% spring-calving) or 4 times per year (spring and autumn calving). Milk samples should be taken during milk collection to give a representative sample of the whole herd. Details of all vaccinations (vaccine product, name and dates of vaccinations) must be provided on the sample submission sheet.
THis is the most comprehensive dairy herd health screen available.
It is recommended for all dairy farmers.
* if herd is not vaccinated, an indirect IBR ELISA will be used. If gE deleted marker vaccine for IBR is used, a gE antibody ELISA test will be used.
Service based on pooled blood samples collected 3 times per year (100% spring calving) or 4 times per year (spring and autumn calving).
Blood (serum or heparinised plasma) samples should be collected by the practicing veterinarian from a representative sample of each management group as outlined below.
Details of all vaccinations (vaccines product names and dates of vaccinations ) must be provided on the sample submission sheet.
For more information on our screening services, please phone our office today on 074 9130772 or fill in an appointment form. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 274 |
{"url":"https:\/\/stats.stackexchange.com\/questions\/387309\/speed-up-conditional-variable-importance-for-random-forests","text":"# Speed up Conditional Variable Importance for Random Forests\n\nI have trained a random forest in R and now I'm calculating the variable importance mesaure unsing the party Package.\n\nimportance <- varimp(randomForest, conditional = TRUE)\n\n\nMy data set consists of 30000 observations with 40 continuous variables and 10 categorical variables. The problem is that variables are correlated, wherfore I have to use the conditional variable importance measure (see this paper).\n\nTraining the random forest with 100 trees took ~10 minutes, but calculation of variable importance already takes two days.\n\nHow can calculating variable importance be speeded up? Or can it be claculated how long the calculation will take?\n\n\u2022 That's just a feaure, there is no way to speed it up, except using a different package which does not use conditional inference. \u2013\u00a0user2974951 Jan 15 at 14:24\n\u2022 I have colleague that worked with conditional importance and the main complaint was that it is incredible computationally intensive.You could sample your data but, there really is no easy solution. \u2013\u00a0J_Heads Jan 15 at 14:28\n\u2022 Thanks @J_Heads Are there any information regarding time complexity of the conditional importance algorithm? Then I could get an idea what causes this long computation time. If it depends on the number of observations, sampling might be an idea. \u2013\u00a0Hans Meier Ruth Jan 15 at 14:52\n\u2022 bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/\u2026 \u2013\u00a0J_Heads Jan 15 at 14:55","date":"2019-05-21 10:47:28","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 1, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.3137500286102295, \"perplexity\": 1577.5242797855853}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 20, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-22\/segments\/1558232256314.52\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20190521102417-20190521124417-00008.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
Glazba u 1979. godini.
Svijet
Izdanja
Objavljeni studijski, koncertni i kompilacijski albumi, singlovi, maksi singlovi, EP-i.
Za poznate glazbenike koje su tad objavili djelo, ali nisu ga objavili nosaču zvuka kod izdavačke kuće, nego u vlastitom izdanju, to ulazi ovdje. Isto vrijedi i za one glazbenike koji (ni)su djelovali u doba kad nije bilo nosača zvuka, nego su djelo objavili u pisanom obliku.
Koncertne turneje
Održane koncertne turneje.
Kate Bush – The Tour of Life, 1979.
Bee Gees – Spirits Having Flown Tour, 1979.
AC/DC – Highway to Hell Tour, 1979. – 1980.
Istaknuti koncerti
Povijesno važni koncerti, prvi povijesni koncert nekog glazbenog subjekta ili posljednji (oproštajni) koncert nekog glazbenog subjekta.
Europska natjecanja
Europska glazbena natjecanja.
Pjesma Eurovizije:
Osnivanja
Osnivanja poznatih izdavačkih kuća, sastava, prvi glazbeni angažman, glazbenih emisija na radiju, televiziji, glazbenih časopisa ili portala, pokretanje glazbene manifestacije, izgradnja poznate koncertne dvorane ili otvaranje poznatog glazbenog kluba, pojava (nastanak ili dolakak) glazbenog pravca i sl.
2 Tone Records
VP Records, američka neovisna glazbena izdavačka kuća iz New Yorka, osnovao ju jamajčanski glazbeni producent Vincent Chin i njegova supruga Patricia Chin
Gašenja i raspuštanja
Gašenja ili preuzimanja poznatih izdavačkih kuća, sastava, glazbenih emisija na radiju, televiziji, glazbenih časopisa ili portala, glazbene manifestacije, raspuštanja glazbenih subjekata i sl.
Rođenja
Rođenja poznatih glazbenika i osoba u svezi s glazbom.
16. siječnja – Aaliyah, američka pjevačica, plesačica, glumica i model († 2001.)
21. veljače – Jennifer Love Hewitt, američka glumica i pjevačica
12. ožujka – Pete Doherty
18. ožujka – Adam Levine
30. ožujka – Norah Jones
8. travnja – Alexi Laiho
25. srpnja – Amy Adams
2. prosinca – Yvonne Catterfeld
Smrti
Smrti poznatih glazbenika i osoba u svezi s glazbom.
Ostalo
Uvođenje novih nosača zvuka, medijskog servisa i distribucijskog kanala i sl.
Hrvatska i u Hrvata
Kandidiranje za europska i svjetska natjecanja
Hrvatski kandidat za Pjesmu Eurovizije na Jugoviziji.
Festivali
Nagrade
Izdanja
Objavljeni studijski, koncertni i kompilacijski albumi, singlovi, maksi singlovi, EP-i.
Za poznate glazbenike koje su tad objavili djelo, ali nisu ga objavili nosaču zvuka kod izdavačke kuće, nego u vlastitom izdanju, to ulazi ovdje. Isto vrijedi i za one glazbenike koji (ni)su djelovali u doba kad nije bilo nosača zvuka, nego su djelo objavili u pisanom obliku.
Osnivanja
Osnivanja poznatih izdavačkih kuća, udruga, sastava, prvi glazbeni angažman, glazbenih emisija na radiju, televiziji, glazbenih časopisa ili portala, pokretanje glazbene manifestacije, izgradnja poznate koncertne dvorane ili otvaranje poznatog glazbenog kluba, pojava (nastanak ili dolakak) glazbenog pravca i sl.
Gašenja i raspuštanja
Gašenja ili preuzimanja poznatih izdavačkih kuća, sastava, glazbenih emisija na radiju, televiziji, glazbenih časopisa ili portala, glazbene manifestacije, raspuštanja glazbenih subjekata i sl.
Rođenja
Rođenja poznatih glazbenika i osoba u svezi s glazbom.
20. listopada – Ivan Dečak
Smrti
Smrti poznatih glazbenika i osoba u svezi s glazbom.
Ostalo
Uvođenje novih nosača zvuka, medijskog servisa i distribucijskog kanala i sl.
Izvori
1979.
Godine 20. stoljeća | {
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} | 5,331 |
On an empty road in an empty landscape we meet Seragedin and Rakhman, father and son, driving towards a better future. Clouds shoot over their heads while their voices disappear in the wind. These two nobodies take us to the core of what it means to be human.
Rakhman helps his father to trade a car from Lithuania to their home in Kyrgyzstan. They drive together along a harsh and unromantic new silk route. They are on the road night and day and face mafia hold-ups. The money they may make pays for Rakhmans studies. Later, his education will allow him to take care of his parents. Later, when they will reach their real destination. They are simple people with simple dreams. A day at the lake, taking their wives out for dinner, a feeling of ability, coming home,... Their chances are slim and their context not cooperative, but they are two, everything they do they do for each other.
We're going the same way portrays their struggle to improve, to overcome, to survive. Their struggle suffocates them, they forget to live. It dislocates them, brings them together and pulls them apart. We meet them at the non-places of this world because there is no place for them. They are on their way but the way has become their home. As home holds no promise they can only keep on going. Searching for a future they break apart and find themselves in ever more absurd situations. Being a family sends them off in opposite directions.
Years earlier Seragedin had retired as a soldier but did not receive the apartment he was promised during his 32 years of military service. He blames corruption and writes letters to his president to ask for justice. All that he gets are interrogations and threats to silence him. He has been surrounded by corruption all his life but choses a different path for himself, holding on to his integrity. While being corrupt or criminal would be an easier option, what makes it worth the trouble? We're going the same way triggers questions on the added value of honesty and accepting one's destiny. | {
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} | 315 |
_Ghettoside_ is a work of nonfiction. Some names and identifying details have been changed.
Copyright © 2015 by Jill Leovy
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
SPIEGEL & GRAU and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Leovy, Jill.
Ghettoside : a true story of murder in America / Jill Leovy.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-385-52998-3
eBook ISBN 978-0-385-53000-2
1. Murder—United States. 2. Homicide—United States.
3. Murder—California—Los Angeles—Case studies. I. Title.
HV6529.L46 2014
364.152'30973—dc23 2013046367
www.spiegelandgrau.com
_Jacket design: Greg Mollica_
_Jacket photograph: Ken Schles/GalleryStock_
v3.1
When you see the suffering and pain that it brings, you'd have to be blind, mad, or a coward to resign yourself to the plague.
ALBERT CAMUS, _The Plague_
# **CONTENTS**
_Cover_
_Title Page_
_Copyright_
_Epigraph_
**PART I: THE PLAGUE**
1. A Circle of Grief
2. A Killing
3. Ghettoside
4. School of Catastrophe
5. Clearance
6. The Circumstantial Case
7. Good People and Knuckleheads
8. Witnesses and the Shadow System
9. The Notification
**PART II: THE CASE OF BRYANT TENNELLE**
10. Son of the City
11. "It's My Son"
12. The Killing of Dovon Harris
13. Nothing Worse
14. The Assignment
15. "Everybody Know"
16. The Witness
17. Baby Man
18. Mutual Combat
19. Witness Welfare
20. Lost Souls
21. The Victims' Side
22. The Opening
23. "We Have to Pray for Peace"
24. The Missing
Epilogue
Author's Note
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Notes
Select Bibliography
_About the Author_
#
#
# **A CIRCLE OF GRIEF**
Los Angeles Police Det. John Skaggs carried the shoebox aloft like a waiter bearing a platter.
The box contained a pair of high-top sneakers that once belonged to a black teenage boy named Dovon Harris. Dovon, fifteen, had been murdered the previous June, and the shoes had been sitting in an evidence locker for nearly a year.
Skaggs, forty-four, was the lead investigator on the case about to go to trial.
At six foot four, he was a conspicuous sight in Watts, the southeast corner of the vast city of Los Angeles, a big blondish man with a loping stride in an expensive light-colored suit.
He stepped out of the bright morning light, turned down a narrow walkway along a wall topped with a coil of razor wire, and approached a heavy-duty steel "ghetto door"—a security door with a perforated metal screen of the kind that, along with stucco walls and barred windows, represented one of L.A.'s most distinctive architectural features. He knocked and, without waiting for an answer, pushed the door open.
On the other side of the threshold stood a stout, dark-skinned woman. Skaggs walked in and placed the open shoebox in her hands.
The woman stared at the shoes, choked and speechless. Skaggs's eyes caught her stricken face as he walked past her. "Hi, Barbara," he said. "Having a bad day today?"
This was Skaggs's way, disdaining preliminaries, getting right to the point.
His every move was infused with energy and purpose. In conversation, he jingled his keys, swung his arms, or bounced on the balls of his feet. The movements were not fidgety so much as rhythmic and relaxed, like those of a runner warming up. Forced to hold still in a court proceeding or a meeting, Skaggs would freeze in the posture of a man enduring an ordeal, a knuckle pressed to his lips, a pose that conveyed his bunched-up vigor more than any restless tic.
Now, having deposited the shoes in Barbara Pritchett's hands—and having received no answer to his question—he came to a halt in the middle of the living room carpet. Pritchett remained silent, head bowed, eyes fixed on the contents of the shoebox.
She was forty-two, in poor health. She had recently been diagnosed with diabetes, and her doctor had urged her to get out and walk more. But her son had been shot to death a few blocks away, and Pritchett was too frightened to venture out. She spent days lying in the dark, unable to will herself to move or speak. That morning, as always, she was wearing a big loose T-shirt with Dovon's picture on it. All around her, in the tiny living room, were mementos of her murdered son. Sports trophies, photos, sympathy cards, certificates, stuffed animals.
With great care, Pritchett perched the shoebox on the arm of a vinyl armchair by the door and slowly lifted one shoe. It was worn, black, dusted with red Watts dirt. It was not quite big enough to be a man's shoe, not small enough to be a child's. She leaned against the wall, pressed the open top of the shoe against her mouth and nose, and inhaled its scent with a long, deep breath. Then she closed her eyes and wept.
Skaggs stood back. Pritchett's knees gave out. Skaggs watched her slide down the wall in slow motion, her face still pressed into the shoe. She landed with a thump on the green carpet. One of her orange slippers came off. On the TV across the room, the Fox 11 morning anchors pattered brightly over the sound of her sobs.
Skaggs had been a homicide detective for twenty years. In that time, he had been in a thousand living rooms like this one—each with its large TV, Afrocentric knickknacks, and imponderable grief.
They made a strange picture, the two of them: the tall white cop and the weeping black woman. Skaggs, like most LAPD cops, was a Republican. He would vote for John McCain for president that year. His annual pay was in the six figures, and he lived in a suburban house with a pool. It might be said of him that he was not just white, but a Caucasian archetype with his blond-and-pink coloring and Scots-Irish features. Watts had twice risen in revolt against such an icon—the white occupier-cum-police-officer—and so Skaggs's presence in this neighborhood was all the more conspicuous for the historical associations it evoked.
Pritchett had a background typical of Watts residents. She was the granddaughter of a Louisiana cotton picker. Her mother had followed the path of tens of thousands of black Louisianans who migrated west in the 1960s, and Pritchett was born in L.A. a few months after the Watts riots. She lived in a federally subsidized rental apartment, and she was a Democrat who would weep in front of CNN later that fall when Barack Obama won the presidential election, wishing her mother were still alive to see it.
Despite their differences, they were kin of a sort—members of a small circle of Americans whose lives, in different ways, had been molded by a bizarre phenomenon: a plague of murders among black men.
Homicide had ravaged the country's black population for a century or more. But it was at best a curiosity to the mainstream. The raw agony it visited on thousands of ordinary people was mostly invisible. The consequences were only superficially discussed, the costs seldom tallied.
Society's efforts to combat this mostly black-on-black murder epidemic were inept, fragmented, underfunded, contorted by a variety of ideological, political, and racial sensitivities. When homicide did get attention, the focus seemed to be on spectacles—mass shootings, celebrity murders—a step removed from the people who were doing most of the dying: black men.
They were the nation's number one crime victims. They were the people hurt most badly and most often, just 6 percent of the country's population but nearly 40 percent of those murdered. People talked a lot about crime in America, but they tended to gloss over this aspect—that a plurality of those killed were not women, children, infants, elders, nor victims of workplace or school shootings. Rather, they were legions of America's black men, many of them unemployed and criminally involved. They were murdered every day, in every city, their bodies stacking up by the thousands, year after year.
Dovon Harris was typical of these unseen victims. His murder received little media attention and was of the kind least likely to be solved. John Skaggs's Watts precinct kept records of scores of such homicides dating back years—shelves and shelves of blue binders filled with the names of dead black men and boys. Most had been killed by other black men and boys who still roamed free.
According to the old unwritten code of the Los Angeles Police Department, Dovon's was a nothing murder. "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. "Nigger life's cheap now," a white Tennessean offered during Reconstruction, when asked to explain why black-on-black killing drew so little notice.
A congressional witness a few years later reported that when black men in Louisiana were killed, "a simple mention is made of it, perhaps orally or in print, and nothing is done. There is no investigation made." A late-nineteenth-century Louisiana newspaper editorial said, "If negroes continue to slaughter each other, we will have to conclude that Providence has chosen to exterminate them in this way." In 1915, a South Carolina official explained the pardon of a black man who had killed another black: "This is a case of one negro killing another—the old familiar song." In 1930s Mississippi, the anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker examined the workings of criminal justice and concluded that "the attitude of the Whites and of the courts... is one of complaisance toward violence among the Negroes." Studying Natchez, Mississippi, in the same period, a racially mixed team of social anthropologists observed that "the injury or death of a Negro is not considered by the whites to be a serious matter." An Alabama sheriff of the era was more concise: "One less nigger," he said. In 1968, a New York journalist testifying as part of the Kerner Commission's investigation of riots across the country said that "for decades, little if any law enforcement has prevailed among Negroes in America.... If a black man kills a black man, the law is generally enforced at its minimum."
Carter Spikes, once a member of the black Businessman Gang in South Central Los Angeles, recalled that through the seventies police "didn't care what black people did to each other. A nigger killing another nigger was no big deal."
John Skaggs stood in opposition to this inheritance. His whole working life was devoted to one end: making black lives expensive. Expensive, and worth answering for, with all the force and persistence the state could muster. Skaggs had treated the murder of Dovon Harris like the hottest celebrity crime in town. He had applied every resource he possessed, worked every angle of the system, and solved it swiftly, unequivocally.
In doing so, he bucked an age-old injustice. Forty years after the civil rights movement, impunity for the murder of black men remained America's great, though mostly invisible, race problem. The institutions of criminal justice, so remorseless in other ways in an era of get-tough sentencing and "preventive" policing, remained feeble when it came to answering for the lives of black murder victims. Few experts examined what was evident every day of John Skaggs's working life: that the state's inability to catch and punish even a bare majority of murderers in black enclaves such as Watts was itself a root cause of the violence, and that this was a terrible problem—perhaps the most terrible thing in contemporary American life. The system's failure to catch killers effectively made black lives cheap.
To that unseen problem, John Skaggs was the antidote.
Had Dovon's case been assigned to another detective, it might easily have gone unsolved like hundreds of others—just another blue binder on a shelf. But in Skaggs's hands, it had become a relentless campaign for justice.
And Dovon's mother knew it. That was the basis of their kinship.
So now Skaggs stood with one hand in his pocket, one on his hip, regarding Pritchett on the floor, and did what years of homicide work had taught him to do: he waited, silent and unhurried.
Not the least embarrassed, Pritchett closed her eyes as if she were alone, pressed her face into the shoe of her dead son, and sobbed.
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.
African Americans have suffered from just such a lack of effective criminal justice, and this, more than anything, is the reason for the nation's long-standing plague of black homicides. Specifically, black America has not benefited from what Max Weber called a _state monopoly on violence_ —the government's exclusive right to exercise legitimate force. A monopoly provides citizens with legal autonomy, the liberating knowledge that the government will pursue anyone who violates their personal safety. But slavery, Jim Crow, and conditions across much of black America for generations after worked against the formation of such a monopoly. Since personal violence inevitably flares where the state's monopoly is absent, this situation results in the deaths of thousands of Americans each year.
The failure of the law to stand up for black people when they are hurt or killed by others has been masked by a whole universe of ruthless, relatively cheap and easy "preventive" strategies. Our fragmented and underfunded police forces have historically preoccupied themselves with control, prevention, and nuisance abatement rather than responding to victims of violence. This left ample room for vigilantism—especially in the South, to which most black Americans trace their origins. Hortense Powdermaker was among a handful of Jim Crow–era anthropologists who noted that the Southern legal system of the 1930s hammered black men for such petty crimes as stealing and vagrancy, yet was often lenient toward those who murdered other blacks. In Jim Crow Mississippi, killers of black people were convicted at a rate that was only a little lower than the rate that prevailed half a century later in L.A.—30 percent then versus about 36 percent in Los Angeles County in the early 1990s. "The mildness of the courts where offenses of Negroes against Negroes are concerned," Powdermaker concluded, "is only part of the whole situation which places the Negro outside the law." Generations later, far from the cotton fields where she made her observations, black people in poor sections of Los Angeles still endured a share of that old misery.
This is not an easy argument to make in these times. Many critics today complain that the criminal justice system is heavy-handed and unfair to minorities. We hear a great deal about capital punishment, excessively punitive drug laws, supposed misuse of eyewitness evidence, troublingly high levels of black male incarceration, and so forth.
So to assert that black Americans suffer from too _little_ application of the law, not too much, seems at odds with common perception. But the perceived harshness of American criminal justice and its fundamental weakness are in reality two sides of a coin, the former a kind of poor compensation for the latter. Like the schoolyard bully, our criminal justice system harasses people on small pretexts but is exposed as a coward before murder. It hauls masses of black men through its machinery but fails to protect them from bodily injury and death. It is at once oppressive and inadequate.
America has long been more violent than other developed nations, and black-on-black homicide is much of the reason. This is not new. Measurements are problematic, since few official efforts were made to track black homicide before 1950. But historians have traced disproportionately high black homicide rates all the way back to the late nineteenth century, and in the early twentieth, "nonwhite" homicide rates exceeded those of whites in all cities that reported federal data. In the 1920s, a scholar concluded that black death rates from homicide nationwide were about seven times white rates. In the 1930s, Southern observers also noticed startling rates of black violence, and in the 1940s, a Philadelphia study found that black men died from homicide at twelve times the white rate. When the U.S. government began publishing data specific to blacks in 1950, it revealed that same gap nationwide. The black homicide death rate remained as much as ten times higher than the white rate in 1960 and 1970, and has been five to seven times higher for most of the past thirty years.
Mysteriously, in modern-day Los Angeles, young black men are murdered two to four times more frequently than young Hispanic men, though blacks and Hispanics live in the same neighborhoods. This stands out because L.A., unlike well-known murder centers such as Detroit, has a relatively small black population, and it is in decline. By Skaggs's time, there were few solidly black neighborhoods left; most black residents of South Los Angeles lived in majority-Hispanic neighborhoods. Yet black men died here as they died in cities with large and concentrated black populations, like New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Chicago—more often than anyone else, and nearly always at the hands of black assailants. In L.A., it was strange how all those bullets seemed to find their black targets in such an ethnically jumbled place; it was, as one young man put it, as if black men had bull's-eyes on their backs.
Violent crime was plummeting in Los Angeles County, as it was across the country, by the spring of 2007, when Dovon Harris was murdered. But the disparity between black male death rates and those of everybody else remained nearly as large as ever. No matter how much crime dropped, the American homicide problem remained maddeningly, mystifyingly, disproportionately black.
Despite so much evidence of a particularly black homicide problem, however, there was relatively little research or activism specific to black-on-black murder. That gruesome history of Southern racism made the topic an uncomfortable one for many Americans. One of the enduring tropes of racist lore had been the "black beast," the inferior black man who could not control his impulses and was prone to violence. By the early twenty-first century, popular consensus held that any emphasis on high rates of black criminality risked invoking the stigma of white racism. So people were careful about how they spoke of it.
Researchers describe skirting the subject for fear of being labeled racist. Activists have sought to minimize it. "When the discussion turns to violent crime," legal scholar James Forman, Jr., has pointed out, "progressives tend to avoid or change the subject." Privately, some black civil-rights advocates describe feeling embarrassed and baffled by the stubborn persistence of the problem. "Like incest," is how one L.A. street activist, Najee Ali, put it, talking of the shame and secrecy the issue evokes. Other concerned blacks cite their fear of inflaming white racism: Why emphasize what seems sure to be used against them?
Yet the statistical truth was undeniable, and most Americans understood it intuitively even if they didn't talk about it in polite company. There was something in the way the nation acquiesced in shootings and stabbings among "inner city" black men that suggested these men were expendable—or, worse, that perhaps the nation was better off without them.
To John Skaggs, the nation's collective shrug toward homicide was incomprehensible. He sensed also that public indifference made his job more difficult. He might have found some support from none other than the black legal scholar Randall Kennedy. "It does no good to pretend that blacks and whites are similarly situated with respect to either rates of perpetration or rates of victimization. They are not," Kennedy wrote. "The familiar dismal statistics and the countless tragedies behind them are not figments of some Negrophobe's imagination."
Explicitly confronting the reality of how murder happens in America is the first step toward deciding that it is not acceptable, and that for too long black men have lived inadequately protected by the laws of their own country.
#
# **A KILLING**
It was a warm Friday evening in Los Angeles, about a month before Dovon Harris was murdered.
Sea breezes rattle the dry palm trees in this part of town. It was about 6:15 P.M., a time when homeowners turn on sprinklers, filling the air with a watery hiss. The springtime sun had not yet set; it hovered about 20 degrees above the horizon, a white dime-sized disk in a blinding sky.
Two young black men walked down West Eightieth Street at the western edge of the Los Angeles Police Department's Seventy-seventh Street precinct area, a few miles away from where Dovon Harris lived. One was tall with light brown skin, the other shorter, slight, and dark.
The shorter of the two young men, Walter Lee Bridges, was in his late teens. He was wiry and fit. His neck was tattooed and his face wore the mournful, jumpy look common to young men in South Central who have known danger. His low walk and light build suggested he could move like lightning if he had to.
His companion, wearing a baseball cap and pushing a bicycle, appeared more relaxed, more oblivious. Bryant Tennelle was eighteen years old. He was tall and slim, with a smooth caramel complexion and what was called "good hair," smooth and wavy. His eyes tilted down a little at the corners, giving his face a gentle puppy look. The two young men were neighbors who whiled away hours together tinkering with bicycles.
They were strolling on the south side of Eightieth. Bryant carried in one hand an unopened A&W root beer he had just bought. Thirties-era Spanish-style houses—updated with vinyl windows—lined the street, set back a few feet from the sidewalk. Each had a tiny lawn mowed so short it seemed to blend with the pavement. Buses roared by on Western Avenue. Crows squawked and planes whistled overhead as they descended into Los Angeles International Airport, close enough to read the logos on their tails. Groups of teenagers loitered at each end of the street. An elegant magnolia loomed near the end of the block, and across the street hunched a thick overgrown Modesto ash.
The ash tree stood in front of a tidy corner house. Behind that house, in the backyard on the other side of the fence, another man was cleaning out a tile cutter. He had just retiled his mother's bathroom.
Walter and Bryant were taking their time walking down Eightieth chatting, their long shadows stretching behind them. They walked in sunshine, though dusk engulfed the other side of the street. Three friends emerged from a house at the end of the block behind them and called out a greeting. Walter stopped and turned to yell something back. Bryant kept walking toward the ash. A black Chevrolet Suburban pulled up to the curb around the corner, on the cross street, St. Andrews. A door opened and a young man jumped out. He pulled on gloves, ran a few steps, and halted under the tree, holding a gloved hand straight out, gripping a firearm. _Pap. Pap-pap_.
Walter reacted instantly. He saw the muzzle flashes, saw the gunman—white T-shirt, dark complexion, gloves—even as he sprinted. The man with the tile cutter was still behind the fence. He couldn't see the shooter. But he heard the blasts and dropped instinctively. He was forty, had grown up a black man in South Central and had the same battle-ready reflexes as Walter. He lay flat on the ground as gunfire boomed in his ears.
Bryant's reflexes were slower. Or perhaps it was because he was looking straight into the setting sun. To him, the gunman was a dark silhouette. Bryant staggered, then reeled and fell on a patch of lawn overhung by a bird-of-paradise bush. Silence. The tile cutter drew himself to his feet, crept to the fence, and peeked over.
The shooter stood a few feet away, next to the ash tree on the other side of the fence.
He was still holding the gun. The tile cutter watched as he walked a few paces, then broke into a run: there must be a getaway car nearby. The tile cutter made a brave decision: he followed the shooter, watched him jump back into the Suburban, and tried to read the license plate as it sped away. He turned and saw Bryant lying on the grass.
Teenagers were converging from three directions. One young man dropped to his knees next to Bryant. Joshua Henry was a close friend. He took Bryant's hand and gripped it. With relief, he felt Bryant squeeze back. "I'm tired, I'm tired," Bryant told him. He wanted to sleep. Josh could see only a little blood on his head. Just a graze, he thought. Then Bryant turned his head. A quarter of his skull had been ripped away.
Josh stared at the wound. Only then did his eyes register Bryant's cap, lying on the ground nearby, full of blood and tissue. He heard his own voice chattering cheerfully to Bryant, telling him he would be okay.
Standing over them, the man with the tile cutter was pleading with a 911 dispatcher on the phone, straining to keep the details straight as his eyes took in the scene. "Eightieth and Saint Andrews!" He took a breath and muttered hoarsely: "Oh my god."
He put away the phone. He turned Bryant over. He administered CPR. All around him, teenagers were screaming. Someone thrust a towel at him. He tried to blot it against Bryant's shattered head, wondering what he was supposed to do. Bryant vomited. His mouth was filled with blood. The man with the tile cutter, too, found himself staring at the brain matter—flecks of gray and yellow. Yellow? With one part of his mind he recorded his own bewilderment: Why was it yellow? With another part, he fought to stay calm.
One thought kept crowding out the others: _Please don't let this kid die_.
"Ambulance shooting."
Officer Greg De La Rosa, P-3, LAPD Seventy-seventh Street Division, was cruising around Fifty-fourth Street at the north end of the station area when his radio buzzed.
"Ambulance shooting" was the generic way most South L.A. murders and attempted murders came to the attention of police over their radios. In the three station areas that encompassed most of South Los Angeles—Seventy-seventh Street Division, Southwest Division, and Southeast Division—such calls, at least in this year, came more than once a day, on average.
The location of the shooting was almost thirty blocks south from where he was. De La Rosa went "Code 3," lights flashing, down Western Avenue, and got there first. It was warm, and still light.
He took in the scene. A chrome BMX bike down on the sidewalk. A baseball cap. A victim on the lawn. Male black. Late teens. Medium complexion. De La Rosa was on autopilot, filling out the police report in his head. He had been called to so many shootings just like this one. So many "male black," he could barely distinguish one from another. De La Rosa pondered the bike, cap, and victim, arranged in a straight line on the sidewalk and grass. The young man must have dropped the bike and run for the shelter of a porch, De La Rosa thought. A few more steps and he would have made it.
De La Rosa had grown up in an English-speaking family of Mexican descent in mostly Hispanic Panorama City, a rough patch of the San Fernando Valley, and was Los Angeles to the core: his great-grandfather had been evicted from Chavez Ravine when they built Dodger Stadium. He was also an Army veteran. He was still unprepared for what he found when he was assigned to the Seventy-seventh a dozen years before. The station area lay between Watts and Inglewood and spanned the heart of what many locals still called South Central, though the name was officially changed to South Los Angeles in 2003 to erase its supposed stigma. But people on the streets didn't use the new name much, nor the polite new city designations for its various sections—"Vermont Knolls," for instance. Instead, people said "eastside" and "westside" to denote the old race-restrictive covenant boundary along Main Street, and retained South Central for the whole. Florence and Normandie, the intersection where the 1992 riots broke out, was in the Seventy-seventh Street Division, near where De La Rosa now stood.
Over time, De La Rosa had grown used to the texture of life here, but it still baffled him. In the Seventy-seventh, everyone seemed to be related somehow. Rumors traveled at lightning speed. Sometimes it seemed that you couldn't slap handcuffs on anyone in the division without their relatives instantly pouring out of their houses, hollering at the police. De La Rosa's old home of Panorama City was also poor, but it didn't have the same homicide problem, the same resentment of police. He found that he avoided talking to outsiders about his job. He didn't want to waste his breath on people who didn't know what the Seventy-seventh was like and wouldn't understand even if he tried to explain it.
The tasks he walked through that evening were so familiar they were almost muscle memory: Secure the perimeter. Secure witnesses. Hold the scene for detectives. Get out the field interview cards. And get ready: onlookers would soon swarm them, asking questions.
De La Rosa remembered these "ambulance shootings" only if something exceptional occurred. Like the time he had been called to Florence and Broadway, right in front of Louisiana Fried Chicken. The victim, an older black man, had a small hole in his skin, the kind that often hides severe internal bleeding. "Get the fuck away from me!" the wounded man had snarled. De La Rosa tried to help him anyway. The man fought. In the end, De La Rosa and his fellow officers tackled him, four cops piling on, a team takedown of a possibly mortally wounded shooting victim. Even in the midst of the chaos, De La Rosa registered the absurdity, the black humor, so typical of life in the Seventy-seventh.
Black humor helped. But it still got to him—the attitude of black residents down here. They were shooting each other but still seemed to think the police were the problem. _"Po-Po_ , _"_ they sneered. Once, De La Rosa had to stand guard over the body of a black man until paramedics arrived. An angry crowd closed in on him, accusing him of disrespecting the murdered man's body. Some of them tried to drag the corpse away. The police used an official term for this occasional hazard: "lynching." Some felt uncomfortable saying it. They associated the word with the noose, not the mobs that once yanked people from police to kill or rescue them. De La Rosa held back the crowd. "You don't care because he's a black man!" someone yelled. De La Rosa was stunned. Why did they think race was a part of this? Sometimes, in the Seventy-seventh, De La Rosa had the sense that he was no longer in America. As if he had pulled off the freeway into another world.
That May night unfolded in the midst of an unexceptional period of violence in the traditionally black neighborhoods of South Los Angeles County. All across the ten square miles that stretched from Slauson Avenue to the north end of Long Beach, black men were shot and stabbed every few days.
About a month before Bryant Tennelle was shot on May 11, 2007, Fabian Cooper, twenty-one, was shot to death leaving a party in Athens. With him was his neighbor and lifelong friend Salvador Arredondo, nineteen, a young Hispanic man, who was also killed.
A week later, on April 15, twenty-two-year-old Mark Webster walked out of a biker club on Fifty-fourth Street near Second Avenue and was fatally shot by someone who opened fire from a distance. It seems unlikely that the attacker knew who he was.
That same night, some black men caught up with Marquise Alexander, also twenty-two, at a Shell gas station at the nearby intersection of Crenshaw and Slauson avenues and shot him dead. Four days later, on April 19, forty-one-year-old Maurice Hill was hanging out in his usual spot in front of a liquor store at Sixty-fourth and Vermont Avenue at about 10:30 P.M. when a gunman killed him; Hill, who had lived in the area all his life, spent most of his time sitting on a grassy median on Vermont Avenue drinking beer. The same day Hill died, Isaac Tobias, twenty-three, succumbed to his wounds at St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, several days after being shot during an argument with two other black men near 120th Street and Willowbrook Avenue.
Three days later, in Long Beach, Eric Mandeville, twenty, was shot and killed while walking outside, almost certainly targeted by black gang members because he was young, black, male, and looked like one of their rivals. Mandeville was a McDonald's employee, clean-cut and well liked, a former foster child who had overcome a difficult childhood. Hours after his death, Alfred Henderson, forty-seven, was killed nearby. The next day, on April 23, eighteen-year-old Kenneth Frison died at California Hospital after lingering on life support for three weeks. He had been shot in the head at the corner of Ninety-fourth Street and Gramercy on April 1. Four days after Frison's death, Wilbert Jackson, sixteen, was sprayed by a lethal volley of bullets from a passing car as he stood in front of a fish store on Figueroa Avenue south of Fifty-first Street. Early the next day, April 28, thirty-four-year-old Robert Hunter was attending the funeral at Missionary Baptist Church on Adams Boulevard for his cousin—Isaac Tobias, one of the young murder victims mentioned above. An argument broke out at the church; Hunter was shot dead and two other mourners were wounded. Later that same day, Ralph Hope, twenty-eight, was shot and killed in Inglewood.
The next day, April 29, Aubrey Gibson, twenty-three, was found dead in his apartment at Sixty-fourth Street and Brynhurst. Three days later, some black men burst into an apartment at Third Avenue and Forty-second Street and shot fifty-four-year-old Melvin James in the chest. The same day, two other black men were killed: Donald Stevens, forty-four, died in a shooting in Willowbrook, and Larry Scott, twenty-five, was stabbed in the chest by a neighbor in a fight on Western Avenue at 100th Street.
Three days after that, on May 5, Mario Jackson, forty-five, and Tierney Yates, thirty-six, were shot to death at a motorcycle club on 109th Street and Broadway in Watts during a fight that broke out during a viewing of a televised boxing match. Jackson had moved away from his native Watts and done well in the entertainment industry, but some of his old friends from the neighborhood resented it. Responding police officers briefly detained some twenty people who had been present for the fight, crowded together inside the motorcycle club; every single one of them claimed to have seen nothing. Marco Smith, forty-one, was shot next, killed in Hawthorne the day after.
Carl Dixon, thirty-four, was shot and killed in Florence three days later, on May 9. That shooting also seriously wounded three other people; it is the only one of the attacks described here in which the suspects were Hispanic, not black. Bernard McGee, thirty-seven, was sitting next to Dixon when the shots rang out. He described watching his friend die, and how the red fabric of Dixon's shirt whipped as the bullets struck him as if yanked by a strong breeze.
Two days later, a gunman fired on Bryant Tennelle on Eightieth Street.
As De La Rosa looked closer at the victim, he realized that the young man before him was dying. Something about his breathing. De La Rosa also had seen this many times before. He had no medical training. He had simply gained an intuitive understanding of the stages of death from so much exposure. He was familiar with that deep unconsciousness that stole over dying men, that stillness, the way their breath came very slow. An ambulance arrived.
De La Rosa worked the shooting scene all through that night, under black palm trees against a red sky, porch lights glowing up and down the street. At some point, someone passed along a rumor—that the victim was the son of an LAPD homicide detective. De La Rosa wondered idly if he had also been a gang member.
The rumor was true. Bryant Tennelle was the son of an LAPD homicide detective. Wallace Tennelle, "Wally" to his peers, was a dozen years older than John Skaggs.
The two men were not acquainted. Tennelle worked downtown in the Robbery-Homicide Division. The LAPD's personnel are scattered across 470 square miles and scores of functions. Its social life is so balkanized that people working in separate cubicles in the same squad room sometimes do not know one another's names, and Skaggs and Tennelle had never even worked in the same bureau. Nevertheless, they were linked by a shared dark legacy and a battle to put things right. Long before they met, a malignant wave, generations in the making, had swept both of them up in its path, carrying them forward to the moment when the son of one would be shot at the corner of Eightieth and St. Andrews and the other would be called on to find the killer.
#
# **GHETTOSIDE**
John Skaggs had been a redhead in his youth.
He was born in 1964 and was raised in a modest 1950s home in a Long Beach, California, subdivision that resembled those he would patrol as a cop later in Watts—one-story houses with single-car garages along streets lined with sycamores. His father was a Long Beach homicide detective, but his parents split when he was in elementary school. Skaggs was raised mostly by his mother.
Janice Skaggs was a coal miner's daughter from Nebraska, affectionate but stern. She placed great emphasis on fortitude and self-control in public. She had three other children to raise, and not much money. All four worked from an early age to help with family expenses. Without being asked, Skaggs paid rent for his bedroom as soon as he turned eighteen.
He was the youngest child and the only boy. He had been extremely competitive even as a child, a fervent athlete, especially in baseball. Winning had always been important to John Skaggs. His mother did not discourage this. But she had made it clear that the Skaggs children were always to appear mild, sportsmanlike, and well behaved. No matter how determined they were to prevail, they were to appear easygoing and civil.
He went to California State University at Long Beach but dropped out after one year. He found sitting in a classroom unbearable. Eventually, he followed his father's path into the police force. As Skaggs grew older, his mother's admonition stayed with him; he remained outwardly placid and inwardly exacting. Beneath his amiable grin lurked a perfectionist of the first order. He knew what would serve and what wouldn't. He didn't subject his insights to much examination. He didn't argue. He simply acted casual and bulldozed ahead.
By his forties, his thick, short-cropped hair was turning white, and the only clue that it had once been red was a tint of auburn in his eyebrows. Together with his pale blue eyes and pink complexion, it made him look like a natural blond—a beachy blond like someone who spent a lot of time in the California sun. His friends railed at the injustice. They got balder or grayer; Skaggs just got blonder. It was typical of the way good fortune seemed to follow him.
He had sharp cheekbones, a small round chin with a slight cleft, a furrow between his eyes, and big hands. His tall, rangy build hadn't changed much since his days on the uniform side of the LAPD ranks. More luck: middle-aged LAPD detectives were supposed to get portly, but John Skaggs still looked like "someone right out of _GQ_ magazine," as one of his LAPD superiors put it. Skaggs occasionally put on the standard LAPD detective weight. But with the same discipline he applied to everything in his life, he cut back on eating, exercised more, and lost twenty pounds. What was hard about it? He never understood why other people had difficulty dieting.
He never called in sick. He never went to the doctor. His perfect physical condition went with the rest of it—the perfect children (a girl and a boy, naturally) and his wife, Theresa, who was as blond and beautiful as he was, the nice suburban house, the pool, the RV, the surfboards. Theresa was a legal secretary who managed a law office. As a couple they were organized, wholesome, mildly religious, and nice to each other; Skaggs had a rule against allowing antagonism of any kind to taint his family relationships. As for Theresa, she was strong-minded enough to hold her own against Skaggs's breezy certainty. "John is John" is how she summed him up, an affectionate appraisal that comprehended how her husband's greatest strength—his incapacity for self-doubt—was also his greatest weakness.
Skaggs's confidence was limitless. But on paper, his career path did not seem especially distinguished. An uncle who was an LAPD deputy chief viewed him as a laggard. For years, he had faulted Skaggs's career choices, upbraiding his nephew over the phone. Why didn't he aspire to higher posts? Why had Skaggs allowed himself to stall out as a detective in the city's south end?
Los Angeles's nineteen police precincts were called divisions. It was understood that to advance, officers had to move beyond divisions to elite centralized units or administrative functions at the LAPD's downtown headquarters, Parker Center in those days, or "PAB," as the cops said—police administration building. Officers who stayed in the station houses were assumed to have less ambition, especially if they remained stuck in the south end.
At the level above divisions, the LAPD was divided into administrative quadrants. South Bureau was such a quadrant. It sat below an unofficial boundary—Interstate 10, the east-west freeway that stretched across the city—and encompassed the Southwest, Seventy-seventh Street, and Southeast stations. A Central Bureau division called Newton also sat mostly south of the Ten and bordered the Seventy-seventh to the north, along Florence Avenue. Together, these four stations covered the expanse of South Central.
For a police officer to work in any of those four stations was to be a little marginalized. They were L.A.'s poorest divisions, and they nearly always led the city in violent crime. Cops knew these places for their boxy apartments, chain-link fences, converted garages, bad dogs with no collars, and Chevy Caprices. They knew them for the men riding bicycles in street clothes, for the family-owned mortuaries, the flyers for hair braiding, the murals depicting Clorox bleach bottles, the shabby shops with exuberant names: Mantrap Nails, Sexy Donuts, Vanessa's Positive Energy. They knew what it meant to work in such neighborhoods. Many preferred not to.
Officers who chose to work south of the Ten were respected for their toughness. But the type of policing they did was not considered a launching pad for an ambitious career. In fact, hard-core south end cops were often seen as damaged goods in the LAPD, ruined for other work by the large number of complaints they generated and the narrow arena of policing they were perceived to occupy. Skaggs's uncle felt his nephew had limited himself by remaining in Watts.
Worst of all, in his uncle's view, Skaggs appeared content to remain a detective. This meant he languished for years at a professional grade equal to that of the lowest-level field sergeant. It meant he had voluntarily severed himself from the proudest traditions of the department. The LAPD had long measured its worth in patrol innovations, not investigative prowess. The TV drama _Adam-12_ in the 1970s captured the LAPD's emblematic self-image—clean-cut, professional men in blue uniforms zipping around in their cars answering radio calls, sirens wailing. The LAPD uniform was saturated with meaning. It was a very dark, monochromatic navy blue—almost black—a regal shade. Departmental culture required that the uniform be worn like raiment, celestially clean and pressed with mirror-bright shoes and belts. Officers put a premium on looking sleek and fit; some even had the uniform custom-tailored to cling to sculpted biceps.
Detectives weren't part of this culture. Many workaday divisional detectives wore frumpy polo shirts and khakis. They were known for being out of shape. Homicide detectives such as Skaggs wore suits, of course. But late-night callouts kept them from getting enough sleep, so they often put on weight. Patrol officers were sometimes openly contemptuous of their plainclothes colleagues.
The structure and resource distribution of the department seemed to echo this contempt. In station houses, certain uniformed officers—gang specialists and so-called senior leads who specialized in community policing—occupied an elevated place, while detectives were consigned to backwater status, their desks placed alongside those of burglary detectives, competing for resources with curfew task forces and vice squads.
A few LAPD detectives worked in elite jobs downtown and enjoyed clout and prestige. An obvious choice for Skaggs might have been the Robbery-Homicide Division, or RHD. Housed at headquarters, RHD investigated cases deemed unusually complex or likely to draw media interest, including celebrity cases, massacres, and arson murders. RHD detectives were considered the department's best. They enjoyed low caseloads and were instantly recognizable in their elegant business attire. Their unit had been the subject of various books and television dramas.
But RHD tended to pass on the so-called ordinary street murders that Skaggs considered his specialty. Street murders constituted the bulk of black-on-black killings. So RHD's criteria ensured that black victims were less likely to get elite treatment from the LAPD. This was subtly offensive to detectives such as Skaggs, who did not view these murders as lacking in complexity. The policy offended his sense of fairness, too, for it seemed to confirm the accusation that every south end officer heard routinely from residents: "You don't care because he's a black man!"
Skaggs, of course, didn't say that this was why he had never applied for a promotion to RHD. In this and other matters, his innermost thoughts could only be deduced from his actions. When people suggested he go to RHD, he scoffed.
Cops who worked south of the Ten often seemed to revel in their underdog status. They looked down on cops from other bureaus, called them flabby and soft, and considered themselves of a higher order. One of Skaggs's colleagues picked up a word a Watts gang member used to describe his neighborhood: _ghettoside_. The term captured the situation nicely, mixing geography and status with the hustler's poetic precision and perverse conceit. It was both a place and a predicament, and gave a name to that otherworldly seclusion that all the violent black pockets of the county had in common—Athens, Willowbrook, parts of Long Beach, Watts. There was a sameness to these places, and the policing that went on in them. John Skaggs was ghettoside all the way. He never bothered to explain to his uncle how he felt. If other cops didn't see why his work mattered, why he was justified in being so very sure of himself, then Skaggs had no use for them. "It's Skaggs's world," his longtime partner Chris Barling would say with a roll of his eyes.
That phrase captured many of Skaggs's signature qualities—his dismissiveness, his self-contained optimism, his stark certainty that others sometimes took as arrogance. Most of all, it captured his internal ethos about policing, which allowed him to decide that real success was not the same as that defined by his police department, the public, society at large. To other cops, ghettoside was where patrol cars were dinged, computer keyboards sticky, workdays long, and staph infections antibiotic-resistant. To work down there was to feel a sense of futility, forgo promotions, and deal with all those stressful, dreary, depressing problems poor black people had. But to Skaggs, ghettoside was the place to be, the place where there was real work to be done. He radiated contentment as he worked its streets. He wheeled down filthy alleys in his crisp shirts and expensive ties, always rested, his sedan always freshly washed and vacuumed.
It was not because he relished difficulty that Skaggs embraced ghettoside work. He was not a lonely Marlowe and had no noir in his makeup. He was a sports enthusiast, a surfer, sunny and optimistic, a happily married family man. On weekends, he easily switched his focus to the family's RV and his desert racing bike. Skaggs preferred Watts for other reasons: he liked to be busy, and he believed his work there mattered and should be done well. He descended into the most horrifying crevasse of American violence like a carpenter going to work, hammer in one hand, lunch pail in the other, whistling all the way. He had molded his life around an urgent problem seldom recognized, and he was unshaken—perhaps even encouraged—by the fact that so many others didn't get it. He had a steady faith that things could improve with the right kind of effort.
That faith never left him, even after his work turned unexpectedly personal.
#
# **SCHOOL OF CATASTROPHE**
Wally Tennelle was born in the coal-mining region of Jasper, Alabama, in 1954. Family lore held that an ancestor had been the illegitimate daughter of a house slave and a white plantation owner; that's where the family got their copper brown skin and hair.
His mother Dera's family was originally from Mississippi, but she spent her childhood in that Alabama coal country, always in near-complete segregation from whites. Wally's father, Baron Tennelle, aspired to better things. He and Dera were high school sweethearts. They married, had two sons, and headed out west in 1963, just before John Skaggs was born, part of the second great black migration from the South. Tennelle's father was high-energy, a hard worker and a natural salesman. In California, he parlayed a low-level job in the airline industry into a sales post. The family prospered. A third child, a daughter, was born in L.A.
From earliest childhood, Wally, the middle child, was decisive and organized, a stickler for neatness. To his mother's surprise, he would fold all his clothes, or tidy his room, without being asked. Dera felt deprived of the opportunity to nag him as a mother was supposed to. Wally's cleanliness sprang from an inward orderliness of spirit that would define him all his life.
Wally finished high school and decided not to go to college. Instead, he joined the Marines and set his heart on a combat post in Vietnam. It was the last days of the war. He missed the window for combat deployment when his mother—not by accident, he realized later—took too long to send him the required certificate of baptism. He took another Marine post: a position as a guard at the U.S. embassy in Costa Rica.
Three weeks after he arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica, he entered a coffee shop across the street from the embassy and made one of the snap decisions that typified his life.
The Costa Rican girl at the counter was sixteen years old. Yadira Alvarado was from a farming family. Tennelle, then eighteen, spoke no Spanish, she no English. One of her coworkers had to ask her out for him. That first night at the movies, Yadira's thoughts were spinning. How to fill the silence? But Tennelle didn't seem to care. At the end of the evening, he dropped her off at the bus stop at her request. The next day, two dozen red roses were waiting for her at the coffee shop. On their next date, Tennelle surprised her with a few words of Spanish. They dated three years, and by the end of their courtship, he spoke Spanish fluently. She was nineteen when they married. He was twenty-two.
Their first home together was a military base in Cherry Point, South Carolina. Costa Rica had a racial context different from that of the United States. Yadira had no sense that she and Wally were what was called in the States a "biracial couple" until she noticed strange looks when they went out together. It was her first lesson in what she would later sum up as "this whole thing"—race in America.
After his run in the military was over, Wally and Yadira returned to his hometown, Los Angeles, where he found work as a Kmart security guard. He got a better job with his father's employer, United Airlines, lost it in a strike, and devised a new way to get by. He enrolled in El Camino Community College mainly for the financial aid check—he had little interest in being a student—and used the check to pay the rent and buy a lawn mower. He began working as a gardener.
Wally Tennelle would later say his decision in 1980 to become a police officer was just to earn a living. But Yadira remembers it differently. While she was still in Costa Rica, she said, Wally warned her that he wanted to be a police officer. He was giving her a chance to object. Yadira knew nothing of murder, nothing of the black asphalt war zone of South Central Los Angeles. But she probably wouldn't have objected anyway. Years later, their eldest daughter would observe that Wally and Yadira's mutual respect and independence were hallmarks of their very successful marriage. At home, they passed companionable hours, he more often outside, she within, each immersed in their separate occupations.
Wally and Yadira's first house in South Los Angeles was like their marriage: orderly and idyllic. In Costa Rica, Yadira saw young women courted by charming men who revealed a domineering side after marriage. Not Wally. Many people who knew him would remark on his consistency of character: he was the same person no matter the situation. Their house was pleasant and uncluttered. They never fought. Their daughter, named Dera for Wally's mother but known as DeeDee, knew how unlikely this sounded. But it was the truth: never had she seen her parents quarrel.
There were three children in all. After DeeDee came a son, Wallace, Jr., and then Bryant, born in September 1988. Yadira took a job in the kitchen at a Kaiser Permanente Hospital, working from 5:00 A.M. to 1:30 P.M. She remained there year after year, rising in the dark to put on her kitchen aide's smock. To her friends, it seemed a start-up job. They urged her to get her nursing degree. But Yadira loved the work, loved cooking, loved keeping busy.
The kids teased their parents for being boring. Privately, though, DeeDee had another word for them— _wholesome_. The word made her cringe. But it fit. They were like the Brady Bunch. Or, no, DeeDee corrected herself with a laugh: like "the Cosbys." After all, they were black. Sort of.
Racial identity was rarely discussed in the house. Wally Tennelle had somehow managed to grow up in South Central without ever having had a brush with violence or a negative encounter with police. He had been prevented by his mother from even wearing an Afro—and almost never talked of race. His conservative views on personal responsibility and self-improvement were typical of LAPD officers. To hear Wally Tennelle talk of the African American U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, a frequent LAPD critic, was to hear the same frustrated grievances aired by just about every other cop in the city. In this respect, Wally Tennelle was blue before black.
In appearance, all three children bore strong resemblances to both their parents. But they looked different from one another. DeeDee was porcelain-skinned, with a dusting of light brown freckles over her nose, huge brown eyes, full lips, and wavy brown hair. She looked so white that, alone among the family members, she deliberately mispronounced her last name as "Te-NELL" instead of "Te-NELL-ee." That way, people would not assume she was of Italian descent.
Wally Jr. was darker-skinned, "copper tan" like his father, with clear dark eyes and dark brown hair. He spoke Spanish well and considered himself half Latino. "But if I'm in a hurry, I just say I'm black," he said.
Bryant was lighter than his brother, not as light as DeeDee. He was tall and slim, and his smooth complexion was the envy of his brother, who battled acne. But like Wally Jr., Bryant generally identified as black on the fly. In the end, because of where they grew up, because of some unspoken comprehension of a complex racial history, and because most of the biracial kids they knew did the same, all the children considered themselves black.
After a brief LAPD apprenticeship in Southeast, Wally Tennelle "wheeled" to jail division, then to narcotics, spending less time in patrol than is typical for new officers. He ended up in the Central Bureau CRASH unit in the early eighties. CRASH stood for "community resources against street hoodlums," a name that belonged to a bygone era of the LAPD, before reform efforts attempted to scrub out hints of wildness and bravado. The progression of gang squad names charted this evolution: an early special team of this type in the Seventy-seventh had been called PATRIOT. Then came the citywide units dubbed CRASH. Then, after a federal civil rights consent decree, they were relabeled with the anodyne GIT—"gang impact teams."
Tennelle's stint as a gang officer came in the midst of the great American homicide wave of the early eighties. It was the era of crack cocaine and rock houses and open-air drug markets. The young Marine veteran was in heaven. There could be nothing better than wearing that dark blue uniform, driving fast cars, and chasing gangsters around all night. He didn't want to do anything else—certainly not detective work. Everyone knew detectives were "a bunch of slugs," Tennelle recalled. He and his peers had a motto: "P-2 forever," for Police Officer II—that is, the die-hard street cops.
Then, in 1984, Tennelle was among a group of gang officers loaned out to the homicide unit to handle the high murder caseload, and he got his first homicide.
The qualities that make great homicide detectives are different from the qualities that make great patrol cops. But they are related. Wally Tennelle had a baseline of attributes that steer many young people toward police work. Although he was not college-educated, he was smart and energetic. Police work can be a haven for brainy, action-oriented people who do not, for some reason, gravitate toward formal education—the type afflicted with what DeeDee Tennelle diagnosed in her whole family as "a touch of ADD."
It made them uniquely suited for a job that was carried out almost entirely out of doors and involved sleepless nights, relentless bursts of activity, and the ability to move from one situation to the next quickly without leaving too much behind. A great cop—or a great detective—needed to be smart and quick, but not necessarily bookish or terribly analytical. A good memory, a talent for improvisation, a keen interest in people, and a buoyancy of spirit—one had to like "capering"—ensured that the hyperactive flourished in a job that left others wilting with stress.
Wally Tennelle had all these traits. But he had a few others that gave him an edge on even the better class of south-of-the-Ten cops. They were the same qualities that his mother had once noted: the preternatural neatness, the ability to control himself and the space around him, and the quiet certainty of his whole mien. Tennelle was an orderly thinker; he loved detail and was almost pathologically hardworking. He was also happy and had few if any personal demons. This latter trait was especially important. It gave him steadiness of purpose and stamina. Not surprisingly, when he worked that first homicide case, he was swept with the sense of certainty people experience when they discover what they were meant for in life. _Yeah_ , he thought. _This is what I want to do_.
Tennelle worked as a homicide detective for Central Bureau CRASH until the late 1980s, and then he transferred to a divisional detective job in Newton. He worked as they all worked in those days—hammered by new cases, trying to slam together investigations that would stand up in court before the next one overwhelmed them, hoping they wouldn't founder in plea deals, which were much more common then. One weekend in the late 1980s, Tennelle was called to four murder scenes. Only at the fifth, he recalled, did the brass agree to summon a fresh team.
Along the way, Tennelle learned the homicide detective's creed from an early partner standing over the body of a murdered prostitute. "She ain't a whore no more," he said. "She's some daddy's baby." Wally Tennelle loved that philosophy. Whatever the wider world's response, the homicide detective's call was to treat each victim, no matter how deep their criminal involvement, as the purest angel. The murdered were inviolate. They all deserved the same justice. They were all _some daddy's baby_.
The city was entering what veteran detectives would thereafter refer to as "the Big Years." Homicides hit a high point in 1980, waned, then surged to a second peak in the early 1990s. In raw numbers, nothing like it had ever been seen before (though per capita rates of homicide were actually higher during the previous decade). In 1992, the homicide death rate for all Americans exceeded nine hundred per hundred thousand people. That is higher than in almost any other developed country. Among blacks, the picture was even starker: they died at about six times the rate of whites—just as they had in earlier eras and as they would after the Big Years. At the peak, the rate for the highest-risk blacks was off the charts. In 1993, black men in their early twenties in Los Angeles County died by homicide at a rate of 368 per 100,000 population, similar to the per capita rate of death for U.S. soldiers deployed to Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.
Wally Tennelle earned the detective rank in 1990, right on the shoulder of the great wave. To "work homicide" in South Central L.A. in those days was to dwell in a demimonde the outside world could not comprehend.
It's one matter to contemplate what the scholar Randall Kennedy calls the "dismal statistics" related to black homicide—war zone death rates ten minutes from peaceful suburbs. It was another to watch the catastrophe unfold firsthand, as Tennelle would over the ensuing decade.
South Central then felt like another city, enclosed in invisible walls. The very air bore a tincture of grief. "Indescribable" was a word people used a lot: "So hard to describe, and even then, you can't smell it," a Watts detective said.
Choked silence, accompanied by that flat gaze one police chaplain called "homicide eyes," was perhaps the signature response people offered when asked to describe their experiences with violence. Eyes would stray midway through an explanation of a father's sudden obliteration, or a husband's slow, excruciating demise. An apologetic shake of the head would cut short an account of a son's maiming. Survivors who escaped gunfire trailed off into vanquished silence when talking of the friends who didn't. "There are no words," people often said.
Karen Hamilton, a bookkeeper from Jefferson Park, had still not spoken of her son's murder seven years after his death. She tried, drawing deep breaths, her hands shaking, but no voice came. Homicide grief may be a kind of living death. Survivors slog on, diminished, disfigured by loss and incomprehension.
For many family members, the nightmare begins with experiences most Americans associate only with war: the sudden, violent death of a loved one on the street outside your home. Parents and siblings are often first on the scene.
When eighteen-year-old Jamaal Nelson was shot, his mother ran outside, fell on her knees, and lifted his shirt to see his torso riddled with bullet holes. He rasped loudly and died in her arms.
Bobby Hamilton found his teenage son unconscious on the ground in a nearby park. The boy was breathing heavily, a bullet in the back of his head. Hamilton scooped him up like a baby and drove him to a fire station, where he died.
Other loved ones learned of the deaths from phone calls, or visits from police. A friend called Wanda Bickham to tell her that her nineteen-year-old son, Tyronn, had been shot and killed. Bickham slammed down the receiver, unable to hear it. Lewis Wright learned of his son's murder when an official at the coroner's office slid a photo across the table to him facedown. Heart pounding, he flipped it over to see his son's face. Sharon Brown spent the last moments of her thirteen-year-old son's life sitting still on a park bench outside the recreation center where he'd been shot, staying out of the paramedics' way. Later, she regretted it.
Immediately after the murders, many of the bereaved describe feeling mechanical and numb, their minds spinning, reflexively pushing agony away. At a funeral, one mother walked from her pew to her son's open casket like a robot, lifting each foot as if it carried a hundred-pound weight.
Realization comes slowly. Some people describe their worst spells of grief two, or five, or twenty years after the murder. "It's after. It's after. It's after," Barbara Pritchett said, clenching her fists with anguish two years after Dovon's murder. Many people report being consumed by anger. "The whys," one bereaved father called it.
Some give in to despair. In the months after forty-two-year-old Charles Yarbrough was murdered, his mother, Anita McKiry, spent entire nights lying facedown, spread-eagled, on his grave. A Compton woman who had lost not one but two sons to homicide described herself as just "waiting to die." Carlton Mitchell, whose brother Paul was killed, took to walking dangerous streets hoping that he would be struck by gunfire like his brother.
Homicide could make pariahs of the bereaved. Family members described being shunned, as if their misfortune were catching. Sometimes it seemed that the closer people were to the problem, the more potent their distancing mechanisms. This distance could be heard in the evasive and often callous language used in black South Central to describe the phenomenon. One almost never heard the word "murder" on the streets. Euphemisms served instead: "puttin' in work," to "serve" someone, to "smoke" him, to "lay him out," to "light him up," to "take care of business"—the list went on. Bloods, Crips, and Hoovers had their own trademark verbs for attacking and hurting other human beings—"swoopin'," "movin'," "groovin'." The ubiquitous "whoopdee-woo-woo" and its many variations were all-purpose ellipses equally applicable to a minor spat or a massacre, depending on the context.
Chaotic public scenes of grief on streets and sidewalks were common. Mothers and grandmothers tried to bust through police tape. They threw themselves on victims' bodies, pummeling officers who held them back. Mini-riots sometimes broke out at crime scenes. Use-of-force cases erupted when police officers tussled with hysterical family members. In one case in Watts, a woman's son and relatives pressed around the car where she lay dying from a gunshot wound; officers pushed the mourners back by force, striking several with batons.
Outside the walled city, there prevailed a blander yet even more virulent form of callousness. It permeated officialdom, the media, the public rhetoric surrounding homicide. Very few of the bereaved were spared the sense that a wider world viewed their loss indifferently. "Nobody cares" was a universal lament south of the Ten during the Big Years, and for many years after. A threadbare, dismal, bureaucratic sense of routine surrounded the handling of homicides and related crimes. Officials were rushed and overburdened. One mother described learning of her son's death from a clerk in the hospital's property room who wordlessly handed her his shoes.
Very few murders were covered in the media. Television stations covered more than the papers, but without any particular consistency, and many, many deaths received no mention by any media outlet, especially if the victims were black. It rankled deeply. The lack of media coverage seemed to convey that black-on-black homicide was "small potatoes" in the eyes of the world, said a father who lost a daughter. "Nothing on the news!" a mother cried, weeping, at the sight of a journalist the day after her son was murdered. " _Please_ write about it! _Please!_ "
Even when cases got some public attention, the tilt often seemed off. Gangs were a big topic, but atrocity, trauma, and lifelong sorrow were not part of the public's vocabulary about black-on-black violence. Somehow, mainstream America had managed to make a fetish of South Central murders yet still ignore them. The principal aspect of the plague—agony—was constantly underrated.
Here, too, language was a battleground. More than one bereaved parent objected to terms such as "gang violence" as euphemistic, its purpose being to label their loved ones as throwaway people or otherwise diminish their standing as "innocent victims." Homicide activist LaWanda Hawkins, whose son was killed, summed up the objection: " 'Gang member' is the new N-word," she said. Phrases such as "at risk" were worse, rolling victims and perpetrators into one indistinguishable mass. Vicky Lindsay grew so tired of palliating terms that she had a sticker made for her rear windshield: "My son was _murdered_ ," it declared.
Det. Brent Josephson, who worked in the Seventy-seventh Street station through the Big Years of the late 1980s and early 1990s, gave a name to the syndrome that ravaged the lives of many residents of South Bureau: he called it "the Monster." The name supplied a shorthand for the whole mess—not just the pileup of homicides among a small group of people, mostly black, and the unseen savagery of these crimes, but also the indifference with which the world seemed to view them.
LAPD detectives had probably never been staffed adequately to handle the high levels of violence south of the Ten. But during the Big Years, caseloads swelled to the point of ridiculousness, with so few detectives handling so many cases that the job came to resemble battlefield surgery. Caseloads were at least twice what experts recommended for many of those years, and ten times what RHD detectives would be assigned a decade and a half later. What detectives such as Tennelle did during those years would never be repeated; his generation of homicide detectives remains, to this day, unique in their exposure to the Monster.
They toiled ceaselessly, racking up overtime and divorces. Strokes and heart attacks proliferated in their ranks. One detective in South Bureau in the 1990s collapsed in the office. Yet the mountain of backlogged cases kept growing. "New cases piled on, and new cases piled on," a detective named Jerry Pirro recalled a decade after the Big Years peaked. "It got to the point where we were pretty much living at the station. The phone would ring, and you'd cringe."
It was hard not to take it personally. Detectives felt they were fighting an invisible war. By then, the notion of a lot of black and Latino drug dealers and gangsters shooting each other down in the 'hood had become normal. It was often not news. "I remember a banner headline in the _Los Angeles Times_ one weekend," recalled a detective named Paul Mize. "A bomb in Beirut had killed six people. We had nine murders that weekend, and not a one of them made the paper. Not one." It was aggravating, crazy-making. "You were dealing with problems and people that the majority of society doesn't want to think about—doesn't want to deal with their tragedy and grief," a detective named John Garcia recalled in the early 2000s, talking of his years in the Newton Division and South Bureau. "They are not the ones who have to knock on that front door at two A.M. and say, 'Your loved one has been killed.' "
No one seemed to care. Mize recalled writing "poison-pen activities reports" to superiors, begging for more resources. "I used to fly off the handle and throw stuff around the room," he said. "I couldn't believe the decisions being made in Parker Center" by top police officials.
But to brass, detective work was "strictly reactive," as one high-ranking officer called it, dismissing the whole function. Crime prevention was seen as more progressive, and so competing priorities always seemed to win out over investigations: preventive patrol projects, gang sweeps. "Just all upside down," said a Newton homicide detective named Johnny Villa.
Law, of course, isn't like hygiene, and crime "prevention" inevitably leads to stereotyping people as potential threats. But "proactive" patrol work sounded better. Prevention carried an added bonus, as legal scholar Carol Steiker has noted: it gave police wide latitude, since the Constitution places many constraints on legal procedure _after_ a crime, far fewer before it.
Despite the obstacles, many detectives brought battlefield dedication to the job in those years. But it was inevitable that the work would suffer. Cases were butchered; investigations were rushed, cursory, abandoned midway through. "You could have cases with viable leads, but you didn't have time to work them because fresh stuff was coming in," said a detective named Rick Marks, whose career spanned more than 160 cases.
The only thing that can be said for the crush was that it created a few unrivaled experts. Only a select number of homicide detectives in the country could claim the familiarity with homicide that the LAPD's South Bureau and Central Bureau "homicide experts" could. There were perhaps such detectives in New York, Detroit, Washington, D.C.—people who had learned their trade over years and scores of murders. Such detectives were experts less because of the variety of cases they worked than their sameness.
High-homicide environments are alike. The setting is usually a minority enclave or disputed territory where people distrust legal authority, as in South Los Angeles, where law had broken down in the Big Years and murder flourished. The killings typically arise from arguments. A large share of them can be described in two words: _Men fighting_. The fights might be spontaneous, part of some long-running feud, or the culmination of "some drama," as Skaggs would put it. These male "dramas," he observed, were not so different from those among quarreling women of the projects. In fact, they were often extensions of them. "Women work through men by agitating them to homicide," observed an anthropologist studying Mayan villages in Mexico. The observation fit scores of killings in L.A. that cops chalked up to "female problems."
The smallest ghettoside spat seemed to escalate to violence, as if absent law, people were left with no other means of bringing a dispute to a close. Debts and competition over goods and women—especially women—drove many killings. But insults, snitching, drunken antics, and the classic—unwanted party guests—also were common homicide motives. Small conflicts divided people into hostile camps and triggered lasting feuds. Every grudge seemed to harbor explosive potential. It would ignite when antagonists met by chance, gunfire erupting in streets or liquor stores. Vengeance was a staple motive. In some circles, retaliation for murder was considered all but mandatory. It was striking how openly people discussed it, even debating the merits from the pulpit at funerals.
From antiquity, the "men fighting" problem—men killing one another to settle disputes or exact revenge in the absence of a trusted legal authority—has confounded thinking people.
It would be too sweeping to assert that lawless peoples are all alike. But it's impossible to ignore that across historic and cultural settings, there appears to be a common palette of adaptations to lawlessness.
Loose talk and rumors are particular aggravators. Canadian Inuits fought over "chronic lying," the Sudanese over "volatile conversation," and Jim Crow blacks over "gossip and whispering." Revenge and jealousy murders are standard. So are reprisals against snitches who serve a distrusted state—"touts" kneecapped in Northern Ireland, informants necklaced in South Africa. Gangs that declare an order-keeping role—like the murderous neighborhood watches of Ghana—are another sure sign that a vacuum of legitimate authority has been filled by extralegal violence. So is the habit of grabbing one's friends from police, as people do in South African townships.
Witnesses in such contexts are scared. Men act touchy. They fixate on honor and respect—a result of lawlessness, not a cause. Petty quarrels grow lethal, and may mask deeper antagonisms. And arson, for some reason, gets a starring role—in czarist Russia, gold rush settlements in Alaska, and the sharecropping regions of the South.
In the dim early stirrings of civilization, many scholars believe, law itself was developed as a response to legal "self-help": people's desire to settle their own scores. Rough justice slowly gave way to organized state monopolies on violence. The low homicide rates of some modern democracies are, perhaps, an aberration in human history. They were built, as the scholar Eric Monkkonen said, not by any formal act, but "by a much longer developmental process whereby individuals willingly give up their implicit power to the state."
There are many challenges to this viewpoint, and many variations on it. But history shows us that lawlessness is _its own kind of order_. Murder outbreaks, seen this way, are more than just the proliferation of discrete crimes. They are part of a whole system of interactions determined by the absence of law. European history offers a panoply of rough justice systems based on personal vengeance, blood feuds, shaming rituals, and sundry forms of retributive and clan violence. Frequent homicide was a part of this picture. High homicide rates have also been recorded among hunter-gatherer peoples and other societies without elaborate legal structures.
Tellingly, the syndrome also crops up among isolated minorities alienated from the state, frontiersmen, and occupied peoples—any place, really, where formal authority is patchy or distrusted. Thus, some Indian tribes in Canada and the U.S. have disproportionate homicide rates, as do ethnic and immigrant enclaves in Switzerland, England, Wales, and Italy. In the peaceful Netherlands, non-Dutch ethnics suffer many times the homicide rate of their Dutch compatriots. Eighteenth-century rates among settlers on the wild edge of the American colonies were almost exactly those of South Central blacks in the twenty-first century. In the town of Tira, Israel, today, Arab citizens of Israel also suffer a homicide rate similar to that of black South Central. They blame the Israeli police in terms that would sound familiar to John Skaggs: "As long as it's Arabs killing Arabs, they just don't care," one resident said.
It's like a default setting. Wherever human beings are forced to deal with each other under conditions of weak legal authority, the Monster lurks. The ancient Greeks wrote of the Furies, hideous black gorgons who held grudges and rasped, "Get him, get him, get him." They could be subdued only by law.
To solve cases in such contexts, homicide detectives had to be schooled in folkways. They had to understand secret slang and symbolic affronts and maneuver through the endless nicknames and aliases. They had to understand people's fear of being labeled "snitches." They had to be able to unravel the tangle of relationships surrounding each case—that dense weave of homeys, "fiancés," baby daddies, and road dogs.
The homicide detectives had to learn how to pull bureaucratic levers rusted shut from years of indifference, had to work fast and effectively, juggling multiple cases. Putting together a ghettoside murder case wasn't a linear task—one clue leading to another, then another, like in all those TV shows. It required investigators to move side to side and backtrack, like spiders weaving webs. Witnesses lied, recanted, or disappeared. Their stories were usually inconsistent. Successful cases were spun from intersecting points of corroboration, not straight-line narratives.
Finally, the detectives who learned their craft in those years came to know the profound grief of homicide, the most specialized knowledge of all. They knew the way the bereaved struggled to function hour by hour. They knew about good days and bad days. Good detectives said to family members, "I can't possibly know how you feel." The best didn't have to say it. Years of such work endowed practitioners with an almost spiritual understanding of their craft. A detective named Rick Gordon, for example, still working in South Bureau as of this writing, had come to view the moral dimensions of his cases so profoundly that he talked of them in almost religious terms, talked as if their outcomes were predestined. Something _put_ witnesses there, Gordon would say—something bigger than themselves. Humility was his doctrine—the ability to remain open, to let evidence speak. To discern liars but also to trust those who appeared to be lying but weren't.
Wally Tennelle would become one of this elite, the small, unrecognized cadre of superdetectives schooled by catastrophe.
At Newton, Wally Tennelle was paired with Kelle Baitx, a gruff black-Irish midcareer man from Orange County.
Baitx and Tennelle established a division of labor. Baitx would process the crime scene. Tennelle, with his fluent Spanish, would melt away into the crowd, migrating to the fringes of the crime scene or into adjoining streets. Inevitably, he would talk to someone the patrol officers had missed, would hit upon some tidbit of information that everyone else had overlooked. Baitx thought Tennelle's ability to canvass was uncanny. He would hardly notice his partner's perambulations, but somehow, at the end of the day, witnesses would be flushed from the brambles.
Tennelle projected competence without being intimidating. He was compact, not tall but broad-shouldered, with guileless brown eyes and a lined forehead. The lines formed a series of arches to his hairline and lent his whole face a kindly look. Altogether, in a job that was all about people skills—finding witnesses, persuading them to talk—he excelled.
The dizzying homicide peak of 1992 was upon them. Baitx and Tennelle worked an astonishing twenty-eight cases that year, almost three times the recommended caseload. Tennelle thrived on it, loving the adrenaline, loving the hard work. Baitx noticed something else about Tennelle: when other cops went out drinking after work, Tennelle would go home to his family. Baitx and Tennelle were close, but Baitx only rarely saw Tennelle's wife and his three young children. Baitx understood that when Tennelle wasn't working, he preferred his home life, wanted to be with Yadira and the kids, puttering around the house. Tennelle rarely talked about work. At home, DeeDee Tennelle was hardly aware that her father was a homicide detective until once, as a child, she made a secret discovery of autopsy photos in a drawer.
#
# **CLEARANCE**
John Skaggs was twenty-two when he entered the police academy in 1987, starting out as Tennelle was entering his journeyman years.
After the academy, Skaggs was assigned to the Seventy-seventh Street Division for a mandatory probation period as a patrol officer. He would spend most of the rest of his career either in South Bureau or gaming the system to try to return to a post in South Bureau. He was in his element in those violent years, a tall, athletic, red-haired officer with easy confidence and a serene temperament who immersed himself in learning the politics of street life.
Wally Tennelle had been conscripted as a young gang officer to clean up after the first great wave a decade before. Now John Skaggs was conscripted to clean up after the second. In the first three years of the 1990s, that savage period spanning the riots, more than six thousand people died from homicides in Los Angeles County.
In 1994, Skaggs was recruited "on loan" as an officer trainee over at South Bureau Homicide. Skaggs was not a detective. He was a P-3 then, or field training officer. This is still done in the LAPD: patrol and gang officers are recruited to fill slots as homicide detectives without the rank. The written and oral tests used to promote officers to detective emphasize general procedures and departmental policies, not the singular abilities that distinguish good homicide investigators. Those cannot be measured by formal exams, and cops who tested well often had no talent for working murders. So homicide supervisors, weary of being stuck with under performing employees, preferred to bypass the official promotion system and scout their own talent.
It was not surprising that John Skaggs would be tapped. He was the kind of energetic young officer who typically did well in homicide units. But when asked to work South Bureau Homicide, the combined squad that then covered Southwest, Southeast, and the Seventy-seventh, Skaggs resisted. He did not want to work as a homicide detective, even temporarily. He loved his hard-charging job as a gang officer. Detectives were washouts. But it would have looked bad to refuse.
Years later, asked why he had known from his first days as a homicide detective that he never wanted to do anything else, Skaggs gave a curious answer. He did not say he loved investigating homicides. He simply said that when one discovers one is good at a task at which few others excel, one has no choice.
"I could do it," Skaggs said when pressed. "I _could do it_. Who else can?"
Skaggs's father had always said little about his choices. Now he had just one comment for the son who set out to follow his own path to homicide work: "Be careful," he told Skaggs. "Because nothing else matters after working murders." Only later would Skaggs comprehend the full weight of this remark.
Skaggs was paired with a training officer. But the high workload broke down the usual conventions, and Skaggs, though often an acting detective, was often relegated to working on his own. He solved his first case. Then the next. Each taught him a little more.
Early on, he was given a six-month-old "cold case" and asked to see if he could breathe new life into it. (In those days, "cold" could mean a case only weeks old.) The victim was Leo Massey, a workingman who had stopped by a liquor store on his way home from work. He was panhandled for beer by another black man. Massey refused the panhandler, who attacked him as he walked out. The panhandler shot Massey through the leg and Massey bled to death.
Massey was a father and husband. By the time Skaggs got the case, Massey's wife, Glory, was furious. She had heard rumors about the killer within days. Everyone seemed to know who did it. Everyone except the police, that is. Glory Massey had no doubt in her mind that if Leo had been white instead of black, the police would have solved his murder.
Skaggs met her in the bureau's office at the Crenshaw Mall. Massey had developed piercing back pain from grief. She was angry. She believed the authorities didn't care, and she feared that one of her teenage sons—or some other young man from their neighborhood—would be tempted to retaliate. Now here was yet another LAPD detective claiming interest in the case. Massey was losing patience with it—these people called themselves professionals, yet they allowed teenage boys to do their work for them, to seek justice where the state had failed to secure it.
She sized up Skaggs. Great, another tall white LAPD cop—"nine foot eight or something!" Massey said later—and she was determined not to be intimidated. She brought her face as close as she could to his despite her own small stature. It meant looking almost straight up at him. Then she let him have it, all her pent-up frustration. "He's just another fuckin' black man now, right?" Massey screamed at Skaggs. _"Just another fuckin' black man down!"_
Skaggs didn't protest. He just listened.
When she ran out of breath, he began asking questions. Later, he came to see her again. He called, and came again, checking up on her, asking about her children.
Glory was not the only one who sensed that many people knew the killer. "Everybody knows" was one of the most common phrases voiced about homicides in South Central. Lots of people had heard about the shooting, and some recognized the suspect, who was a regular around the neighborhood. But even when Skaggs pressed, they offered conflicting names. "Jamal," some said. "Jabar," said others. No one seemed to know who the violent panhandler really was or where he lived.
Skaggs walked and knocked, asked and asked. He ended up searching a garage where a man who fit the panhandler's description was "staying." He noticed a fingerprint on a mirror and got lucky. His longtime partner Chris Barling would later observe how often it seemed that Skaggs made his own luck. Skaggs yanked at the mirror, and a driver's license with the man's picture, birth date, and full name—Jabbar Stroud—dropped from behind it. It remained only to have the witnesses confirm it.
Skaggs drove Glory Massey to the trial himself and warned her to leave the chambers before gruesome photos were displayed. She had grown to like him, and he her. He was so unperturbed by her initial rage that he didn't remember it afterward. By then he was long used to being admonished as a callous white racist cop. He had already heard many versions of "another black man down." It was part of the job—an enduring theme of ghettoside work—and he shrugged it off. They always thought he didn't care.
The sense that the police—and the larger city—didn't care was not just a cliché. It was the lived experience of South L.A.'s black residents, quantified by data. Society had changed a great deal during the civil rights movement and the decades that followed it. Criminal justice had changed, too. But the speed and certainty of adequate punishment for the murderers of black men remained a weak point.
Historically, the nation had never been very good at punishing murderers, no matter the victim. In nineteenth-century New York only about a tenth of all murders resulted in a conviction. Less than half did in Philadelphia and Chicago at the end of that century. These patterns probably continued well into the twentieth century. In Los Angeles, for example, a suspiciously large percentage of homicides—more than a quarter of them—were not even counted for purposes of criminal investigation in the 1920s and 1930s. Some were probably killings by police. Other cases seem to have been shelved due to dead or absolved suspects. Standards were clearly different: a 1925 _Los Angeles Times_ article applauded two killers who had hunted down a mugger after the fact, noting approvingly that police did not think the act merited arrest. The killers "had merely taken the law into their own hands," the paper opined.
In subsequent decades, officials claimed to solve homicide cases at very high rates. But California prison rolls tell a different story. During the 1960s, the number of people sent to prison for criminal homicide was less than half the number of homicides. The disparity grew more pronounced during the 1970s, when there were three times more people killed than killers convicted and imprisoned. There seems to be no other conclusion but that thousands of murders went unpunished.
Federally reported clearance rates—the rate of cases solved per crimes committed—are inflated, partly because they combine arrests with cases LAPD cops called "cleared other," investigations declared closed although no one has been prosecuted. Cases could be "cleared" because the suspects were dead, sometimes killed in revenge murders. Even with this inflation, by the 1990s, the reported rate for urban areas had fallen to about 50 percent. Not surprisingly, a _Los Angeles Times_ investigation found that the real rate was even lower. The study, based on case-by-case analysis of 9,400 Los Angeles County cases in the early nineties, concluded suspects were convicted of manslaughter or murder in only about one in three killings. Clearance rates varied by race, with cases involving black and Hispanic victims somewhat less likely to be solved than those involving white victims. Killers of whites received the harshest penalties. These findings echoed those of other research into "victim discounting." Death penalty studies, for example, have found that the race of defendants matters less than the race of victims. People who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to death; people who kill blacks get lighter penalties.
The pattern persisted after the crime drop. From 1994 to 2006, a suspect was arrested in 38 percent of the 2,677 killings involving black male victims in the city of Los Angeles, according to the police department's own data. Even with "cleared others" included in the count, solve rates remain less than half. In L.A. County, a much larger area, similar patterns prevailed. The result was that unsolved homicides in South L.A. numbered in the thousands—an average of more than 40 per square mile piled up during the decade and a half between the late 1980s and early 2000s.
Maiming people offered even better odds. There were about four or five injury shootings for every fatal one in South Los Angeles. A waggish colleague of Skaggs called these shootings—which injured but did not kill their victims— _almocides_ , for "almost homicides." High-crime precincts were racked by them. Some thirty almocides occurred each month in the nine square miles of the Southeast Division in the early 2000s, for instance. People—disproportionately black men—were left paralyzed, comatose, brain injured, or forced to spend the rest of their lives using colostomy bags. Officially, some 40 percent of these aggravated assaults were "cleared." But half of those were not arrests. They were "cleared others," usually because victims refused to testify. Among "category one" assaults in Watts in 2004, for example—serious injury cases—only about 17 percent ended with an assailant convicted.
The atmosphere this created was in the air Glory Massey breathed. Beneath the most serious unsolved and unprosecuted assaults thrummed an ocean of lesser crimes, often unreported ones. People were punched and kicked. Cars were shot up. Apartments were ransacked. Molotov cocktails were thrown into houses—a legal act for all practical purposes: overburdened fire department investigators recorded hundreds of arsons a year in Los Angeles in the late 2000s.
Verbal threats were rampant. Symbolic affronts and sexually tinged humiliations reinforced them. Petty burglaries, "pocket checks," the breaking of gold chains, the pulling down of pants—such acts carried a tacit threat of mortal violence to those who didn't heed their messages. Being "jumped" and "beat down" were part of the everyday vocabulary of the streets. "Caught slippin' " meant letting your guard down—a momentary slip could kill you. "Catch a fade" meant a fight. The gang term "DP" was an acronym for "discipline." It meant roughing someone up to punish him for something.
These crimes set the stage for later murders. "It's on Grape! I'll be back!" a girl yelled upon fleeing an unreported beat-down. Three weeks later, one of the men who had punched her was murdered, and the Grape Street Crips were the suspects. An out-of-bounds ball on a basketball court sparked a fight; afterward the loser's friends pressured him: "You need to drop that fool," they said. "Take care of business!" He obeyed, and days later killed the victor.
Black residents in the area had long complained not just of mistreatment by police, but also that the cops did little to catch the killers and violent assailants in their midst. It was a historic grievance. When the Swedish social scientist Gunnar Myrdal studied the black South in the 1940s, he found that, despite rampant complaints about law enforcement, black Southerners everywhere also said they wanted _more_ policing—to protect them from other black people.
South Bureau officers heard some version of the lament several times a day: "It ain't like I'm out here doin' something. I'm just cruisin'!" a young woman named Tamala Brown sputtered, facing down a pair of Seventy-seventh officers who caught her driving without a seatbelt in 2005. "What about all these other people out actually _doin'_ something?" No one seemed to hear that last part—no matter how urgently black people said it. Legal scholar Randall Kennedy was a lonely voice among his peers when he asserted that "the principal injury suffered by African-Americans in relation to criminal matters is not overenforcement but underenforcement of the laws." Glory Massey did not need to be told.
Years later, describing the experience of having Skaggs investigate her husband's death, she said that when Skaggs took over the case, "it was like how your own brothers would go and look for the guy, you know?" In her mind, Skaggs had substituted the state's intervention for communal justice, and Massey was deeply grateful. She believed Skaggs's aggressive work on her husband's case had probably averted another homicide.
Seven years later, Glory Massey's eldest son, Damon, was also murdered.
In the depths of her grief, Glory Massey thought about John Skaggs. Skaggs had been assigned elsewhere by then. No suspect was arrested in Damon's case. Years went by; no one contacted Glory. Her son's murder remains unsolved as of this writing. In response to inquiries, a man on her street said simply: "Someone took care of it."
#
# **THE CIRCUMSTANTIAL CASE**
As young John Skaggs was trying out as a South Bureau trainee, Wally Tennelle remained working on the north side of the invisible administrative boundary of Florence Avenue. He was well on his way to becoming one of the Central Bureau's master craftsmen. Tennelle had by then worked scores of cases.
Tennelle and Baitx worked as partners for five years in the Newton Division. Up at RHD—the prestige division downtown—supervisors in search of talent homed in on Tennelle. They tried to recruit him. But Tennelle refused an RHD assignment on principle. He was still at heart a hard-driving south end copper who loved to be busy. On some level, he knew he was born to chase the lowly, frustrating gang cases they disdained up at headquarters.
And there was something else: a question of fairness. Wally Tennelle was no leftist, but the phrase "some daddy's baby" translated to an issue of social justice that he couldn't help taking to heart. The well-heeled had superior policing, he believed. "The poor people down here never get anything, and they need good detectives," he said.
The LAPD, however, did not have the same priorities. The institution was not geared to channeling its best talent to detective tables down in the Newton Division. Talented municipal employees are expected to advance. Plus, Tennelle was due for a pay raise and had three kids in private school. Without really understanding all its implications, he allowed himself to go through the process of oral and written exams and was boosted to the rank of D-3, detective III, or supervisor.
Promotion requires transfer in the LAPD. Tennelle was shifted out of homicide and into a supervisory position in a different unit in Newton, overseeing a "table" of detectives investigating domestic violence and rape cases. Ostensibly, such detective tables are supposed to conduct interviews and track down suspects. But in the ghettoside divisions of the LAPD, investigation of relatively low-level crime was afforded so little manpower that, in essence, these jobs become paper pushing. Detectives have no time to interview people, and in the arena of domestic violence and rape—the latter, like the former, overwhelmingly committed within families or among acquaintances—huge numbers of victims refused to testify in court. The detectives under Tennelle's command were mostly reduced to filling out forms and meeting administrative deadlines. Tennelle had inadvertently trapped himself in the most dreaded assignment imaginable, a desk job. His whole nature rebelled.
"You could just tell he was miserable," Baitx recalled. He had never before heard his old partner complain. Tennelle told his old boss he was thinking of quitting. The boss urged him to hang in there—he would get used to it. But Tennelle knew his own mind.
He endured six months for appearance's sake. Then he learned of one homicide D-2 spot open. It meant a demotion—he would lose his D-3 rank—and it was in RHD, where he had never wanted to be. But at least it was a real investigative job, not one that just went through the motions.
To the annoyance of his captain, Tennelle took the demotion, and in 1999—in horrified flight from the stacks of paper that piled up on the sex crimes table—he ended up at RHD.
He had accepted a 7 percent pay cut to make the switch. It took him seven years to work his way back. But it was worth it: he was back in an action-focused investigative job chasing killers, and he was happy again.
Baitx was amazed. He had never known anyone in the money-obsessed ranks to willingly take a demotion and pay cut.
Except for the voluntary demotion, Tennelle's ascent through the department in those years paralleled the experience of many south end cops. In one respect, however, Wally Tennelle was idiosyncratic, even a little radical. He lived in the Seventy-seventh Division.
Among LAPD officers, the proscription against living in the city of Los Angeles went without saying. It was something that had long annoyed various liberal critics of the department. For years, most officers in the department had refused to live in the city they policed and instead commuted into the city from distant suburbs. They formed little red-state bastions sprinkled around the five-county area of Southern California—Santa Clarita and Simi Valley to the north, Chino and as far as Temecula to the east, and Orange County to the south. But with a few exceptions, such as San Pedro, a historic enclave of ethnic whites, Los Angeles was considered off-limits, the length and breadth of this beautiful city disdained by its police.
Of course, for many stripes of public employees, including teachers and firefighters, living in Los Angeles was difficult because the city had developed a stark rich-poor split, and moderately priced homes in low-crime neighborhoods were hard to come by. LAPD cops worked odd hours, so the long freeway drives that would have been prohibitive for rush-hour commuters were feasible for them.
How much racial prejudice weighed into this choice depended on what was meant by the term, since a majority of officers were themselves minorities. Anyway, their attitudes were too paradoxical for such a coarse summation: LAPD cops had a tendency to voice disgust about the neighborhoods of central Los Angeles, then defend them in the next breath.
Mostly, though, officers understood what outsiders did not: that nearly every part of their jobs involved conflict, very personal conflict. To police the 'hood was to encounter a daily barrage of wrath. The idea of being followed home or confronted in one's own neighborhood was terrifying. So for years the department's critics complained that cops didn't live in the city, and for years the cops declined to do so.
But not Wally Tennelle. He lived not just in the city, but in the Seventy-seventh Division. While it was true that the Seventy-seventh—unlike Southeast—had many pockets of nice middle-class homes, it remained either the first or second most violent division in the city, year in and year out, and its eleven square miles included the territories of several of the city's most violent black street gangs. The fact that Wally Tennelle chose to live there was a source of wonderment to his colleagues, and fueled sotto voce commentary behind his back: "It was common knowledge" that Tennelle lived in the Seventy-seventh, said his RHD lieutenant, Lyle Prideaux, "and a lot of people didn't think it was real wise." Kelle Baitx, however, resented it whenever he heard that kind of talk. He had visited Tennelle's home, knew how well kept and comfortable it was, and saw that the neighborhood was also "nice." He himself had bought a house in El Sereno—another "nice" but distinctly urban, and mostly Hispanic, neighborhood near the city's core—and sent his children to private school, just as Tennelle did. Baitx had traveled once with Tennelle to Alabama in pursuit of a suspect, and Tennelle had used the occasion to visit his family's old home, a six-hundred-square-foot box with wood siding used, at the time of their visit, as a crack house. Baitx knew how poor Tennelle's parents had been, how humble his roots, and how far the family had come. Tennelle should be able to live wherever he wanted, Baitx thought.
For Tennelle, the choice was easy. The neighborhood was home; it was near where he grew up, where his mother still lived. He had bought a home he could afford when he was a young cop, and had what he called "a wild-ass dream: that my children only know one home."
Not that there weren't difficulties. When the Tennelles first moved in, an apartment building down the street was a hub for drug deals. A dealer once stood in Tennelle's driveway and conducted a transaction as Tennelle, who had served briefly as a narcotics cop, was mowing the grass a few feet away. Perhaps the dealer had a faulty antenna for cop detection; more likely he was caught slippin' because it had never occurred to him that a cop would live on his street. Tennelle called 911 and had him arrested.
Later, Tennelle wrote a 3.18 narcotics report on the building and offered his home as an "OP," or observation post, and the problem swiftly abated. After that, the Tennelles enjoyed the area. They were fond of their neighbors. Tennelle's commute was a neighborhood hop—few Angelenos have it so good. Tennelle could respond to homicide callouts in Newton division within minutes, unlike most detectives who lost most of the first critical hour because it took them so long to get there. His neighborhood had sidewalks, mature trees, well-tended yards, and adorable 1930s-vintage homes—some of them gingerbread style. Fresh sea breezes waft through this part of L.A., palm trees sway, and although the section lies in the flight path of LAX, it's far enough from the runway that the sound of descending planes is not too bothersome. You didn't have to be from the Frisco side of Jasper, Alabama, to appreciate this neighborhood; it was objectively and inarguably, as Baitx put it, "nice."
Tennelle's neighbors knew he worked for the LAPD. He did not apologize for being a cop; he had always treated people with deliberate respect, on the job and off, and he defied the world to make him ashamed. "I've run into my share of people I've arrested," he said, "and I can look them in the eye." Shirking off to live in the suburbs felt somehow dishonorable to Wally Tennelle. "I'm home here. I'm not gonna let anybody run me out," he said.
And more people wanted him there than not—this was made quickly clear. When word got around that there was a cop on the block, neighbors came to his doorstep with all kinds of troubles. Cops didn't live in the neighborhoods they policed because they feared all those suspects. But perhaps what they should really have feared was all the _victims_. Wally Tennelle soon discovered that his neighborhood embraced him—perhaps more than he bargained for—but he accepted the role with good grace and did his best to help his neighbors with their problems.
About the same time that Wally Tennelle went to RHD, John Skaggs was finally earning a promotion to the lowest rank of detective, D-1.
Skaggs was subject to the same promotional rules as Tennelle. Thus, earning the rank to do what he was already doing meant he would no longer be allowed to do it. Just as Tennelle's reward for advancement was a sentence on the Newton sex crime table, Skaggs was transferred out of homicide and sentenced to a narcotics table in the LAPD's Pacific Division in Venice, a low-crime area along the beach.
It was unendurable.
At last, a post opened for a "gang" detective on a South Bureau task force in the Seventy-seventh Street Division. It was not quite what Skaggs wanted. But at least it was south of the Ten, investigating crimes involving human victims, and unlike Tennelle, he didn't have to demote himself to make the switch.
A reprieve came with a new boss: Detective Sal La Barbera, a homicide supervisor who had first noticed Skaggs when the latter was still a young red-haired gang officer. La Barbera was just seven years older than Skaggs, but he had been a detective a lot longer. He had remained in ghettoside units longer than almost anyone he knew, passing on promotions and watching his peers advance. Dark-haired, with rawboned Italian good looks and a spray of acne scars over each cheek, La Barbera cut a romantic figure, an image he deliberately cultivated. He was not the devil-may-care loner he pretended to be. He did not do well alone, nor was he indifferent to the opinions of others. La Barbera was moody, easily hurt, forever trusting someone only to feel betrayed later. Various relationships had foundered in bad blood.
Over the years, the job had burdened La Barbera with a hounded, slightly paranoid demeanor. He'd gone on so many late-night homicide callouts that he had lost the ability to sleep through the night. His family relations were stressed, perhaps fatally so. He suffered from depression. Some colleagues disliked him, calling him two-faced. His manner didn't help. He appeared most easygoing when he was put out, and he pretended to be joking when he wasn't. But he wasn't a liar. La Barbera said what he meant most of the time—just in a very quiet voice. If you paid close attention, you weren't deceived.
La Barbera's fractured personal life and internal contradictions came oddly packaged with inimitable professional consistency. He had a vision. He believed in his craft—believed unreservedly in the idea of homicide investigation as a cause. He believed that the state articulated its response to violence by apprehending those who committed it, and that failing to do so sent an unmistakable message the other way—that violence was tolerated, especially when the victims were poor black men.
His theory was, he admitted, "a circumstantial case." But La Barbera's observations over the years in South Los Angeles had convinced him that catching killers _built law_ —that successful homicide investigations were the most direct means at the cops' disposal of countering the informal self-policing and street justice that was the scourge of urban black populations. La Barbera had character flaws. But his views on homicide belonged to an elevated plane of ethical reasoning.
This made him an oddity. In truth, a lot of police had only the fuzziest idea what they were there for, aside from the most basic, traditional function of answering calls, dealing with them, and going "Code Four" on the radio—"situation under control." There was amazingly little discussion of the craft of policing, and no consensus on what constituted good police work versus bad.
Cops were told they were supposed to "be proactive," focus on "suppression," or practice "crime control." Showered in such nonsensical orders and jargon, they couldn't really be blamed for struggling to find purpose in their work. Officers drove around, conducted consent searches, ran license plates, drove some more. It could feel quite pointless. It didn't help that even as they were supposedly held to high standards and expected to display the skill and initiative of trained professionals, many so-called innovative policing strategies tended to reduce them to cogs.
There was a lot of emphasis on police being "visible" and on strategically deploying them to targeted neighborhoods based on crime trends. But exactly what officers were supposed to do once they got to a so-called target neighborhood was left a little vague. The omission contained a disturbing implication: that a bunch of blue uniforms stuffed with straw might be able to perform the same function rather well, and for a lot less money.
New LAPD directives in the 2000s drove this home. One involved planting "decoy" patrol cars on high-crime streets. The empty, parked black-and-whites were supposed to scare would-be criminals into thinking actual officers might be nearby. Even worse for self-respecting police officers, the brass instituted a practice of assigning a pair of officers to drive around aimlessly in a patrol car with red lights flashing. Higher-ups viewed this as clever and progressive. The idea was to give criminals a sense that cops were on high alert. But when officers learned in roll call that their shift duties would involve no real work—that instead, they were to toodle around ridiculously under a flashing red light—their faces registered unmistakable insult.
If you asked most LAPD patrol officers why they chose to be cops, they would shrug and answer vaguely: "To help people." It was a little poignant. Cops enjoyed good pay and lavish pensions. But many seemed to really want to be do-gooders without really knowing how.
Sal La Barbera did not have this problem. He had a clarity of purpose that guided all his actions. Because of what he believed, he knew precisely what his mission was and why it was important every single day of his working life. He managed an array of priorities, all of which were harmonized in his mind with clear, long-term goals and a deep understanding of the problem he sought to conquer. All in all, he represented a consistency and integrity that was missing from the criminal justice system he worked within. And if he didn't seem to be the sort of man to carry that standard, well, that only confirmed Rick Gordon's doctrine that sometimes the people who appear least truthful are the ones telling the starkest truths.
The decade of the 1990s was over. Crime was dropping. South Bureau Homicide was disbanded and replaced by divisional homicide squads in each of three South Bureau station houses. La Barbera was put in charge of one of them: the Southeast Homicide squad in Watts.
Over the years, he had watched Skaggs develop as an investigator.
The two men did not work together directly at South Bureau Homicide, but La Barbera was familiar with Skaggs's style. He knew Skaggs did not procrastinate or putter around the office, spending too much time on computers. He was nearly always outside, moving, talking, making face-to-face connections with people, confronting them over and over, returning to places where he had been roughly turned away. Shortly after settling into his new unit, La Barbera recruited Skaggs.
Skaggs, for his part, sensed in La Barbera someone who believed in the work and its higher purpose. He leaped at the opportunity. So began the next phase of his career, at last a full-fledged homicide detective.
#
# **GOOD PEOPLE AND KNUCKLEHEADS**
In 2000, the nine square miles of Watts were home to about 130,000 people, 39 percent of them black. Nearly everyone else in the Southeast Division was Hispanic, including many brand-new Mexican, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan immigrants.
Black people had inhabited the swampy bottoms of Watts since its earliest days. In the late 1920s, when Watts was an independent town, blacks became the town's majority, and might have elected its first black mayor. But outnumbered whites—claiming water-supply issues—staved this off: they got the City of Los Angeles to annex it instead. In the second of the great black migrations, after World War II, black people poured into Watts from the South and soon made it notorious among the country's "inner-city" black neighborhoods. "An infected pocket of misery, unemployment and despair where new arrivals from the South congregate," the political writer Theodore H. White called it in 1965, after the riots.
Every factor that predicted violence was concentrated in Southeast. The division was the poorest one in South Bureau. It was home to a cluster of public housing projects, including Jordan Downs and Imperial Courts, places made notorious by rap musicians. Older men dawdled in front of liquor stores or jaywalked with gaits of languid contempt. Police cataloged a score of black gangs there, some with imaginative and poetic names: Fudgetown Mafia, Hard Time Hustlers, Bounty Hunters. Bone-thin addicts with bad teeth rattled shopping carts down its boulevards.
Yet for all its notoriety, the landscape of Watts was not as formidable as its reputation. This was not a no-man's-land of high-rise slums. Trees and lawns adorned tiny detached one-story houses set off by waist-high chain-link fences. Sidewalks were crowded with kids walking home in their school uniforms and mothers pushing strollers. Teenagers practiced dance steps at bus stops. The housing projects boasted gracious touches. Nickerson Gardens, where curved streets wound around black-and-white row houses, had been designed by the famous black architect Paul Williams and reflected his deepest values—California living and "a passion for small homes for everyday people"—according to his Memphis archivist, Deborah Brackstone. Sunlight streamed through the windows of Nickerson's cozy, private units. Ground-level doors opened on geraniums and sloping green lawns.
And, of course, Watts claimed an equal share of the city's best attributes. It was Mediterranean and golden, with air that was soft in summer and crisp in winter. Gardens there burst with bird-of-paradise flowers and purple-blooming jacarandas. Palm trees lined streets, their glossy fronds flashing in the sun. There were still paddocks in Compton and a stable in Athens, and people rode horses up the grassy median of Broadway. They sat on couches on front porches, barbecued in their driveways on summer evenings as their children played.
The setting made much of the literature about the urban "underclass" based on observations in places such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the Bronx seem like some dark fantasy. A foreign visitor in 2008 said she was surprised by the pleasant surroundings; referencing George Kelling and James Q. Wilson's famous essay, she noted that there were no broken windows at all.
Most blacks in Los Angeles had Southern origins. But folklore held that Watts had drawn the poorest and last of the black migrants—refugees from rural Louisiana and East Texas, many from sharecropping and subsistence farming backgrounds. A bit of Watts mythology even held that its blacks were "darker complected" than blacks elsewhere in L.A. This notion was doubtful, and impossible to prove in any case, but it was of a piece with Watts's reputation for extreme black disadvantage.
That history was still in evidence when Skaggs came to work in Watts in 2001. Newcomers from the South still came, and transplants went back and forth to ancestral towns. In the roll call room of the station hung a large painted sign. It bore the logo of the Louisiana Hotel, a local establishment once considered a notorious nest of vice. The police had somehow pilfered the sign when the motel was demolished, and it was clear why they coveted it: "Louisiana Hotel" was shorthand for the neighborhood. Many of these sons and daughters of Louisiana still interacted as if living in a rural Southern village. Weekends brought big family cookfests and jovial church breakfasts. Everyone seemed to know everyone.
The uniformed gang enforcement officers in Skaggs's station house had a running joke about Slidell, Louisiana, a town that could appear to have been uprooted and replanted on the streets of Watts. Sometimes it seemed half the black gangsters in the division hailed from there. But Shreveport, Lake Charles, Natchitoches, and New Orleans were also well represented.
Only people who weren't familiar with this kind of "inner-city" environment would attribute its problems to alienation or lack of community solidarity. The truth was that "community spirit" in the sense of both local pride and connections among neighbors was far more in evidence in Watts than elsewhere. It was one of the defining aspects of the ghettoside setting: a substantial portion of the area's residents were related to each other through extended family ties, marriage, or other intimate connections. Relatives who were only nominally related by blood often saw each other daily, ate together, celebrated together, quarreled and comforted each other. They shared food, money, and living quarters.
They raised each other's children. They traded off transportation and housework.
Even people who were not related were networked into this complex mosaic. Common-law romantic relationships—the myriad "baby daddy" and "baby mama" connections—not only constituted their own distinct category of familial bonds, they roped in a lot of other blood relations, too. And if people had no claim to family ties at all, they invented them. Terms such as "play sister" and "play cousin" were ubiquitous all over South Central and had an important role in organizing social life. Even friendships in Watts often appeared more intimate than elsewhere. In contrast to wealthier neighborhoods, where most people worked at day jobs and neighbors knew each other in passing or not at all, the unemployed people of these places were home all day, hanging out together, confined to a few blocks. It lent the constant calls for "the community to come together" a touch of absurdity. Watts already had more togetherness than most Americans could tolerate.
Among officers in the division, the company line was that most of South Bureau's population were "good people." But a minority—some cops put it at 1 percent, some as high as 15 percent—were "knuckleheads." This term referred to unemployed, criminally involved men, and gang members, especially black ones.
Blacks "could better their lives, but they don't," said one officer of Hispanic ethnicity. "They love it. They love selling drugs. They love forcing old people out of their homes so they can sell drugs there." Said a white officer: "The true victims are Hispanic. Black suspects prey on Hispanic victims." There was plenty of Hispanic crime and "gang activity," too. But the hard-core underclass in Watts was black, and it was impossible for patrol cops not to see that. All day long, their radios buzzed with familiar suspect descriptions. "Male black, five-six to six-two, eighteen to thirty-five, white shirt, black pants," a gang officer intoned drily, reading aloud from a report in the Watts station one day. All the cops present laughed, for they all sought the same suspect. But even as officers laughed, some cops also searched their souls, trying to figure out how to accommodate their experiences at work with the antiracism they shared with most of their countrymen.
They sometimes wrestled with race in disarming ways. No one in the wider world seemed to want to talk about it, but black residents, to many officers, appeared more violent than Hispanics. Their own eyes told them so. Statistics backed them up. Few officers wanted to believe that black people were somehow intrinsically wired for violence.
"Maybe the stereotype is true," said Francis Coughlin, a white gang detective who would play an important role in Skaggs's story. "I don't know! I like to think it is a choice. Even in this environment, you have a choice!" His voice betrayed a touch of anguish—the whole issue so delicate and painful.
"Choices" rhetoric helped officers ascribe the violence of Watts to individuals, and thus avoid explanations that felt like group generalizations of black people. But talk of "choices" also inevitably raised questions of blame. And since blame also served as a satisfying distancing mechanism, officers ended by blaming not just suspects but victims for the "choices" they'd made.
Some version of "good riddance" summed up much of the cops' private response to the violence there. "There are no victims here" was a tired cliché seemingly echoed by half the officers in Southeast. "You take your values and put them in the backseat while you are here," said gang sergeant Sean Colomey, who worked in Southeast in the aughts. "Then you go back to where you are from and get your values again."
A white Southeast officer called a successfully prosecuted gang homicide "two for the price of one," because one gang member had been killed and a second imprisoned. Another white officer, of supervisory rank, scanned a report about a black gang member who had barely survived a bullet to the head: "Why couldn't it have just taken care of the problem we are dealing with here?" she asked caustically.
A telling bit of cop slang that expressed this philosophy was the word _righteous_. Officers used "righteous" to distinguish people they considered real victims—innocent and worthy of sympathy—from victims only in a strict legal sense. A _righteous_ victim might be the hardworking neighbor struck by a stray bullet. It went without saying that there were few _righteous_ victims among the black men of Watts.
But officers could not be condemned wholesale for their strong emotional responses to violence. The anger of many Southeast cops was complicated—shot through with outrage and horror. Even as they spouted callous, shopworn rhetoric, some Southeast officers also displayed deep engagement with problems they encountered in Watts—problems that often seemed to be ignored by a wider world.
A gang detective in Watts named Patrick Flaherty was typical. He worked twelve serious shootings a month—far too many to solve. Flaherty, to his credit, hated "cleared other," and he worked hard. But few victims would testify. Once, a wounded gang member said "Fuck you" to Flaherty's request for information—his dying words.
Another time, he investigated the case of a fourteen-year-old boy paralyzed by gunfire. The boy's mother, against all evidence, insisted the perpetrator couldn't have been a black man. Flaherty offered this story as an example of perverse denial among blacks. His views appeared harsh and condemnatory: "The whole culture of the black community is crime!" he said. Yet in the same interview, Flaherty kept returning to this fourteen-year-old, whose story never made the news. Flaherty worked the case diligently, driven by a sincere, sympathetic response to the boy's ordeal, and he persuaded him to testify. He got to know the family, stayed in touch. And every time they went to court, he carried the boy down the steps of the family's apartment himself.
When Skaggs came to work in Southeast Homicide, the countywide homicide death rate for black men in their twenties was about forty-eight times the average for all Americans. Southeast had always been among the five most violent LAPD precincts, and sixty-five people were killed there the first year after Skaggs arrived, three quarters of them black. The next year, 2003, Southeast led the city in killings with seventy-seven people dead, two thirds of them black.
Skaggs occupied a corner in the back of the detective squad room, alongside his colleagues at what was called the homicide "table," for that is what it was—a handful of desks pushed together, the inauspiciousness of their function reinforced by the arrangement of office furniture, for the homicide table looked no different than the burglary table or the auto table.
After initially bouncing him around between partners, La Barbera eventually assigned Skaggs to work with Chris Barling, another Southern California native who had migrated from South Bureau Homicide. Barling was two years older than Skaggs, also white, and just as tall: the two men wore the same size suit. Barling looked fit, but astonished his health-obsessed colleagues with his diet of packaged burritos and Mountain Dew. Both men were of superior talent. At the point when they became partners, they had identical clearance rates: 75 percent.
The partnership clicked right away. Barling was analytical and talkative, with a flair for circumstantial cases. Skaggs saw that he was good at making sense of complex webs of evidence. For Barling, a denial was as good as a confession.
For his part, Barling admired Skaggs's style—how he attacked everything in sight, plunging after every scrap of information, going right at its source, refusing to take no for an answer. La Barbera sometimes assigned them extra cases just to juice the unit's end-of-year clearance rate.
Typically, La Barbera's little Watts squad had no more than four or five pairs of homicide detectives. These detectives carried the highest homicide caseloads in the city, double or triple those of colleagues in the wealthier San Fernando Valley and West bureaus. Twelve to fifteen cases per pair were typical in those years.
Homicide rates were on the wane, but homicide staffing had dropped, too, and clearing cases still wasn't seen as central to the department's crime-fighting strategy. So La Barbera faced the same old frustrations. It was a reprise of the Big Years: insufficient resources and upside-down priorities. Barling liked to say that they were "Don Quixotes, tilting at windmills." The unit was perennially short of cars and computers. La Barbera "took a complaint" once for stealing an extra, unused computer from the patrol officers because one of his investigators didn't have one, and he weathered the inevitable internal-affairs investigation. His detectives were not allowed to bring their police sedans home, unlike detectives in other units, such as "major crimes" at headquarters. They had no office in which to meet, unlike the station's community policing and data analysis units.
The homicide detectives also lacked sufficient space to interrogate people, since they shared the only available interview room with all the other officers in the station. The room had no recording equipment and no window, and it was always short of chairs and uncomfortably cold.
The detectives were not issued tape recorders, although prosecutors had begun to require recordings to file charges by that time. So they bought their own and, absent an interrogation room, devised ingenious ways to conceal them. One detective carried a heavy binder filled with paper. He cut out the center of the stack to make a secret hollow and hid his recorder in it. This qualified as high technology in ghettoside homicide.
La Barbera spent much of his time trying to secure adequate supplies and equipment. His detectives were not issued departmental cell phones; they bought their own. They did not have the capability to enhance or take stills from surveillance videos, or to videotape interrogations, so they persuaded a local appliance merchant to help them. They struggled for access to moving vans and surveillance cars. They waited for weeks to hear back from labs for reports on physical evidence. La Barbera purchased his own fax machine and printer for the office, and several pieces of furniture, including his own chair. The detectives made regular trips to Office Depot to buy pads, pencils, staplers, keyboards, calendars, and even the blue binders for the murder books.
La Barbera was forever setting goals and drafting plans, trying to improve things. His requests seemed pretty reasonable for a department that ran its own helicopter fleet: he wanted tinted windows in a sedan to ferry witnesses incognito, a locking cabinet for murder books, maybe a few digital cameras. Again and again, he was turned down.
The brass juggled other concerns—response times and suppression of lesser crimes, such as burglaries. These were more numerous and created more noticeable blips in crime statistics. Reporters, meanwhile, virtually never covered Southeast homicides. So there was little political pressure to address them.
Even within their own station house, Southeast Homicide detectives sometimes felt like lepers. They had to cajole their colleagues to help them with stakeouts and sweeps. La Barbera tried to improve this, too. He spoke to roll calls, quietly urging the uniforms to stop shooing people rudely from crime scenes and to treat bereaved families with compassion. The officers would roll their eyes, then bark at weeping relatives again, or smirk at witnesses—that smirk that some LAPD officers seemed to have learned at the academy. They still turned in field-interview cards that read like haiku. No one in charge seemed interested in impressing on the uniforms that it was appropriate for them to serve as a supporting cast for detectives. It was as if they policed on a completely different plane. Sometimes, patrol officers roared by fresh shrines on the street without a glance, unaware of the murders that had just happened there.
Just like Baitx and Tennelle a few years before, Skaggs and Barling worked the ghettoside way. Scores of cases, and not a moment to lose.
Skaggs rose at 3:30 A.M. Unlike the many LAPD officers who exhausted themselves working odd hours, Skaggs was disciplined enough to force himself to go to bed at eight o'clock every night, no matter what.
Each day began with a list of tasks, every moment booked, with delays for traffic and slow courthouse elevators carefully accounted for. He and Barling disdained colleagues who took long "Code 7's," driving as far as South Bay for restaurant lunches. Skaggs and Barling ate their lunches standing, brown bags spread out on the trunk of the sedan. Most days they worked twelve hours or more, with tasks stretching late into the night. Skaggs was a serious coffee addict; he drank it very black and by the pot, the last cup after dark; it did not affect his sleep at all. Overtime was his life. One of the office secretaries had dubbed the homicide squad "the green mile" because of all the green overtime forms they turned in. It was the one area in which divisional homicide squads were amply provided for: they usually didn't have enough detectives, but the ones they had could exploit contract provisions that treated them like factory labor and rewarded unceasing work. Skaggs earned $190,000 one year—his peak. Asked his base salary at the time, Skaggs could not pinpoint it. He had never bothered to learn his actual wage.
The squad was usually short on experience, with too many apprentices and too few veterans to train them. Ghettoside work was so draining that it required incompatible attributes, youthful energy and master craftsmanship. All the South L.A. homicide units suffered from high turnover, with young recruits often moving to easier and more rewarding positions as soon as they were able; this was also true of prosecutors down at Compton Courthouse. Short-handed South Bureau homicide units frequently accepted mediocre candidates to compensate. Two of La Barbera's detectives over the years were drummed out on misconduct allegations. Others solved no cases. La Barbera did his best to combat churn. He was a tireless talent scout and recruiter. But the best officers scoffed at his advances. "Hey, you want to work homicide?" La Barbera said brightly to one who passed his desk one morning. The officer guffawed and walked off, shaking his head.
La Barbera obsessed over every last detail of his management job, kept his own elaborate records, and studied his data in his spare time in search of best practices. He discovered that constantly training young recruits who didn't work out wasted time and hampered the progress of his best detectives. La Barbera looked at years of clearances and found it was better to keep strong detectives together than to partner them with apprentices. Strong pairs would solve more cases than the weak ones sacrificed. So he kept Barling and Skaggs together.
For Skaggs and Barling, this was a formative, golden period.
La Barbera demanded pride of appearance, and Skaggs always looked crisp in his business suits. He allowed himself the one indulgence of taking off his suit jacket as he worked Southeast's baking asphalt streets. But he kept the ties knotted and never rolled up the sleeves of the white dress shirts he always wore. He and Barling cleaned their sedan frequently so people would know at a glance they weren't just any plainclothes cops—they were homicide detectives. Skaggs loved it when Southeast residents, who studied their cops very carefully, recognized him as a homicide man.
In the office, Skaggs and his colleagues were obsessively neat. They kept bottles of Formula 409 spray at their desks. One day a trainee spilled coffee on Skaggs's desk. Appalled silence—then La Barbera quietly threatened to fire him. It wasn't clear that he was joking.
The cleanliness served a purpose. A stack of paper left on a desk meant a detective was falling behind, and with so many cases, that spelled disaster. Organization was survival. Detectives were always in danger of getting buried. Skaggs had pictures of his children under glass on his desk, but nothing else. He used scissors to cut out bits of text on printouts to keep track of his cases, Scotch-taped on 8-by-10 notebook sheets. When he solved a case, he highlighted it in yellow.
Nothing came easily in Southeast. But for Skaggs, the impediments—lack of sufficient manpower and equipment, no media coverage, little clout within the department—became motivators. Long before, he had begun to develop a subversive posture toward the status quo. Now, underdog pride suffused his work. Southeast detectives saw themselves as the equivalent of a military MASH unit—better and smarter craftsmen because they were forced to get things done fast.
Among the LAPD's legions of high-school-educated, second-generation cops in those years, Skaggs was not immediately recognizable as an outlier. He was smart, but not book-smart. Needing only language enough to convey favor and disfavor, he spoke simply in the vernacular of the avid California surfer he was. Skaggs began sentences with "See" or "All's I'm sayin'." When he praised things, he said "Sweet!" When he condemned them, he used bowdlerized profanity: "Shoot!" or "Flippin'!"
He had a favorite term of disparagement: _dumb-ass_. Skaggs found this term useful for dispensing with a long and varied list of annoyances in his life. Paperwork. Bad tattoos. Excessive drinking. They were all dumb-ass. Skaggs sometimes even referred to the high crime of murder as dumb-ass. It worked as a noun, too. Inconvenient bureaucrats could be dumb-asses. Killers could be dumb-asses.
Among cops, he fit right in—just another jock in the locker room—talking football and RVs and fitness regimens and the Baker to Vegas police relay race like all of them. His seeming ordinariness also served him working on the streets of Watts, where he mixed surfer slang and ghetto idioms so the latter seemed part of a natural vocabulary of found clichés. Skaggs could make reference to "snitch jackets" or "front street" without sounding affected. He was not like some South Bureau officers, who made a show of knowing gangster lingo. Skaggs believed he could speak to people he met in Watts just as he spoke to anyone else.
The ability to talk to anyone, anywhere, always using the same words and grammar, never talking down to people, never trying to impress some third party, was a curious matter of principle to him. It was part of a secret catalog of personal standards he had assembled around his work—a list of codes, seldom voiced, except in occasional flares of annoyance when he saw them transgressed.
His deceptively unsophisticated speaking style served another purpose as his career progressed: it was helpful in interrogations. Skaggs often played the goofy amateur. Suspects didn't comprehend the razor-sharp strategic intellect until it was too late. But it was not entirely an act. Skaggs was not someone who lost himself in deep analysis. He rarely felt the need to be any more precise or evocative than words like "sweet!" or "dumb-ass" permitted. He was not that interested in explanation. His reasoning style was strictly intuitive. His brain was full of data. The power of his mind lay in his ability to access it all instantaneously with great precision and to parlay it into swift, effortless decisions. "It's Skaggs's way," Chris Barling would say, "or it's dumb-ass."
His utilitarian outlook seemed to militate against soulfulness. But Skaggs must have had a little. He loved Steinbeck's _Cannery Row_. He loved the unappreciated landscapes of California, its creosote deserts and ponderosa plains. Of course, most Californians also loved the place. But Skaggs's passion was of a higher order. He'd been raised on Southern California's Elysian sunlight and rainbow mists. He couldn't imagine leaving. When Skaggs heard of cops retiring to other places—Idaho, or Gig Harbor, Washington—he shook his head in sympathy as if they'd been struck by illness. Poor souls. Living in that weather. They would never be able to get a foothold in the housing market again.
#
# **WITNESSES AND THE SHADOW SYSTEM**
What one prosecutor called the "colossal" problem of ghettoside homicide cases was the difficulty in getting witnesses to talk. They were terrified they would be killed.
In Watts, if witnesses cooperated with police at all, they nearly always pleaded to have their statements kept anonymous. Many had to be chased down. After initial interviews, they would have to be subpoenaed to testify, then impeached on the stand because they lied about matters about which they had earlier displayed knowledge.
A witness's decision to testify was one of the most wrenching and emotional aspects of homicide prosecutions. Witnesses wept when confronted by detectives, then wept again on the stand. And that was when things went well. In many other cases, they denied what they had seen, or mysteriously vanished in the interval it took to schedule trial hearings.
The reluctance of witnesses to testify was the primary reason so many murder cases went unsolved. In 2008, lack of witness cooperation was the number one impediment to finding suspects in 108 homicide cases in the city of Los Angeles—or 40 percent of all cases in which witnesses played any role. In many other murders, reluctant witnesses may not have been the primary impediment but were still high among the reasons why cases were not solved. Barling liked to say that all the unsolved cases in Southeast were "just one witness away."
Street homicides offered few physical clues. Most were "scoop-and-carry" cases in which the wounded victim had been transported by ambulance to a hospital before being pronounced dead. Evidence consisted of a few shell casings, shoes, and ribbons of clothing left by paramedics' scissors.
Labs played little role in most street murder cases. It doesn't take a fancy scientific laboratory to determine that a man died because a bullet hit him.
Instead, cases were made on witnesses—and sometimes only witnesses. Since the sixties, the State of California had provided funds to help relocate witnesses to new apartments as a way of protecting them. The money was minimal—usually a few thousand dollars. The state program typically paid only for a move and a couple months' rent. There was no long-term assistance to help people start new lives in new places.
Moreover, the funds were approved for people only after they agreed to cooperate with prosecutions; detectives couldn't use them to get reluctant witnesses into a safe place before interviewing them. And moving relatives of witnesses was difficult. Witnesses often worried for the safety of elderly grandparents, who typically owned their homes and did not qualify for relocation.
Finally, the program did not fully comprehend the circumstances of the underworld denizens who were likely to be homicide witnesses. These included homeless people, addicts, prostitutes, gang members, and hustlers, who depended on a geographically specific black market—a corner to sell drugs, an alley to turn tricks. They weren't often noted for their responsible decision making.
For such tormented souls, witness relocation programs were not especially helpful. "Where do you relocate a homeless person? The next block?" said one former Southeast detective, Dan Myers. One of Myers's witnesses on a homicide case was a homeless crack addict. For years, he tried to keep track of her, hoping to keep her safe. Once, after a search, he caught up with her in an alley. She was half dressed, her hair disheveled, with nickel-sized blue bruises on her arm. She told Myers that gang members that week had grabbed her, shaken her, and threatened her about her testimony.
The extent of retaliation against witnesses was hard to measure. Detectives insisted retaliation was rare, especially after trials ended. But an average of about seven known murders of witnesses occurred countywide each year during Skaggs's first five years in Southeast, and the real figure was probably at least a dozen. This was a tiny fraction of total murders countywide. But a little murder goes a long way. Most rational people hesitate to do something that a dozen people a year get killed for doing in their county. There was so much fear that the twenty-five thousand dollar rewards offered for help on cases were virtually never collected.
Witnesses were also targets of intimidation that fell short of murder. Firebombs flew through their windows; drive-by shootings were conducted as they tried to relocate, bullets ricocheting near moving vans parked in the street. Some witnesses described being marked and harassed after testifying. Wearing a "snitch jacket"—a reputation for cooperating—meant being targeted for abuse. Police tended to have little sympathy for people tarred with this label, black gang members in particular. They appeared less inclined to offer relocation to young black men with criminal records. Some would even argue that witness safety was a nonissue because the only people who really needed to worry about retaliation were gang members—as if this made it less problematic. Threats and assaults against gang members were, of course, the very statistical heart of the problem, and so, in this respect, as in so many others, it was all upside down: the system's weakest point was exactly its statistical apex.
Police could be astonishingly parsimonious and presumptuous even with upstanding and fully cooperative witnesses. It was assumed that poor people could move at a moment's notice, that their ties to whatever place they called home were not equal to those of wealthier suburbanites. And some cops, steeped in right-wing rhetoric about the "nanny state," harbored deep philosophical objections to aiding witnesses with cash. One detective supervisor in Southeast during Skaggs's term said that she saw it as her duty to make sure they got as little state money as possible. She considered the division's poor to be welfare malingerers and did not want to abet their sponging ways.
Experienced homicide detectives did not share this view. They saw deeper into residents' lives, forged ties with them, and, most important, experienced their pain as more than a glancing inconvenience. Suffering was a teacher. There was a palpable difference between the exasperated posture of certain first responders—paramedics, patrol officers, some nurses, who dealt with people briefly and deflected their agony to stay sane—and the mute outrage of homicide detectives, doctors, and other workers who witnessed the long aftermath. The latter, such as Roosevelt Joseph, a Seventy-seventh Street Division homicide supervisor, often came to resent what they saw as callous judgments by the former. "They say these people should come forward—just because they work eight hours a day here and have a gun and a badge and go home to Orange County at night!" Work ghettoside long enough and one learned the hard way what could happen to witnesses. Brent Josephson, the Seventy-seventh Street detective, once relocated an eighteen-year-old witness named Yvette Rene Blue and remained friends with her. She would send him little notes and cards. But the young black woman visited her old neighborhood after testifying and was murdered. Josephson was never the same. He kept Blue's wallet-sized photograph taped to his computer terminal for years after.
Detectives made moral appeals to try to persuade people to cooperate despite their fear. But for many witnesses, testifying presented a quandary—they had to consider their own safety and that of friends and relatives against their duty to the state. Police and prosecutors, if they were perceptive, also felt this dilemma. One RHD detective described his uneasiness about using an older woman as a witness in a gang case: she had brushed his concerns for her safety aside, explaining that her son had been murdered years earlier, and she no longer cared if she died. In one Watts case, the main witness, a homeless prostitute, was cooperative because she loved the victim. But she refused relocation, probably in part because her desperate existence required her to remain where she was—living in her car, offering blow jobs to men in the projects. "She's not scared, but she should be," the detective said. "I'm scared for her."
Fear made collaborators even of people who committed no crimes. Many homicide witnesses shed tears when confronted by police. They would apologize as they yanked closed the curtains, or requested, in sheepish undertones, that police not come to their houses in daylight. Very often, police knew nothing of what witnesses were going through.
In one 2009 case in Watts, an important witness, who lived across the street from the driveway where a man was murdered, spent the next three nights sleeping on the kitchen floor with his family as men parked their cars outside and displayed guns or threw rocks at the house. He never reported the attacks: he was on felony probation for welfare fraud and had lied to his employer about it. He was afraid to deal with police for fear of exposure or being sent to prison.
Sometimes, the most down-and-out people showed epic courage. On another Watts case, a crack cocaine addict told police she had seen only enough to place the suspect at the scene. But when the day came for her to testify, she surprised the whole courtroom by looking the defendant in the eye and exclaiming, "You killed him!... I'm sorry, but you did!"
Another witness, Debra Johnson, testified against her attackers in a Nickerson Gardens massacre-style assault that left two people dead. Johnson—asthmatic, on parole, and addicted to drugs—was maimed by gunshots to the mouth and chest and could barely talk. But on the stand, she brimmed with spirit. "That's just how it was," she declared, and pointed an accusing finger at the shooters.
Both of these women were from the same neighborhoods as the kilers; they were both poor people indoctrinated in street codes. And both were very brave.
Yet although witness fear and safety was addressed periodically by the press and by policy makers, its centrality to the syndrome of black murders was massively underrated. In fact, journalistic and academic work related to witnesses tended to focus on their unreliability. The public could not be blamed for believing that these constituted primary problems in the justice system, since so many experts specialized in this issue, and so many grants were awarded for research about them. In Skaggs's time, there were regular calls to further restrict the use of eyewitness evidence in court—far fewer calls to better protect the mostly poor, frightened, and highly vulnerable people upon whose shoulders the state laid the burden of testifying.
The witness intimidation problem was just one aspect of the larger ghettoside problem: a shadow legal system that competed with formal law.
Each time he delved into a Southeast case, Skaggs had the sense that he was entering an underworld. For all the chaos, this world was organized, rule-bound. Black people in Watts were generally governed by a complex system of etiquette, backed by the threat of violence. This was the shadow that filled the vacuum of legitimate authority. One reason it existed was the neighborhood's vast underground economy. When your business dealings are illegal, you have no legal recourse. Many poor, "underclass" men of Watts had little to live on except a couple hundred dollars a month in county General Relief. They "cliqued up" for all sorts of illegal enterprises, not just selling drugs and pimping but also fraudulent check schemes, tax cons, unlicensed car repair businesses, or hair braiding. Some bounced from hustle to hustle. They bartered goods, struck deals, and shared proceeds, all off the books. Violence substituted for contract litigation. Young men in Watts frequently compared their participation in so-called gang culture to the way white-collar businesspeople sue customers, competitors, or suppliers in civil courts. They spoke of policing themselves, adjudicating their own disputes. Other people call police when they need help, explained an East Coast Crip gang member. "We pick up the phone and call our homeboys."
Gangs issued informal "passes"—essentially granting waivers that exempted people from the rules that governed everyone else. A star athlete in a gang neighborhood, for example, might be issued a "pass" that exempted him from participation in gang life. Or passes might be extended to people allowed to conduct illegal businesses in rival territories. "Selling without a pass" was an occasional homicide motive.
Gangs could seem pointlessly self-destructive, but the reason they existed was no mystery. Boys and men always tend to group together for protection. They seek advantage in numbers. Unchecked by a state monopoly on violence, such groupings fight, commit crimes, and ascend to factional dominance as conditions permit. Fundamentally gangs are a consequence of lawlessness, not a cause.
Some version of gangs has characterized lawless settings throughout history. In the nineteenth century, gangs ran the gamut: bandit groups among Russian peasants bearing catchy names like the "Steppe Devils"; Philadelphia volunteer firefighters who warred with each other and committed arson; New York City "voting gangs" who angrily confronted each other, fighting over what Monkkonen called the "nineteenth-century equivalent of cocaine—access to the jobs and graft political powers offered." In Georgia and Virginia in the early twentieth century, the "gang" mantle belonged to groups of black and white moonshiners who intimidated people and killed snitches.
The tendency for people to band together when state power is weak is so inevitable it can even seem innate. "The latent causes of faction," wrote founding father James Madison, are "sown in the nature of man." Without law, people use violence collectively to settle scores and right wrongs, and commonly refer to violence as their own law. Wherever law is absent or undeveloped—wherever it is shabby, ineffective, or disputed—some form of self-policing or communal justice usually emerges.
Police, prosecutors, and politicians in L.A. blamed gangs for the homicide problem. They portrayed gangs as formidable nations of organized crime or as an exotic new social disease. But among street officers in South Bureau, doubts sometimes surfaced, a sense that much of what was breathlessly termed "gang culture" was pretty ordinary group behavior. Officers couldn't help noticing certain inconsistencies, like the way so much gang crime seemed to involve just four or five guys "cliquing up," in the spirit of a high school locker room, or the way so few gang homicides stemmed from drug deals—and so many from infighting. Some gang members showed signs of being unwilling draftees, and many monikers sounded less like noms de guerre than like playground taunts—"Cheeseburger," "Wheezy," "Klayhead," "Beer Can." Petty arguments, insults, and women seemed to drive a lot of gang violence. One gang war in Southeast stemmed from the sale of a used car. Gang members in Watts bragged of making large sums. But in the morgue, the rolled wads of dollar bills found inside shoes contradicted them: these were poor people. The black market is a desperate place.
The size of the stakes did not limit the reach of the shadow system, however. Seemingly minor transgressions could bring severe reprisals. Skaggs marveled that one of the highest offenses in the underground was the simple act of "lying on" people, in the sense of spreading malicious gossip about them. But the prohibition that affected him most was the one banning snitching—that is, cooperating with police. This was not simply a criminal ethos. Snitching was sometimes seen as borderline racial betrayal, a concession to a law enforcement system that had not served blacks especially well. People in Watts would argue that street justice was ethically superior. They would pressure homicide witnesses to keep quiet so the victim's family would have a chance to strike back.
The snitching taboo was surprisingly nuanced. It was more like a standard of selective cooperation. Gang members sometimes turned in their own for the killing of children, for example. This followed from the correct assumption that such "innocent victim" cases would _bring out the heat_ —that is, provoke an aggressive police response. But moral repugnance also played a role. Gang members who snitched in such cases sometimes did so because they considered the mistake "out of bounds," or beyond the pale. "They have their own idea of what's justifiable," Skaggs said.
Other killers were protected by a broad consensus, extending beyond gang members. Murders of gang assailants inside enemy territory were notoriously difficult to solve for this reason; the invader was seen to have had it coming. Detectives were also less likely to win cooperation in cases in which the victims were obnoxious or strangers. Skaggs described one case involving a victim who had been an annoyance to his neighbors: "Everyone in Nickerson says, 'That's no problem if he got killed! Why are you guys even bothering?' " he said.
Nearly every official who dealt closely with crime in Watts felt the same way. "They have their own businesses... their own law!" prosecutor Joe Porras said of the participants in the gang cases he tried in Compton Courthouse. "It's a parallel world, and you are trying to bring your law into it." Cops and prosecutors felt like door-to-door salesmen, trying to peddle a legal system no one wanted anything to do with. Prosecutor Grace Rai marveled at how much work it was just to get people to participate in proceedings at Compton Courthouse. To witnesses, jurors, and victims, "you can't just say, 'This is a violation of the law,' " Rai said. First, "you have to get them _behind_ the law."
Testifying in Compton Courthouse in late 2009, one young black man explained why he had not reported a killing he had been present at. "The place I live at—there's _rules and regulations_ behind living there," he said. He lived in the territory of the Bounty Hunter gang. Pressed for details, he did not say whose rules they were, or how he had come to learn them—simply that they existed for him unquestionably, enforced by an implied threat that surrounded him, as ever-present as the roar of traffic from the elevated freeways. An attorney asked what would happen if he violated these mysterious "rules and regulations." The young man answered with an impatient shrug: "Killed, shot—anything," he said.
Back in the 1930s, the anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker wrote of the proscriptions of Jim Crow in exactly such terms. Powdermaker noted a conversation with a black woman about her fear of socializing with a white man: "When asked what she is afraid of, she laughs and says: 'Don't you know it is against the law?' Further questions make it clear that she knows of no specific law... but the law to her is a vague and sinister force, transcending any body of definite rules."
The alternate ghettoside "law" in Watts was exactly like this—a vague and sinister force transcending any body of definite rules. The shadow system had long ago evolved to the point that a mere hard look or the sucking of a tooth conveyed its lethal force without further elaboration. People knew the "rules and regulations" and obeyed them.
At the same time, some Watts residents appeared to long for freedom from the oppressive menace of informal law. Many older gang members appeared miserable and talked constantly of "getting out." In the privacy of the interrogation room, many proved willing to turn on fellow gang members, telling detectives that they secretly disliked them. Residents would still holler "One time!" at the cops. The term derived from the memory of police touring black neighborhoods once a day, making no real effort to address crime. "One time" was a stock anticop insult, just like "po-po" and "blue-eyed devil." Yet it contained a plaintive note—a paradoxical suggestion that more times might be better.
And once in a while, street hustlers would make it clear that they would rather have formal justice if given the choice: they'd call 911. When the puzzled officers arrived, the hustlers would ask them to referee disputes: "My dope got ripped off! I want you to book him for robbery!"
Skaggs learned to think of his job as persuasion: selling formal law to people who distrusted it and who were answering to another authority—shadow law. The pitch had to be convincing and relentless. Ghettoside detective work was "ninety percent talking to people. Maybe a hundred percent," Skaggs said.
The challenge left no room for self-doubt, no room to equivocate. Skaggs was made for it. He went back again and again to the same streets, the same houses, knocking over and over, rousting witnesses at dawn or late at night. He learned certain patterns of life in Watts—where junkies loiter, which couch a drug dealer might call home.
Skaggs's manner of knocking was loud, persistent, and seemed to brook no opposition. He banged on windows using his department-issue flashlight, since most homes in Southeast had those steel security doors and it was hard to knock on their metal screens. If no one came, he banged some more. He moved to the next window and the next, banging and banging, as if he had all the time in the world. He might return several times that day. Sometimes people talked to him just to get him to go away.
"In the room" (which, in Southeast, literally meant a room, since there was no interrogation booth), Skaggs enveloped people with his conviction. Everything would be better once the truth came out—this was his axiom. His approach was neither coarse nor hostile. He simply bore down, relentless and businesslike. He talked of putting things right, of releasing burdens. He presented justice as psychological relief, even to suspects. He believed it was.
These were the skills that mattered because there were few mysteries among Southeast cases. The homicides were essentially public events—showy demonstrations of power meant to control and intimidate people. They took place on public streets, in daylight, often in front of lots of people.
Killers often bragged. Some were so brazen they posted public signs taking credit. Gloating graffiti was a common homicide clue. _DLB fallen star hahaha!!!_ read one such public announcement in Watts. It had been spray-painted in an alley hours after a youth nicknamed Star was shot to death. (DLB stood for Denver Lane Bloods, who in this case were allied with the suspects from a neighboring gang.)
Families of the dead often heard rumors of who did it. Once in a while, a family member would report to police that the killers had attended the funeral, or paid them a menacing visit. An uncle in Southeast Division reported hearing the name of his nephew's killer from friends. But he was hoping police would discover the killer's identity without involving him. One mother in the Southwest Division reported that the killers of her son knocked on her door. They taunted her about her loss. If she told police, they would kill her too, they said.
"Everybody knows" was a phrase that cropped up a lot. Names buzzed on what Southeast detectives called the Ghetto Information Network—the GIN. But even when murders took place amid crowds of people, detectives were left with no witnesses. A score of people would see a murder; not one of them would testify.
To counter this, La Barbera taught his detectives to think of themselves as Madison Avenue impresarios. Their job wasn't deducing—it was sales. They had to "sell ice cubes to an Eskimo!" he would say. The elegant business attire was part of this ethos. "People say, oh, you think you're perfect," La Barbera said. "Well, yeah! We'd better be." He kept a whiteboard near his desk to track cases and leave messages. The salesman's credo, "ABC—Always Be Closing," was written at the top.
But it was not merely a sales job that detectives such as Skaggs perfected. Good ghettoside investigators projected something deeper to their wavering witnesses—something akin to pure conviction. It was no accident that the most successful among them were confident, reassuring. They made people feel they could handle their burdens.
In the early days of European law, the legal historian James Whitman said, state officials faced similar problems. Back when "vengeance cultures" permeated medieval society, murders often stemmed from feuds. Villages were small and, often, everyone knew who had committed the murder but no one wanted to speak in court. Whitman argues that many of our modern legal procedures, such as unanimous jury verdicts, actually began as efforts to coax cooperation—to provide safety and "moral comfort" to people who didn't want to testify and who feared retaliation.
Whitman's thesis has a medieval theological slant. But in other ways Skaggs and his colleagues personified the moral comfort he describes. They succeeded because South Central Los Angeles was a version of a medieval vengeance culture—a premodern setting, legally speaking. In the twelfth-century village, _fama_ —rumors, in Latin—had already named a suspect. In Watts, the GIN usually had. In both, it was left to the state to confirm what everyone already knew. This was not a job for Sherlock Holmes. It was a job for a counselor—or prince.
#
# **THE NOTIFICATION**
One winter morning in 2004, John Skaggs took the wheel of his sedan and headed out into the sun-washed streets of Watts. His mission was to tell a father that his son was dead.
With him was the most recent of a seemingly endless string of Southeast detective trainees, Mark Arenas, a thirty-four-year-old former gang officer raised in Downey. Arenas was trying to learn the ropes, and he was anxious not to appear the amateur. Arenas held a dim view of social dynamics in Watts. "The lack of responsibility!" he would exclaim in disgust. "Violence is _accepted_ here."
Skaggs and Arenas had been at a homicide scene that morning, a black man killed in the driver's seat of his SUV. Skaggs had volunteered to tell the family. He took Arenas. "Ever done a notification?" Skaggs asked as he drove. Anything could happen during a notification. Loved ones of victims screamed, collapsed, or fainted. At the county hospitals, nurses were trained to prepare for being attacked. One colleague of Skaggs's would always remember the notification he made in the case of twenty-five-year-old Ronald Tyson, shot dead in an alley near Central Avenue in 2003. When he told Tyson's mother he had been murdered, she vomited.
Homicide notifications also carried some psychological risk for the people who carried them out. A coroner's investigator fumed that people she met were curious about dead bodies, as if that were the hard part. "It's not the gore. It's the grief," she said. Even if a notification went smoothly, "I walk out and I'm shaking and I'm suppressing the urge to cry," said Bryan Hubbard, a trauma surgeon at California Hospital. An image stayed with Hubbard for years: He brought a mother to view the body of her little boy, dead from gunshots. She spent several minutes shaking his small, lifeless form, trying to wake him up.
For Skaggs, notifications were one more task that required skills not taught in the academy. He considered this a serious part of a young detective's training. Arenas was feeling unsure and sought to impress Skaggs. So he cracked a joke, pretending he would deliver the news with tough-guy bravado: "Sorry to tell you—he took one to the head!" Arenas was still a gang officer at heart. In his milieu, a phrase such as "took one to the head" might mark one as cool. Skaggs stared ahead at the wheel. Arenas shot him a look, tried to apologize, and trailed off. After an excruciating silence, Skaggs changed the subject.
Three years had passed since Skaggs had come to Southeast. Skaggs and Barling had rocketed through dozens of cases, working closely with La Barbera. By then, they were helping run the squad, functioning almost as La Barbera's deputies. Shortages of manpower, supplies, and patrol and lab support still impeded investigations. Turnover remained high—Arenas was among the many recruits who would not remain in the unit long. But Skaggs, if anything, was more devoted to his craft than ever. He was dimly aware that the work had changed him, subtly reorienting his viewpoints on law enforcement and crime. He still spoke in the same vernacular as his cop friends. But his inward views had shifted.
It was something felt more than said—the culmination of scores of random observations that illuminated a moral dimension to homicide work that was absent from many other police functions. Skaggs now sensed his investigations addressed a deeper need in black neighborhoods than he had previously understood. This, in turn, colored other impressions. Arenas, for example, accused the division's black residents of inferior values. But Skaggs had concluded that many residents connected to Watts murder cases were ordinary people, trapped by conditions of lawlessness. Coercion and intimidation lay behind much of their apparent "acceptance" of violence, he thought. Sometimes, arresting a young man for murder, he would reflect that things might have turned out differently had the suspect "grown up just four blocks away." Skaggs also saw that many victims had no role in provoking the attacks that killed them. His colleagues insisted Watts had no real victims. But years later, a trace of anguish would tinge Skaggs's voice when he talked of the many cases he'd handled in Southeast. His choice of words was telling: "All those innocent people!" he said.
Years before, the same accrual of understanding had prompted Wally Tennelle's reluctance to work at RHD, the phrase "some daddy's baby" ringing in his ears. Before that, it had prompted Skaggs's father to conclude that nothing matters after working homicide. And on this winter day, it prompted Skaggs's chill response to Arenas. He gave up on training for a moment. When they pulled up to the house, Skaggs walked ahead, and confronted a man in dress shoes on the porch.
He asked the man's name. He was the father they sought. Skaggs told him that his son had been killed—right there on the front porch. No buildup. No euphemisms. Just straight truth and clarity. The father sagged against the door frame: _"Oh my God."_
Skaggs followed him into the house. Spotless glass coffee table, red carpet, snow-white upholstery. The father, face wild with confusion, bent double as if punched, asked three or four more times, "He's dead? _Dead?_ " And Skaggs answered patiently each time: "Yes, sir. Yes, sir."
The city's murder rate was dropping fast. But Southeast's homicides remained high. Seventy-two people would be killed in that small area in 2004. Sixty-five more would die in 2005, and sixty-nine in 2006, representing a per capita murder rate that was eight to ten times the national average. As always, the majority of the killings were black-on-black.
Skaggs and Barling remained partners, and in their first two years together, they cleared twenty-six of thirty-two cases—an 81 percent clearance rate. After that, clearing cold cases from previous years boosted their rate even higher, and it remained high for the next three years.
They had developed an odd relationship. Though best friends, they argued constantly. They argued about football, dinner plans, politics, and every detail of their homicide cases—always without rancor. It drove their colleagues up the wall. Barling was pedantic. Skaggs was impish. Barling would wave his arms and spout malapropisms. "Constringent" combined the words "contingent" and "constrained by"; "cycular cycles" meant the persistence of inner-city problems. Skaggs would shake his head, aping astonishment. Round and round they went.
Some of it was the result of a conscious policy the two had established: they agreed that only one of them would lead on each case. It freed them to debate their investigations, knowing there was no real danger of conflict. But for Skaggs, countering Barling's endless hand-waving fulminations also may have served a subconscious need. It ensured that Barling would serve as the repository of outrage and left Skaggs free to work.
Compassionate by nature, Barling was unafraid to air his distress over the bloodshed in Watts. He was appalled by the Monster, tormented by what he perceived as the public's indifference and political neglect, baffled by the black tilt to the stats. "It's either society's racism, or something is _wrong_ with them—something wrong just with black people. And I don't believe that!" Barling said, his voice rising in distress. "I believe we are all created equally, men, women, all races! That's why I cannot buy that."
Skaggs forced Barling to move on. His private views on homicide remained buried at the level of intuition, surfacing now and then in flickers—beats of awkward silence like the one that met Arenas's joke. The rest of the time, he appeared carefree. It was key to his stamina.
Even the sordid misery of the streets rolled right off him. Skaggs by that time had spent years amid drug addicts, prostitutes, and killers. Yet he retained a squeaky-clean propriety. He was not morally rigid. But he had a strong idea of what he considered a sensible life and was surprised by even minor lapses. Bad housekeeping scandalized him. Sleeping late was worse. As for the homicides, after a hundred cases, Skaggs would still shake his head, amazed someone could actually be so _dumb-ass_ as to kill. In this way, he preserved what was not exactly innocence, but an unsullied spirit that allowed him to go home to his family each night psychologically intact.
Sal La Barbera never lost his high ambitions for the unit. He sought not just to perform adequately in his modest D-3 supervisory post, but to make of his job a great life project.
There was a touch of grandiosity to his attitude. But La Barbera had a rare combination of skills. As anyone who has worked in a professional environment knows, top practitioners don't always make effective managers. La Barbera was both workaday administrator and man of ideas. He would expound on some lofty crusade one minute, put the paperwork in good order the next.
At work, he displayed no anger, reserving his emotions for his various personal dramas. He emphasized team spirit. He taught his detectives to take pride in speaking for homicide victims, no matter who they had been in life. It was his version of Tennelle's "some daddy's baby." In Watts, the idea had particular relevance. "Innocent victims," in the conventional sense, were a minority. More often, victims in Watts murder cases were combatants, and everyday language in Watts reflected residents' sense that they lived in an unseen war zone. The LAPD was an "occupying army." Gang members called themselves "soldiers" and "warriors." And over on Broadway and Manchester, a protest banner announced the area's nickname: Little Baghdad—a pointed comparison to occupied Iraq.
As a result, victims in Watts cases were often suspects, too: fighters in a continuous flow of street skirmishes. Today's executioner might be tomorrow's victim. A detective might have a pretty good idea that a victim had been a "soldier," and even an exceptionally vicious one.
"Murderers are mean," as the historian Monkkonen said, and in Southeast, they seemed especially so. The meanest among them urinated on their victims, or blasted away as they lay dying and shielding their faces with their hands; punctured palms were a common homicide injury. But the creed dictated that the murder of a killer be treated as that of a child felled by a stray bullet. "They are all innocent angels when they get to me," La Barbera would say.
Most of all, La Barbera drummed into his detectives his conviction that virtually all the cases were solvable. The way he saw it, the perennially low ghettoside clearance rates were malfeasance. It was a theme he hammered away at in almost every staff meeting, and in a dozen quiet asides per day. He was not above goading his detectives: "These guys are sitting around smoking dope with no high school education!" went a typical refrain. "You guys are smart people. I think you can fucking figure out what happened!"
There was defiance in La Barbera's stance. It inspired loyalty. Skaggs and Barling absorbed his philosophy. They considered a respectable clearance rate to be 80 percent or higher. Ever the perfectionist, Skaggs took the notion even further. He coined a derisive term for detectives he considered mediocre. "Forty percenters," he called them.
Typically, the mix of South Bureau cases included a number of "self-solvers"—murder-suicides, simple domestic homicides, killings witnessed by police officers, cases in which suspects were caught running from the scene, and so forth. The prevalence of self-solvers meant police agencies had to solve a few additional challenging cases to produce a natural 30 to 40 percent clearance rate in official tallies. Given that reported rates were often not much higher than this across many of L.A. County's highest-crime areas, it could be inferred that Skaggs thought dimly of the whole system. Too often, he said, it seemed to him that detectives were "just going through the motions." Nothing annoyed him like low professional standards.
Skaggs and Barling became La Barbera's co-conspirators. They helped him hatch and execute little plots. One involved Southeast's old murder books—the blue binders detailing investigations.
Department policy dictated that the books were supposed to be stored away in a vault somewhere, even if the cases weren't solved. But La Barbera considered no case "cold." From his years in South Bureau Homicide, he knew how rushed detective work had been. He viewed "unsolved" cases as incomplete investigations. Sometimes, it took only a few days' work to clear them.
He also knew that many cases were not discrete crimes. In Southeast, murders sprang from a dense tangle of communal conflicts. Killings were often tied to previous murders, assaults, and arguments. Revenge cycles sometimes played out for years, with sons exacting retribution for fathers. "It's _aaall_ connected" was one of the mottoes adopted by Watts detectives. Sometimes it was invoked several times a day. A witness to one murder might be a suspect on the next—or brother, or play cousin, to the previous victim. The murder books shed light on these links; La Barbera wanted them at his fingertips.
So La Barbera recruited Skaggs, Barling, and a few others. They took over an abandoned red construction trailer in the station's parking lot. They cleaned it and installed metal shelves from Home Depot. Then they quietly collected all the precinct's old murder books, in violation of department rules, to make a library. It took them three years to go through every book. In the end, the blue binders stood in organized rows—688 cases going back to 1978. Solved and unsolved cases were separated. The latter assessed for difficulty and labeled accordingly. The cramped rows of shelves made a disturbing monument to the Monster. Barling dubbed it the "Lost Souls Trailer."
But the project that most preoccupied La Barbera was legacy-building. He wanted to make sure the values he'd fostered in Southeast were preserved in the next generation.
Recruitment became an increasingly urgent focus. Skaggs and Barling helped. It was one of the few duties outside investigating in which Skaggs took interest. With each trainee who failed or moved on, La Barbera redoubled his efforts. He knew what he was looking for: the next John Skaggs.
Finally, in 2005, he found him.
Sam Marullo was thirty-four then, a gregarious Southeast gang officer from a big Italian American family in Mount Morris, New York. He was an exemplar of that species of smart attention-deficit cops who are drawn to ghettoside work. The son of a laborer, he had graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology and attended law school for two months at the University of Albany before losing interest.
Marullo was exceptionally good-looking. He had dark brown hair, blue eyes with long curly lashes, and an excess of boyish charm. He excelled at cultivating street sources—"friendlies," as the cops called them—especially women.
He had his flaws. He was impatient and a little immature, and he was not a good listener. But he made up for it with generosity of spirit. He worked hard, cared about the people he policed, and was complimentary toward almost everyone he worked with. Plus, he loved his job with an intensity that bordered on the self-destructive. At least one marriage had fallen victim in part to his dedication to his work, according to his friends.
La Barbera saw in Marullo a rare incandescent talent. He recruited him as a detective trainee, just as Skaggs and Tennelle had once been.
Marullo wanted to bring a friend with him: Nathan Kouri, then a gang detective.
La Barbera was dubious. Kouri shaved his prematurely balding head; his round, puzzled hazel eyes peered from beneath a scrunched brow as if he were perpetually in deep thought. As is often the case with male friends, Kouri was Marullo's opposite; he was happily married with two special-needs kids, introverted, and always buried in work. He loved to read and to ask people questions. He devoured nonfiction books and newspapers. But he disliked talking. La Barbera agreed to train him at Marullo's insistence.
Mentorship is important in policing, and especially in ghettoside homicide work, an art form so underrated that it had been relegated mainly to an oral tradition. There were professional "homicide schools" for working officers. But much of the curriculum was irrelevant to ghettoside work. The classes focused on handling physical evidence, not on, say, keeping track of a witness with a substance abuse problem or responding to jurors threatened in the courthouse parking garage.
Professional organizations were likewise unhelpful. Skaggs and his colleagues attended a yearly conference organized by the California Homicide Investigators Association. But the agenda rarely touched on their daily work. "When the National Media Moves to Your Town" was the name of a typical seminar. By necessity, detectives learned on the job, older ones passing their craft to younger ones.
La Barbera assigned Skaggs to train Marullo. Skaggs was not a natural teacher. Young detectives who watched him work were forever influenced, but he was too intolerant of mistakes to be comfortable as a mentor. He could not lower his standards even for those starting out. Marullo's case was different. In this young gang officer, Skaggs, too, saw a talent worth the effort.
Skaggs and Marullo clicked. Early on, though, Skaggs had to curb Marullo's socializing. They'd return from some interview and Marullo would wander off to catch up with his gang unit friends. Skaggs scolded him. In homicide, there's no time to waste on office chatter. Marullo straightened out and soon proved his value. He was a great talker. Like Skaggs, he overwhelmed people with conviction.
Marullo, for his part, embraced Skaggs's style—that penchant for direct action, going after every clue right away, hitting it all head-on. "Get to the point, _get to the point_ " is how Marullo summed up his mentor's philosophy. "Sometimes you only have one chance."
Skaggs and Marullo solved every one of their first eight cases during those busy months of 2005. Late that August, Marullo was given the lead on his first case.
Charles Williams was twenty-six years old and "on disability" due to psychological issues. He was black and poor and had never worked. His neighbors in the Grape Street Crips had allowed him to wear a purple Lakers outfit, the Grape Street color.
Gang members are often expected to "put in work." A bit of derogatory ghettoside slang condemned those who didn't: they were called "hood ornaments." But Williams, though a "hood ornament" of sorts, had been given a pass.
Williams liked to ride his bicycle around the neighborhood. He was standing in front of the counter of Watts Cyclery at 112th and Wilmington one day when an assailant burst through the door and shot him at close range, leaving him in a pool of blood on the floor. Williams's purple clothes had drawn the attack. The suspect was from Fudgetown Mafia, a Grape Street enemy. They took Williams for a combatant—or a good-enough proxy.
Marullo met with Christine Jackson, Williams's aunt. She had raised Charles from early childhood. His mother had died from illness, his father from an ice-pick homicide, never solved. Jackson worried that the police wouldn't take the case seriously. Her brother, Charles's uncle, had also been killed in a homicide, stabbed in the Nickerson Gardens housing project in 1983. That case, too, was unsolved. Jackson had sharp words for Marullo. She'd been through enough, she said. She was near crazed with grief; Charles's murder felt like the last straw. If police didn't solve it, "I will do what I'm gonna do—I will take care of business," she told him.
Anxious to prove himself, Marullo buried himself in the case. He got leads and was lied to. One witness, a Fudgetown gang member, said he knew the truth but couldn't speak it: his parole terms required that he remain in the neighborhood, and it would be too dangerous for him to remain as a snitch. Marullo turned his attention to the parole bureaucracy and succeeded in getting the man moved. Then he traveled to the witness's new home and convinced him to give a full statement.
A second witness was also a gang member. This young man had been a good student with a double life, a surprisingly common ghettoside story. He was riding in the car that day when a group of Fudgetown Mafia gang members pulled up to the bicycle shop. An older gang member handed him a gun. _Get out and shoot that Grape Streeter_ , the older man ordered.
But the younger one held back, horrified. The older man insisted. The younger refused to get out of the car. At last, the older gang member, in disgust, took the gun. He went into the bike shop where Williams waited, unsuspecting in his purple Laker gear.
It took several interviews for the young man to reveal this story. He lied, then recanted. At last, he confessed to Marullo that he was terrified. He feared the shooter, although ostensibly the two had been friends and "homeys." So-called gang loyalty is often like this: men go along to get along, as battered women go along with their abusers. Marullo's version of moral comfort was his earnest, boyish appeal: he persuaded the young man to testify despite his fear.
La Barbera was triumphant. He gave Marullo a nickname. Borrowing from gangster lingo, as cops love to do, he called him "Li'l Skaggs." La Barbera felt well on his way to assembling a crack team of homicide craftsmen, a group who might finally bring law to South Los Angeles.
#
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# **SON OF THE CITY**
It was a truth that all parents seemed to acknowledge: kids just come out different, no matter how much you try to treat them the same. Wally and Yadira Tennelle were not the first parents, and surely not the last, to be thrown off balance by their youngest child.
Both DeeDee and Wally Jr. had excelled in school. DeeDee had always been a reader. Wally Jr. had shown an abrupt intellectual bent as he got older, and he turned downright scholarly when he went to the University of California, Irvine. But Bryant was frisky, wiggly, and seemed unable to focus on his schoolwork. He misbehaved at school. He clowned and pulled pranks. He once sneaked into one of the nuns' offices with a bottle of stink spray—that sort of thing. He couldn't remember what his parents had told him five minutes before.
A psychologist told them he had attention deficit disorder—something more incapacitating than the milder form that DeeDee suspected afflicted the whole family—and that they should medicate him. Wally Tennelle resisted; at work he had seen so many junkies who had been medicated for similar disorders as children and it seemed to have done them no favors. He and Yadira spent thousands of dollars on tutoring for Bryant. Sylvan. Learning Tree. Wally Tennelle tallied it up once and realized it rivaled what they were spending on private school tuition. Year after year, they persevered, but the problems seemed to get no better. It took Bryant hours to do the simplest homework.
Bryant had abilities, just not academic ones. He loved animals. He cared for all kinds of pets, never losing interest in them. He maintained a tank full of exotic fish.
He was good with his hands. Wally Jr. marveled at how he seemed able to build anything. When Bryant's bicycle was stolen, he got interested in lowrider trikes. He restored an antique one, built a speaker box and battery cage for it, and wired the whole thing together. He designed and made clothes. He won his school's chili cook-off. He could reupholster car seats. He poured himself into what his older brother considered quirky, endearing little hobbies for a biracial kid from South Central L.A.
To be sure, as Bryant got older his interests widened to rap music, nice clothes, and all that. But rather than leave behind his world of childish interests, he simply developed them as he grew. He turned his cooking into a profitable enterprise, making brownies and cookies at home and selling them to classmates. He collaborated with his mother on a movie-set-quality Cat in the Hat costume for a party, designing and constructing its cylindrical felt hat himself. He took to raising his own chickens, producing what his father had to admit were "beautiful roosters" even though the crowing was keeping the family up and driving the neighbors nuts. Taking his mother's complaints about his music tastes to heart, he surprised her with homemade CDs containing elaborate mixes of "oldies" he knew she would like. And like his father he was organized—much more so than his older brother, whom Yadira had to chide to clean his room.
But school remained such drudgery—for Bryant, and for his parents. DeeDee and Wally Jr. were college-bound. DeeDee had such a crisp intellect for numbers that she became an accountant. Wally Jr. possessed a flair for the written word; he spent a semester in England studying British literature. But Bryant? Wally and Yadira were just hoping they could get him through high school. And even that modest goal sometimes seemed lofty. Despite the danger of ongoing combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, Wally Tennelle was secretly thinking that Bryant might find a career in the military.
Academics aside, Bryant was such "a good boy," as his father always said. He was relaxed, despite his need for constant movement. He was good-natured. He held no grudges. His parents would be angry with him one moment and completely disarmed by him the next: their youngest boy, so affectionate and responsive, tripping along behind wherever they went, wanting to help his mother in the kitchen or his father in the yard, always wanting to be friends.
What affected his father most was how Bryant tried and tried, never giving up, never letting constant failure embitter him. All those frustrating years of trying to succeed at school, something he was so ill-suited for—years of squirming before math problems that bewildered him and gazing into textbooks that seemed incomprehensible. Year after year, he tried and tried, with the same dismal results, scraping by in school, burning through his parents' money for remedial help, falling behind, staying behind, and yet "he never once complained," his father marveled. "He wanted to make us happy."
In his years of teaching, Brother Jim Reiter of St. Bernard High School in Westchester had discovered it was not necessarily students' academic prowess that won over their teachers. It was character—some combination of earnest effort, curiosity, and intrinsic goodness. Bryant Tennelle had it, despite his scholastic failings. "He was the type of student—you would do whatever you could to help him," said Reiter, who, besides his teaching duties, also volunteered as an on-call chaplain for the police department.
When Reiter encountered Bryant in high school, he saw how hard it was for him to focus. He was no longer, by that time, a behavior problem. He struck Reiter as introspective and aware of how much effort his parents had put into him. As frustrating as he found the schoolwork, "he wouldn't lash out," Reiter said. "He was bound and determined to make his parents proud of him."
Reiter, first as his teacher, then as his academic counselor, encouraged him. At last, after years of denying him a chance to participate in sports because of his studies, Wally and Yadira had given in to Bryant's pleas to play football. In his junior year he turned out for the team. He also did drama, dance—he was one of the only boys in the high school's large dance program—and extracurricular activities. Reiter secretly knew Bryant sold brownies and cookies at school for cash in defiance of the rules, and turned his back.
There had to be some way for Bryant to succeed in a world that had become so inhospitable to people whose strengths lay in manual arts. Bryant was so genuine—and so well liked. His teachers at St. Bernard, like his parents and DeeDee, were always on the lookout for the right path for him. Reiter and some others had talked about guiding him toward culinary school.
By then, Bryant had grown slim and taller than Wally Jr. With his honey-brown skin and shiny hair, he was a hit with girls, and his humor and inborn desire to please assured him close friends among boys as well. He was not mature for his age, Wally Jr. thought. Bryant still loved _Star Wars_ and his Lego battleships. He still had stuffed animals all over his room. His favorite was a stuffed chicken, like those he raised. His father was still thinking about the Marines. But Bryant was not of this mind. He talked to his grandmother of his love for clothing, and to his mother of his love for mechanics. He took an adult course at Crenshaw High School repairing car interiors and thrived in it. He had reached the age to drive.
Driving gave Bryant the freedom to pursue hourly jobs. Wally Tennelle soon recognized in his youngest son his own proclivity toward constant work. Bryant got a job at a Togo's sandwich shop, and then Petco and Jamba Juice. Soon he was doubling up on jobs, shifting to better ones as they came along: Quiznos, Marie Callender's, Big Five. He was still just a high school kid. But at these hourly jobs, where academic skill was not at a premium—only energy, industriousness, and a drive to earn money—Bryant was in his element. Seeing him work so enthusiastically gratified his parents, who still wanted him to graduate but were pleased to see him finally excel. "He wanted to be like me," Wally Tennelle said. "Always out. Always working."
Senior year, Bryant flunked economics. It was a class required for graduation, and it meant his parents' dream of seeing him earn his diploma was thwarted. Reiter stepped in; Yadira and Wally were willing to try anything. They enrolled Bryant in an El Camino College class to make up the credits. But the class was too hard for him and required too much reading.
Privately, Wally Tennelle was worried. Those in the LAPD who suspected Tennelle was naïve for living in the Seventy-seventh were wrong. Tennelle knew the statistics; he knew the dynamics of gangs in his neighborhood, and understood the risks to his son better than most cops. It was always on his mind. But he also knew what many people don't—that risk for young black men remains high even when they leave Los Angeles. San Bernardino County, for example, was a popular destination for black families seeking to protect their sons from crime. But while in the first five years of the 2000s the homicide death rate for San Bernardino's young black men was indeed lower than for those in Los Angeles, it was still at least twenty times the national rate for Americans generally, and teenage rates there were rising fast. Tennelle's information was anecdotal, but he comprehended the bigger picture. "How many times have I heard, I moved my son to San Bernardino and he got killed?" he said. "Why not stand my ground here?"
Tennelle had lectured both his sons—told them how easy it was to be mistaken for someone else and caught by a gang shooting. "Where you from?" were the last words heard by many a murder victim in L.A. Wally Tennelle knew if you were fifteen to twenty-five years old and black or Hispanic, there was no right answer. He chided his sons for slipping, he instructed them in how to be careful. But Bryant, unlike his older brother, had a fearless temperament. Tennelle never connected the trait to his own personality. But like his father, Bryant refused to live with any trepidation. He did what he wanted, went where he wanted, and was friendly and guileless with everyone he met. It left his father cold with fear. He would check up on Bryant while working in his sedan.
He once came upon him walking at night at Seventy-ninth and Halldale. "Bryant, I want you home in an hour," he told him. Bryant was home at the appointed time. He was always like that—so good and willing, but still giving cause for worry.
Wally was not the only one worried. Wally Jr. was old enough to have experienced South Central at the end of the Big Years as only young black men did. The area wasn't as bad as its reputation. But when he was about seven years old, he was playing outside and saw a shooting down the block. He saw the shooter's Hawaiian shirt as he jumped out of the car, and he watched him shoot up a house. Another time, there was a party up the street—lots of Crips with blue bandanas walking up and down the street. Wally Jr. had been "where-you-fromed" several times. By high school he had developed a strategy: "I'm from nowhere. I don't bang." And keep walking. Sometimes the same gangster would hit him up two days in a row. _Don't you remember you just asked me?_ Wally Jr. would silently fume. But it was not his daily reality. Sure, the boulevards around his neighborhood could be dangerous. And there was that apartment on the corner. But the Tennelles' neighborhood was also full of hardworking, friendly homeowners, families like theirs, and it was easy to keep a distance from the blue bandanas.
Much later, Wally Jr. would think about the great crime drop in Los Angeles, and the effect on his brother. Wally Jr. was only five years older than Bryant. But those five years were enough to have placed him in a different zone of fear. Wally Jr. and his friends had grown up in that brief span when South Central's gang members actually did wear colors openly—their blue, red, and orange bandanas spilling from back pockets—something that would later become uncommon. He and his friends knew the rules. They had felt the vulnerability. They had learned the codes. They instinctively watched their backs, studied cars as they passed, always aware if one doubled back or passed twice. They knew what streets to avoid and what clothes not to wear.
But Bryant was a child of a safer L.A. and was not schooled in the streets. He was much less cautious.
Wally Jr. saw this as an extension of his childish innocence. He sometimes tried to talk to Bryant about what colors to wear. He noticed how carefree his brother was, riding his bike while listening to his music. But Bryant didn't see the point of the rules. He even went to the Slauson Swap Meet on his bike, assuring his father it was all just fine. The Slauson Swap Meet. Every Seventy-seventh officer had answered calls there. Their father was angry—and concerned. He thought he saw a bruise on Bryant and wondered if he had gotten into a fight.
Bryant had been so sheltered and closely monitored by his parents that he knew only a few other kids in his neighborhood. But that, too, began to change as he grew older.
Joshua Henry had gone to Crenshaw High. He first met Bryant when he rolled by on his bike on one of his business ventures, selling homemade T-shirts and brownies. He shared Bryant's taste for dancing, music, and building bikes. They worked on the bicycles together and rode them around.
Josh adored Bryant for his humor and good nature and shook his head at what he considered his elite and eccentric ways—the private school education, the pet duck that Bryant kept into his late teens. Josh was not a gang member. But he knew the streets much better than did Bryant. As thirteen-year-old students at Audubon Middle School, Josh and his friends one day cut through an alley and found themselves facing men with guns. They ran as gunfire erupted and boarded a passing bus. On the bus Josh looked down and noticed the hole in his shirt. A bullet had gone right through without touching him. He felt sick, breathless with fear.
Another time, he was older, stopped in a car with a friend on Van Ness. A group of men surrounded them, trying to open the car doors. As they sped away, a bullet hit the car and Josh got that same sick feeling again. It was funny how in movies, shootings seemed exciting, he thought. In life, they weren't.
Josh considered Bryant "soft as a diaper" and thought he was crazy to go around the neighborhood so fearlessly. He, too, tried to teach Bryant the unwritten rules. Stay off Western, he'd say. "And watch yourself—no matter where you at." When Bryant didn't seem to get it, Josh tried to teach him lessons. He would see Bryant walking on the street—"walking with his head down!" he marveled later—and roll up on him in a bike or car. "See?" he'd say. "You just got caught slippin'!" Josh couldn't believe how naïve Bryant was. "He wasn't used to that environment," he said. "His parents raised him well."
Bryant, however, sampled some share of the black man's lot. He and Josh had a run-in with the LAPD while riding their bikes in the Kingdom Day Parade in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. Josh got mouthy. But Bryant told the officer his father was a detective and tried to reason with him, standing straight and talking quietly. Josh, watching, was impressed with his friend's self-control in a situation that left him fuming. It was a side of Bryant he hadn't seen before. The cop was not moved. Josh ended up with a ticket for blocking an alleyway that became a six-hundred-dollar fine.
Bryant Tennelle had entered that period of late adolescence when parents find their power reduced to suggestion and hope. Every parent goes through it; not every parent faces the lethal threat that bore down on young men in South Los Angeles.
That fall, Bryant turned eighteen. Legally, he was an adult. One day, he came home with an earring in one ear. "Why did you do that?" Yadira demanded. She knew her husband would be furious. Bryant kept his head turned so Wally couldn't see at first. But eventually Wally cried out: "What is that doing in your ear!" Soon Bryant had earrings in both ears.
Girls were coming around now. The family didn't like all of them. DeeDee, eight years older, took it upon herself to scold Bryant. "Pull your pants up!" she snapped. Bryant wore them looser than Wally Jr. had. He had developed a little hip-hop style, and it worried her.
Near the new year, Bryant got pulled over for speeding. It had happened before. This speeding ticket was the clincher: his driver's license was suspended. Bryant was effectively grounded. He still went to school. On his own initiative, he had appealed to Reiter to help him again after failing at El Camino, and was now trying to graduate through a public school program for adult students. He still worked, taking buses or getting rides from his mother. But now, Bryant found himself sitting at home, too old to be under his parents' thumb, without social options except those in the neighborhood.
Bryant had never mixed with many of the young people in his neighborhood before. His parents had carefully controlled his activities. It is one of the astonishing details of Bryant's story that despite having lived, as his father wanted, in the same house all his life, he was a stranger to kids living on the same block. Wally and Yadira had limited him to private school friends and the children of families they trusted. Bryant was extraordinarily sheltered.
But now he was on foot or on his bike around the neighborhood, and made his first acquaintance with some of the young people nearby. A short walk from his house was a shabby rental home where a family with gang ties lived. Older family members were more involved, a younger one, Christopher Wilson, less so, though compelled by his relations into some fellowship with the 8-Trey Gangster Crips. Walter Lee Bridges was a friend of Wilson's. With Josh Henry and some other young men, they formed a loose clique of what Josh would later call "affiliated" kids. Young men in South Central borrowed cop's jargon as readily as cops expropriated theirs: "affiliated" referred to youths who weren't necessarily criminal or violent but were inclined or obliged to be on friendly terms with the gang. None of Josh's friends were "hard-core" gang members. But they had all been in fights from time to time, and some had been shot at. They knew friends who had been murdered. They had an unwritten code of having each other's backs if need be.
Mostly, they just hung out together, fixed up their bicycles, smoked pot, and tried to figure out how to be cool and meet girls. Many white suburban teenage boys spent their time in much the same way. Asked later why Bryant had taken to wearing a baseball cap with the insignia of the Houston Astros on it—the covert symbol of the nearby 8-Trey Hoover Criminals—Josh reacted as if the answer were self-evident. For the same reason they all wore such attire, he said: "To get girls!"
That spring, Bryant, Chris, Walter, and Josh began hanging out regularly. Their circle eventually expanded to Chris's girlfriend and her pretty cousin Arielle Walker from down the street. Arielle was black-eyed with a hint of ruddy cinnamon in her complexion. Her father was in prison for murder.
To the group, it was as if Bryant Tennelle were a visitor from some exotic shore. He was astoundingly naïve. He had never drunk alcohol, didn't fight, and knew nothing about gangs. He didn't even know how to kiss a girl. He had this nice home and proper family and an intimidating cop for a dad who puttered in the driveway with his cigars. And not only did Bryant work, he was _punctual_ , something none of the rest of them were. Bryant would hang out, then cut it short to start his shifts. The others liked him and called him by his last name. But they didn't know what to make of him, with his beloved pet ducks and chickens and his gentle, sensitive ways. He wasn't aggressive. He wasn't loud. He sought to downplay conflicts. He wanted everyone to get along.
The last part was most novel of all. Lawless violence burdens black men as no one else. Walking with a bopping limp that suggests you have survived your share of street fights, yelling a lot, wheeling your eyes around angrily—these were learned behaviors among ghettoside men, affectations they adopted as preemptive defense against attack. Appearing weak was dangerous. Many men described having been robbed and threatened from childhood, relieved of their lunch money on the way to school, beaten up for backpacks and shoes, constantly called out to fight. Undersized boys were tormented, tall ones tested. It was frustrating and draining. Many black men were left with a version of the sickening sensation most males probably feel at some point in childhood, knowing a bully awaits them after school, wanting to fight. But the difference for these men was that the feeling was sharpened by fear of death and pervaded their adult lives. The stress wrought deep unhappiness. In the streets of the Seventy-seventh, men talked of suicide. Others were fatalistic and resigned. Lots of men, deep down, didn't want to fight. They tried to avoid it, acting tough to discourage challengers. They conveyed, with every mannerism and gesture, a message that said "Don't mess with me." It was an exhausting act to keep up. But it was worth it to feel safer.
Josh, Walter, and Chris wanted to toughen up Bryant. They threw play punches at him, trying to get him to jab and dodge. They tried to educate him in street codes. Bryant was too kind, raised too well. "He was nowhere near us," Chris said. So far above them, he meant.
Arielle was so unfamiliar with middle-class mores that she was amazed by the simple fact that Bryant got up early every morning. She knew hardly anyone who did that. "It changed us so much as a group," Arielle recalled. "We never had anyone like him around." Before long, she and Bryant were dating.
Bryant's family was less enthusiastic about his new social life. DeeDee had no patience for Bryant's "hanging out." She considered Arielle "a hoodrat" and the rest of the bunch "unsavory." She was worried. Bryant was a sponge, she observed—easily influenced. "If he doesn't get his act together, it will drive my parents crazy," she thought. She began job hunting for him, poring through lists of city openings in the hope of finding something more durable than the hourly, part-time work Bryant was doing.
For his part, Wally Tennelle was on high alert. At work, he increased his detours to check up on Bryant. The cop side of his brain was fully engaged. He studied his son's clothes and movements and scrutinized his friends. Bryant was too old for his parents to dictate his friendships. But Tennelle watched, all the time. He perceived the rough vibrations around Chris Wilson and Walter Lee Bridges. But he could also tell they were not "hard-core." He recognized them as that familiar, softer breed of "affiliated" kids. Both young men were intelligent and likable—good guys, there was no doubt about it. They couldn't help where they'd grown up. Tennelle knew that Bryant was mostly building bicycles with them. He knew that this pursuit meant a lot to Bryant. When he questioned him, Bryant assured him it was bicycles he liked, not gang-banging.
Yadira worried, too. But she never knew how deeply anxious her husband was over Bryant. Wally Tennelle would get up at 2:00 A.M. to check Bryant's room and make sure he was home. He churned with anxiety every time Bryant left the house. He harped on Bryant's whereabouts, nagged him about his social activities. Time after time, he gave the same lecture: "You walk like a duck, talk like a duck, and people gonna think you are a gangster." Despite the strains, the two remained close, collaborating on projects around the house.
Bryant showered in the bathroom off his parents' room because the main bathroom was kept clean for guests. It afforded Wally an opportunity to covertly examine his bare skin. One day, he caught a glimpse of Bryant's exposed back and saw what he dreaded: a new tattoo. It was not any symbol he recognized, no gang or neighborhood name. It was simply a logo of the city, the name "Los Angeles" with scrolls and angel wings. Wally confronted Bryant. There was another scene like the earring episode. But Tennelle was up against the fact that his youngest was no longer a child: "What can you do?" he said later. He had no legal right to demand that Bryant wear different clothes or have another girlfriend. "He is eighteen years old. You can't chain him down. You can't drive him out of the house."
At the same time, Wally Tennelle was an astute enough observer of gang life to perceive that his son was not like the gangsters he had spent his career arresting. Bryant held jobs and was obviously committed to them. He got up early, worked hard, and was always on time. He was studying hard to get his final credits to get his diploma. Most of all, Bryant remained the "good boy" his parents had always known him to be. There was no new shift in attitude. Bryant was never sullen. He was always good-natured, obedient even when he didn't have to be, loving to his mother, bonding with his father over various innocent pursuits—tropical fish and show-quality roosters—although neighbors' complaints finally forced the family to give up the birds. Wally Tennelle knew these were not the hallmarks of a gang-banging criminal. And when he confronted Bryant, all those years of protective parenting were turned back on him: "Daddy!" Bryant remonstrated. "You raised me better than that!"
All teenagers go through phases. Wally and Yadira hoped they would get Bryant back on track when he got his driver's license back. June 29 was the date they were waiting for.
By spring Bryant finished his class and at last he had the credits to get his diploma. It was cause for a family celebration. Wally and Yadira were so proud. Bryant told Arielle how happy he was. He told her how long he had been yearning to please his parents.
Yadira accompanied Bryant to pick up his diploma. Reiter and Bryant's other teachers were planning a party. And there was more good news: with DeeDee's help, Bryant had a secured a job with the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks working with youths. DeeDee hoped this would turn into a career in public employment. She was now an accountant at LAX, working for the city, just like her father. Her aunt was also a municipal employee. DeeDee dubbed them "a city family." The parks job would give Bryant a chance to shine in a new arena as a mentor to kids. He would thrive, she thought.
It was Friday, May 11, before Mother's Day weekend. Bryant was to start his new job Monday. It seemed appropriate, like a Mother's Day gift to Yadira. She had been hoping for so long for all these pieces to fall in place—the high school diploma, the real job. Bryant was excited to show his parents he knew how much effort they'd poured into him, wanted to show them how much he appreciated it.
He told Arielle to expect him later that evening because he wanted to buy a Mother's Day basket for Yadira. Arielle was going to give him a lift.
The sun had not yet set. Bryant had some time on his hands. He bought a root beer with Walter and strolled along Eightieth Street pushing his bike.
#
# **"IT'S MY SON"**
Wally and Yadira Tennelle did not hear the _pap-pap_ of gunfire a short distance away.
As Walter Lee Bridges fled and Bryant collapsed, the couple were at home doing what they always did on Friday evenings—puttering, alone and together, doing their own thing. Yadira was in the shower. Wally was contemplating the cars in the driveway, about to move them.
At the shooting scene, Arielle Walker ran across the intersection to the cluster of screaming teenagers.
She saw Bryant on the ground, paramedics all around. Her eyes fixed on the cap full of blood.
She thought of Bryant's mother. She grabbed the cap and ran.
Wally Tennelle had begun to move the cars when he saw a young girl coming toward him, weeping. _Again_ , he thought. _Now what?_ He braced himself for his neighbors' latest drama.
Arielle quavered when she saw him. She was looking for Yadira. To Arielle, Bryant's mother had always seemed approachable, kind—everyone in the neighborhood loved Yadira. Arielle barely knew Wally. She knew he was a cop and was intimidated. It hadn't occurred to her that she might see him first. But he fixed her with his gentle eyes. She would remember his first words to her: "I can help you. What's wrong?"
Then his eyes dropped to her hand, to the blood-filled cap in her fingers.
Tennelle spoke before Arielle had a chance to, his eyes on the cap.
He knew that cap. "It's my son," he said.
The instant was all the notification he needed. He had not been a homicide detective all those years for nothing. As soon as he saw the hat, saw how much blood was on the cap, he understood that something irreversible had happened.
Tennelle thought of his wife inside. He called to her. She was still in the shower. He put Arielle in his car and drove over.
Josh, looking up, saw the big sedan zoom up and the door fly open. Tennelle hopped out while it was still rolling, its wheels coming to rest against the curb. He looked around. Bryant was on the grass surrounded by paramedics. The cops were putting up tape.
Tennelle noted his son's position and scanned the street. Later he would be able to describe the scene using the same tone and terminology as for a hundred other crime scenes. _Victim down. Feet facing west_.
He turned to one of the cops and motioned toward Arielle. _This witness_ , he said, _needs to be secured_.
He carefully placed the cap on the ground near his son's head. Evidence. It belonged there.
He told the paramedics he would meet them at the hospital. He got back in his sedan and went to face Yadira.
Nearby, the man with the tile cutter was aware that a plainclothes cop with a professional bearing had arrived in a sedan. He assumed he was an LAPD detective sent to investigate. Only later did he learn who the detective was. He never heard him say a word.
"I think Bryant got shot."
That's how Yadira Tennelle remembers her husband putting it.
_Please no_ , she had thought. When he got back, she was out of the shower, waiting.
By then, he had seen the cap full of blood and he had seen their son lying on the ground with his head half blown off. But Bryant still breathed. For Wally Tennelle, this task of telling his wife what had happened was traumatic in its own right. He fell into his old habit of understatement. Had he been someone else, the words he chose might have seemed deceptive. But because he was Wally Tennelle, they were simply of a piece with the calm, measured way he'd lived his whole life. Years later, the story of how he told Yadira remained nearly as painful to recount as the shooting itself. The worst notification he would ever make: how he hated breaking Yadira's heart. So all he said was that Bryant had been shot in the head, and they had to go to the hospital. He did not say that Bryant had been brutally maimed and was near death.
DeeDee went with them, and she understood even less about her brother's state than Yadira. She convinced herself that they were just going to the hospital to get some information. They were going to find out what was going on, that was all.
"It's in God's hands now," Wally told them in the car. Somewhere nearby a neighbor was screaming.
Security at the hospital was tight. DeeDee was frustrated. _Stupid paperwork_ , she thought. Finally, they were admitted and were standing near the trauma bay. A nurse met them. She talked and talked. DeeDee didn't understand most of it. But one phrase stopped her short _—brain matter_. DeeDee's mind kept going back to the words—"brain matter." _Oh God_. She had a sense something terrible was about to happen but as yet had not admitted to herself what it was. Then she looked at her father's face.
They were sent to a waiting area. There were so many cops milling around the hospital that DeeDee wondered if there were any on the street. Her thoughts went to her grandmother. She conferred with her parents, then went to hold vigil with Dera Tennelle.
Bryant's brother was living in Encino. Wally Jr. and his wife, Ivory, were on Sepulveda Boulevard near the Skirball Center when Yadira called. Ivory answered. From the driver's seat Wally Jr. could hear his mother screaming into his wife's ear—heard the substance of what was happening—and made a U-turn in the middle of the big, wide boulevard. _Bryant shot_. Adrenaline exploded through his body as the news took shape in his mind; it had an almost physical impact, like the sensation of falling on pavement. California Hospital was clear across town. Between him and his injured brother stood the gridlocked interchange of the 405 freeway and the clogged midsection of the Ten. Wally Jr. and Ivory sat in traffic for an hour, anxiety consuming them, praying, fuming. Yadira called back once or twice. Then DeeDee. Wally Jr. took a call and heard his mother say the phrase "shot in the head." He must have misheard her, he thought, hanging up. She probably said "shot in the hand."
At the hospital, Wally Jr. spent fifteen minutes being cleared by security to enter. It didn't sit well with the soon-to-be college graduate, who was inclined to wonder whether part of the reason was that he was a young black man. "I just want to see my brother," he pleaded at one point. The security guard explained that the hospital had problems with gang rivals trying to enter the trauma center "and finish it." The explanation would stick with him.
Inside, the halls were packed with cops. He saw his dad's partner, but didn't immediately see his parents. Then he noticed a surgeon in the crowd, looking around as if searching for someone. His headgear suggested he had just come out of the surgical theater. Wally noticed that his face was tight. It was not the face of good news, he thought.
Brother Jim Reiter of St. Bernard High School had also been stuck in traffic. He had been summoned to the hospital as department chaplain. A murder in the Seventy-seventh, they told him. And the victim was a detective's son. Reiter knew nothing further. A shadow of an idea crept into his mind.
_It's got to be Bryant_ , he thought. But then he chided himself for assuming. Tense and frustrated by the evening traffic crush, Reiter prayed the whole way to the hospital, the same prayer, _Please, don't let it be Bryant_ , over and over. He missed the exit and had to go all the way to Western and double back, and he prayed some more. _Please, not Bryant_.
When he got to the hospital, he told himself his fears were baseless. He was being ridiculous. He told the clerks at the desk he was here for the detective's son. "Oh!" one said, matter-of-factly. "Tennelle?"
Reiter found the Tennelles sitting together in a small lounge with two other chaplains. All around there were officers, commanders, and various friends. Wally and Yadira sat together in chairs, facing the door. Reiter noticed how Wally kept his arm around Yadira's shoulders. The room was crowded. Reiter stayed in back, leaning against a cabinet, trying to be unobtrusive. He watched Bryant's father. Wally Tennelle seemed to be attending to everyone. He was playing caretaker. Did anyone need water? Anyone need to sit down? Reiter was amazed.
A doctor came and launched into what seemed to Wally Jr. to be a long and confusing explanation of Bryant's injuries. _He is going to say "we stabilized him_ , _"_ the brother kept thinking. He waited for it. Then he heard the words "brain injury" and "he went into cardiac arrest." Wally Jr. couldn't make sense of it. Instead, he stared at the doctor's face. He was a middle-aged black man with a flat sadness in his gaze. Later, describing how he finally understood that his brother had died, Wally Jr. remembered the expression on the doctor's face as much as the words he spoke. Yadira was weeping. _"I want Bryant_ , _"_ she cried. _"I want my son."_
Wally Jr. looked at his father. The elder Tennelle was nodding, calmly acknowledging the doctor's report. "Yeah," he said. "Okay."
The doctor was Bryan Hubbard, a veteran trauma surgeon of the Big Years. Hubbard and his colleagues were the medical equivalent of the Tennelles, Gordons, and Skaggses of the LAPD. They were high-energy perfectionists who had learned their craft in the age of the great homicide epidemic. For a while, the military had sent their medics to train with them.
Hubbard was a veteran of King-Drew Medical Center down in Willowbrook near Watts, closed a few years before. In the 1990s, gang fights outside the operating room there had been a problem. Surgeons could almost predict the timing of new trauma calls by watching friends of victims depart the waiting room, rushing out to take revenge. Soon after, surgeons would be summoned to another "Code Yellow."
Hubbard would tell family members a loved one was dead and sense they were planning vengeance. "I could see it in their eyes," he said. One man was more direct. "I'm tired of dealing with it the regular way." he said after Hubbard informed him his friend had died. "I have my own way of dealing with it." He pantomimed a gun with his fingers. _Please. Not while I'm on duty_ , Hubbard thought.
Things were quieter by this time than they had been at King-Drew. But the nature of Hubbard's job remained the same. He had made scores of notifications just like the one he made to the Tennelles. It was the worst part of his job. He had to steel himself each time. He had never gotten much training in this aspect of his job. But he had learned from seeing others do it poorly. He knew that every word he said would be imprinted on the minds of his listeners, but that even so, they would find ways to block out the truth. He tried to be as blunt as possible. "Simple harsh truths" was the phrase he used to himself. "He passed," he tried to say, right away, as clearly as he could. The details could wait.
But people still didn't hear him. Or they couldn't comprehend it and remained confused. Or they fainted or fell on the floor, or cried out, as Yadira did. Told later that Wally Jr. understood that his brother was dead as much from Hubbard's expression as from his words, Hubbard nodded with weary recognition. It was often like that.
The Tennelles waited to view Bryant's body. The chaplains waited with them in the crowded little lounge. At last someone came. The body was ready.
They were escorted to a small area with curtains. Bryant's body was covered with blankets. A nurse pulled away enough cloth for them to see the smooth skin of his face. Yadira yearned to touch him, but the medical staff said no. Wally Jr. noted the seam across his brother's forehead where the wound had been sewn, and he hoped his mother didn't see it. He could barely look. He made himself gaze for a few seconds, then averted his eyes.
He shifted to observing his parents, worrying, wondering how they would handle this. At the same time, with some part of his mind, he observed himself, realizing that focusing on them was a form of self-protection.
He shed few if any tears. Then he noticed his father. The detective was looking steadily at his youngest son's still form, studying the exposed portion of his face with an intent gaze.
A chaplain performed the conditional anointing, commending Bryant to God, brushing Bryant's forehead, hands, and chest with his thumb. They exited. On the way out of the hospital, Reiter was astonished again when Wally Tennelle turned and asked him if he needed a ride. He had assumed Tennelle had barely noted his presence.
At Bryant's grandmother's house, DeeDee was keeping vigil with Dera and a few other relatives. By every account, the Tennelle family had remained impressively calm throughout this ordeal, waiting patiently for the medical system to do its work—each member of the family focused on the others. But Dera Tennelle was not going to take it so quietly. When the call from the hospital came, she threw her walker across the living room and collapsed, wailing and rolling about. DeeDee and her cousins sprang up to yank the furniture out of the way. There was something faintly comic about it all, DeeDee found herself thinking as she scrambled around the floor, her grandmother screaming nearby. The next instant, she marveled at life's paradoxes, the way human nature perceives humor even at the height of disaster.
Wally Jr. had a similar insight: he woke up the next morning surprised to find that he had slept through the night. He was unfamiliar with the way a breathless, suspended state of shock precedes grief.
DeeDee Tennelle was wrong—not every cop in the city was at California Hospital. There was also a whole army on Eightieth Street. Chris Barling was among them, taking some satisfaction in the fact that, for once, he had beaten Sal La Barbera to the scene.
Barling spoke to Greg De La Rosa, got some leads on witnesses, and went to California Hospital to track down Arielle. There, he made his way through the throng of cops and somehow managed to find her. Arielle's eyes were red from crying and she was talking incoherently. Barling took her back to the police station for an interview. Before leaving the hospital, he caught a glimpse through the crowd of Tennelle, whom he did not know, and his wife. Barling read Tennelle's body language by reflex, as cops always do: Tennelle was making an effort to be strong, Barling thought. But you could see something off in his posture. His eyes had a desolate look that Barling recognized.
David Garrido, Sal La Barbera's counterpart in charge of Southwest Division's homicide unit, was also at the murder scene. It was already packed with brass, among them Lieutenant Lyle Prideaux of Robbery-Homicide Division, Charlie Beck, the future LAPD chief, and other higher-ups.
The sky was still bright where the setting sun had dropped, but darkness engulfed the street. Yellow lights shone from the houses. Spindly palms and a eucalyptus tree stood black against the sky and its few mottled clouds. Pretty houses, Garrido noted. Trimmed lawns. A bicycle overturned on the sidewalk.
Nearby was a pile of clothes. Garrido was used to that. The paramedics had ripped them off and left them there—blue Dickies, a white T-shirt, a black sweatshirt, and a pile of bloody towels. Patrol cars filled the street. A streetlamp illuminated a red biohazard bag and a white box that contained numbered placards. On the street-side grass median lay a dark Houston Astros baseball cap, a thick patch of red blood on the rim and a hole in the fabric—tiny, half the size of a fingertip. Garrido drew near and noticed something on the ground. A piece of metal. He bent and picked it up. A little smashed projectile.
Pat Gannon, homicide commander in South Bureau, was in a hotel in Chicago, preparing to attend his son's graduation from Loyola, when his BlackBerry buzzed and he learned that Tennelle's son had been killed in the Seventy-seventh.
Gannon had known Wally Tennelle for two decades, knew him, as everyone did, as a quiet, unassuming detective who was "all about the work, all about solving the case and getting the job done." Gannon felt crushed. Tennelle, he thought, was probably one of the most beloved people in the department. Gannon knew he had a decision to make.
Already his phone was ringing and ringing, people giving him updates, wanting to know what to do. Emotions were running high. Several RHD detectives were arguing they should have the case, not lower-level detectives at the division. Gannon was getting an earful. Tempers were flaring. Some of his colleagues among the brass were fuming about "this arrogant DA"—a skinny guy who had turned up at the hospital and insisted that RHD get the case. Meanwhile, a Seventy-seventh detective supervisor named Matt Mahoney was moving ahead as if the case belonged to his group. They were "task-forcing" it in those first few hours, detectives fanning out all over "the westside."
Gannon knew that RHD had more expertise and manpower. But he also knew that the case did not exactly meet the criteria for elevation to RHD. Those criteria were, as he described it, "vague and flexible," but they usually were not stretched to encompass ordinary gang shootings with a single victim. Granted, special circumstances, such as extensive press coverage, could nudge a case into the RHD realm. But Gannon had worked in L.A. long enough to know that the Tennelle case probably wouldn't rise to that standard. Apart from the fact that the victim's father worked for the department, there was little to attract the media's interest. Bryant, after all, was a black male, eighteen years old, killed south of the Ten, and he'd been wearing a hat associated with a gang.
And there was court to consider. Any special treatment of the case by the police might be exploited by defense attorneys, Gannon thought. More to the point, he was anxious to separate the investigation from the emotions swirling among Tennelle's coworkers. Leaving the case with South Bureau detectives would ensure some detachment, since few people down there were personally connected to Tennelle. And it would serve another aim of interest to Gannon at that time: the brass had recently decided to recombine the three South Bureau divisional homicide squads into one unit, harking back to the old days of South Bureau Homicide. Success in clearing the Tennelle case would be validation for this new administrative setup, which would have one of the LAPD's bland new bureaucratic titles—Criminal Gang Homicide Group.
Gannon spoke at some point to Tennelle, but he didn't remember Tennelle giving any input on the question of who should take the case.
Tennelle recalled it differently. He took pains to show his approval of a divisional investigation. He, too, was worried that assigning the case to his coworkers at RHD might taint it. "I wanted the case to be clean," he said. But more than that, Wally Tennelle was still, in his heart, a ghettoside man, and he wanted the case to be investigated by ordinary station house homicide detectives down in South Bureau.
All those years in Newton had taught him how important it was to remain close to the street. He knew true craftsmanship in LAPD detective ranks wasn't represented by test results or departmental assignments. He knew how limited RHD could be—how small the detectives' caseloads, how rarefied their cases. "Our brass tells us, 'You're the best,' " he said, with typical frankness. "But I can name a bunch of detectives down there who are much sharper than the guys here."
He did not disparage his RHD colleagues. He respected them. But he had learned to see the world in a particular way. He had worked the Big Years. He had seen the Monster. And he knew how hard street shootings could be to solve. In Tennelle's opinion, RHD detectives didn't have the gang experience of their ghettoside counterparts. They were too far away from it, and they didn't have to work as hard and as fast. Tennelle included himself in this appraisal. "I am probably not as sharp as when I was in Newton," he said. So when Gannon made his decision, Tennelle privately rejoiced, even as his RHD colleagues fumed. The case would go to South Bureau. It was for the best, Tennelle thought. They would "have a better sense of it."
John Skaggs missed the entire drama of the Tennelle murder. He was out of town with his family on one of his desert racing weekends, camping out with the RV in the austere yellow terrain of the Mojave Desert near Ridgecrest. He was watching the sun set over the angular planes of that arid land—a beautiful sight—when Chris Barling buzzed him on the cell phone.
It was just before dinner. The sky was full of color. Skaggs was relaxed and enjoying himself. Barling told him he had just been at a crime scene, then that the victim was the son of Wally Tennelle of RHD.
Skaggs had one question: Who would take the case? Barling said he was pretty sure it would be the Seventy-seventh—Armando Bernal, perhaps.
A secret thought rose in Skaggs's mind, as clear as the horizon before his eyes: _They should give us that case. Me and Barling—we could solve it_.
But for Skaggs, it was a passing thought only. The killing of Bryant Tennelle was just a pulse in the din of murders that summer in the south end.
#
# **THE KILLING OF DOVON HARRIS**
Three days after Bryant Tennelle died, twenty-six-year-old Carl Pickering Jr. was getting into a parked Chevrolet in front of Vertels liquor store near the block where Barbara Pritchett lived in Southeast Division. An assailant walked up and shot a bullet into his chest. Realizing he was dead, a girl stumbled screaming into the street in front of Vertels. Passing cars edged around her and kept going.
Eighteen-year-old Wilbert Mahone died next. He was standing outside in Compton at a relative's house later that same evening when a pair of drive-by shooters came roaring down the street. Wounded, he made it inside the house. He died holding the hand of his sixteen-year-old brother. Mahone's parents had moved him from Compton to Georgia in his youth because, they said, "we had sons and we didn't want them to be killed." Wilbert had returned to apply for a job.
Four days later, police found Christopher Davenport, thirty-six, lying dead on the sidewalk in San Pedro after neighbors reported hearing gunshots. The next day, LAPD narcotics officers in plain clothes killed Ronald Ball, sixty, in the Newton Division. The officers and their colleagues had detained a group of men they saw dealing drugs. Ball ran from them and hid under a car. When the officer tried to pull him out, Ball had a gun; the officer shot him.
Wayne McKinney, twenty-four, died a week later, on May 25, shot by a man or youth on the sidewalk while sitting in a car with a friend. Three days after that, eighteen-year-old Jamar Witherspoon was shot and killed by an LAPD officer at Eighty-ninth and Main streets. The officers were responding to a shooting call: Witherspoon, who police said was armed with a handgun, jumped a fence and ran—straight toward another officer, who shot him.
The next day, Carnell Ardoine, nineteen, was found dead in an alley near Eighty-first Street and Avalon Boulevard, shot in the mouth. Marcus Peters, also nineteen, died the next day in Long Beach in a walk-up shooting. Robert Lee, sixty-one, succumbed to wounds from a stabbing that occurred in the Newton Division soon after Peters's death. Stanley Daniels, thirty-one, argued with someone in the street at Thirty-ninth Street and Western Avenue. He was shot in the chest. No one called the police. Instead, by chance, LAPD officers on patrol found Daniels bleeding in the street. He died on June 2.
Irvin Carter, a disabled man in his sixties, died the following day after being slashed by a man walking with a knife in East Rancho Dominguez. And the next day, thirty-six-year-old Keith Hardy died at St. Francis Hospital after someone shot him many times in Compton. Christopher Rice, twenty-two—also shot in Compton—was also transported to St. Francis. He died four days after Hardy. The next day, June 10, Rodney Love, fifteen, was shot and killed on the street in the Seventy-seventh Street Division a block away from where Bryant Tennelle was shot. His mother ran outside just in time to watch her only child die as she dialed 911 over and over and got a busy signal.
Three days later, Detrick Ford, twenty, was said to have charged LAPD police officers with a knife in Watts, just east of where Barbara Pritchett lived on the same street. Officers shot and killed him. Dion Miles, nineteen, died that same day after being shot by some attacker in nearby Willowbrook. Miles was an art student at Cal State Northridge up in the San Fernando Valley and had no gang ties. He had gotten off a bus in an unfamiliar neighborhood, unwittingly wearing red in Crip territory.
With Watts's share of these criminal homicides—and others involving Hispanic victims—Skaggs and his colleagues were busy as ever that spring. Marullo was working with Skaggs as a full-fledged partner, though technically he was still a trainee and did not hold the rank of detective. Marullo had delivered on his early promise. He was passionate, effective, tireless. There was no question that he was the best young apprentice the unit had trained. He and Skaggs were working on a 100 percent clearance rate that year. They solved case after case.
Change was coming, however. Southeast would soon be incorporated into the newly reconstituted South Bureau homicide unit. Skaggs had sought a promotion to D-3, or supervisory detective. He was, as usual, playing the system to find a way to advance in rank yet remain working homicide in South Bureau.
Barling had taken a temporary supervisory nonhomicide job in the Seventy-seventh Street Division. Losing Barling was bad enough; La Barbera was dreading Skaggs's departure. But Marullo's performance was compensation.
Skaggs had a regret. He felt he had neglected Marullo's buddy Nathan Kouri, who had also been assigned to him as a trainee. The amount of time he and Marullo now spent in court left him little time to work with Kouri, the quiet former gang officer from Norwalk with the Lebanese surname whom Marullo had recommended so highly.
Neither La Barbera nor Skaggs had a sense of Kouri's abilities. Kouri was affable, well liked, and reassuringly square. He had been a Police Explorer in his teens and didn't drink. "Holy smokes!" he would say. "Geez Louise!" But he was an inept talker. He stumbled over words. No one could understand what he was working on, or follow the thread of his explanations. He avoided office banter. Theirs was a talking profession, but Kouri seemed more comfortable listening. He pestered colleagues and informants with questions, only occasionally interjecting a one-word response: "Inner-restin'!"
That spring, Skaggs renewed his efforts to focus on Kouri. His plan was to work at least one case from start to finish with Kouri as his partner, keeping Marullo in the background. But then came a lapse in new cases, and court hearings kept intervening. Kouri worked on bits of cases. Skaggs knew this was not the same as handling a whole one. You had to move with a case from start to finish—then follow it through court—to really learn. You had to try it in your head as you worked the street. Skaggs began to worry that Kouri would languish.
Then came Friday afternoon, June 15, graduation day at Centennial High School in Compton.
Barbara Pritchett was thrilled. She had been waiting for this day. Her second child, Dwaina, a senior, would be getting her diploma.
Barbara Pritchett's children were her life. She herself was the third child of ten; her mother had had her first baby at age fourteen. The mother had difficulties, and Pritchett was raised by her grandmother, who had come west to California from Natchitoches, Louisiana. Once grown, Pritchett had taken on the raising of her younger siblings herself. She brought up four of them, along with her own three children. Among those still living with her was her littlest brother, Carlos, who was several years younger than her youngest child, Dovon.
Their apartment was a rare subsidized unit with four bedrooms. With so many children to raise, Pritchett held on to it for dear life. When Pritchett was younger, her grandmother had helped keep her large household afloat. More recently, her eldest son and daughter both worked at hourly jobs. Pritchett was a home healthcare worker.
The family was close. Together, they made ends meet. Pritchett's warmth and steady domesticity had made her the keystone of her entire clan. Adult sisters, cousins, and longtime friends whom she called "cousins" constantly passed in and out of her living room, a center for social life and holiday gatherings. Pritchett once spent four days preparing a Thanksgiving feast for a couple dozen people, using smoked turkey instead of salt pork in the greens.
Pritchett had measured her life's success on getting all her charges through school and keeping them from gangs. Dovon, fifteen, was also at Centennial. Though only a tenth-grader, he, too, was released early because of the day's festivities.
He was in front of the school, about to catch a bus, when a fight broke out.
Centennial High School served students from Compton, Willowbrook, and Watts. Some of the most lethal gangs in Los Angeles County crossed paths in its hallways. Fights in and near the school were common. This one began with a fight between some girls. Kids started yelling at each other as they spilled outside, taking sides. A couple of boys yelled gang threats: "Bounty Hunters!" It was taken as a challenge to a rival gang—Westside Piru, another Blood gang sect. Police cleared the campus, hoping to avoid trouble.
Herded across the street, kids loitered in big knots. The argument mushroomed, girls and boys screaming at each other, menace in the air.
Dovon wanted to get away. With a group of other students, including a couple boys "affiliated" with the Bounty Hunters gang near his home, he boarded a Metro bus going north.
By then, news of the fight had spread thanks to girls calling on male protectors. Derrick Washington, the sixteen-year-old brother of one of the fighting girls, had gotten word that his sister was in trouble. He jumped into a Yukon with an older Piru gang member named Jason Keaton. They had a gun. The pair drove by the school just in time to see Dovon's group boarding the MTA bus headed north and gave chase. When Dovon and his friends got off on the outskirts of Nickerson Gardens in Watts, Bounty Hunter territory, the Yukon pulled up. Derrick fired. Everyone scattered. Dovon fell.
Skaggs got there after the ambulance was gone. Kouri wasn't with him. He was out of town on another case and due back that night. Skaggs surveyed the crime scene—for what it was worth.
As usual, not much. No body. Just an empty street, and a pair of dusty black tennis shoes strewn on the asphalt.
At Harbor-UCLA hospital, Barbara Pritchett found her youngest child on a ventilator, his face burned by gunpowder, his body swollen with fluid. Dovon had been shot in the head. His brain was destroyed. He would never awaken. But he remained on life support. Barbara touched his skin, still warm, and waited. Dovon's father, Duane Harris, had to fly in from out of town.
How long the victim remains alive after a declaration of brain death depends on several factors. In cases where organs are donated, it can take hours or days to arrange the transfer. And sometimes family members are not yet ready to accept the death. In Dovon's case, two days passed. Living at the hospital, Barbara proudly counted the number of Centennial High School faculty who visited him. The visits were validation of her efforts to raise her children well. Dovon had ADD and some troubles with academic work, but he had no criminal or gang involvement. He was unfailingly good-natured and affectionate, as was Barbara's whole family. Several of his teachers came and left weeping. Almost every visitor asked Barbara if anything had appeared on the news. It was a painful subject. There had been nothing on TV, nothing in the paper. Barbara kept up a brave face. It didn't matter, she told visitors. They all knew what Dovon's life had meant, even if the rest of the world seemed not to notice.
But Pritchett was secretly anxious. She suspected that her son's race and their circumstances would somehow stigmatize him in the eyes of the authorities. The lack of press coverage underscored this possibility. Dovon was, after all, just another black kid from Watts. Would police think he was just another gang member? Would they take the case seriously? Barbara, like most Watts residents, viewed the LAPD warily.
She sat by Dovon's still form and waited.
At length a tall white detective with blue eyes showed up at the hospital. Pritchett went out to see him. She made a point of looking him right in his eyes. "I want you to meet him," she said. "I want you to see his face."
She brought John Skaggs to Dovon's bedside. Dovon's body was still warm, still expanding with breath thanks to the ventilator. Barbara was hoping the sight would shake Skaggs from the indifference she presumed he harbored. Perhaps Dovon's physical presence might convince Skaggs that he was not just another young black man, "gunned down like he was nobody," as she would say later.
Skaggs humored Pritchett in his good-natured way. But he was not especially moved. He had been at many hospital bedsides, seen many swollen bodies. What Pritchett didn't know was how many scores of times he had already heard her version of the old lament—"just another black man down." Nor did she know that by this time, for Skaggs, the phrase was a battle cry.
The wider world might not view these homicides as earth-shattering. But to the detectives of the Southeast Division, they deserved every ounce of vigor the state could muster. By now, for Skaggs, this way of thinking was defining.
He and Marullo were already working in high gear. Kouri would join them soon. Skaggs wanted him to take a central role as soon as his plane landed.
By June 17, the doctors had explained the organ donation process to Barbara's uncomprehending family. Duane Harris, Dovon's father, could not accept it. He didn't understand: If organs could be donated, why couldn't Dovon receive some and then be saved? he asked. He offered his own: "Take my brain!" he begged. "Take my life!" The doctors had to explain it wasn't possible.
Duane Harris walked Dovon's gurney down a long hall at Harbor that last day to a pair of double doors. When they swung open automatically, Duane Harris stopped and the gurney rolled on without him. He stood in the hall as the doors closed, straining for a last glimpse of his son.
Within a few days, Skaggs and Kouri had traced the shooting that killed Dovon back to Centennial High. They had identified the players, and they cornered witnesses.
One episode in the investigation stood out. Skaggs interviewed Angela Washington, the teenage sister of sixteen-year-old suspect Derrick Washington. Skaggs had learned from other witnesses that Derrick had confessed the crime to Angela when he got home. Derrick, it turned out, knew Dovon, and even knew his nickname, "Poo-Poo." Derrick's defense attorneys would later argue that Derrick had been appalled to learn he had killed Dovon. Skaggs recognized Angela's value to the case. But when he and Kouri sat her down in the ice-cold interview room in the Southeast station, with its white walls and cheap wood veneer table, she denied her brother had ever confessed.
Angela, short, round, and with the same overbite as Derrick, spoke rapidly, and was emotional and angry. She was determined to protect her brother. Yes, she said, of course she had heard rumors that day. Everyone in the neighborhood was saying her brother had shot Poo-Poo. But "he looked me dead in the eye and said he didn't do it!" she insisted.
Skaggs let her ramble. His posture was relaxed, as if this were just a bit of unpleasant business to complete. At last he interrupted, speaking slowly, voice low. He said little. But his enunciation was deliberate, almost stately. His words marched into Angela's chatter like soldiers in formation.
"You and I," he said, "are going to be serious and honest."
_Serious and honest_. It wasn't clear whether it was his manner or his words that wrought the sudden change in Angela. Perhaps it was the set of his face or the dimension of moral comfort in his declaration. In any case, the interview abruptly shifted. With the word "honest" hanging in the air, the girl's head dropped into her hands. Several seconds passed in silence. When she raised her face, her cheeks were wet with tears.
"He told us to be quiet—" she began. And then she broke.
#
# **NOTHING WORSE**
It was the strangest thing.
All the years that Wally Tennelle had been a cop, he'd participated in those quiet cop conversations: What would you do if it happened to you? If your worst fear came true, if some criminal raped your wife, killed your kid? When cops talked among themselves, the focus was anger and retribution. Would you wait for courts to exact justice? "I'd do it myself," the cops would assure each other.
But now that it had happened, Tennelle discovered something that astonished him: No matter how deeply he searched his soul, he felt no anger. And he felt no desire at all for retribution.
Instead, there was only pain. Inescapable pain. Tears ambushed him several times a day. He and Yadira kept Bryant's room exactly as he had left it: The Lego sculptures in their places. The _Star Wars_ toys. The Cat in the Hat Halloween costume. They found solace in their religion, and in their conversations, Bryant's death became a matter of "God's will." This framework clarified the task that lay before them. After all, God's will was something to be accepted. And if you couldn't accept, the next best thing was to endure.
So they set about enduring.
DeeDee went back to work. She was pregnant, trying to raise a small son, and her marriage was breaking up. Months later she would admit that she had never really taken time to deal with her brother's death. It lurked at the edge of her thoughts. She held it at bay. She was angry at Bryant—angry at what she saw as his waywardness in recent years, which had put him at risk. At times, she allowed herself to think about the killers, whoever they were. Why had they done it? What were they thinking? She couldn't help but see the case in historical, racial dimensions. What did it mean that the civil rights struggle had landed black people here, knee-deep in murder? "After what our ancestors did," she thought, in silent argument with the perpetrators, "and you are going to go around killing each other?"
Yadira took an interest in Bryant's burial site at the mausoleum at Holy Cross Cemetery. She visited frequently. She cried freely and talked often to her husband about her grief. She found a television preacher she liked, and she tried to apply his lessons to her life. It helped her keep bitterness at bay.
She was stern with herself and policed her own self-pity. When she found herself thinking that she was the only one in the world suffering, she forcibly countered the thought. _Others also suffer_ , she would remind herself.
Unlike many couples, who are thrust apart by grief, Wally and Yadira drew together. They resolved not to let the murder of their son darken their souls.
Yadira spoke of this resolution with passion: "We made up our minds," she would say, making a fist, "not to be depressed. Not to be angry!" But Yadira couldn't help wondering what they had done to deserve this. Her thoughts of Bryant were constant. She relived his entire life through memories, relived conversations. She worried that they hadn't told him enough that they loved him. But then she would check herself: of course Bryant knew.
When she, too, went back to work, she noticed how hard it was for people to know what to say. She sensed that they expected her to fall apart. But she didn't know how to fall apart.
She knew it was strange—she _looked_ the same, despite this massive piece of herself that had gone missing. She acted the same. She went to work, greeted people, went home. Everything normal on the outside, except for occasional muffled crying on the job. At home, she wandered into Bryant's bedroom, out, then back in, everything in its place, just as it had been when he died. She placed his picture in a locket on a necklace and wore it at all times. She hung a plaque on the living room wall: "If love could have saved you," it read, "you would have lived forever."
For Wally Tennelle, the directive to endure fit easily into the internal monologue that had molded his whole life. He told himself to be strong, and to move on. Just keep moving. For Tennelle, there was no problem in life for which this answer did not suffice.
Tennelle's bosses urged him to take as much time off as possible. But he couldn't see the point. Work was going to keep him sane. So after three days at home, he went back. He needed to be there. He mounted a picture of Bryant on the dashboard of his detective sedan and dug back into his cases.
For his colleagues, it was not so simple. Tennelle's wounded presence around the office inflicted what can only be described as agonies of compassion. What could they do? The situation called for pity, in the ancient sense, without its modern patronizing stigma. In mythology, pity such as this would squeeze tears from bare rock. But in the workplace etiquette of Robbery-Homicide in 2007, the only permissible expression of pity was inadequate, mumbled repetitions of the phrase "I'm so sorry" and pointless offers of help that were ignored, as those who offered knew they would be.
It was an impossible state of affairs. Tennelle was so mild and impenetrable—so resolutely professional yet so obviously in anguish—that his friends could neither act normal nor reach out without feeling that they were brutalizing him somehow.
Death was bad enough. The death of a child, unbearable. But the murder of a child? There was nothing worse. Detectives' response was no different from that of the people in the neighborhoods of South Los Angeles. The killing of a human being anywhere is like a rock thrown in a pond. Bitter waves emanate outward, washing over an ever-wider circle of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, finally lapping against those distant from the impact point, friends of friends, old classmates, all, to some measure, sickened by the taint of this news— _murder_ , so awful, so unbelievable—no degree of separation big enough to neutralize its poison.
Some of Tennelle's colleagues had children about Bryant's age. They had dealt with homicide bereavement all their careers. They knew what it meant. Finally, Tennelle had to appeal to Lyle Prideaux, his boss: "I just can't take any more people coming up to me," he said. "I just need to be able to work." Quietly word went around, and they left him alone.
But that doesn't mean they forgot. It's possible that Tennelle's stoic and suppressed form of grieving produced a transference of emotion. There was a great deal of acrimonious murmuring about the case going to "divisional" detectives in the Seventy-seventh. The RHD crew felt they could have solved it. Tennelle, of course, kept his opinions to himself. No one in RHD knew that he had secretly wanted the case to go ghettoside.
Time passed. In his grief, Wally Jr., like his parents, went weeks without giving a thought to his brother's killers. He was looking for a job, trying to put his UC Irvine degree to work.
Then, one day, he realized the killers were on his mind. He found himself wondering who they were. What they looked like. Whether they would ever be sorry. Whether he could forgive them if they were.
He became fixated on the question of whether the case would be solved. He remembered his father telling him that the first forty-eight hours truly were critical in getting people to talk—just like they said on TV. After a month went by, he began to feel gnawing worry. He imagined, with dread, his whole life going by and never knowing what had happened to his brother. He developed a habit of praying before sleep. Night after night, he closed his eyes with the same simple refrain: _Please solve the case_.
The case had gone to Armando Bernal, one of the most experienced detectives in Seventy-seventh. Hired in 1981, Bernal had started in the mostly Hispanic Hollenbeck Division in the Boyle Heights neighborhood on the city's east boundary before migrating to the Seventy-seventh and eventually to South Bureau Homicide in 1989, where he learned a doctrine of maintaining a "clean, small" murder book.
Bernal did not describe himself as aggressive. He was deliberate and careful. He sought control. He wanted to prevent his cases from spinning out in "all different directions."
When the Big Years hit, Bernal experienced them as they all did—three-callout weekends, constant frustration, the indifference of the media a daily slap in the face. Bernal had a brooding demeanor. But he had his admirers in the Seventy-seventh. He was one of the most seasoned detectives in the relatively inexperienced unit, and he was considered a top practitioner.
But from an abundance of early leads from willing eyewitnesses at the scene, the case had quickly stalled. Bernal had a description of a black car and of a dark-skinned young shooter, but also a couple of accounts that contradicted these, and lots of street rumors. There were so many gangs whose territories converged in this part of Los Angeles that the field of potential suspects was very large. It was hard to know which rumors to credit. Bernal canceled his vacation and toiled through weekends to work the case. He was paired with Rocky Sato, another experienced hand, and given help by others in the unit. But after an initial flurry of interviews, Bernal was coming up empty-handed.
It was a familiar pattern. For years, more than half the "gang" homicide cases in the Seventy-seventh had foundered in similar ways, growing cold and ending up in storage. Pat Gannon, the commander, was secretly pained. He made a point of frequently asking for updates on the Tennelle case.
Privately, Gannon felt his position to be difficult. He was inclined to push, but he also knew that pressure from higher-ups could simply complicate matters further. He was aware of a simmering frustration building. It was bitterest up at RHD. But even in South Bureau, where few people knew Wally Tennelle personally, the case was an open sore. Gannon's newly consolidated South Bureau homicide group held weekly briefings. Week after week, the Tennelle case was brought up before all the homicide detectives in South Bureau. Week after week, the news was no news: there were no new leads to pursue.
Kelle Baitx, Tennelle's old partner and now homicide supervisor in the Newton Division, was partitioned off in another bureau. He only knew thirdhand of South Bureau hand-wringing over the Tennelle case. But Baitx couldn't help noticing as weeks passed. He knew hope was fading.
He was surprised. The killers, he assumed, were still living close by. You seldom went wrong by assuming they were within ten blocks of the crime scene. And the killing of a cop's son? It should have sent the GIN buzzing; Baitx was surprised that the Seventy-seventh wasn't hearing more rumors. Baitx had also heard the baleful murmurings emanating from RHD. But he knew how difficult gang cases were. Baitx willed himself not to second-guess Bernal.
Baitx knew Wally Tennelle well enough to be surprised that he had taken even three days off work. Tennelle had always been like that: not shy, not aloof, but just—Baitx would heave a deep sigh trying to describe it later—"just very, very matter-of-fact," he said.
He would call Tennelle, hoping to offer solace. But Wally maintained a fortresslike normalcy, parrying expertly. "Hey, Kelle!" Tennelle would exclaim, his tone bright, and before Baitx could get a word out, he peppered him with questions, beating back Baitx's solicitude with a steely wall of cheerful chatter. Baitx would find himself talking of his own life, bested by Tennelle's friendly interest. He would hang up thinking Tennelle had made him feel better, not the other way around.
Baitx was relegated to feeling protective of his old partner from a distance. One thing bothered him: the loose talk he heard around the department about Tennelle's choice to live in the Seventy-seventh. Some cops seemed to think that Tennelle should have expected no better. "I thought it was shitty for them to say that," Baitx fumed. He piped up in defense of Tennelle. "It could have happened to any of us!" he insisted to colleagues. "I don't think where he lived was the cause of it."
Brother Jim Reiter of St. Bernard High School had a similar experience. As chaplain, he went on a ride-along in the Seventy-seventh Division shortly after Bryant's death. The killing came up at the roll call and elicited some discussion. "Why would anyone live in this neighborhood?" one officer asked the sergeant. The sergeant agreed. Reiter silently protested: _It's a_ nice _neighborhood_ , he thought. Why would anyone expect the Tennelles to move?
Reiter was raised in an Irish-German family on the northwest side of Chicago. He remembered people suggesting the family move out when blacks began moving in. And he remembered his father's reply: "I'll be damned if I am going to move out of this neighborhood." Reiter suspected Bryant's father was the same kind of man, and he was right. But even as his friends defended him, Wally Tennelle secretly questioned his choices. It had begun immediately. His eyes had filled with tears for an instant in front of his boss, Lt. Lyle Prideaux at California Hospital. "I blew it," he told Prideaux.
Again and again, in the weeks and months after, Wally Tennelle recalculated the impossible homicide odds of raising a black son anywhere in America. He wondered where he could have taken Bryant to keep him safe. He went back over his decisions, his stubbornness about the neighborhood he called home. He reconsidered his notion that kids should have just one house in which to pass their childhood.
Tennelle had remained in the Seventy-seventh for practical reasons, of course—the same ones that kept Baitx in El Sereno. But there was more to it. A secret reason, never voiced. It was a reason rooted in principle, the same one that had prompted him to refuse promotions to RHD for so long.
Wally Tennelle believed people in South Los Angeles deserved good cops. Committed cops. _Cops who were willing to live in their neighborhoods_. He held this belief so close that even his family members did not fully understand his views. It came out reluctantly, years later, only after he was repeatedly pressed.
Tennelle confessed that he had long been bothered by the way some of his fellow police officers behaved in ghettoside settings. He had concluded, "If you live sixty miles away, it's easier to disrespect people, to blow them off." He had not wanted to be that kind of cop. Tennelle was that rare officer who actually lived the philosophy so long advanced by LAPD critics: he had chosen to live in the city he policed out of valor and a sense of responsibility.
"I believe," he said in his understated way, "in watching over the community I live in."
Tennelle was the kind of ideal cop the city had long claimed it wanted. And now his son was dead. And the case was just another unsolved ghettoside murder.
#
# **THE ASSIGNMENT**
June turned to July. Skaggs landed a rare nonsupervisory homicide D-3 spot in the Southwest Division around the University of Southern California, where he would work alongside Rick Gordon. He was preparing to leave Southeast and move to the Southwest station until the new Criminal Gang Homicide Group offices were ready in the Seventy-seventh Division. The three divisional units would then be combined in a large second-floor office in the ziggurat-style station house on Broadway, near Florence Avenue.
Meanwhile, black men kept getting killed south of the Ten. The pace of death was moderate by historic standards, but in the weeks after Dovon Harris's murder, a black man was killed in the zone about every three days.
Among the dead was Anthony Jenkins, forty-six.
Jenkins was a drug user—a "smoker" in street parlance. He was shot on the sidewalk behind Manual Arts High School in the Seventy-seventh Street Division in the early evening three days after the shooting of Dovon Harris. Jenkins lay bleeding for some time in plain view. Children rolled their skateboards past him. After a long interval, a passerby called 911. When Det. Jim Yoshida of the Seventy-seventh arrived, there was a crowd of people at the scene. As he and his colleagues began to investigate, "they were laughing at us," Yoshida reported later. "Laughing at us for going to the effort."
None of this came as a surprise to Yoshida, one of South Bureau's practiced hands. But he was in a low mood like lots of South Bureau detectives that benighted summer. Asked about the Jenkins case, Yoshida erupted. "Nobody cares!" he snapped. " _Nobody cares!_ Nobody gives a shit!" Then, late at night on July 11 came a break. Southeast officer Francis Coughlin was patrolling Bounty Hunter territory in Nickerson Gardens when he came across a group of young black men drinking.
Coughlin was a ten-year veteran of Southeast then a gang officer, pale as a midday marine layer, with thinning sandy-blond hair. He described his background as stereotypically Irish Catholic Bostonian. His flat Boston accent, like that of Chief William Bratton, had for some reason never dulled despite years in California.
Coughlin was among the more sophisticated breed of Southeast officers. He did not condemn vast swaths of residents as some of his colleagues did. He was fair-minded and discerning enough to put the "knucklehead" percentage in the very low single digits, and he liked many of the people he dealt with on the streets. And, like everyone else in the walled city, Coughlin was baffled and silenced by the bloodshed. "So _surreal_ ," he said. To believe it, "you have to see it."
The spot where Coughlin found the drinkers was "in the Nickersons"—that is, the Nickerson Gardens housing project, near where Dovon Harris had been shot. The drinkers saw Coughlin and ran. He chased them. One was in a wheelchair. He rolled away with short, strong bursts. Coughlin said he saw the wheelchair suspect toss a bag of marijuana. He was hoping to find an illegal gun. Coughlin didn't care about the marijuana. For him, and many of his colleagues, drugs were just a pretext to stop, search, and arrest gang members suspected of other, unsolved violent crimes.
This was how Coughlin did his job on many a night. Coughlin couldn't do much about all the shooters in Southeast who got away with it. But he could enforce drug laws, gang injunctions, and parole and probation terms relatively easily just by driving around and making "good obs"—good observations, cop lingo for catching, at a glance, a bulge under a shirt, a furtive motion of hands. A chase might ensue, and sometimes ended with the cops shutting down whole neighborhoods as the LAPD "airship," or helicopter, thumped overhead. Coughlin took extra risks to get guns—this was the gold standard.
Coughlin's methods were guaranteed to look like straight harassment to those on the receiving end. After all, how important was a bag of marijuana in a place where so many people were dying? But Coughlin's motivation wasn't to juke stats, boost his department "rating," or antagonize the neighborhood's young men. He had seen the Monster, and his conscience demanded that he do something. So he used what discretion he had to compensate for the state's lack of vigor in response to murder and assault.
This practice of using "proxy crimes" to substitute for more difficult and expensive investigations was widespread in American law enforcement. The legal scholar William J. Stuntz singled it out as a particularly damaging trend of recent decades. In California, proxy justice had transformed enforcement of parole and probation into a kind of shadow legal system, sparing the state the trouble of expensive prosecutions. State prisons, already saddled with sick and elderly inmates, were all the more crammed as a result.
But in the squad rooms of Southeast station, cops insisted that desperate measures were called for. They would hear the name of a shooter, only to find they couldn't "put a case" on him because no witnesses would testify. So they would write a narcotics warrant—or catch him dirty. "We can put them in jail for drugs a lot easier than on an assault. No one is going to give us information on an assault," explained Lou Leiker, who ran the detective table in Southeast in the early aughts. To them, proxy justice represented a principled stand against violence. It was like a personalized imposition of martial law.
That's why Coughlin went in hot pursuit of that pot dealer in a wheelchair. Coughlin caught and searched the man. He found a faded old revolver.
Coughlin understood why the man was carrying that gun. Black men who lived in Watts were in constant danger. Those who sold drugs were in more danger. And those who couldn't run away? One could almost say it was a matter of time before serious violence visited a drug dealer in a wheelchair. In fact, a man in a wheelchair from a gunshot injury had been murdered in the Nickersons near the very spot just a few years before.
Anywhere else, being struck by gunfire not once but twice would have seemed like extraordinarily unlikely chance. But at the coroner's office, medical examiners were used to seeing old scars from bullets alongside the new and fatal wound. It was like such men had been used for target practice, one coroner's examiner remarked. Like they were dying in slow motion. The first shots maimed or paralyzed them. The next ones, months or years later, finished them off.
This man carried that gun to defend himself. He wanted to survive. His legs had already been paralyzed by gunfire. If someone attacked him again, he wanted to be ready.
Coughlin sent him to jail. He sent his gun to the firearms lab.
Speedy, high-quality firearms analysis was the one kind of scientific investigation that mattered in solving street homicides. But in the LAPD, the firearms laboratory was drowning in backed-up work. It was overshadowed by the DNA lab, which got more media and public attention. Firearms analysts sometimes had to explain to their own colleagues what they did; journalists frequently confused firearms analysis with the science of ballistics, which deals with the angle and direction of projectiles, not which guns they come from.
The lab was run by a civilian named Doreen Hudson. Much of her job, like La Barbera's, consisted of devising schemes to compensate for lack of resources. Black-on-black violence south of the Ten swelled the lab's caseload. Detectives had to wait weeks for results. Hudson did what she could. She expedited work on certain cases, for example, based on detectives' discretion rather than political or bureaucratic priorities. Other battles she lost. Police agencies went on melting down seized firearms over her objection that they might constitute evidence. And she had to learn to live with the computerized federal imaging system the LAPD had adopted six years before, despite its limitations.
The National Integrated Ballistic Information database (NIBIN) catalogued digitized images of bullets and cartridge casings from crime scenes and seized guns. The database could be searched by an algorithm. This allowed fast, cheap searches, matching ammunition used in crimes to individual weapons. But Hudson knew the computer system was not as discerning as trained humans. It relied on simplified digital renderings of microscopic images produced through standardized procedures—a process that eliminated many telling nuances and contours.
Before, skilled technicians had taped Polaroid photos of bullets and cartridge casings to the wall and examined every microscopic dent and groove with the naked eye to match them to ammunition test-fired from individual firearms. This low-tech method was not efficient, but it yielded good results. The high-tech NIBIN system was a blunt instrument by comparison, and had one especially troubling limitation. Although the LAPD and many other agencies had dutifully entered test-fired bullets from hundreds of revolvers into its database for years, by the summer of 2007, the system had never successfully matched a bullet used in an L.A. crime to a revolver. Not once.
The gun used to kill Bryant was a revolver. Revolver matches are more difficult than other types of firearm analysis. They are performed by matching striations on bullets to tool marks inside the gun barrel, not cartridge casings to firing pins. Bullets are cylindrical, and the grooves and scratches they bear after being fired wrap around a curved surface. By contrast, breech face markings on the flat part of a cartridge case are relatively easy for a computer to read. So while the NIBIN system was adept at matching casings to semiautomatic pistols, it had proven useless at matching bullets to revolvers. It was an area in which humans remained superior to machines, but the lab was not staffed for such time-consuming expert labor.
Here again, the criminal justice system seemed to be doing its job when it wasn't. The NIBIN system appeared progressive and technologically advanced. But in this important area—about one-third of the LAPD's seized firearms were revolvers—it was just going through the motions.
Hudson had known Tennelle for years and was heartsick. She was sick of all of it, she reflected—young men shot, cases unsolved, her technicians hampered by cheap, mechanical substitutes for craftsmanship. "I've seen way too much of this for way too long," she thought.
Rick Gordon was also familiar with the department's revolver problem. He was pushing for a different approach. So Hudson made a decision: They would bypass NIBIN. Her workers would continue submitting images to the database as required. But they also would quietly assemble their own duplicate database of test-fire exemplars from seized revolvers. This secret trove would be analyzed the old-fashioned way, with the human eye.
The eye belonged to criminalist Daniel Rubin, who had been trained as a chemist and whose accent betrayed his New York City upbringing. Rubin studied the bullet fragment that Garrido had found at the crime scene, and another recovered by the coroner from Bryant's head. They were most likely from a Ruger or Charter Arms weapon, he thought. It takes years for criminalists to be able to do this—determine a gun's manufacturer by the look of a fired bullet. But Rubin, too, had been trained by the Big Years, and he knew the telltale subtleties. He set up systems for diverting the guns that met his criteria, taking care to establish a reliable chain of custody for exemplar bullets. When the test-fires came in, he engraved each bullet with an identification number.
Presently, Rubin realized the standard copper-jacketed test-fire bullets required for NIBIN produced subtly different patterns than the discontinued, aluminum-jacketed ones used to kill Bryant. A colleague located a stockpile of the defunct ammunition at a local store. It was of a type that Rubin knew might fragment in the recovery tank. To avoid this, criminalists sometimes used paper clips to stuff putty in the hollow points, but that wouldn't work with these, Rubin thought—the aluminum jackets were too brittle. He inserted a tiny screw in each test-fire bullet to keep it intact—a method he'd learned from another analyst. He gripped the bullets with a piece of bicycle inner tube in place of pliers to avoid leaving marks.
It was all terribly time-consuming. Soon, Rubin was doing little else. LAPD officers seized more than twenty guns a day. Revolvers were starting to pile up. Rubin eliminated one, then another. By then, he had studied the two Tennelle bullet fragments side-by-side many times, memorizing the microscopic topography he was looking for. Eventually, Coughlin's seizure—revolver number 22—joined the backlog. But when Rubin looked up the file, he realized the weapon had never reached the crime lab; couriers had somehow neglected to pick it up. He reordered it, and eliminated more revolvers in the meantime.
Rubin had no hope. He would be searching for this needle in a haystack the rest of his career, he thought—engraving tiny numbers and screwing tiny screws until his last hour on the job. He told himself it could be worse. At least he was still paying his mortgage.
Then, on August 20, he picked up yet another three-by-five envelope. It contained the test-fire exemplars from revolver 22, an old Charter Arms Undercover, which had finally arrived by courier from the Southeast property room. Rubin sat down at the comparison 'scope. He tilted his favorite fluorescent light at an oblique angle and looked.
When the first set of grooves lined up, Rubin told himself it didn't mean anything. He'd been close before. He rotated the little thirty-eights and looked again, rotated and looked. Then he shut his eyes, drew a breath and exhaled.
A short while later, Rubin got out of his chair and left his workstation. He stood, hands on his hips, gazing into the distance. _No_ , he told himself firmly, _it can't be_. He shook his head and went back to the scope. He spun the thirty-eights out of phase and began again, rotating them the other way this time.
Later that day, Rubin was outside, toiling in the hot sun near LAX. He'd been called out of the office to help process evidence from an officer-involved shooting. Hudson was there too. For more than an hour, Rubin had been trying to tell her something, but they were both busy working different parts of the scene. At last they crossed paths. Rubin spoke hurriedly.
Hudson listened, frowning. It might seem strange that she did not rejoice upon learning that Coughlin's seized revolver was the murder weapon. But hunting for a killer is frightening, the more so as a case advances. Enforcing criminal law against violent offenders is one of the most dangerous tasks a state can perform, and for frontline workers, the danger is visceral. Skaggs speculated that some of his underperforming colleagues were held back by subconscious fear. Each step toward an arrest increased the pressure; not catching a killer could feel safer. When Hudson learned of Rubin's match, she felt not triumph but dread and anxiety.
There were other reasons to view Rubin's success with caution. Street guns got passed around, especially "dirty" ones. Firearms analysts viewed a week or two as the maximum time lapse for valuable clues to be gleaned from a match. Much longer than that, and too many people would have handled the gun, making it too difficult to reconstruct the chain of possession.
It was a little like trying to track down the source of counterfeit bills. The guns used on the streets of South Los Angeles were, almost uniformly, unregistered illegal weapons, obtained from a swirling ocean of cheap black market firearms. Many of these guns were pretty old, and so far from point of purchase that it was impossible to trace their history. Investigators in South L.A. were astonished when a gun used in a murder turned out to be legally owned; years would go by without such a gun turning up. Despite California's relatively strict gun control laws, the illegal market for street guns had persisted for decades. Older gang members from the 1960s would recall buying guns in exactly the same manner and for roughly the same prices as their counterparts fifty years later. You could buy many street guns illegally for a hundred bucks, people said. Gangs usually had a stash.
This match did not mean the man in the wheelchair was a suspect. Too much time had gone by for that to be likely. But it did mean he was in a chain of people that led back to the shooter. It meant hope.
Or it seemed to. But the man in the wheelchair offered no helpful information about the gun, and no other clues surfaced. Up at the firearms lab, Doreen Hudson was in a state of suspense, hoping the lab's findings would lead to a quick arrest. "Instead, we had to accept it," she said. "It was the usual—another South Bureau homicide that would never be solved."
For his part, Tennelle was determined not to ask about the case. He never even looked up the case number on the computer. He didn't want to taint anything, and he didn't want the detectives to feel any pressure. But privately, the elation he had felt upon hearing they got a match on the gun faded into disappointment. He went on with his work. He thought about Bryant's case all the time.
Skaggs knew about the Tennelle case thirdhand—heard the briefings, noted the anguish it provoked among his colleagues. Skaggs had never spoken to Tennelle. But he knew him by sight. One day, he pulled up to the gas pumps at the Seventy-seventh Division and saw him there.
It was the first time Skaggs had seen Tennelle since Bryant's murder. He felt he should say something, but couldn't muster the courage. He suffered a failure of nerve, something that never afflicted him when he was working. But this was _personal_. A cop's kid had been killed and the case was still open. Skaggs hung back, feeling ashamed. He waited until Tennelle drove away. "I couldn't even look at him," he recalled bitterly later. "I felt bad about the frickin' case being open... I couldn't even fucking go up to him."
The collective shame probably did not extend much beyond the detective ranks. To officers such as De La Rosa, for example, the fact that an RHD detective's son had been killed over in the Eighties was of passing interest. But for homicide detectives, to whom clearance meant everything—or should have—the Tennelle case was a worm in the gut, hollowing out what remained of ghettoside morale.
Of course, they all understood the problem. The suspects probably thought they were targeting an enemy and got it wrong, as so often happened. No one who knew them was coming forward. It was all so numbingly routine. The whole maddening, familiar package: it was exactly what had been going on south of the Ten for a generation. Bryant Tennelle's murder was not much different from the murders of a score of black men in the surrounding area in the month before he died. It was similar to the murder of Charles Williams, targeted for wearing the wrong athletic gear, and of Dovon Harris, targeted because he was with a group of other teenagers branded as enemy gang members by his assailant. It was no wonder the media covered so few of these cases.
But this time it was one of their own.
The sickening culpability afflicted even young detectives such as Corey Farell, Skaggs's new partner in the Southwest Division. Farell had never met Tennelle and had only recently joined the new bureau. Silent with the rest of the young detectives in the weekly homicide briefings, Farell sat in the back, listening to bleak updates on the case. He thought about how little the so-called black community trusted the cops already. "What does it say when we can't offer justice to one of our own?" he wondered.
Lieutenant Lyle Prideaux was slim, with strawberry-blond hair going gray.
He was one of the few people in the homicide detective ranks who actually looked the part on days he was required to wear the blue uniform. The others teased him for this. Except for Skaggs and a few others, most detectives looked frumpy and uncomfortable in their old blues.
Everything about Prideaux, from his glance to his grin, was sharpedged and ironic. The LAPD's taste in humor ran more to the broad, guffawing variety, and Prideaux was occasionally misunderstood.
Like Skaggs, like Tennelle, like so many of them, Prideaux might have had another career were he not so hyperactive. His father was an executive for United Airlines. Prideaux had grown up in Rolling Hills Estates, an exclusive outpost on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which had one of the lowest violent crime rates in California.
But at a certain stage of youth, no office job seemed as appealing as "driving around in fresh air and sunshine in police cars," and so there he was, an LAPD career man since the age of twenty-one. By the time of the Tennelle killing, he was in his midfifties. Anywhere else, he would have been at the height of his career, rising through management. But he was a policeman, so he was looking toward retirement. Although he did not have a deep background in homicide, and no ghettoside credentials at all, Prideaux was an able manager. He had won a place in Robbery-Homicide, and he was Wally Tennelle's boss when Bryant was shot.
He was out with his wife at Lido di Manhattan in Manhattan Beach, headed to the local light opera, when he got the call from Kyle Jackson, the unit's commander. As he drove toward California Hospital, arguments about who should handle the case were already zinging over the phone. At the hospital, he met with Jackson and some other brass, and then with Wally Tennelle. Years later, Prideaux's voice was still tight as he recalled the scene. Tennelle, he said, "came out and apologized for the inconvenience," Prideaux said. "He handed out bottles of water from a cart." Prideaux was in jeans and a sweater. He felt crushed, yet Tennelle kept addressing him as "Lieutenant."
The decision to give the case to the division was above his head. Prideaux was not involved. But like everyone in RHD, he marked the passing weeks. Still no suspects. Prideaux had learned the previous February that he would be reassigned as detectives' lieutenant in the new South Bureau Homicide. The Tennelle case remained unsolved.
Prideaux had ideas about it. By then, although it wasn't anywhere near what the LAPD technically called a cold case, it was getting cold by ghettoside standards. Every lead seemed to have been chased to oblivion, even the revolver. There had been no media coverage to speak of. It seemed to be a burning issue only within the LAPD, and even there, it was the preoccupation of a few—detectives such as Skaggs who cared about south-end homicides. And anyone who had ever met Wally Tennelle.
Prideaux believed the case needed a shake-up. He didn't know South Bureau well, so he performed what he called "some audio surveillance." He started asking around: Who was good? Who could solve cases in South Bureau? "Word came back to us: _Skaggs_ ," Prideaux recalled.
Prideaux had a vague memory of seeing John Skaggs as a young officer and remembered Chris Barling better—that quirky officer who always looked as if he were fifteen years old—but didn't know much about their record for clearing cases.
All he knew was that in those first weeks in South Bureau, he kept hearing their names. That top-of-the-line team in Southeast—Skaggs and Barling. Some of the talk was critical; not everyone liked Skaggs, who seemed to think rather highly of himself. Prideaux gathered he had a reputation, that he bulldozed over opposition and "like Sherman, he will burn down the forest to find what he's looking for," Prideaux said. It so happened Prideaux was looking for a Sherman.
He sought out confidants in the command ranks—trying to find anyone who knew Skaggs. Everyone who did told Prideaux the same thing: Skaggs works insane hours. He works days off and weekends. He solves all his cases. And he will cost you a fortune in overtime.
Prideaux and Skaggs never grew to know each other well. Skaggs was dismissive of Prideaux, whom he viewed as just another PAB bureaucrat (and being satisfied with this first assessment—and being Skaggs—he never revisited it). But Prideaux had a pretty good read on Skaggs from the beginning. Skaggs was successful, he later said, because he was organized and tenacious, had a great memory, and was "bright and insightful." But he also called Skaggs "a very hard man."
Asked what he meant by this, he explained that good homicide detectives were ruthless. They had to push day after day. They had to use whatever leverage they possessed to get people to talk. They had to interrogate people, pester them, relocate them, mess up their lives. They had to be remorseless. Prideaux said, "It takes a hard person to constantly work a case like that. It's tiring. It wears you out." Being hard, he said, "is a necessary attribute if you are going to be a homicide detective. I don't want it to sound negative. But they are harder than most people." Prideaux then repeated himself. "John Skaggs," he said, "is a _very_ hard man."
Prideaux considered Tennelle another hard man, in the positive sense.
He was not the only one to notice certain similarities between Skaggs and Tennelle—those meticulous habits, the outward mildness matched with bunched-up energy, that obliqueness about their inward lives, that clean-hewn worldview, all right angles and straight lines. The two men were so clearly of a type.
That September, Prideaux called Skaggs in and told him he wanted him on the Tennelle case. Skaggs, ever the California surfer, had one thought: _Bitchin'_.
Prideaux briefed Skaggs on the case. But he also wanted Skaggs to know something about Tennelle—to understand what the case meant to Tennelle's colleagues who loved him. He wanted Skaggs to know about Tennelle's tenacity and energy, his honesty and high standards.
Seeking words to sum up Tennelle, Prideaux came up with the obvious ones: "He's _you_ ," he told Skaggs.
Prideaux did not simply hand over the case to Skaggs. He made Skaggs partner to Armando Bernal, the original Seventy-seventh Division detective on the case, who had gotten good leads yet appeared stalled.
When Skaggs learned he would have to work with Bernal, he refused. But Prideaux didn't give him the choice.
Prideaux defended the decision on the ground that as professionals, Skaggs and Bernal should be able to find a way to play nice. But he underestimated the seething intensity homicide detectives brought to their work, especially in South Bureau, where everyone felt a little persecuted—and especially on such an emotional case.
Prideaux's decision amounted to telling Bernal, the alpha detective of the Seventy-seventh, that he was being forced to work with Skaggs, the alpha detective from the rival Southeast, because his bosses felt he wasn't good enough. And it meant telling Skaggs that he could finally have the case he had been hankering for, but not on his terms.
It was a mess. Skaggs did not like Bernal and was not especially nice to him. Bernal was more circumspect, but it was clear he did not like Skaggs, either.
In Skaggs's account, the two had had some scrap early in their careers. It was an elaborate story from Skaggs's encyclopedic memory. The gist was that Skaggs had solved one of Bernal's cases for him and Bernal didn't like it. Bernal simply said their styles were inharmonious.
Prideaux was right that Skaggs was like Sherman. As soon as he got the case, he wanted to do what he had always done: plunge straight ahead as quickly as possible, get as many interviews as it took, use all the hours available, strip away false leads and lay bare the good ones. He wanted to attack. John Skaggs had no problem scorching some earth.
Bernal was much more careful. He was meticulous about documenting everything he did and anxious to avoid duplication—"shooting the gun in every direction," he called it, and thus stirring up a lot of false leads.
Bernal found Skaggs to be reckless, dashing off to do things without due planning and coordination; Skaggs, with his hatred of paperwork and desk-driven investigating, thought Bernal excessively process-oriented—a "checklist detective."
And there was another, especially lethal, flaw in this whole cursed scheme of Prideaux's. Neither detective was clearly the lead on the case, in violation of Skaggs's inflexible rule for partnerships.
Skaggs's first step was to page through the murder book to see what had already been done. Predictably, the book annoyed him.
Skaggs knew that the Seventy-seventh had been following street rumors that a gang called the Rollin' Sixties was involved in the murder. He saw that this was the angle that was being worked—though not worked in the way Skaggs would have worked it. Instead of taking to the field, knocking relentlessly, talking to anyone they could find, it seemed the detectives were waiting for calls to come in. Here again were violations of the craftsman's code he and Barling had established: You don't sit and wait. And you remain open, never allowing yourself to be seduced by assumptions or intriguing theories. "You never put all your peas in one basket," Skaggs would say.
The book itself wasn't as neat as Skaggs would have liked. It was "clustered," he thought. Only Skaggs knew exactly what he meant by that, but it had to do with his almost uncanny ability to build into his investigations powerful engines of progress instead of mere reports on efforts made here and there. Even when Skaggs was pursuing bad leads, he wasn't drifting—he was eliminating distractions.
Skaggs reacted most strongly to Bernal's meticulous scheduling and record keeping. Bernal made appointments by phone; Skaggs usually did not. He treated South Central like a twelfth-century village and simply walked around and talked to people, relying on serendipity and the power of face-to-face interactions. Bernal had taken care to note every incremental action. But to Skaggs, who considered fieldwork the only activity of investigative value, all those notes were the mark of hesitation and equivocation—sins, in his mind.
Bernal, for example, had noted phone calls that weren't returned and door knocks that no one answered. Skaggs considered that a lot of "filler." He would never load up a murder book with incidentals. If Skaggs knocked on a door and no one answered, he knew he would be back again, and again, and again, until someone answered. Woe be it to the occupants; they had no hope of evading the cop with a tie and no jacket. Skaggs would make a record in the book only of interviews he eventually conducted, not the door knocks that led up to them. To Skaggs, the only purpose of such notes was to make it appear that detectives were working busily should someone look over their shoulders.
There was a way of working—it was hard for him to put this into words, but he knew it when he saw it—a perfunctory way that met all the technical criteria for how a job was supposed to be done. It would be above reproach should any supervisor review the work, yet lacked some essential quality of passion, determination, velocity.
Checklist work and real work were not the same to him. You could get praise and a paycheck and fill your day with busy, important-seeming activities and never solve a case. In South L.A., Skaggs believed, murders got solved only through another level of vigor—when a detective was motivated by something greater than the promise of a good "rating" or promotion. There was a pro forma way to do the job, and there was the Southeast way—best described by the salesman's credo he had learned from Sal La Barbera. _Always be closing_. It was why he disliked it when detectives sat around in front of computers or ate lunch at restaurants.
Now Skaggs's whole outlook and career were rooted in the same aggrieved sense of injustice that had prompted Wally Tennelle to turn down RHD a decade before. He believed the victims of South Central deserved better than the _appearance_ of a functioning justice system. They deserved professional practitioners who saw the full reality and horror of their fate and who brought to the job a personal stake in success and a battlefield sense of mission—not just a credible defense against a charge of malpractice. The Monster needed to be relentlessly pursued and routed, not just contained. Unconsciously, Skaggs saw in a murder book full of "filler" yet another expression of this tacit policy of passive containment. He did not like it at all.
Skaggs didn't know it, but his irritation was centuries in the making.
Criminal law in the United States has always displayed a tendency to go through the motions. From the nation's earliest moments, its legal system was fragmented and crude. Vigilantism and vendettas flourished in the legal vacuum. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, police compensated for the weakness of the courts by roughing up people to teach them lessons. As late as the 1950s, their work consisted largely of rounding up drunks in paddy wagons.
But where things got really bad was in the South. In that region's long, painful history of caste domination and counterrevolution lurks every factor that counters the formation of a state monopoly on violence.
From before Emancipation, Southern law was infirm. Slave owners wanted the power to discipline slaves without legal constraints. After the Civil War and Reconstruction, ex-Confederates murdered their way to control again, terrorizing emancipated black people and their white supporters into submission. This set the stage for the racist atrocities of Southern law that are somewhat better known to Americans—the stacked courts, fee systems, and chain gangs—abuses so systematic that, across the South, black people dismissed the whole framework as "the white man's court."
White conservatives favored legal systems that looked the part, but still achieved their racist intent—a "winking" system that, by design, just went through the motions. Southern legal institutions appeared to observe constitutional due process, but real power was held outside the law. Getting away with murder was key to the white-supremacist project. Impunity is a stencil of law; it outlines a shadow system. Southern legal institutions were, by turns, hypocritical, corrupt, partisan, ineffective, infected with vigilantism or too feeble to combat it. In this way, the South cultivated the Furies in all their dark horror. Its harvest was factionalism, informal systems of discipline and self-policing, terrifying etiquette restrictions, witness intimidation, vigilantism, rumors, arson, lynching, and a homemade system of order based on relationships that historian Mark Schultz dubbed "personalism"—the whole dreary cornucopia of informal justice.
For blacks, this system meant being killable. Blacks were "shot down for nothing" by whites. But that was not all. They murdered each other, too—in fields, labor camps, and at Saturday night gatherings where there was "so much cutting and killing going on." Their rates of death by homicide were similar to—and at times higher than—what they would be decades later in northern inner cities. In Atlanta in 1920, the rate hit 107 deaths per 100,000 people. In Memphis in 1915, it was 170. Black people even lynched each other, sometimes exacting mob justice against murder suspects whom white authorities had failed to prosecute.
White people "had the law," to quote a curious phrase that crops up in historic sources. Black people didn't. Formal law impinged on them only for purposes of control, not protection. Small crimes were crushed, big ones indulged—so long as the victims were black. John Dollard, a Mississippi researcher of the thirties, speculated that black infighting was the product of white design—or at least some intuitive consensus. "One cannot help wondering if it does not serve the ends of the white caste to have a high level of violence in the Negro group," he wrote.
It might not seem self-evident that impunity for white violence against blacks would engender black-on-black murder. But when people are stripped of legal protection and placed in desperate straits, they are more, not less, likely to turn on each other. Lawless settings are terrifying; if people can do whatever they want to each other, there are always enough bullies to make it ugly. Americans are nostalgic for the village setting and hold dear the notion of community, so the idea that the oppressed do not band together in solidarity is counter to our myths. But community spawns communal justice; the village gives rise to the feud. The condition of being thrown together just because they were the same color should be considered one of the injustices black people suffered in segregation.
Beyond this, white people saw to it that solidarity among black people was kept to a minimum. They enlisted blacks as spies, favored "their Negroes" over other black people, and used them as pawns in their battles with each other. For people of all colors, the South was a stew of factors that produce homicide—a place where law remained a contested prize in a low-level, unfinished revolution. But black people experienced law, both its action and inaction, as a systematic extension of the campaign of terrorist violence that had brought an end to Reconstruction and stripped them of their rights under the Constitution. For years after the Civil War, a taint of sectarian rivalry tinged black–police interactions. Nashville blacks declared they would not "submit to... arrest by any damned rebel police!" Black people fought police in street battles, and—just as in the Seventy-seventh a century later—they wrested friends from police hands. Later, as segregated enclaves formed in Southern cities—Nashville's "Black Bottom," Atlanta's "Darktown"—police avoided them. Officers "did not go through the areas where most Negro homicides occur, but rather stayed on the main thoroughfares." Black communities became, "at least to some extent, self-policing," a historian summed up.
This set up the great clash of the late twentieth century. A flood of black migrants, schooled by the lawless South, swept into cities such as Los Angeles. They brought with them their high homicide rates and their tendency for legal self-help. The police they met were not unlike those back home. LAPD officers shot and killed many people and were free with their fists. "I worked with one who took his gun belt off and said, 'You wanna fight?' " said Bernard Parks, the former chief, recalling his patrol days in the 1960s. But L.A. cops were different in important ways: there were more of them and they were a lot more intrusive. New professional standards meant deploying officers by mathematical formula based on frequency of crime. Since there was more crime in black neighborhoods, they got proportionally more police. In 1961, for example, the LAPD spent four times as much per capita in Newton Division as it did in West L.A. Southern black migrants had been used to police who ignored them. But these cops were ever-present, hounding them with aggravating "preventive" tactics.
The results were explosive. Watts burned, and so did Newark, Detroit, and other cities in the 1960s. From this turbulent brew the nation imbibed a deep skepticism toward bureaucratic justice that echoes to the present day. Black protest against overzealous police and prosecutors remains a cherished template for left-leaning critics of criminal justice. But another, profound grievance of the period went mostly ignored—the inadequacy of official response to black-on-black violence.
Instead of confronting the mounting death toll in the cities, the justice system took a permissive turn. It practiced victim-discounting on a mass scale just as black homicides surged. Prison terms per unit of crime in the U.S. hit rock bottom in the 1960s and 1970s, making this country one of the world's most lenient. Courts acquitted. Parole terms were generous. In the midseventies, only a third of California's convicted homicide perpetrators remained in prison after seven years, and the rough streets of South Bureau teemed with murderers newly released. Reformers focused on the rights of defendants, seemingly blind to the ravages of underenforcement.
The pendulum swung. Change in the 1980s was quick and ruthless. Get-tough policies became political winners. Prison populations soared. Change included longer prison terms for violence. But their impact was blurred by unreasonably harsh sentences for lots of lesser crimes. Cops began filing charges for "every Mickey Mouse thing," recalled defense attorney Seymour Applebaum. "And it's always a felony. Everything's a felony now." By 2007, parole violators returned to custody on technical violations made up the largest single category of new prison arrivals. But through it all, the basic weakness didn't change. In fact, homicide solve rates dropped.
Since it's not the harshness of punishment but its swiftness and certainty that deters crime, black people still had good reason to feel unprotected. Murderers still went free, while the new crime-suppression tactics bore more than a passing resemblance to the old Southern wink. Even after legal discrimination was abolished, the situation didn't change much from what black migrants had known in the South. Homicide wasn't just a bad habit black people couldn't break. Segregation, economic isolation, and the flawed workings of American criminal justice created the same conditions anew.
For white people, justice was almost as ineffective; homicide solve rates for all Americans still lag behind those of the safest European nations. But what might appear a tolerable level of incompetence to a relatively safe, dispersed, white majority felt different to black migrants from the embattled South. White people were more likely to have jobs, money, mobility—assets that compensate for criminal-justice failures by giving people other means to achieve independence and autonomy from each other. Not so the black people who fled to industrial centers in the twentieth century. For generations, black Southerners had experienced the weakness of criminal justice as a central feature of a system that kept them down. To them, the state's tendency to allow people to kill and face no consequences was an aspect of its enmity toward them. Blacks were like an occupied people. Especially in poor urban centers, they lived in minority enclaves and settled their scores outside the law.
By the late twentieth century, the criminal justice system was no longer very corrupt. Many police and prosecutors were sincere and professional, and legal outcomes were relatively color-blind. But because the reach of the system was so limited, the results were similar to those produced by masquerade justice. Even when criminal justice procedures were clean and fair, violent-crime investigations remained too ineffective and threadbare to counter the scale of black-on-black murder. Black people still had reason to doubt that the law would have their backs, and they reacted accordingly. This is the world that Skaggs lived in, although he didn't put it into this historic context. What Skaggs saw was simply this: the system looked busy, but didn't do its job.
It took just a few weeks for things to come to a head between Skaggs and Bernal. Bernal went out of town briefly and Skaggs got what he considered "a bullshit clue"—some report of a black SUV matching the description of the killers'. He did not touch base with Bernal about it. Instead, he simply marched up to the owner's house, knocked on the door, and immediately ascertained that the SUV belonged to Hispanics, not blacks, thus eliminating the clue. Upon his return, Bernal was annoyed. In Bernal's memory, Skaggs had duplicated something that had already been done and communicated poorly about it. In Skaggs's account, Bernal didn't want him pursuing leads alone and objected to his methods.
In any case, they had words.
Skaggs did not waste time arguing with Bernal. He made no effort to try to work things out with him. He was, as ever, blunt and unequivocal. He told Bernal he was walking into Prideaux's office to say the partnership could not work and to demand a change. Bernal tried to defuse the situation and hold him back, but Skaggs was not to be dissuaded. In this, as in everything, Skaggs sought to propel events to their conclusion as quickly as possible.
And so Lyle Prideaux found himself faced with the decision he had tried at first to avoid. There were Skaggs and Bernal, sitting before him in his office, obviously at a crisis point. Skaggs demanded that he be given the case to work free and clear or be taken off it.
Inwardly, Prideaux sighed. He was disappointed in the two of them for putting their personality problems before the case like that. But then again, he reflected, he had not brought Skaggs into this case because he was "some quiet little guy who was going to keep things under wraps." He had sought out Skaggs to burn down forests, and he could only blame himself that now here he was, squarely in the midst of a full-on Santa Ana blaze.
He told Bernal and Skaggs both to leave his office, then pondered his next move.
Prideaux didn't have to think long. In his mind, the Tennelle case was the number one priority of his new command. It was important for the future of the reconstituted homicide bureau, for the department's reputation in South L.A., and for the principle of the thing.
And it was important because of how Prideaux felt about it, deep down. Prideaux was like everyone else in the department who knew Tennelle: he could barely talk about the case without his eyes filling with tears. This was, Prideaux realized, a moment to earn his rank and pay.
So, in the next minute, he changed the course of the Tennelle case. He walked out of his office and told Skaggs he could have it.
Bernal was stunned. The decision was highly unusual, and a completely crushing condemnation of his work. Most of all, he was stung by the implicit suggestion that he had not given the Tennelle case his all.
Bernal was not the indifferent worker that Skaggs took him to be. After all, he had also worked the Big Years in South Central Los Angeles. He had also devoted his career to ghettoside work and felt a strong sense of duty about the neglected crimes there. He knew Tennelle a little, and he felt as they all did about Bryant's murder—namely, that it was unbearable, and that the case was a must-solve.
And on top of all this, Bernal had a personal stake in the case that went beyond his loyalty to Tennelle as a coworker. Unbeknownst to most of his colleagues, Bernal's nephew had been murdered in East L.A. over in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's territory a year and a half before Bryant's killing, and the case was never solved.
Christian Bernal was nineteen. He had been planning a career in law enforcement and had applied to join the Sheriff's Department. Like a lot of young would-be cops, he had a shaved head. Bernal's son was in the parked car with him when attackers came up on foot. It was like the Tennelle case. The cousins were not gang members. They were just young Hispanic men who the assailants assumed were gang rivals because of how they looked. The revolver blasts showered them both in broken glass.
Bernal was at home when his phone rang, and he picked it up to hear his son screaming hysterically _—"They shot him, they shot him, they shot_ _him."_ Bernal's sister, Christian's mother, was devastated. At the time of Bryant's death, the whole Bernal family was still reeling: Armando Bernal, like Wally Tennelle, had only experienced homicide as a police officer up until then. Now he knew how different it felt to have one's own family ravaged by the Monster.
Rick Gordon thought highly of both Skaggs and Bernal and believed both men had contributed to the case in unique ways. Gordon would point out later that various investigative styles were needed to meet the demands of the South L.A. homicide environment. Cases differed, and not every investigator's style fitted every case. Bernal's approach might not have been the best fit for the Tennelle case, Gordon said, but there had been many other cases in which his combination of patience and meticulousness paid off.
Chris Barling had a similar take, despite being Skaggs's greatest fan. Bernal was a tenacious investigator who "absorbs before he acts," he said, but it just so happened that Skaggs was "the right detective at the right time."
And it was not fair to suggest the case had languished in Bernal's hands. In fact, huge inroads had been made. By the time Prideaux officially handed it off to Skaggs, the main eyewitnesses, the gun, the description of the car, and the most important street rumors had already been cataloged, giving Skaggs plenty to pursue. Skaggs did not inherit a hopeless case, but a stalled one. And there was no question that Bernal cared deeply about it and had applied to it the comprehension that was rooted in grief over his murdered nephew, just as Wally Tennelle was then channeling his own grief into his RHD cases.
Finally, to Bernal's great credit under the circumstances, he handled the fiasco with some grace in the end, swallowing his anger, going back to work under the very lieutenant who had yanked this most important of cases out of his grip, and pouring himself into his other duties with set-jawed professionalism.
Skaggs, meanwhile, went to work.
#
# **EVERYBODY KNOW**
To some of his detractors in the bureau, John Skaggs already had the partner he needed. There were sarcastic murmurs behind his back about the new detective team made up of "Skaggs and His Ego."
But Prideaux made Skaggs choose a flesh-and-blood second on the case. Skaggs would have liked Barling, but that was no longer realistic, since Barling was now a D-3. So Skaggs tapped his recent young partner from his tour in Southwest, Corey Farell.
True to form, he also did whatever was needed to get out and talk to people as much as possible. So one day, when Farell was tied up doing something else, he looked around the office to see who else was on hand. As the clear lead on the case, he could finally move as he wished, and he was in no mood to be held up by anything.
It happened that Rick Gordon was nearby. And so, on October 1, five months after Bryant's death, Skaggs—in need of a temporary partner—asked Gordon to accompany him. And that's how the two men—arguably the two finest ghettoside detectives in the city at that time—set out on a very particular mission.
The man Coughlin had caught with the revolver was a member of South Central's battalion of black men whose lower halves were crumpled in wheelchairs, propped on crutches, or crammed into leg braces. One saw these victims with regularity driving around South Central—young male gunshot victims, jarring collisions of health and debility, young faces and wasted limbs. Asked what happened, they gave the same answer this man later gave in court. One word: _"Shot."_
He looked younger than his twenty-eight years. He had a small mouth and a slim, narrow nose that widened at the base, skin very dark and smooth. A neat thread of beard framed his chin. His clothes were bright and pressed—even the pants that lay in a loose fold across his thighs. He was efficient in his wheelchair, propelling himself with athleticism. If a wheelchair could saunter that's what his did. He had not been quick enough to outrun Francis Coughlin. But Coughlin was faster than a lot of guys on foot.
The man had a quiet dignity despite his mask of gloom and wariness. He didn't seem deranged by trauma, as some gang members do past twenty-five. His manner of speaking was quiet and reasonable. He talked about _getting out_ and said he wanted to go to school. It seemed he meant it. A number of Southeast officers knew him personally. "A gangster," they called him, but were quick to add, "he's not a bad guy." Some even said they liked him. The man in the wheelchair was a type—a normal guy somehow caught in the pathos of gang life.
He had been shot while walking home from a night game at his high school a dozen years before. A car rolled up and he heard someone yell "East Coast," then heard the shots. He'd been hit seven times but felt only the last three. He was surprised later to learn of the others. Knocked flat, he lay on the ground as a burning sensation rose through his body. That was all. Just a burn. The doctor came into his room at King-Drew Medical Center the next morning, after surgery. His spine was fractured. He would never walk again. He was seventeen.
After Francis Coughlin caught the man with the gun, Bernal immediately went and "hit" him: he visited him in custody and asked him where he got the gun. The man said he bought the gun from a "smoker"—a crack addict. The man appeared forthcoming. He gave details of the homeless man.
Still it was not helpful. A homeless guy would probably not have gang ties and so would be harder to track. Bernal returned with Rick Gordon. The man stuck to his story. After Skaggs was assigned to the case, he and Bernal returned together a third time. Same story.
When John Skaggs came to interview the man in the wheelchair at Twin Towers Jail on October 1, it was his fourth visit from investigators.
To Skaggs, it was obvious the man in the wheelchair was lying—obvious that he must be reinterviewed, again and again if necessary. He was to Skaggs simply a point of exertion: a rusty lever that would give once the right persistence was applied. The sort of persistence that was his specialty. Why was Skaggs so sure? Skaggs couldn't say. The man's dishonesty was so plain to him that it needed no explaining. This was part of the altered perspective of the craftsman: Skaggs saw lies the way a good contractor would notice a beam out of true.
Gordon and Skaggs sat with him in a small interview room in Twin Towers.
The man in the wheelchair already knew Gordon, so Skaggs let Gordon do the talking, observing the old Southeast rule of only one lead. Gordon began the conversation with a tone of familiarity, as if picking up a thread dropped moments before. Like Skaggs, Gordon conducted interrogations like business meetings. His style was subdued and apologetic, as if he were sorry for the trouble he brought.
The man in the wheelchair elaborated on his story of the crack addict who sold the gun once again. "That guy has a white beard. He is skinny. He is forty." When Gordon pressed for details of his hair, the man paused as if straining to be accurate: "More gray. Low haircut," he told Gordon.
Gordon turned up the pressure without changing his tone. By this time, the man had certainly guessed that he had been caught with a very, very dirty gun indeed. You don't get four visits from homicide detectives for just any gang killing.
Gordon suggested the man might be fingered for a serious crime. "I don't want to see a guy like you going to some shitty-ass pen," Gordon said. "You and me both!" the man rejoined quickly.
Gordon's voice remained gentle. But he bore down. "We want your cooperation, one hundred percent, and I feel like we have it, but..."
The man was silent. "What are you thinking?" Gordon asked. Silence. Gordon dropped his voice, called him by his first name. "Just like I told you before, you can erase everything you told us," he said. "If it's not the truth, I'd rather not be spinning my wheels."
Homicide detectives lie to suspects routinely and legally. But Gordon had an even more cunning tactic. He began telling the man the truth. His tone was as unadorned as if he were speaking to a colleague. "You don't even know how busy we are," he told him. "I got more murders I'm working than you can imagine. If it's not the truth, I'd rather follow real stuff. I'm not gonna be pissed off at you if all this was made up. I'm just looking for the truth."
Gordon said precisely what he really thought. He _did_ have a lot of cases, and he really didn't want to waste time.
Skaggs was quiet. At last, the man insisted again that he bought the gun from "a smoker-type transient." He added the detail that the two had discussed swapping a stereo.
The detectives were getting nowhere. Gordon was dogged but not harsh. He kept asking the same question five different ways. Finally, seemingly defeated, he veered away into inconsequential chatter.
The detectives were preparing to leave. They asked after the man's family. They asked about his children. The man told them he had a new "little baby." His tone grew relaxed. "I'm not the jail type," he offered. "I just want to get out of here, start back my life, go back to school." The detectives were sympathetic. The conversation flowed. At last, Gordon and Skaggs made movements to go. Gordon tossed out one last question.
"Anything else?" Gordon asked. "Is there a way you can help us?" Gordon was trying to give the man an opening to drop a hint. Hints were common in such interviews. People who were afraid to testify would try to help detectives indirectly. Sometimes they would leave them anonymous messages, scrawled notes crammed under the windshield wipers of police sedans.
But the man in the wheelchair didn't hint. He threw open a curtain—suddenly, blindingly. His tone changed. He had sounded nonchalant. Now he was somber.
"Well, I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you officers," he said. "Actually, I got the gun from this dude."
The detectives froze, waiting. Then the man produced the key Skaggs knew he had had all along. "They call him _No Brains_ ," he said.
Gordon and Skaggs emerged with the case transformed. The man in the wheelchair had not bought the gun from a smoker. He had paid fifty dollars to a mysterious gang member with hazel eyes and curly hair called "No Brains" one day on the campus of Southwest College.
He said No Brains belonged to a gang called the One Hundred and Eleven Blocc Crips, a subset of the Rollin' Hundreds Blocc Crips. For a moment, both detectives were baffled. Despite all their years in South Bureau, neither Gordon nor Skaggs recognized the name of this gang. Gangs were so hyperlocal that the Rollin' Hundreds, located a few minutes' drive from the Seventy-seventh over in the sheriff's territory, might as well have been from a different country. No Brains had a teardrop under his eye, the man said, and the letter _B_ tattooed on his arm.
No Brains hung out with a girl, the man said. _A girl_. Both detectives were doubly alert. Who was she? A homeless type? they asked. No, the man said: "She ain't that type. No drugs or gang."
_A good girl?_ they asked. "Yeah," the man said.
When it was over, Gordon asked him why he hadn't leveled with them before. He gave the answer Gordon had heard a hundred times: "I got family out there... I don't want someone to blow my head off—my mama and kids shot."
They said they'd keep his name out of it. They lied.
In Skaggs's mind, an idea was taking shape.
A witness interviewed at the murder scene the night of Bryant's death had mentioned a rumor that a gang called _Rollin'-something_ was involved in the crime. The word "Rollin' " was used in several gang names in L.A., including the Rollin' Sixties located to the north. But now the detail came back to Skaggs. He paired it with a flash of memory: new graffiti Skaggs had spotted shortly after Bryant was killed. He and Nathan Kouri had seen it while driving near the crime scene—the word "Bloccs" scrawled on a wall.
Skaggs was looking for an alternative to the Rollin' Sixties theory, which he felt had monopolized too much investigative effort and borne no fruit. Now here were two clues pointing to the Rollin' Hundreds Blocc Crips.
This was typical of how Skaggs went about his work. His capacious memory was engaged from the first minute on a case, filing away every detail—a stray comment, a graffiti tag scratched on a window. Such random impressions might seem meaningless to someone else. But Skaggs knew that down the line, a pattern would form. It was another reason he preferred fieldwork and put so much emphasis on face-to-face contact. Going back to the crime scene, revisiting homes of bereaved families, chatting up people he met on the street, might have seemed a waste of time to another detective. But to Skaggs, every moment in the field was an opportunity to load his memory with more grains of information. He knew that eventually one grain in the great sand pile would prove the diamond. Sometimes he would go back to the scene, park his sedan, and just wait, windows rolled down. He would call out to anyone who passed, "How you doin'?" and then chat.
Now he remembered that in one of the many reinterviews of witnesses on the cases, someone had mentioned a fight in the neighborhood not long after the murder. Chris Wilson and a brother of his, a gang member who had refused to speak to the police, had reputedly seen two strange teenagers on their street and thought they recognized Bryant's killers. Tellingly, they didn't call the police. They ran out, confronted them, and challenged them to fight—street justice for the killing of a police officer's son whom they considered a friend.
Reports held that one was a Rollin' Ninety. The brothers got beaten up. The Rollin' Ninety had pulled the elder's pants down—sexual humiliation being, like threats and low-level violence, an instrument of message-sending that was relatively common in the gang milieu. Skaggs knew how inaccurate the GIN could be, but this incident could help point toward other facts. In this case, it was clear that some gang members in Bryant's neighborhood believed that the attack had come from affiliates of the Rollin' Nineties, and the Nineties were allied with the adjacent Rollin' Hundreds Blocc Crips.
Since the talk with the man in the wheelchair, this remembered tidbit suddenly had new significance.
A warrant database search located by their gang monikers the pair of Nineties gang members the brothers had fought. It turned out that the young street fighter from the Rollin' Nineties was sixteen. He was on the run with a probation warrant. Gang officers were asked to keep an eye out.
A week went by. Then Skaggs got a call: the sixteen-year-old probationer who'd beaten Bryant's neighbors was in custody. He'd been brought in by a gang officer who recognized him at Jesse Owens Park. This youth was the son of a plumber from Hot Springs, Arkansas, who had come to L.A. three decades before during the great migration wave and stayed because it was beautiful. The plumber's family mostly had done well. One son worked for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the other for United Parcel Service. But his youngest was different.
The father had been struggling with his problems for several years at the time of the Tennelle case. Like many black parents in Los Angeles, he felt danger pressing in from all sides. Like Wally Tennelle, he was fearful that a gang might recruit his boy. But the father also viewed law enforcement warily and worried for his son's safety at the hand of the police. He believed many police officers conducted themselves poorly and had it out for black young men. He had sent his son all the way across the city to attend high school in Beverly Hills. But the son hid a friend's pellet gun in his locker and got caught, the father said.
The boy was suspended by the school and put on probation by a juvenile court. Once he entered the criminal justice system, things went downhill. He ended up violating his probation and going to juvenile camp. When he came out, he seemed to have taken on a new gang persona. Later, his father turned him in to a probation officer himself. It was an extreme step. But the father hoped that some jail time would straighten him out. Instead, his son came out tougher than ever.
The son had medium light brown skin, flat cheeks, and an angular chin. He looked a little older than he was and had a lean grace. That Tuesday evening, when Skaggs went to the Seventy-seventh to meet him, he had none of the swagger that might have been expected from a hardened Rollin' Nineties Crip. His eyes were full of tears.
Up until that point, Skaggs had thought this young probationer might be his killer. But once he had sized him up, he shifted gears. When he mentioned the intersection where Bryant was shot, the probationer responded readily: Was this about the killing of "the policeman's son"? Skaggs began by asking him why he was crying. "My pops, man," he said. He was going to miss his father's birthday once again—he had been in jail for every one of his father's birthdays since he was fourteen, and he was desperate to be available for this one.
Although his speech was laced with 'hood talk—words such as "cherp" and "nigga"—the probationer could turn it off when he wanted. Skaggs asked him to speak up because "my partner's not the smartest guy around."
Skaggs loved teasing Farell with this line in the interview room. He had used it many times, taking advantage of the younger detective's predicament: Farell had to sit by silently to observe the "one lead" rule.
The probationer proved a lucid interview subject. He seemed to have a good memory, and he even displayed a little literary flair, offering details that suggested he was a sharp observer. He made it clear he would help them so long as he never had to appear in court: "You say my name not gonna be in nothing. I believe you," he said.
_"Everybody know."_
This was the phrase the probationer used several times in the next half hour.
Everybody, he said—that is, dozens of people in the gang milieu—knew about Bryant's death. They knew who did it and for what gang. Everybody knew. Everybody was talking.
It was just as Kelle Baitx suspected—the young probationer's account suggested that the suspects lived within a few miles of the crime scene, and that they belonged to an underground network that was buzzing with gossip about the case. The case was like many others—more of a public murder than a secret one, a communal event. It was no mystery—except to the police.
The probationer said he had been back in Hot Springs visiting his grandmother in May when he got a "cherp" from a girl he called "Hollywood." "A tramp just got chipped," she told him. The probationer was happy—it meant a gang rival had been shot. "I was like, all right, _woo woo woo_ ," he said. But then one of the probationer's homeys called, alarmed. "A police officer's son got chipped somewhere off Normandie and the police is hot around here _—shit_!" The homey recommended he stay put in Arkansas.
The probationer got several more calls to the same effect. Everyone was talking about how the "tramp" had turned out to be a police officer's son and how cops were now scouring the neighborhood. People were scared they'd be swept up in a dragnet and "put up for that shit."
When the youth returned from Arkansas in early September, his friends were still abuzz. "Stay away from Bloccs," they warned. "They chip that nigga—police been over there, like, swarmin'."
People were mad about it. "That Baby Man from Bloccs is stupid," someone said.
_Baby Man_. The probationer knew him. "Oh, cuz did it?" the youth had replied. "That's crazy!" In the days that followed, he heard more and more. "Every day people talking about it!" he told Skaggs. "Everybody know!"
Ordinarily, gang members welcomed some demonstration of police concern as proof of the seriousness of their attacks. A bit of gang slang expressed this: "puttin' up tape" was a phrase used a little like "earning stripes." A member who "put up tape" had executed a successful mission—killing or maiming a rival with gunfire. Because police encircled shooting scenes with yellow tape only if someone had been seriously hurt or killed, tape signaled that the shooters hadn't missed or chickened out. It was a badge of honor.
But this was different. With most gang shootings, police intervention often did not go much beyond "putting up tape." But with an officer's son dead, police were "superhot." "Stay away from Bloccs," people said. "Stay away from Baby Man."
Push hard enough and eventually the current sweeps you downstream. Skaggs's case was moving swiftly now. He had two nicknames: "No Brains" and "Baby Man," both members of the Blocc Crips. There would be no more time wasted on the Sixties.
But the case still remained squarely in the arena of street rumors, where many gang cases foundered. "Everybody know" was a phrase that applied to a lot of unsolved murders south of the Ten.
Skaggs asked the probationer Baby Man's real name. He couldn't remember. "His real name is D-something... D... D..." The youth pondered.
_What does he look like?_ Skaggs asked. "Dark skin. Funny-shaped head," the youth said. He said Baby Man was about seventeen years old, and he added one of his literary flourishes: "Dry rough hands."
The detectives kept pressing. What about his head? "It's, like, an oval shape, like an egg—a cracked egg!" the probationer said. Farell stifled a laugh, and the youth laughed, too. "When you see his picture, you gonna see what I mean," he promised.
There was more. The probationer had run into Baby Man in Jesse Owens Park at a gathering of gang members. "What's up, man? You shot that nigga? You shot that police officer's kid?" he had said in front of everyone.
Baby Man was aghast. People were mad about the trouble the case had caused. Baby Man denied his involvement before the group. After, he pulled the probationer aside, pleading: "Don' be sayin' that shit." He didn't admit or deny his involvement. He said he didn't know what to do and was scared. "Man, I'm gonna go to jail!" he had lamented.
The probationer still couldn't remember his name, except that it began with _D_.
He told the detectives Baby Man was not popular: "He has got something wrong with him," he said. "He's stupid."
Skaggs started to speak. But the probationer interrupted him. "Devin!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "That's his name—Devin!"
Devin Davis, sixteen years old at the time of Bryant's death, was then serving time in a juvenile camp after having been caught with two guns in less than a month. He was easy enough to identify from police records. He had been arrested more than once and had been entered into the gang database—his picture, his personal information, his gang name of Baby Man as well as three or four other monikers, and his membership in the Blocc Crips.
Hazel-eyed No Brains was a different story: Skaggs did not have enough detail to figure out who he really was. He had found no one matching his description in any record search. He was still searching when he got a call from a gang deputy at the Sheriff's Department.
The deputy's "friendly" knew exactly who No Brains was. He identified him as an older, light-skinned Blocc Crip with green eyes. He was in jail. But the friendly didn't know his real name.
The case now had not just direction, but momentum. Skaggs and Farell were working full tilt. In mid-November, they served a search warrant on Devin Davis's house. Skaggs met his mother. Sandra James, kind, religious, and proper, was very cooperative. She had other grown children who had done well in life, going to school and working, she told Skaggs. But Devin, her youngest, had ADD. He had thrown her off balance with his many problems.
In Devin's bedroom, Skaggs found what he was looking for: scribbles on notepaper celebrating the Blocc Crips and bearing the gang moniker Baby Man.
And one more find: a little white scrap of paper with a phone number scrawled on it, and a name: No Brains.
The two Blocc Crips were now linked. But No Brains remained elusive. Skaggs by then knew exactly which bed and jail module No Brains was assigned to. But he still could not get an accurate identification of him from the sheriff's deputies who manned the jail, and they couldn't seem to find him.
It took Skaggs two weeks of wrangling with the sheriff's jail bureaucracy to figure out exactly who and where No Brains was. At one point, he threatened to walk through the module himself—how hard could it be to spot a light-skinned, green-eyed gangster with Blocc Crip tattoos? At last, they came back to Skaggs with a name. The light-skinned inmate was Wright Lawrence.
The name didn't match any rap sheet. And the state fingerprint database had listed the inmate as "Lawrence Wright." Skaggs was exasperated—authorities could not even keep their mistakes straight—but he was not surprised. Given the abundance of nicknames, gang monikers, and fake names used by criminals, the problem of people being imprisoned under the wrong name was not uncommon in his experience. This extended to other records as well—homicide victims were frequently listed under different names in various public databases. Spanish names were a mess: Mexican immigrants typically had one or two first names and two last names—their father's followed by their mother's. But arrest forms insisted on English conventions, listing everyone as having a first name, middle name, and last name. As a result, Spanish names were often mangled in the booking process.
The names of black people who interacted with the system could present authorities with similar problems. Apart from the endless nicknames and aliases, there were many formal names with multiple variations, unconventional apostrophes, and unusual spellings, and these were frequently misstated or misspelled in public records, even death records. Officers relied on fingerprints and other elaborate cross-checking methods to keep track of who was who.
Skaggs went back to his computer and started over. He looked for records of light-skinned Blocc Crips and rap sheets that matched the inmate known as Wright Lawrence—dates, addresses, arrests—and, by cross-checking several databases, he arrived at the correct name: Derrick Starks.
He called the Sheriff's Department to inform them they were holding Starks under the wrong name. Months later, Skaggs checked to make sure they had corrected the error. They hadn't. Starks remained listed as jail inmate Wright Lawrence for months.
Derrick Starks, twenty-five years old at the time of Bryant's death, was a Blocc Crip with a typical gang rap sheet that included robbery and attempted burglary. He had been born in Louisiana, where his family's roots lay. His mother had been one of seventeen children. She was a real estate agent who devoted volunteer hours to helping families who had lost children to homicide. Starks had an older brother in college. He was the troubled younger brother. Raised in a neighborhood near Century Boulevard, he had joined the Blocc Crips in his late teens.
His current jail stint was related to a burglary charge and a parole violation in connection with a car crash. The car had collided with a telephone pole on May 15, four days after Bryant's death, and Starks had been arrested. The arrest report said Starks had been driving. He had a companion with him when he crashed: a girl.
The car was a black Chevrolet Suburban.
A Suburban, a girl. This last detail was a bonus: Skaggs had been hoping for a girl in the car. Ever since the man in the wheelchair had mentioned that No Brains hung out with a "good girl," Skaggs had been attuned to this possibility. A girl in a gang car might be an opening. Frequently, she was being dragged along—if not against her will, then at least with no particular choice in the matter. And girls were not subject to the relentless gang violence that boys were—at least not shootings—and so were easier to flip.
Skaggs had time on his side. Both suspects—Devin Davis in juvenile camp and now Derrick Starks—were in custody. They weren't going anywhere.
The arrest report had listed the girl in the car as Jessica Bailey. It was a false name, as Skaggs was sure it would be. He found an address for a _Jennifer_ Bailey in the Hundreds Blocc vicinity from motor vehicle records.
Jennifer Bailey had never been arrested. But Skaggs used her address to cross-check against criminal databases and came up with another name: Jessica _Midkiff_.
Jessica Midkiff was Jennifer Bailey's niece. She had a big rap sheet for prostitution, and a tattoo on her neck. Skaggs pulled up her picture. Midkiff was light-skinned and cute. The tattoo on her neck was large and garish. He nodded to himself. "I think this is my Jessica."
It was Friday, November 30, about 3:00 P.M. Skaggs saw the next few hours clearly. He wanted the LAPD's best surveillance team on Midkiff immediately as he ran "a ton of clues" seeking other connections. But it didn't quite work out that way. When he called headquarters, they balked. The SIS (Special Investigations Section) team downtown was too closely associated with RHD, someone said. Skaggs cursed to himself. He called the South Bureau surveillance team. They were assigned elsewhere. So Skaggs spent the next few hours making call after call to get someone to do surveillance and catch Jessica Midkiff. At last, South Bureau's team was reassigned. It was always like this, he reflected.
Everything, everything, was harder than you thought it would be.
He worked late into that night, then went home and waited.
#
# **THE WITNESS**
The tattoo on the side of Jessica Midkiff's neck was an angel. It was so large it appeared to be straining to encircle her throat.
Skaggs first met her in a small detention cell in the basement of the Seventy-seventh Street station. She was twenty-two and petite, with very light skin, brown hair, a doll-like nose, and chestnut eyes that curved down at the corners. Her chin jutted slightly, and her black brows were arched and sculpted. She was in gray sweatpants and a teeny, lightweight top inappropriate for the December night. Her feet were bare. She was sniffling and sobbing with fear.
Earlier in the day the surveillance crew on the house had seen her come out and get into a car. The team followed the car and arrested her at a nearby gas station. Skaggs asked Midkiff if she knew why she was there. "No, I promise, I don't!" she stammered. Skaggs responded in his unhurried way, as relaxed as if they were discussing plans for dinner. "Okay," he said. "You and I are going to talk."
But Midkiff was already talking as fast as she could. She had "anxiety," she explained between sniffles—meaning some kind of disorder. She had recently emerged from "this program." She'd been trying "to do good." "I'm not gonna lie—I was a prostitute for years—and I checked myself into the rehab for that."
She was wide-eyed—afraid the arrest meant she was going back to jail. She wanted Skaggs to know she wasn't holding out. "I got a bench warrant from Compton. And I've been taking care of it." She was terrified of losing custody of her young daughter, she said. "It's a big thing to me. Whatever you guys want me to do, I'll do it!"
It would seem to have been an ideal situation. Midkiff seemed disposed to cooperate fully. But Skaggs was wary. She seemed a little _too_ willing—too "cute," he would say later. She hung on his every word and gazed up at him with big teary eyes encircled by black lashes. His first instinct was to dismiss her presentation as an act.
Skaggs had thought Midkiff might be a suspect, the knowing getaway driver, and he was geared for an adversarial interview. He had planned to corner her, to force some slip that would put her at the crime scene. He had reviewed her long rap sheet. Clearly, she was an experienced prostitute and had been interviewed by many a police officer. She'd had abundant opportunity to hone this performance.
When he first walked into the cell, he had promised Midkiff that "a very important talk we are gonna have. Huge. Very big." Now, faced with her near hysteria, he dialed it back. He told her something had happened the previous May. "We are gonna sit down and have an easy talk, you and I." But at the mention of May, Midkiff instantly began babbling about her ex-boyfriend. "What's his name?" Skaggs demanded, suddenly sharp.
"Derrick," she said.
The case Skaggs had been chasing was now chasing him. Random details were spilling out of Midkiff, and they hadn't even sat down at a table yet. Derrick Starks clearly brought up all sorts of issues for her. She was talking fast, spinning in several directions. Skaggs barely had time to draw a breath before she had outlined all the major themes of her life:
She had been abused and had lived badly.
Derrick was among her abusers.
Now she was trying to change. "I'm just trying to get my life together the best way I know," she wept. "I don't really know how, but I'm tryin'!"
It seemed too good to be true. Skaggs remained suspicious. He had Farell take her upstairs to the interview room while he gathered his notes. In the interview room, he started off in his harshest tone.
Skaggs was not rough or threatening in interrogations. He never raised his voice. But he had a way of bearing down, of signaling impatience and resolve. His manner suggested he was comfortable with power and intended to demolish all opposition. This was true of him on duty and off. His was an easygoing personality, but not a compromising one. Corey Farell noticed this, and he thought it one of the traits that distinguished Skaggs. Some police officers felt they had to adopt a false persona at work; Skaggs, if anything, was more genuinely himself while working.
Skaggs bore down on Midkiff sternly. He sat very close to her, speaking slowly and allowing the timbre of his voice to dip. He was mildly profane. He was a homicide detective, he told her. He was going to talk to her about "some big, big shit. You gonna step up, or you gonna go down?"
"Step up," Midkiff said instantly.
Midkiff promised to tell the detectives whatever they wanted to know. "Honest to God, I'll do it," but "I don't want to go on nobody's stand," she added.
Before Skaggs could begin his questioning, she had laid out her objections to testifying in court without prompting. They were the usual ones. Her grandparents owned a home and could not afford to leave. "I know I messed up dealing with the wrong people—if I have to take it I'll take it—but I don't want my family jeopardized behind my stupidity!" she said.
Derrick Starks had been calling her from prison. She was in high anxiety about it. She broke down: "I just want to wash my hands of these people, and I can't get rid of them!" she wept.
"Yeah we can," Skaggs replied calmly.
This was exactly the point: getting rid of people. Seldom was it put this way. But one of the primary reasons to have a legal system is to take certain people out of the picture. It is what justifies the immense power the police hold. If you don't incapacitate violent actors, they keep pushing people around until someone makes them stop. When violent people are permitted to operate with impunity, they _get their way_. Advantage tilts to them. Others are forced to do their bidding.
No amount of "community" feeling or activism can eclipse this dynamic. People often assert that the solution to homicide is for the so-called community to "step up." It is a pernicious distortion. People like Jessica Midkiff cannot be expected to stand up to killers. They need safety, not stronger moral conviction. They need some powerful outside force to sweep in and take their tormentors away. That's what the criminal justice system is for. It was what Skaggs was for, and he knew it.
Skaggs began talking in generalities, using the same stern tone. It was the strategy he always used. He would talk with a voice full of meaning even though he was stalling. He nattered on. And with another part of his brain, he studied Midkiff. He was trying to figure out if she was lying.
Our job "is a simple one," Skaggs rambled. "We have one thing to do every time we come to work—find the truth. That's pretty easy. It's difficult in the neighborhood we work in, but that's kind of an easy concept. _Somebody got hurt. Somebody got killed_. We find out what happened to them."
Five minutes passed. Ten. Skaggs talked in circles. Like Rick Gordon, he resorted to telling Midkiff the truth, strategically. "I've never met you before, I don't know if you are putting on an act—if you're really good at turnin' on tears," he told her.
Through it all, Midkiff wept and professed her willingness to cooperate. Skaggs offered her water. She said she needed a cigarette to calm her nerves. He promised to take her outside for a smoke. They were going to have a big talk, very soon, he said. He tossed out vague phrases to explain what was happening.
Skaggs seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of clichés for this purpose. He never used the word "interrogation." "Something we need to get on the table," he said. "Something we all have to deal with," to "put in the right place."
Midkiff kept interrupting. She talked about her daughter and Derrick. By the time Skaggs had worked up to reading Midkiff her Miranda rights, his attitude toward her was beginning to shift. She still seemed a likely liar. But he wasn't seeing the usual signs. He couldn't read her.
His tone softened. He stopped swearing. He promised to talk to her about "big, big stuff," not "big shit" as before. "Look at me," he said. "We have not made any decision of what's gonna happen to you tonight." He read the rights to her, conversationally and easily, then got down to business.
But when Skaggs uttered the words "shooting off Western," Midkiff seemed confused. She didn't understand what they were talking about.
"Western?" she said. She thought that Skaggs was going to ask her about the time Starks crashed his mother's Suburban into a pole and got arrested. That hadn't happened on Western. He had crashed because of a car-to-car shooting, although the police report had not reflected this. Starks had also asked Midkiff to lie for him in a burglary investigation. All these episodes were in her mind. She was confused. So Skaggs clarified, focusing her on the events of May 11.
She hesitated, eyes brimming. "I don't want to die!" she whispered. "They are going to kill my family!"
"You have a promise from me that I will not leave your family hanging," Skaggs said.
Midkiff's hesitation was brief. She began: "I wanted to drive his truck, I was so eager to drive his frickin' truck—" At the memory, she suddenly laughed bitterly.
When she smiled, she had dimples in both cheeks.
More than half an hour of rambling talk had passed since Skaggs and Midkiff had first laid eyes on each other. Only now did he begin to ask his questions.
On the day Bryant Tennelle died, Midkiff had been in the Suburban with Starks, she said. They picked up two dark-skinned teenage boys—one of whom she later identified as Devin Davis. The other she didn't know; he was never identified.
They drove north to "the Eighties" and Starks handed one of the teenagers a gun. The boys jumped out and went around a corner. Midkiff heard gunshots. The car doors opened and the pair jumped back in. Starks yanked her over his lap into the passenger seat and took the wheel. They drove off. "I'm the man, cuz!" Devin Davis had crowed.
Skaggs wanted every detail. But eagerness was anathema to his technique. The ability to slow down when events reached fever pitch was something Nathan Kouri admired in his mentor. It distinguished him as a master interrogator, Kouri thought. "Us new guys want to go in for the kill," he said. But Skaggs wasn't wired like that. After Midkiff finished her initial narration, he called a break. He left Midkiff to release the crew of officers he'd assembled earlier for a search warrant. He no longer needed them.
Jessica Midkiff had been born at Queen of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles, but her family roots were in Texas and Alabama. She was biracial, half black and half white. Her father had been one of those rare poor whites still living in South Central L.A. in the late 1980s. But like most people of mixed race in her milieu, Midkiff considered herself black.
Her parents had split while Jessica was young, and she said that an abusive stepfather had raped her repeatedly. By the time she was eleven, she was performing oral sex for cash, food, and clothes. She was turning tricks in cars by fourteen.
Prostitutes such as Midkiff are effectively slaves. But they tend to spin a narrative about their own lives that suggests more agency. Midkiff referred to various pimps over the years as "boyfriends." Some were pimpier than others. In her mind, there existed the possibility of a man being "kind of like a pimp." She had straight pimps who kept her with a stable of other prostitutes and appropriated all her earnings. She also had boyfriends like Derrick Starks, with whom she was paired as a couple but who also asked her to turn tricks now and then.
Her daughter's father, who had gotten Jessica pregnant while she was a student at Washington High, had been one of the few men in her life who was not abusive and didn't try to pimp her. But after his brother was murdered, he joined a gang and ended up in prison, she said.
While still an adolescent, Midkiff traveled as a prostitute. She worked in Los Angeles, Riverside, Las Vegas, and parts of Arizona. She worked Sunset Boulevard, peddling ten-minute intervals in cars: oral sex for $50, intercourse for $100, both for $150. She was hired by a professional football player and for pricey all-night parties, once earning $850 for a single trick. She'd also worked Figueroa Street—that dangerous bargain basement for prostitutes. You were down-and-out when you found yourself working the long murderous stretch that plunged southward along the Harbor Freeway. Years later, the thought of it still caused her to shudder. "I _hate_ Figueroa," she said.
In between, she returned home from time to time. Her grandparents still lived stable, homebound lives. Her mother was raising her little girl. At one point, she enrolled in continuation school and was proud to be elected class secretary. But men always found Midkiff. There had been so many boyfriends-cum-pimps, so many beatings, girl fights, and rapes at gunpoint, so many misdemeanor arrests, that her prostitution years had a kaleidoscopic quality. Only she could keep it straight.
She slept all day and was up all night for years, her life a blur of shared motel rooms and fleeting, intense friendships that often ended in rancor. By the time she was twenty-one, she had never held a job, could barely read, and had no ability to conduct relationships with any maturity or control. She was brittle and constantly flew into rages. She had frequent fights with other women. And she suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder that prompted anxiety attacks. Memories would sweep over her at unexpected moments, as real as if happening anew, the pain rivaling that of childbirth, she said.
One night, someone dropped her off on Lincoln Boulevard, another down-and-out open-air market. She was at the end. She asked a shopkeeper for change to use a pay phone. Instead, the man gave her sixty or seventy bucks and a ride. For once she received help from someone who asked for nothing in return. With his help she reunited with her mother, who took her in. A short while later she enrolled in the Mary Magdalene Project in the San Fernando Valley, a residential charity focused on treating prostitution like an addiction. Midkiff loved the program. But she fought with another woman and was ejected.
She came back to her mother's house in South Central, in the neighborhood of the Rollin' Hundreds Bloccs. As always, she drew male attention. One day walking back from a nail shop on Western and Imperial to her grandparents' house, she met a gangster she knew named "Thump." He had a light-skinned friend with him. The friend had massive shoulders and a cupid's-bow mouth. Derrick Starks had gotten out of jail that April 3.
They talked. A sheriff's patrol car swooped in. Deputies put them all in handcuffs, and searched them. They let Midkiff go but made the two men sit in the cruiser. The pair joked with the deputies—"You messed up our game!"
Derrick Starks would return to pull "his game" on Midkiff three days later as she was walking to the store. She was reluctant to give him her number. "But you can't really be too mean about it 'cause you don't know what to expect," she later told Skaggs. Midkiff was accustomed to romance shot through with mortal fear; she thought little of it. Shortly after, she "hooked up" with him.
Midkiff's story was typical of south end prostitutes, that is, it was sordid, dramatic, and monotonous. Such stories always seemed to begin the same way—with a rape or molestation in childhood—and to end with an aging prostitute accepting ever-lowlier tricks to feed a drug addiction. At the end of the line harrowed-looking homeless women with missing teeth wandered the streets, offering blow jobs in alleys.
But Midkiff was atypical in some ways. Skaggs was beginning to see this. For one thing, she was not a junkie. Midkiff was a chain-smoker and binge drinker. But observing her over the next few hours, Skaggs felt sure she was not a regular user of cocaine or methamphetamine.
She appeared bright despite her lack of formal education. "I can tell you are not a malicious person," she told Skaggs at one point. And she had an excellent memory.
What Skaggs couldn't see was that Midkiff actually was at one of those rare crossroads in life. She was telling the truth: she wanted to change, but she didn't know how. There would be no storybook ending for her. But this interview was a turning point. It would change everything for both of them.
"Code Four here!"
Skaggs was back in the squad room talking to one of his bureau colleagues on the cell phone during a break, his tone light with relief. He snapped the phone shut and surveyed his colleagues hovering nearby. One was readying six-packs—photo lineups for Jessica to identify the suspects. Another prepared to take Jessica out for a cigarette.
Prideaux also lingered. He had remained in the background, enduring spasms of anxiety as Skaggs spoke to Midkiff. By now, Prideaux knew he had made the right decision in selecting Skaggs for the case. He orbited the tall detective and waited for an opening.
"Hey John, you need anything?" Prideaux finally asked. He spoke with forced lightness. But his voice held a deferential note. Anyone listening would have thought Skaggs, not Prideaux, the superior officer.
"No, L.T.!" Skaggs told him. Securing Midkiff's cooperation was game-changing, Skaggs knew he was in the home stretch.
There is little celebrating in homicide units. Even La Barbera and his crew, long known for irreverence that bordered on inappropriateness, did not generally high-five each other or appear jubilant when they solved cases. They indulged in pranks and black humor, and they posed every year for a grisly homicide-themed Christmas card from the unit—a faux crime scene with a dead Santa, for example. But day to day, homicide remained just too depressing to permit much gaiety in their ranks. Detectives walked out of meetings with suspects, witnesses, and survivors looking somber and spent no matter how well the interviews had gone. Grim faces accompanied even the most dramatic investigative triumphs. It wasn't an affectation, it was a natural reaction to the cloud of agony that emanated from the Monster.
One could never feel good about solving a case. No sense of a mission accomplished could minimize the horror. Bryant's death, no matter what the detectives did, would remain sickening and unspeakably sad to everyone who had dealt with the case, forever after.
So although Prideaux had been waiting for weeks for this moment—waiting to see Skaggs emerge from a key interview with a look of success—he allowed himself just two words to express his feelings:
"Good job," he muttered.
Skaggs reflexively dropped his voice to match Prideaux's.
"Yeah," he said, and nodded. "It worked out."
Up until then, Skaggs had betrayed no emotion about the favorable turn the case had taken. But the tactful respect in Prideaux's voice seemed to catch him off guard.
Skaggs emitted a small sigh. Then he repeated his own words in a murmur, as if reassuring himself. "It worked out."
That evening stretched for hours. Skaggs interviewed Midkiff in detail, then drove her past the crime scene. He searched her mother's house. He became more and more certain that she was telling the truth. He was astonished by how well she remembered the sequence of events seven months before. He tested her, pretending he didn't know certain details so that she would supply them. He lied to her, telling her he had a conflicting statement from another occupant in the car. He wanted to see if she would improvise.
But she was unshakable. She stuck to her story. After her initial flurries of tears and anxiety attacks, Midkiff settled down and answered each question in a sad, matter-of-fact voice. She labored to find exactly the right terms and paused frequently to remember. When she couldn't, she said so and apologized.
She nailed everything. Skaggs could not find any holes. Her descriptions matched everything they already knew: the direction and location of the Suburban, the description of the shooter, his clothes, the style of gun, the number of shots. Skaggs finally tried accusing her of lying. She just wept, said "Well?" and kept repeating her story.
Skaggs had dealt with many people in his career with histories like Midkiff's. Prostitutes tended to be among the most dysfunctional people in the street environment, their problems intractable, their unreliability profound. But later, Skaggs would say that Jessica Midkiff was the only homicide witness he had ever interviewed who told the same story at every stage of the investigation and trial without a single detail changed, or a detectable lie.
It went against all his expectations but again confirmed Rick Gordon's doctrine. This jittery young prostitute with her cutesy affectations, angel tattoo, and bare feet would turn out to be the best witness Skaggs ever had.
As the night had gone on, Skaggs had extracted from Midkiff a detailed version of the broad outline she had told him at the beginning of their meeting. Midkiff said that she and Derrick Starks had spent the night before Bryant's murder in a motel called the Desert Inn on Century Boulevard. Neither had their own apartment. They stayed in cheap motels at least four times a week, sleeping late and drifting into the next day's activities. These usually involved hanging out with Starks's friends, the Rollin' Hundreds Blocc Crips. Members would "come outside and drink and party—that's what they do," she told Skaggs.
Jessica had wanted to drive Starks's black Suburban that day. She wasn't sure of the time. But she knew it wasn't morning—they were never up by morning. She was at the wheel when Starks got a call. He directed her to a spot on 111th Street to pick up two acquaintances wearing dark hoodies. Devin Davis was "hyped... antsy," she said. She thought he was disturbed. But she did not get a good look. "Derrick would not let me stare at his friends too long," she explained to Skaggs. "I would get in trouble, like, 'Oh you wanna fuck my homeys?' "
In the car, Davis taunted the quieter young man in the backseat: "You ain't no real crippin," he taunted. "You ain't no real man, you ain't ready to put in no work!" Starks was playing the same Crip song over and over on the car stereo. Davis gave her directions. They went down a side street. Starks turned down the music.
Davis told her to stop the car. Midkiff knew she was not allowed to obey another man. She waited until Starks echoed the command, then parked. Davis said: "I'm gonna go hang up some business."
Midkiff turned and saw him reposition a handgun in his waistband. The teenagers hopped out. She watched them glide into the eastbound street, out of sight. She sat in front with Starks. She had believed it was just another of Starks's outings. She had thought he was going to get girls for the two teenagers, find them weed, or buy liquor for them. But now, glimpsing the gun, she was alarmed. "What do you have me in?" she demanded. "I don't have you in nothin'!" he snapped.
Midkiff pleaded to be allowed to go home. Then, through the closed windows of the car, she heard _—pow... pow, pow_.
Davis said, "Go go go go _go_!" when they jumped in the car. After Starks yanked her into the passenger seat, Davis was "amped up" and bragging. "I'm proper!" he said. Starks hushed him and turned the music up. That night, they stayed in the motel again. A few days later, Midkiff was again in the Suburban with Starks when some rivals from the vicinity of the 80s spotted them. The gang rivals chased them, seeking retaliation. Starks crashed the car and got arrested. Midkiff gave the CHP officer an alias, using her aunt's name.
Midkiff's obedience to Starks was robotic by her account. He did not trust her, she said, and did not share his plans with her. But he expected blind obedience, and he mostly got it by merely implying the violence of which Midkiff knew he was capable. "Pretty much whatever he said, it went," Midkiff told Skaggs. "He is way bigger than what I am. He choked me out once till I damn near passed out... I'm not gonna sit there and go, Well, where the hell are we going? Because every time I get a smart mouth, I catch it. I fight back, but he is still a man and I am a small female."
She was five-one and weighed 113 pounds. Starks was of average height but strong and fit, with massive shoulders; he'd played football.
She'd not known they were headed to do a shooting. But even if she knew, "I'm not gonna ask him, just because I don't want to catch it. And I know that might be _punk_ or whatever. But I don't want to get beat up."
She claimed she didn't know that someone died in the shooting. Skaggs challenged her on this point repeatedly. But in the end, her confusion convinced him.
There were scores and scores of gunshots fired in South L.A. that barely registered in the outside world. The events of May 11 didn't stand out for Midkiff because she considered it just another shooting of the type that happened "usually," as she put it.
"I know shots went off," she told Skaggs. But "people usually can shoot a lot and not hit somebody. Especially gang-bangers."
The man in the wheelchair had told Gordon and Skaggs that Midkiff was "a good girl," which she was not, in the conventional sense. But she was not a gang member. Starks viewed her as "a weak link." He shushed Davis because he didn't want her to know what was happening. He didn't trust her, she said.
He was right not to.
Midkiff had no appetite for murder. When Skaggs told her of Bryant Tennelle's death, she wept. "I feel bad behind it," she said. "That's wrong. I can see my mother thinking about me if I get laid out. Or if my child gets laid out."
At last, Skaggs asked her to testify in court. "I don't even care about me anymore, I'll do it," Midkiff said. She began to cry again, worried her family would be killed. "They'll do it!" she told Skaggs.
He told her that he would be scared, too, if it were him.
#
# **BABY MAN**
Devin Davis was seventeen in the first weeks of 2008. He was an awkward-looking kid with a large head, high round cheeks, and very round, large brown eyes. He was afflicted with ADHD and high blood pressure—a diagnosis rare in teenagers but not uncommon in South Central. He had been struck by gunfire some months before that had injured his wrist.
Devin appeared to be constantly on the lookout for something to guffaw at, in the anxious way of teenagers who fear being left out of a joke. But Devin was not cheerful. His eyes had a plaintive expression. His affect was peevish and unhappy.
When the probationer first uttered Devin's moniker Baby Man to Skaggs, Skaggs was pretty sure Devin was the killer. Then Midkiff fingered his photo, identifying Devin as the "crazy boy" in the back of the Suburban, and Skaggs was certain. He intended to come right at Devin, plunging forward, as always, in the straightest possible line.
Devin's imprisonment gave him time to prepare. Skaggs wanted every advantage. The interrogation of Devin Davis would be the most important juncture in this most important of cases; it would be a pivotal moment in his whole career.
Skaggs knew what he wanted from Devin—a full confession. In his mind, he had already constructed the outlines of a case built solely on the accounts of the man in the wheelchair, the probationer, and Midkiff, supported by corroborating evidence. But he knew the case would be far stronger with a confession.
Skaggs had interrogated hundreds of murder suspects, and a striking number had confessed, at least partially. This was not entirely a tribute to Skaggs's talent: confessions were astonishingly common in ghettoside cases. Sal La Barbera maintained he'd gotten some version of a confession on almost every case he had ever cleared. Perhaps not in the actual interrogation, but in the long waits in between—during meals, or while being processed for arrest—young men nearly always let something slip. It was relatively rare for suspects in gang cases to invoke their right to an attorney.
Skaggs couldn't understand why suspects confessed. But La Barbera, who ascribed sentimental motives to everyone—even murderers—had a theory. He believed it was the burden of guilt. Murder, he suggested, had a kind of existential weight; one had to be very hardened indeed not to be bested by it. Other detectives had similar notions. Brent Josephson, the old ghettoside hand from the previous generation, had a memorable story from the peak years. It involved a scoop-and-carry homicide case in a park. Assigned after the fact, with the evidence cleared away and no witnesses, Josephson was standing helplessly at the scene, thinking he didn't have a prayer of solving the case, when he noticed a skinny Hispanic youth in the distance. Josephson called out to him, thinking the kid might have some pointers. Thunderstruck, the young man hung his head and shuffled over. "You got me," he told Josephson, and proceeded to confess. The specter of an LAPD detective beckoning from across the park had apparently been too much for him. It was like a summons from God.
All Skaggs knew was that, as common as confessions were, you couldn't count on getting one. Many gang members were interrogation experts. They knew the cops' methods. Older men in particular had the edge on the very young cops the South L.A. divisions attracted. These suspects had cunning and strategy. And just like the cops, they were smooth liars. So although there were those who refused to talk, or bailed midinterview, the more common scenario was a tense tit for tat in which suspects offered detectives bits of information in exchange for finding out what the police knew.
This approach was not as irrational as it seemed. Without an attorney present, gang suspects could get a sense not just of what the police were thinking, but also of what was happening on the streets. If your homeys had snitched, you wanted to know it. If it was in your best interests to snitch on them first, you wanted to know that, too. The cops were only part of the equation. The willingness of gang suspects to be interrogated demonstrated, again, how such men inhabited two legal structures—a formal one and an informal one. They had to negotiate both, and the LAPD interrogation room was a space to explore their options, play one side against the other.
There was possibly another reason suspects submitted to being interrogated: it was interesting. Few people can resist talking about something that really interests them with someone who shares that interest. For all these reasons, suspects talked. South end homicide interrogations by Skaggs's era lacked the brute terrorism of the old LAPD, and they were sometimes almost cordial. But they were nearly always elliptical games of cat and mouse in which the mouse was as curious as the cat. Skaggs was expecting that Devin would agree to talk a little. But that didn't mean he would get what he wanted.
On the afternoon of January 14, Corey Farell and a young detective named Vince Carreon picked up Devin from Challenger Youth Camp in northern Los Angeles County's Antelope Valley at the foot of the Mojave Desert and drove him back through the desert to the Seventy-seventh Street station, his hands cuffed in front of his body for the long journey.
When he arrived, Skaggs looked him over. Devin wore a blue jumpsuit and his hair was scruffy, in the manner of young men too long in jail without a haircut. He was dark-skinned, just as Midkiff remembered. His manner was petulant and anxious. Farell had told him nothing.
Skaggs wanted to secure an advantage over Devin from the start. He had devised a couple of ruses, driving Devin past the crime scene, suggesting to him that the police had evidence that didn't exist, including a fictitious video that Skaggs claimed had been shot by a security camera. The goal was "just to freak him out," he said later. He also wanted a read on Devin. By provoking an emotional reaction, Skaggs hoped to gather a sense of his state of mind, and to infer from that his susceptibility to questioning.
As they drove, Skaggs studied the teenager. Devin seemed immature for his age. He gave the impression of suffering from a mental or social disability. "Kinda weird," Skaggs thought. It was easy to see what the young probationer had suggested about Devin—that he had problems making friends. If Devin had been your average high school student somewhere else, he might have been just another misfit. But Skaggs thought Devin "a little bit on the tough side, not just on the dumb side." He had "a look." To Skaggs, suspects fell across a spectrum. Some were very violent, some less so. And some were so unused to violence that it left them badly shaken. Skaggs had dealt with suspects who started babbling the instant they sat, spinning defenses and "fronting out" their friends. But Devin's composure suggested that he would not crack easily.
They returned to the station house and climbed the back stairs to an interview room. Skaggs gave Devin a soda and asked if he wanted lunch. Devin said no. It was 2:30 P.M.
Over and over, through years of little rooms, cans of soda, mismatched chairs, and Styrofoam cups, Skaggs had felt his way through scores of interviews like this, learning through repetition. Skaggs used relatively little profanity and kept calm.
He sought, above all, to assure suspects that it was okay to talk—that if they would just tell the truth, it would be all right. Beyond that, it was pure improvisation. The interrogator had to think fast and react quickly, "reading" the suspect while appearing not to, shifting tactics as dynamics changed.
Sometimes Skaggs sought to break down suspects. Other times he tried to build them up. He would subtly insult them—"Do you take medication for psych problems?" And they would hasten to defend themselves. Or he would flatter them—"Dang! You still okay? I've heard your name on the street!" And they would puff up and start bragging. One of his favorite methods was to act distracted or bored until they became desperate for a reaction.
Skaggs and Farell now retreated to the hallway, leaving Devin in the room. Skaggs had no idea how he was going to proceed. Yet Farell could perceive nothing out of the ordinary in his manner. It was as if he were embarking on a weekend errand.
Skaggs prepped his tape recorder and noted the date and time. They headed back to the room. Skaggs sat down, not across from Devin, but on the same side of the table, pulling his chair so close that their knees almost touched. He always sat this way for interrogations. He was not being menacing in any way, yet he was violating Devin's personal space. This subtle breach was unsettling.
Skaggs began speaking, sounding mild and reasonable. "Okay, Devin," he said. "This is where we get to take care of all our business. Okay?"
Breezy. Businesslike. A light touch of regret. As if they were friends with an unpleasant matter to settle.
Devin was ready, in defensive mode. He had arranged himself in a posture signaling noncompliance, slumped way back, sullen, put out. "I'm gonna ask you to speak up. I'm a little hard of hearing," Skaggs said, his standard line. He told Devin to sit up straight. "Show a little respect... a little mutual respect... If you're sitting up straight, I know I have your attention! All right?" The last note was bright and lively.
Devin shifted in his seat and mumbled his assent—"Yes sir... yes sir," he said wearily. It was typical gangster-cop interplay—the affected politeness, excessive use of courtesy titles, and emphasis on "respect." The 'hood was perhaps the only context in America outside the military where the word "sir" was still appended sentence by sentence in conversational speech. Devin, it was clear, had spoken to many a cop.
Skaggs went on, oversimplifying. "My name is John Skaggs. This is my partner Corey Farell. We work homicide. Do you know what that means?"
"No," Devin replied. Skaggs played it straight. "Homicide investigators investigate people who get killed," he explained dutifully. "Not shot at. Not jumped on. Not robbed. When somebody gets killed on the streets, they call us, and we go to work."
Skaggs launched his attack. He began talking aimlessly about the investigation. He started in the middle, digressed, and doubled back. He hinted at a Very Serious Talk about to occur. But instead of starting it, he burrowed into technicalities. He declared his intention to be up-front. Then he wandered. He promised to get to the point. Then he didn't. He peppered his speech with various throat-clearing asides—"Are you with me?" "So, listen!" "We'll get to that!" But he never got anywhere. Every gesture and inflection assured Devin that he was being clear and direct. But the words delivered only discursiveness and confusion.
It was infuriating—and effective. The tactic had served Skaggs well for years. Ordinarily, Skaggs was a man who never procrastinated, never went in circles. But in interrogations, circling was his weapon of choice.
"Your name came up in a murder investigation," Skaggs told Devin gravely. "Flat out." He paused, letting the flat-out-ness of his statement sink in. Then he was not flat out. He digressed, droning on about the video camera and its fictional video, its quality.
Then, finally: "So here's what happens. Back in May, okay? You know the months of the year?" Devin was silent. Skaggs continued: "So kind of at the end of winter. The start of good weather..." And Skaggs riffed on weather.
Devin released a long sigh. "Some people loaded up..." Skaggs went on, using the same tone as he had used describing the sunny day in May. But Devin interrupted him, in revolt against Skaggs's intrusive knees.
"Mind if I move my legs?" he said.
Skaggs was genial. "You can put 'em anywhere! Just don't kick me!" he said. Devin shifted heavily as Skaggs talked some more. "I'm going to give you the opportunity to say what's on your mind," he said. "But let me talk for about five minutes." Skaggs nodded toward the fat murder book he held. "This is what I want to talk to you about today." He wandered again, and then finally, speaking fast, almost collegially, returned to the investigation. He presented it as if it were a problem he expected Devin to help him fix:
"So, what I know is a black Suburban gets on Saint Andrews, a dude gets out, and somebody gets killed, okay?" he said. "And you're in that video. Not only that, I got the Suburban. The Suburban is in custody. I will show you photos of it. I'm gonna show you everything so that you can see I'm not talking out of my ass."
Here Devin interrupted again, for some reason objecting, not to the idea that he might have committed murder, but to the suggestion that he didn't trust Skaggs. "I'm not trippin' on you! I'm listening to you!" he said, his voice high and indignant.
Skaggs continued, his tone conciliatory. "We all know how there's stories about cops who try to pull a fast one and stuff like that. I want to be up-front with you."
Devin kept insisting that he wasn't, as he put it, "trippin'." Skaggs got him to calm down, then said: "This is the real deal. And this is the only—the one and only time—you will ever have a chance to talk to the two guys who investigated that murder."
"Can I ask you a question?" Devin said.
"Absolutely!" Skaggs sounded downright buoyant.
"This is not going to affect my time in camp, right?"
He had been asking some version of this question over and over, in different forms, all afternoon. "That is a ridiculous question," Skaggs said, sounding exasperated. Davis objected, sputtering. Skaggs raised his voice: "Let me talk!"
"That's what we are talking about," Skaggs said, when he had Devin's attention again. " _We are talking about your future_. So, we will get to that part of your future when it comes up."
Devin was beginning to whine. Skaggs scolded him to "act like a man." Then his voice softened and he promised he would soon address Devin's concerns. Once again he hinted at the Very Serious Talk that was about to start.
"We are going to see what's in your mind, whether you are going to be straight up," he said. "So we'll get to that."
Skaggs was back in his mild, businesslike tone, spinning wool in the guise of being forthcoming. He told Devin that snitches "put him on Front Street" and called him by his gang name, Baby Man.
"I ain' no Baby Man," Devin said, drawling a little. "We'll get to that, we'll get to that," Skaggs said. Always promising, never delivering.
Devin was starting to fray. _"Tell me!"_ he pleaded. "You say you'll be up-front! Well then lemme know everything."
"Absolutely!" Skaggs said. Bright and helpful.
Then he returned to his obfuscations. He made reference to Starks, saying Starks was "a bitch." Devin thought Skaggs was referring to a woman; street slang could be confusing even to seasoned users. Skaggs corrected him. He'd meant that Starks had broken down easily. Devin chortled.
Skaggs said he had found Starks's phone number on a slip of paper in Devin's bedroom. Devin demanded to see it.
Skaggs obliged, producing a page of the murder book. "That way you know what's happening," he said. Devin looked, and switched gears instantly: "I know him," he said. "I'm not going to lie to you... I'm an honest person," he said.
For several more minutes, Skaggs let Devin page selectively through the murder book on the pretext of demonstrating how up-front he was. He showed Devin a letter in which Devin declared he belonged to One Hundred and Thirteen Blocc Crips. "I got put off of there, though," Devin objected. The gang had beaten him up and kicked him out, he said. "Hold on! Devin!" Skaggs said, interrupting him. "We're talking! You don't have to answer to nothing!"
"All right," Devin said, suddenly sounding weary. "Then I go back to camp after this?"
"You are going back to camp when we're done here," Skaggs said.
"And that's it," Devin said.
"What do you mean, 'that's it'?"
"I won't have to worry about hearing this never again," Devin said.
"I don't know. We ain't done talking about this, are we?" Skaggs said.
Devin emitted a pained laugh. "I'm not trying to make you mad or nuthin'," he said.
"You can't make me mad," Skaggs replied airily.
He began producing letters he alleged Devin had written and making reference to a fictitious handwriting analysis. The letters talked about killing "Snoovers," the derogatory term for Hoovers. At the word "Snoovers," Devin giggled.
Skaggs showed Devin a letter in which Devin referred to himself as Baby Man. "Oops!" Skaggs said sarcastically.
"I ain't from that shit no mo'," Devin whined. Skaggs grew sharp again: "Devin!"
"All right! They call me that. I guess." It was the second time Skaggs had forced Devin to backtrack. Skaggs acted exasperated. Devin asked again if he was going back to camp. Skaggs told him to stop asking. Devin turned back to the murder book, manhandling it.
"Hold it! Easy, tiger!" Skaggs said, keeping his hands on it. He showed Devin more pages. A picture of the Suburban. A picture of Midkiff. "Who the fuck is this bitch?" Devin said. He called the interview "bullshit" and demanded that Skaggs get around to his questions.
Skaggs calmly bade him to wait, flipping pages of the book. Outside, on the streets of the Seventy-seventh Division, a siren wailed.
"We're gonna do some talking," Skaggs said. "We'll get to the good talking in just a second."
"Can I get lunch? Please? I'm hungry," Devin said.
"We'll do that in a minute," Skaggs said.
" 'Cause I'm ready, sir! I mean, I'm doing my time—"
This was danger. What Skaggs feared most was that Devin would abruptly back out and demand to be taken back to camp. He'd had interviews end that way before, with a suspect declaring: "I ain't sayin' shit! Fuck you!" Skaggs couldn't risk that now.
He shifted his tone, growing serious. "So here's, here's where we're at. Devin. There's some snitches from Bloccs, and there's some snitches from the nine-oh's."
The word "snitches" caught Devin's attention. Skaggs went back to talking about a killing, daylight, a video camera, witnesses.
"So I'm in big, big, trouble?" Devin interrupted.
Skaggs downplayed it: "Well, what I'm sayin' is, I've got people saying you shot a boy..."
Twenty minutes had passed and this was the most direct Skaggs had been about his suspicions. He introduced the murder accusation casually.
Devin, who for most of those twenty minutes had been exhorting Skaggs to get to the point, now seemed suddenly eager to turn him back. He cut Skaggs off, voice urgent:
"So, I—I'm getting in trouble for it, right?"
"Hold on! Eeeeasy, tiger!" Skaggs downplayed it. The heavier the mood, the lighter his tone.
But Devin got worked up. "I wish you'd just tell me the truth, sir!"
"There ain't no truth yet. We ain't done talking! When we're done talking, I'll answer anything you want. Okay? You with me?" Skaggs's voice held impatient humor, fatherly, reassuring, exasperated. It worked. "Yes, sir," Devin said.
Skaggs took a breath and then repeated his infuriating mantra: "Listen to me. We are gonna do some talkin'."
Rick Gordon had elicited evidence this way, too: breaking suspects down through a simple tactic he called Boring Them to Death. Skaggs returned to his meanderings, saying that snitches had said Devin had been put up to the crime by Starks, but then burying the allegation in lesser ones, saying Devin had done this and that. Devin was reduced to denying small allegations in pieces: "That's on my mom!" he exclaimed at one point, swearing on some denial. Skaggs used the occasion to open a discussion about Devin's mother for no reason. Devin took the bait. They digressed.
Then Skaggs mentioned Midkiff again. "She is not going to take a hit for you," he said.
"I'm not gonna take a hit for her!" Devin retorted hotly.
Skaggs pounced. "What she do?" he said swiftly.
But Devin saw it, and pedaled back. "Shi', I dunno... I'm not takin' a hit for nobody," he muttered.
Skaggs resumed as if nothing had happened. Devin protested. "It's just—you said you had more to tell me," he said. Skaggs assured Devin that he did. Devin needed only to listen.
"But I mean all the other stuff you're sayin', reee-ally makin' my blood pressure go up," Devin said.
"I bet it does," Skaggs said. "It'd make me fuckin' freak out."
Devin agreed. It certainly was making him freak out. "It should," Skaggs told Devin, suddenly quiet. "Someone just told you you've been fingered on a killing."
Devin mumbled something. Skaggs zeroed in. "Hmm?"
"Nothin'," Devin said. "I'm sayin' it to myself, just thinkin' out loud."
"That's cool!" Skaggs was light again, and he went on as if Devin's internal dialogue held no interest for him. He droned on about the evidence, this time inserting the phrase "killin' a cop's kid."
"Killin' a cop's kid!" Devin sounded shocked.
"Yeah," Skaggs said, suddenly sounding annoyed. "I don't expect you to admit to anything, Devin."
"I ain't lyin' to you, sir! I been honest with you the whole time!" Devin cried. Skaggs disagreed. An argument ensued. "You didn't even admit your name was frickin' Baby Man!" Skaggs said.
Devin's voice was tight. He retreated, pleading: "Can we just keep it low-low? Like, 'cause it's, like, I feel like you gettin' mad and stuff."
"Why would I get mad?" Skaggs's easy tone was back. Devin again asked him to move his legs. Skaggs acted surprised. He asked if Devin was "claustrophobic or something." Devin said he was. "Okay!" Skaggs said amiably. "I'll stay back."
He launched into his meandering talk again, getting nowhere. This time he assured Devin that "we are gonna get to some questions, but first I wanted to lay it all out for you." At one point, he stalled with the phrase, "As you know, we know our business—"
"I know! I'd put you up for a job! Truthfully!" Devin interrupted.
Skaggs ignored this endorsement and went on. Devin again cut him off. "Okay, but are you gonna tell me who is snitchin' on me?" he demanded.
"If this was to go to court, absolutely you are going to find out. But I ain't going to tell you today," Skaggs said.
Devin started. Going to court? He wasn't going to court, was he? People didn't usually go to court on something like this—did they? Skaggs told him that it was up to the DA. Only when they finished talking would they be "locked in," he said.
Devin got quiet. "What you mean by locked in?" he said.
Skaggs spoke very slowly. He would prepare his findings. The DA would decide what to do, he said. Then, "What do you think the DA's gonna do to the person that's in the video bustin' on some kid?"
Devin let out a sharp burst of air. "I'll be there for the rest of my life," he breathed, as if speaking to himself. He sounded resigned. Then he rebelled: "I got a baby on the way, though!"
They had been in the room for twenty-eight minutes. Devin began to cry. "You and I need to have a heart-to-heart talk," Skaggs said.
But Devin was working up to sobs. "I'm about to have a son. I won't see my own baby be born!"
Skaggs tried for calm. This was dicey. Devin seemed to be cracking. But he had not yet been Miranda-ized. "You and I are gonna have a real-deal talk here," Skaggs said, scrambling.
"It don't matter! I'm gonna go to jail anyway. I'm gonna sit in there for the rest of my life anyways. I ain't gonna never go home!" Devin wailed. "Fuckin' sucks!" Then the inevitable addendum: " 'Scuse my language."
This was like the overuse of "sir." For some reason, swearing, then apologizing for it, was a common gang tic.
Skaggs downplayed Devin's tears and resumed talking about the case. Devin interrupted him.
"You already said—that _he put me up to it_ ," Devin said, then dissolved into a cascade of snuffles.
The statement was thunderous. But still not quite a confession. "Wait!" Skaggs sought to wind the conversation back. But Devin sharpened up again, pausing mid–whimper. "I'm not admittin' to it," he said.
Devin said he hoped the cops would help him. "I'm not here to hurt or help," Skaggs said. "I'm here to find the truth. That's why we need to get to the point."
The phrase seemed to send Devin around the bend. "That's what I'm askin'! Just _get to the point_!" He sounded desperate.
Skaggs was sympathetic and promised to get to his questions very soon. He made a seamless transition: "For me to ask you questions—well, you've had your rights read to you before, right?"
Devin had. This could be a scary moment for detectives. The reading of rights broke the mood. Skaggs spoke easily. He even made a game of it, asking Devin if he knew his rights well enough to recite them. Devin tried, then trailed off. He was in his own world, tears flowing, head bowed. "I'm never gonna go home," he wept.
Skaggs offered to read the rights for him, magnanimous, as if doing Devin a favor. Devin listened at first, sniffing, then interrupted: "I don't even want to hear it, sir. It's just gonna hurt me more," he said.
"Well," Skaggs said mildly, as if dispensing with unpleasant business, "I have to. So let me just go over them... And then we'll talk." He read the Miranda rights, slowly and clearly, stopping for Devin's "Yes, sir" after each line.
A pause. Devin still wept. "I feel for you, for the predicament you're in," Skaggs said softly.
He suggested they take a break. He offered Devin a tissue. He said he would steer the conversation away, give Devin a chance to relax. He brought up Devin's mother again. "Your mom is a very nice lady," Skaggs said. "I feel for your mom." This was true: Skaggs did think Sandra James was a nice lady.
Skaggs had separated the cuffs so Devin's hands were free, though he still wore the metal shackles and one was hurting his injured wrist. Skaggs helped him shift the cuffs to fit more comfortably. Then he circled back to the murder, talking about Devin in the third person. People were asking why Devin had done it, he said musingly. "He doesn't seem like that bad of a guy," Skaggs rambled. "What the hell happened?" Skaggs turned over more pages in the murder book, referring again to the case as being "the real deal." But his efforts to elicit a response from Devin failed. To everything, Devin replied, "It doesn't matter, sir, I'm already gonna go to jail." The teenager was talking to himself, lamenting that his friends had snitched.
He sat crumpled over the table, a desperate, ailing, injured seventeen-year-old boy—seemingly in real pain, weeping pitiably, crying that he wanted to go home. Faced with Devin's searing agony, Skaggs didn't flinch. His calm never wavered, but his tactics were without mercy. He came at Devin again and again. "I want to know why," Skaggs said.
Devin's head dropped.
Skaggs's eye caught the gesture. He froze, and time stood still. _Now_ , he thought.
"He put me up to it," Devin said, his voice suddenly clear. Then something about how he had closed his eyes.
"Okay," said Skaggs, very quietly. "That's what we are gonna talk about. Go ahead and clean yourself up."
But Devin caught himself a second time. Again he backtracked. "I didn't do it," he said. He was taking back the confession he had just made. "I was thinking about something else," he said.
They had been in the room nearly forty-five minutes. A confession seemed close, yet remained out of reach. Corey Farell had barely moved. His notepad was before him but he had jotted only sparingly—afraid of doing anything that would break the flow. If Skaggs felt anxiety he didn't show it. In fact, he seemed calmer by the minute.
Watching from his corner, Farell felt the weight of the whole case beginning to fall into place, its separate pieces converging with the escalating tension in the room, rushing like streams to a river. But each time Devin backed off, the currents slackened.
"Okay!" Skaggs said easily when Devin took back his confession. "Ain't nobody mad!"
He gave the weeping teenager more tissues and coached him on how to use them, as if talking to a child.
Devin was getting hysterical again. He returned to sobbing—"I'm going to jail for life. I'm seventeen, and I'm goin' to the pen!" he said. "They gon' punch on me. I got one hand. I can't do nothin'!"
"Devin! Devin!" Skaggs was talking over him again, trying to bring him back. When Devin paused for air, Skaggs began talking nonsensically, buying time.
"Devin, you're seventeen. I'm—how old do I look?"
"Forty-seven," said Devin through sniffles, coming close.
Skaggs acted sheepish, laughing. "Yeah," he said. "I don't like to admit it, but..."
Then suddenly, Skaggs grew serious. He raised both hands. "So, listen," he intoned, and brought his hands together sharply. _Clap!_
For a moment, the sound hung in the air, just as Skaggs's words to Derrick Washington's sister had hovered before she dropped her head and started crying. Asked to explain this part of the interview, Skaggs had no insight to offer. He could not explain why, three quarters of an hour into the interrogation, he had suddenly resorted to clapping his hands like a kindergarten teacher.
Skaggs was trying to make Devin focus. But the clap was also an instinctive gesture, a flash of virtuosity from a man for whom establishing control was second nature. Skaggs clapped in Devin's face as if he knew exactly what was about to happen, then clapped twice more, reflexively, to lock it down. So simple and powerful was the device—three sharp reports shattering the air in the tiny room—that someone who didn't know the context might have assumed that Skaggs was engaged in black magic, calling forth an evil spirit with his hands.
"So, listen," Skaggs said. _Clap_. "What happened that day?" _Clap. Clap_.
And Devin broke.
Suddenly, he was talking so fast the detectives couldn't keep up. He was stumbling to get the words out. He was giving them the whole case.
"He put me up to it," Devin said. " _Woo woo whoopdoobam_. He said we go over here, I was in the car... I was with the burner, all right. I got out of the car, closed my eyes, and I just started doing it, I don't know why! I was scared!... I didn't want nobody thinking of me as no bitch or nothin'... I just wanted to have friends! That's all I wanted. I didn't think you had to do all that!"
He paused for air. "Okay," Skaggs said mildly. "And that's what we're gonna talk about."
Two decades he'd been doing this, extracting confessions, some easily, some less so, and yet he was still surprised every time. He had gone into the interrogation hoping to get a confession from Devin—not needing it, not absolutely—but knowing it would tie up the case just as he wanted. Yet when the moment came, it was still breathtaking, like a shift in the astral alignment. Skaggs didn't pause to analyze. He buried his surprise and plunged forward in his distinctive way.
Devin was weeping. The tension was at its zenith.
Skaggs chose to retreat. It was as if his adrenaline flowed in reverse. This moment was surely one of the most explosively important of his working life, but he displayed no urgency. He downshifted.
He spoke in a relaxed way, as if what Devin had to say next held only perfunctory interest for him. His tone became light, almost careless: "I just need a few specifics before we go on," he said. "We'll take a break. Uh, throw a little food in your belly, get a snack—"
"Can I call my mom?" Devin snuffled.
"Yes, you can. Not right now." Devin was still crying.
Skaggs began. "Where did you get picked up?"
A pause, then Devin spoke, his voiced changed. His tone echoed Skaggs's. He was calm, sad, resigned. "I think a Hundred and tenth," he said.
For the next forty-five minutes he answered Skaggs's questions, one after another, employing his "Yes, sir" after Skaggs chided him for not speaking clearly. Skaggs spoke slowly and Farell scribbled freely on his notepad. The story emerged at a stately, somber pace. An afternoon in May. A blue-steel revolver so old and worn it appeared light gray. Skaggs was no longer meandering. One question followed another with crisp logic, as if he were turning over the pages of his immaculate binder in his mind. Horrifying details emerged, one following the other as they would later in court, each one linked in Skaggs's mind to a piece of corroborating evidence.
Devin's voice broke at times, but he offered no resistance, walking the path to his own destruction resolutely, with one obedient answer after another, sobbing in between, saying over and over that he knew he would spend the rest of his life in jail. Skaggs got him to construct the chronology in detail—to describe how he and Starks had cherped each other, said "Wha's up?" and somehow arrived at a plan to do a "beat-down" on gang rivals to the north.
He got him to relate how Midkiff and Starks picked him up, headed north to the eighties, and parked around the corner. Here, the conversation descended into the strange map-and-compass talk of ghettoside cases—that curious legal edifice built on corroborating points in lieu of truthful narratives from willing witnesses.
Because so many witnesses rolled back on their stories, or revealed them reluctantly, investigations were built from inadvertent slips or grudging admissions. Cases fell together when enough of these slips intersected with each other, or matched with random bits of evidence. The result was not a coherent tale of murder in the style of fiction. It was more like a superstructure of joints—made up of the linkages left standing after all the mistakes, lies, and obfuscations had been stripped away.
Devin said that, as Skaggs suspected, other gang members had been giving him a hard time for being a "punk" and he wanted to prove himself. He had taken an ecstasy pill early in the day, anticipating a party. "I was under the influence, and I listened to a jackass," he said. He seemed not to know Midkiff well. He thought she was white and called her "Jennifer." It was clear he knew Starks better. He acknowledged recognizing his picture, but he balked when asked to state his gang name, probably afraid of snitching.
He hinted at another reason: the moniker No Brains was intended to be pejorative, he suggested. Devin himself was sensitive to such slights, having been called insulting names. "I been like that. I don't ever call nobody by no name," he said.
Devin said that he recognized the neighborhood by the gang graffiti on the walls and that he put on gardening gloves as they drove, not wanting to "mess my hands up." When they parked, Devin said he saw a guy walking on the street wearing a Hoover hat, and Starks turned and stretched an arm toward him. In his hand was a .38 revolver. "Here," Starks said.
Skaggs hammered this point, returning to it again and again. Hadn't Starks said anything else? Let's smoke someone? Take care of business? Put a cap in someone? Fuck somebody up? Skaggs reeled off euphemisms. But Devin was emphatic. "None of that. It was just, like, _Here_. That's all I remember. He said, _Here_."
Devin said his heart raced at the sight of the gun. He claimed he had not reckoned on shooting anyone. He just thought they were there to fight. He stared at the gun in his gloved hand, thought: _Wha'? Fuck!_ But he didn't want anyone to think he was a punk. He took it, and got out of the Suburban.
Did he know who he was shooting at? Skaggs asked.
"I didn't get to, like, really see him," Devin said. "All I know is that he was black."
He said it simply, as if it were obvious. Axiomatic, even. And it was. A black assailant looking to kill a gang rival is looking, before anything else, for another black male. This was the fundamental fact of Bryant Tennelle's death. Other elements contributed—the neighborhood in which he lived, the company he chose to keep, the hat he was wearing that evening. But for all that—and for all the rhetoric about bad choices, senseless acts, at-risk behavior, and so forth—what killed Bryant was the one fact about himself that he could not change: he was black. As it happened, he wasn't even so very black: he was half Costa Rican. But it didn't matter. In the eyes of his killer, Bryant Tennelle was branded by history. He was a black man, a presumed combatant, conscripted into a dismal existence "outside the law" whether he wanted to be or not. Before anything else, Bryant was black. To Devin Davis, that meant he was killable.
Devin said he closed his eyes tight, fired, and ran. He said he didn't see Bryant fall. He didn't think he had hit him, he said—or, if he had, he convinced himself he had only wounded him. He made it clear that such nonfatal shootings were, to him, mundane. "I thought someone just got hit in the arm or something. Like, you know, a regular hit," he said.
Afterward, Devin said, "he didn't feel right." He made Starks drop him off at Jesse Owens Park. He went swimming. He denied boasting about the shooting and said he had been assailed by guilt. For months, he convinced himself that he had only wounded the guy he saw walking down the street near St. Andrews, he said. When he was shot in the wrist sometime after at Jesse Owens Park, he convinced himself that it was that same gang rival he'd blasted getting back at him. _We even_ , he'd thought.
Devin's diminishment of his crime and his self-protective rationalizations reached heights of absurdity. He told Skaggs that he had not aimed at Bryant, but Bryant had walked into his gunfire. It was unclear at times whether his denial was for Skaggs's benefit or his own. When Skaggs asked him if he knew he had killed "a cop's kid," Devin played ignorant. "I killed a cop's son?" he wailed. "I really ain't gonna go home."
But soon after, he confessed that he already heard from the probationer that Bryant was a police officer's son. Then he wept even harder, saying, "I took somebody's child," and later, "I fucked up my whole life... I couldn't take it back."
Skaggs's questions continued, his tone neutral, his manner methodical and efficient. How had Devin felt when he learned he had killed someone? Devin sobbed. "I ain't never ever think I'd hurt somebody," he said, through gasps. "I ain't never did want to hurt nobody in this world. I always just wanted to be a person everyone was just cool with. Everybody just liking me! I never did want to, ever, ever, ever, ever, my whole life, never wanted to hurt nobody!" He said he disliked guns because his brother had been shot "and I know how my mama was."
As the interrogation wound down, Devin began asking for his mother. "I'm never gonna go home and see my mom again," he sobbed at one point. Skaggs handed him a tissue. "That I can't tell you," Skaggs said.
"I'm scared," Devin exclaimed a little later, weeping again. "I don't know what to do!"
"I don't blame you," Skaggs said quietly.
It was approaching 4:00 P.M. by the time Skaggs had walked Devin through his confession, looping back for clarification on a few points. By the end, Skaggs was down to minutiae—whether the yard had a fence, that sort of thing. Devin unloaded it all, his voice thick with resignation and a kind of suicidal despondence. Skaggs extracted the admissions drop by drop, corroborating nearly every detail of the mission, almost exactly as Midkiff had presented it and eyewitnesses had described. Skaggs's murder book now had a few additional photos, identifying the murder scene and Starks, and penned with the initials D.D.
At last, Skaggs turned to Devin and asked him if he wanted to view the nonexistent videotape. Devin said he didn't. "Shit," Devin said. "I'm already washed. I'm going to jail for the rest of my life."
He was weeping again. "I really don't even want to talk about it, sir! I already know how it is. I watch TV. I watch _Law and Order_. I know how it goes. I took somebody off the planet. Off the earth. There ain't no coming back. There ain't no bringing him back to life... Ain't never gonna see my baby. Ain't never gonna get no pussy. Ain't never gonna see my damn son. I can't do nothin'. I'm washed."
"Okay," Skaggs said quietly. "We're done, Devin." He offered Devin lunch.
Then Skaggs walked out. Exhaustion swept him. For ninety minutes, he had been in a hyperalert state—assessing, calculating, talking with one part of his brain and processing with the other, absorbing every word Devin uttered, every movement, every blink. He felt drained, as if he had just run a marathon. But he knew he'd done it. The case was cleared.
Farell felt the tension hit him much later, after he went home. He likened the feeling to his patrol days. He would chase armed suspects without a thought. Only much later would it strike him: _Oh, yeah, they could have shot me_.
As they walked him out of the building, Devin was back to whining. He wanted something—a soda. Skaggs turned, and for an instant, the calm, imperturbable patina he had maintained for two decades of working homicides slipped. Farell caught his look, surprised; he had never known Skaggs to be anything but easygoing and in control.
"Fuck you," Skaggs told Devin. "You killed a cop's kid."
After Devin Davis, the interrogation of Derrick Starks was anticlimactic.
It took place two days later. Skaggs and Farell took Starks out of jail, drove him by the crime scene, and interviewed him.
Starks struck Skaggs as more seasoned and wily than Davis. As Midkiff had suggested, he was a big young man, who must have loomed over her like a heavyweight boxer. He was only six feet tall, but solid. His thick neck had a crease in back, and he had a distinctive, saturnine face, like a Roman statue—sensitive cupid's-bow mouth, dimples, and straight, slim nose. His eyes tipped up at the corners under arched brows, the left one perennially cocked. He was light-skinned, with light brown hair and hazel eyes; except for his strong Louisiana accent, Starks could easily have passed for Hispanic.
Starks barely spoke on the drive. In the interview room, Skaggs did most of the talking. His approach was soft and casual. He got a cup of coffee for himself and a grape soda for Starks. He inverted his usual joke of insulting Farell. Skaggs's interrogations were like the theme and variations of a symphony. He used the same devices again and again but subtly reworked them each time. This time, instead of calling Farell dim-witted, he referred to his own supposed dim-wittedness and credited Farell with solving the case. Usually, cases weren't as easy as this one, he added.
Skaggs then launched into a recital of the evidence against Starks.
By now, he had the statement from the man in the wheelchair, Midkiff's account, Davis's confession, and the many corroborating points between them. He also had cell phone records that showed Starks's movements and placed him within nineteen blocks of the murder scene at the time of the murder.
He had confirmed through the California Highway Patrol that Starks was in possession of the black Suburban in custody and had been driving around with Midkiff a few days after the killing. Eyewitnesses had identified photos of the Suburban. Skaggs also had letters and recordings of tapped phone calls Starks had made to friends from jail, none of which amounted to a confession, but which made it amply clear he was deeply involved with the Bloccs and knew about the Tennelle case.
He presented Starks with true information, but he wove in some lies, too. For example, he told Starks the police had found his DNA on the gun. This was something that almost never happened in real life at that time. But it happened so much on TV that Skaggs had found it to be a useful deception. He wanted to convince Starks that the evidence against him was insurmountable.
The lies were just decorative touches, though. For Skaggs actually did, by now, have plenty of information, with or without statements from Starks. He was telling the truth again when, more than an hour into the interrogation, he told Starks sternly, "It doesn't matter what you say. Meaning I don't really have to get any statement from you at all." Already, Skaggs had enough evidence to seek murder charges, and his chief purpose in this meeting with Starks was to see whether Starks could present evidence to exonerate himself. Skaggs needed to be able to say "I did my job as a policeman and as a human, to give a man a chance," he said later. He made it clear to Starks that his window was closing. "Today is the last thing I have to do on this case. When you and I part"—Skaggs emitted a whistle—"done. Done. Go on to the next one." He snapped his fingers. Again, this was the truth.
Starks responded mostly with silences—one stretched for fifteen seconds—and deep sighs. Skaggs paused periodically to let him talk. When he didn't, Skaggs fell back on his usual meandering chatter, seeking an angle that might provoke Starks into loquaciousness. At one point, Skaggs unintentionally echoed Wally Tennelle in a revealing way: he told Starks he had always been able to look defendants in the face in court and had no fear of their anger. "Why? 'Cause all's I do is go in there and say what happened," Skaggs said. His words were almost identical to those Tennelle used when explaining why he was not afraid to run into people he'd arrested. Both men believed deeply in the straightforwardness of their craft. For all the deception that went into interrogations, they saw their work as a simple effort at truth seeking: they presented the facts as best they could ascertain them, turned them over to a court, and let go of the results. Skaggs was once asked to turn over the records of an investigation to authorities in Mexico who had extradited his suspect. He later described this as one of the worst moments of his career—being forced to cede control of the facts he had gathered to a foreign court that he neither understood nor trusted. For Skaggs, the American system was his safety net.
He never expressed resentment of Miranda or any other constraint of constitutional due process. He was used to the restraints and drew comfort from the knowledge that once he finished, his work would be painstakingly vetted by the defense, judge, and jury. "Just say what happened" was another of La Barbera's credos from the old Southeast homicide squad. Skaggs and Tennelle believed so wholeheartedly in this description of their role as law enforcement officers that they did not see how anyone could be mad at them. This was part of the emotional equipment of men capable of scorching earth.
Skaggs even went so far as to offer Starks a pretty good defense: he suggested that a question remained about whether he knew what Davis planned to do. Did he "just jump out of the car and do his own thing?" he asked.
Assigning intent to Davis alone would have been a potentially effective legal strategy for Starks, although it went against some evidence in the case. There was, for example, Midkiff's account of being yanked out of the driver's seat for the getaway so Starks could take the wheel. But Starks did not take the bait. "I'm overwhelmed. I don't have nothing to say," he said.
Skaggs worked every angle. He exhorted Starks to look him in the eye. "How come you don't look someone in the eyes when they're talking to you?"
"I don't know," Starks answered. "My dad—he says the same thing." It was the only exchange between them that day that revealed anything intimate.
The rest of the time, Starks spoke in monosyllables or short phrases. He gave no hint of weakening in the way Skaggs wanted him to. Starks suggested he couldn't be expected to remember events Skaggs mentioned because he had been "jumped" in 2002 and "my memory's been messed up ever since." He said people were lying about him. He said, "I weren't nowhere near it."
At last, Skaggs prodded Starks for "your side of the story," one last time.
Starks took his time, then answered slowly:
"I told you my side. _There is no side_. I wasn't there. I didn't do nothing," he said.
Skaggs exhaled in a long breath. It was over.
On February 19, 2008, the Los Angeles district attorney filed charges against Devin Davis and Derrick Starks in the murder of Bryant Tennelle.
Skaggs had barely spoken to Wally Tennelle through the whole course of these events.
He had made one mortifying visit to the Tennelle family early on. This was when he was still paired with Bernal. A supervisor from the bureau had come, too. Skaggs couldn't stand working this way. In Southeast, he had always sought quiet and intimate encounters with grieving families, but this felt like a conference of diplomatic envoys, and the conversation was stiff and formal. "We went three deep!" he exclaimed later in disgust.
But at some point, as the case broke open and Skaggs became sure it would be solved, he picked up the phone. For the first time, he spoke one-on-one to the RHD colleague he barely knew. He told Tennelle what had happened. Tennelle did not ask any questions. Skaggs said arrests were pending.
Then, as Skaggs had done so many times before, he fell silent and waited, listening as Tennelle wept at the other end of the line.
#
# **MUTUAL COMBAT**
Sam Marullo stared at Sal La Barbera in disbelief.
It was the summer of 2008, several months after charges were filed in the Tennelle case. The trial was still more than a year away, and Skaggs's initial victory was fast fading from view.
Marullo was in T-shirt and jeans, having returned from a long day's stakeout. He stood in the new Southeast detectives' "pod" of cubicles, which was now part of South Bureau Criminal Gang Homicide Group, Gannon's combined South Bureau detective office at the Seventy-seventh Street station. In the LAPD, "innovation" often meant reverting to previous practice, and this new organizational structure was essentially a reprise of the old South Bureau Homicide unit that had launched Skaggs's career.
Marullo adhered to Skaggs's rule of putting every hour to use, including evenings. He had been about to leave in pursuit of a witness when La Barbera stopped him and told him to go home instead; he could not approve the overtime. La Barbera had just learned his overtime budget was to be cut by 57 percent.
In any world that made sense, homicide detectives would have been compensated with set salaries like other professional white-collar workers.
But in the anachronistic world of American policing, they were bluecollar workers paid by the hour, and prohibited by union rules from unpaid work after hours. So Marullo was effectively grounded. With all the other impediments, it seemed one more insult. Marullo was wavering.
Pat Gannon had hoped Skaggs's success on the Tennelle case would inspire the many young apprentices in his new consolidated "group." It had worked to some extent. One detective coined a noun in the aftermath of the arrests—a "John Skaggs Special." It meant a certain kind of investigation: aggressive, relentless, field-focused.
But new difficulties had already cropped up.
In the new office in the Seventy-seventh Street station, one-way windows to the interrogation rooms had been installed backward: suspects could observe police, but not the reverse; the windows had to be covered. The office phones didn't work. There weren't enough sedans. Supervisors were secretly hoarding "salvage" cars. One of the office secretaries had gone rogue. She had been ordered to ration office supplies but was secretly handing out pens and notepads anyway.
Gannon had moved on, and the group's new commander, Kyle Jackson, formerly of RHD, had never been a detective. His introduction had provoked dismayed murmurs. Jackson was on his last command before retirement and had a persnickety reputation. He believed, he said, in "dotting _i_ 's and crossing _t_ 's." Tall and thin with a long oval face, Jackson had introduced himself to the detectives by lecturing them on racial and gender bias, a gold bracelet flashing under his sleeve. As he talked, a bright patch of sunlight on the roll call tables faded and the detectives' faces grew progressively glummer.
Then word came that John Skaggs was leaving. Skaggs had been transferred to head up the new homicide unit in a new police station under construction north of the Ten.
Skaggs had been struggling since his promotion to D-3. His slot in Southwest had been temporary. He and Barling had been assigned to train new young Seventy-seventh Street detectives. But Skaggs itched to get back to investigating. The Tennelle case had boosted his visibility, and an ambitious new lieutenant in the new Olympic Division wanted him to head a very small unit by himself. Skaggs sensed an opportunity to take a more hands-on approach to cases. He felt, like Tennelle years before, that he was running out of good ghettoside options.
It left South Bureau, as always, short of master craftsmen. "That no-good rotten bastard Skaggs," Prideaux called him jokingly behind his back. He was miffed. Skaggs hadn't even bothered to tell Prideaux about the transfer. Prideaux tried to enlist Barling in his resentment. But Barling, ever loyal to Skaggs, just stared back at him blankly.
La Barbera remained in charge of Southeast but now worked under Prideaux. He hated reining in Sam Marullo, who, with Kouri as his partner, had continued to live up to his moniker "Li'l Skaggs." But the overtime restrictions were no joke. An economic recession had slammed an unprepared nation in late 2008, and local governments were reeling. La Barbera worried he'd use up his allotment for the week, then be swamped with new homicides. Now he told Marullo his interview would have to wait.
Marullo stared. La Barbera, he realized, was serious.
Marullo was enough like Skaggs and Tennelle not to appear angry. He had the good detective's gift of an unflappable demeanor. But he made it clear what he thought. This witness was key to solving the killing of a thirty-two-year-old black man: without him, the case might not be cleared. La Barbera remained firm. "Fine!" Marullo said at length, and spun away.
With Kouri later, Marullo fumed. What was the department thinking? Why didn't people care? Marullo was discovering anew, in 2008, what Wally Tennelle, Sal La Barbera, and John Skaggs had discovered years before: that, relative to the challenge, to work ghettoside homicide was to dwell in the weakest outpost of the criminal justice system.
Overtime reductions were, of course, a pay cut for homicide detectives. But it was the practical difficulties that stung Marullo, who might have earned overtime doing something else.
For ghettoside homicide detectives, the ability to work odd hours was essential. It was absurd to assume witnesses could be corralled via office-hours appointments made by phone. The whole job was ambushing people who sought to avoid cops—barging in on them, pleading with them, going back to plead again.
Aware that detectives were looking for her, one witness on a Southeast case left a decoy note on her door: _We'll be right back, we went to pay the gas bill_ , it said. The note remained for days, growing soggy in the rain. At length, the detectives camped at her door until it opened and she grudgingly confessed to the ruse.
So when Prideaux had first announced the overtime reductions at the weekly meeting, _sheeshes_ erupted from the benches. "We have seven hundred open cases!" Dave Garrido had protested. Chris Barling had cited the math: based on current caseloads, and assuming court procedures intervening, detectives would be left with only sixteen hours to work each case, he said.
Ever mindful of morale, La Barbera had tried to soften the blow by making light of the restrictions. One day, he wrote on the whiteboard: "Top Ten OT Reduction Strategies: (1) Drive faster (2) Wear running shoes" et cetera. But Marullo couldn't laugh.
Skaggs, Barling, and La Barbera were used to it—they had been tilting at windmills for years. But Marullo was growing increasingly frustrated. Although he had solved many cases, his few unsolveds ate at him.
In April, a black man named Nye Daniels, a John Skaggs witness in his early years at Southeast, had been murdered. Marullo had been assigned the case but had no leads. He had formed a bond with the mother of Daniels's two children, who was now raising them alone. The children's photos were taped to his computer terminal, their small faces gazing at him day after day.
As Skaggs had taught him, Marullo always gave his personal cell phone number to victims' family members, and sometimes even to the parents of suspects. For months now, he had been getting calls from the mother of Henry Henderson, an eighteen-year-old killed next to Barbara Pritchett's house. Pritchett had been startled by the gunshots. Venturing out, she had recoiled at the sight of the teenager's empty shoes. Henderson's mother would call Marullo drunk and distraught. In June, the trial of her son's alleged killer had ended in a hung jury.
The Los Angeles Superior Court's Compton satellite was built in 1978, the same year the LAPD broke off part of the Seventy-seventh Street Division to form the new Southeast Division in Watts.
Every grim and Kafkaesque aspect of the county's criminal justice system was at its worst at Compton Courthouse. It rose, a blank white tower, from the midst of jumbled squat buildings, the only high-rise in sight.
Exterior walls were scribbled with faded graffiti alongside the murals of Thurgood Marshall. Junkies and transients wandered the plaza. The lines at the metal detectors were four deep. The elevators were slow and creaky; the stairs were locked because some stabbing or other had occurred there. The courtrooms were a far cry from the posh federal ones in downtown L.A.: notices were posted with Scotch tape, wood veneer fixtures were chipped. Almost nothing that went on in Compton Courthouse ever made the news. Seymour Applebaum, a defense attorney who would soon figure in Skaggs's story, called it "the most insensitive piece of architecture ever built. It's a Crusaders' fort overlooking the Saracen plain."
John Skaggs had spent a good portion of his career inside the fort. Now, he made a last trip there before his transfer to the Olympic Division. He came for the trial of Derrick Washington, the sixteen-year-old defendant in the case of Dovon Harris, Barbara Pritchett's son.
Pritchett sat behind Skaggs through the trial, wearing a T-shirt with Dovon's picture inside out because the judge had told her she could not display his image in the courtroom. She had eaten nothing since the previous day, and she sat clasping and unclasping her hands, drawing deep breaths.
The prosecutor, Joe Porras, stood up. Pritchett began to weep.
Porras began by announcing that Dovon's death was "tragic. More so than normal gang violence we are so accustomed to." It was standard rhetoric to win sympathy for the victim, and Porras knew it was not exactly true—lots of the murders that people had grown "accustomed to" were also tragic—the public just didn't realize they were.
Outside the courtroom, Porras was the type of ghettoside worker who saw such nuances clearly. He could speak movingly of what he called "borderline gangsters" and the trauma they endured from watching their friends die. But today was about Dovon, and Porras was giving it his all.
A photo flashed of the murder scene, Dovon's black shoes in the foreground. Pritchett pressed a hand over her mouth.
On the stand, Derrick Washington's sister denied ever having met John Skaggs. The prosecutors impeached her. She jiggled in her seat as the video ran, then she yawned. Three days later, Pritchett bolted out of the courtroom. _Guilty, guilty, guilty_. The word echoed in her ears as she fled. The case was a John Skaggs Special. The jury barely deliberated an hour.
As Skaggs prepared to leave South Bureau, new killings kept pouring in. One night that July, Marullo and his partner, Nathan Kouri, were called to a homicide on a street called West Laconia Boulevard down in the Southeast "strip." A uniformed officer standing guard offered the sparsest of briefings at the tape. "It's a black guy," he said.
Actually, there were two. Raymond Requeña, twenty-four, moniker "Tigger," had been found dead in the street by paramedics. Requeña, a Belizean listed as Hispanic in some official reports and black in others, had a slew of arrests that began with taking a knife to school when he was barely entering adolescence and later included assault with a firearm. But of late, police interview cards had recorded him as an unemployed warehouse laborer on disability.
Several blocks away, at Vermont and 120th, police had also cordoned off a parked Dodge Neon with a "California Police Youth Charity" sticker on it—"Cops helping kids," read the slogan. The back window had been shot out. Inside, a Tinker Bell backpack spattered with blood lay on the backseat. Police or paramedics had removed a baby seat from the car. It was sitting on the asphalt near the Neon's rear wheel, flecked with brain matter.
Fifteen-year-old Daniel Johnson had been in the backseat of that car. He had been riding with two other youths about his age and a mother and her two small children. A bullet had smacked into the car. Daniel had slumped onto the shoulder of the friend next to him, bleeding from a mortal wound, as Raymond Requeña was dying a few blocks away on Laconia.
The killings happened after an argument between two women mushroomed, resulting in a face-off between two youths, both with gang ties. The bigger youth threw a punch at the smaller one. The smaller one left. He returned with his mother and stepfather and a group of friends, loaded in several cars.
The parents later explained that they had wanted the two youths to have a fistfight to settle the score. Such a response might seem crazy. But in Southeast, cases of parents personally escorting their kids to "catch a fade"—to fight—were not so unusual. Encouraging so-called fair fights was seen as a hedge against homicide: parents sought to ensure that their sons weren't labeled "punks," which might increase their risk of getting shot.
The results were predictable. The caravan rolled up the street—"came in thick," as one witness later said. The local gang members hollered, "Get outta the 'hood!" The intruders hollered back. More yells. Then gunshots. Both of these hits were tag-alongs; neither had been involved in the earlier fight.
Even La Barbera, when he first heard the details, thought Laconia was a classic "cleared other—mutual combat." But Marullo and Kouri were relentless. They worked through the night, the next day, then the next, interviewing fearful witnesses. As they parsed events and talked to traumatized survivors, they came to believe the gunfire was out of proportion to the threat. The smaller youth's entourage had carried no visible weapons. They had shouted that they sought only a fistfight. The driver of the car in which Daniel Johnson rode had fled to avoid violence. Daniel had never even exited the car. The mothers of both victims were devastated. At Daniel Johnson's funeral, his hysterical five-year-old sister had to be pulled from the casket; she had tried to yank out his body. Marullo was deeply affected by the families' grief.
The chief witness to the episode was a sad-faced mother of two in her late thirties who was also a small-time marijuana dealer. The shooters were her neighbors and sometime friends. She knew them well. She had received a threatening phone call within hours of the killings, and she fled to a motel in terror. She told the detectives she would not testify. She had elderly relatives in the neighborhood. "They gonna kill me," she said. She was actually shaking, her extremities trembling as if with cold.
"Just _please_ ," said Marullo, reduced to artless entreaty. "You gotta help us. _You're the one_." In the end, Marullo and Kouri convinced her of the importance of giving evidence. Then they persuaded prosecutors to file murder charges on four Raymond Avenue gang members.
It was an impressive clearance of a case that, though it was a double homicide with a teenage victim, had received no media coverage. But Marullo felt exhausted and depressed afterward. The marijuana dealer was repeatedly threatened. She would end up being relocated several times. Daniel Johnson's young friends were terrified of testifying. Their parents were furious at the cops, convinced they would not be protected.
La Barbera redoubled his efforts to inspire Marullo and the rest of his squad. He devised corny morale-building activities—a squad barbecue, drinks out. He arranged a breakfast with a motivational speaker at the Police Academy in Elysian Park.
The speaker was an auburn-haired woman in a flowing pantsuit and pearl earrings. Shannell McMillan's business card read "Pursuit of Purpose, individual and team training." She brandished a felt-tip pen and flipped over pages on an easel, reading aloud such statements as "Values are our strength in a team setting." The detectives shifted around in the cramped space, jostling each other, chuckling, pouring cups of coffee.
McMillan told them that people fell into four personality types: Wind, Fire, Water, and Earth. _Winds_ sought attention and liked to talk. _Fires_ liked results and risk. _Waters_ were sensitive, compassionate, and open with their feelings. _Earths_ were steady, quiet, and detail-oriented. "There are no Earths in jail," McMillan offered.
The detectives warmed to the exercise, especially after breakfast was served. They laughed and shouted their answers to McMillan's questions. Silverware clanged. Condiments were passed around—ketchup for the detectives from the East Coast and Midwest, _tapatio_ for those from California. Marullo, a ketchup man, was in party mode, cutting up and laughing loudly. Only Nathan Kouri was quiet.
McMillan administered a personality test. Despite its New Age cheesiness, the exercise seemed to tap into something genuine. All the detectives fit into one of the categories, and no one quibbled with the results. Marullo was quickly determined to be a Fire. Skaggs, who was not present, was also classified as a Fire in absentia—everyone agreed.
McMillan offered that Fires are best when paired with Waters or Earths, who balance their shortcomings. The detectives nodded knowingly, remarking that this was why Skaggs and Barling—who all agreed was a Water—had worked so well together. Nathan Kouri was an Earth. La Barbera, not surprisingly, was the only person in the group whose personality type was indeterminate.
In the midst of the session, Kouri spilled a pitcher of coffee. He mopped frantically with napkins, turning bright red in the neck and sending his colleagues into transports of delight. "What happened there, Nate? Let's analyze it!" they cried. Kouri couldn't help playing into their hands. He embarked on some overly technical explanation of how the spill happened—how the coffee was coming out too slowly, how he had tried to adjust the lid, and so on, blushing and mopping as his friends laughed.
Kouri remained in Marullo's shadow. His methodical style balanced his partner's blazing energy. But deep down, Kouri considered his own skills inferior. He worried that he lacked the necessary gifts. Skaggs overwhelmed people with confidence, Marullo with charm. But Kouri was neither confident nor charming. His thoughts formed no thread; they skipped around in vast matrices of detail. Nor was Kouri intuitive. He could not "catch the feel of a case or a person" as Skaggs and Marullo did, nor anticipate people's reactions.
Kouri reproached himself frequently as he worked. In interviews, he would forget to ask questions and have to go back. He had concluded that he was "kind of a slow thinker," just the opposite of his mentor Skaggs. Privately, he resolved to compensate.
He would just have to work harder, he thought.
#
# **WITNESS WELFARE**
Chances were a jury would find both Derrick Starks and Devin Davis guilty, Skaggs thought. But it was not a sure thing. Felony conviction rates in California were much higher by this time than they had been in the 1970s, when Skaggs's father was a detective and fewer than half of all felony arrests resulted in convictions. Conviction rates had risen over the same period that clearance rates had declined, so whether prosecutors failed to convict or investigators failed to win charges, the net result was the same. The system remained weak in terms of outcomes against killers. Cases were more likely to fall apart at a different point in the process, but that didn't change the overall result.
Skaggs professed confidence. But Phil Stirling, the assistant district attorney assigned the case, was worried.
Stirling was the "arrogant DA" from California Hospital. He was lean, with a touch of Ichabod Crane about him. He had a hook nose, a slight overbite, and a shock of straight dark hair. His hooded eyes were encircled by purple discoloration, as if he were in a perpetual state of exhaustion. His physique was like the balsawood frame of a kite: it curved and snapped with the constant motions of his limbs. His suit jackets always pulled askew, his collars loose. This was partly because he was skinny, but mostly because he never held still.
Stirling's unit dealt with crimes against police officers, an area that Wally Tennelle had specialized in as an investigator, and Stirling knew Tennelle from previous cases. Stirling had a reputation for being abrasive. But he was disarmingly open with his feelings and his saving grace was a healthy sense of humor about himself; he basically knew that he was a skinny guy who fidgeted all the time and could irritate people, and he was self-effacing about it.
His prosecuting partner was a younger attorney named John Colello, compact, with a buzz cut, a small chin, and blue eyes a little too close together. Colello was organized and goal-oriented. Skaggs approved of their partnership. Colello and Stirling were fire and water, and reminded him of himself and Barling: they always agreed on a lead for their cases, and they also argued about everything without antagonism.
Stirling was the lead in the Tennelle case and he was most worried about the case against Derrick Starks. Starks hadn't confessed. He hadn't fired the gun. He hadn't even seen the killing. The case against him rested heavily on the testimony of Midkiff and the fact that Davis's confession and other witness statements corroborated each other in so many details. But Midkiff might have reason to lie. She had a long criminal record. She might be unlikely to elicit a jury's trust.
Early on, a committee in the DA's office had declined to seek a death sentence. Their reasons, though unstated, were not hard to surmise. Davis, the triggerman in the killing, was a juvenile. Starks, who, as an adult, would have been the one eligible for the death penalty, was tied to the killing by more tenuous strands of intent. And he never got out of the car.
For all his confidence, Skaggs also knew that much work remained on the Tennelle case, so he immersed himself in trial preparations.
His first problem was Jessica Midkiff. From the moment Midkiff said she was willing to talk in the basement of the Seventy-seventh Street station, it was clear she would never again be able to return to her grandparents' home. But she was the kind of marginal person who could barely function outside the ghettoside world. She had never held a job. She stayed up all night and slept all morning, and got blind drunk on occasion. With her big tattoo and coquettish manners, she drew disreputable men wherever she went.
The detective got relocation funds to pay for a hotel stay of several weeks. Midkiff at first seemed settled. She brought her five-year-old daughter to visit and let her swim in the hotel pool—a rare treat for the little girl. But after about six weeks, Skaggs got a call from the hotel manager, complaining that Midkiff had taken up with a new guy and they were making noise. Skaggs had to find a new motel. Shortly after, the manager at that hotel called him, also wanting to kick her out.
Skaggs knew he needed a long-term solution. Police wiretaps of phones in jail were picking up threats against her. He needed to get her away from South Los Angeles and into an apartment. But witness relocation rules assumed that the witnesses could support themselves after moving. Midkiff had no means of support. She was always teetering on the edge of prostitution, a return to which would have been devastating to the Tennelle case as well as calamitous for her. Skaggs needed her safe, sober, and alive.
So he got involved in her problems.
There was no end to them—money, abusive boyfriends, family problems, her penchant for being drawn back into inappropriate relationships of various stripes. Her child's father, who remained in prison, was trying to get custody of the little girl, who was stable and happy, living with Midkiff's mother and excelling in school.
Skaggs didn't say it to Jessica, but he was deeply worried about her. If she went back to her old haunts, she could be murdered. Starks could order Jessica killed from prison.
So he monitored her carefully, checking up on her regularly and taking her to lunch when he could. True to his peculiar propriety, Skaggs always professed wonderment at Midkiff's dissolute ways. She went to bed at six in the morning and slept until the afternoon, "then does nothing for fourteen hours!" Skaggs marveled, as if he had not worked for years among people who passed their time in exactly this manner.
Jessica only seemed to be able to land one sort of job: brief stints lap dancing or stripping. Skaggs shook his head at the way she was always assuring him that she had some new project in mind—things that never seemed to come to fruition, like getting her GED and finding a job outside of strip clubs. Once when he took Jessica to visit her daughter, she thrust a frosty shake Skaggs had just bought her into his hands before exiting the car. She didn't want her daughter to see it, she explained to him primly, because she was trying to keep the child off sugar. Skaggs thought this absurd. The obvious doesn't seem to have occurred to him—that Jessica wanted to appear responsible to impress him.
She did whatever he wanted without question. It was disturbing: Skaggs recognized in it the same ferocious loyalty and obedience that he'd seen prostitutes show their pimps on the street. Through some kind of transference, his witness on the homicide case was now treating him like her pimp. He tried to make the most of it for the sake of the case and her well-being, gently prodding Midkiff to seek work that didn't involve stripping and steering her away from alcohol and the bad boyfriends who continued to parade through her life. And he used her obedience to try to keep her safe.
Skaggs was getting to know her better. Jessica called him on his cell phone whenever she had a problem, which was often. Theresa Skaggs, too, came to recognize Jessica's voice on the speaker of the family car phone, because her husband was compelled to take off-duty calls from the young woman so frequently.
Jessica was utterly alone, Skaggs realized. Her mother visited her only once. At this point Jessica rarely saw her daughter. On her birthday that February, Skaggs noticed that she got not a single call or visitor. She had lived for years crowded into motley groups—motel rooms with three or four other prostitutes, or shared houses—and she had passed countless days in the leisurely milieu of the South Central streets. Her life had appeared anything but solitary. But now, only a few miles from her old neighborhood, she was a castaway. At last, Skaggs gave in to her pleas to move back in with her mother briefly, since her apartment was not immediately in what he considered the danger zone.
In June, Skaggs's phone rang at 2:00 A.M. It was Jessica. She was on a street corner at Forty-second and Central Avenue in the Newton Division, the heart of old South Central where Wally Tennelle had learned his trade. She had been out drinking with some guy, and somehow the date ended with his beating her up. He had stolen her purse and jettisoned her on a street corner in a dangerous neighborhood in the middle of the night with no money. Skaggs prepared to go pick her up himself. But then his phone rang again. The guy had come back, acting nice and begging forgiveness. The old story. Skaggs hung up knowing that it wouldn't be long before her next crisis.
One heavily overcast morning that summer, Skaggs set off on one of his many witness welfare checks, worried by a new report from Jessica that she had been fired from her latest stripping job for fighting. He had been talking to her for a while now about her temper, but she wasn't getting the message.
Jessica's mother wanted her out of the house. Recently, Jessica's newest boyfriend had shown up drunk and caused a scene. Jessica's mother was alarmed. She had two little girls to raise, Jessica's daughter and her own youngest, who was near the same age. And the mother was, as Skaggs put it, "realistic" about the risks Jessica posed. If Jessica or her boyfriends caused some incident that got the family evicted from this $1,200-a-month apartment, it would be a disaster. They were living together in fragile comfort and security. Jessica's mother had bad credit and would have great difficulty finding similar housing.
Skaggs had one more issue on his mind that day: the preliminary hearing was drawing near. He could not be sure of the date, since it kept changing, but he knew it was close. He had barely spoken of this obligation to Jessica in the months since that first interview, deliberately downplaying it so as not to alarm her. But it was time for him to start delicately preparing Jessica to testify.
Skaggs pulled up to a neighborhood full of blooming bougainvillea and apricot roses and went to the door. A little dog yapped behind the screen door, and he tried to peer past it, calling over its barks: "Hello?" He could hear Jessica moving within. When she answered, her voice was creaky, clearly fresh from sleep.
"You just getting' up?" he called incredulously through the screen. "What happened to our eleven o'clock appointment?"
He agreed to wait while Jessica dressed and retreated, muttering, to his sedan. "Twenty-two years old and sleeping at eleven-fifteen!" he said. "Come _on_!"
At last, Jessica emerged in a zip-up jacket with a fake fur hood, wearing long, translucent apricot nails and jeweled white sandals, slight as ever, the ends of her long hair dyed a lighter shade. Her demeanor with Skaggs had changed since that first interview. She was happy to see him, eyes crinkling with delight, down-turned mouth giving out a throaty, embarrassed giggle as he chided her for sleeping in. She endured his fatherly grilling with a playful jut of the chin, readily answering questions she was clearly expecting.
"What about the boyfriend?"
"He's gone."
"Promise?"
"Yeah."
Skaggs by then knew the names of all her family members and their acquaintances. He asked about them one by one.
Jessica treated him as a confidant. Skaggs was always struck by the way she easily blended everyday minutiae with horrifying revelations, using the same inconsequential tone for both. She would talk about being raped one moment and her last manicure the next. She shifted easily from topic to topic, chatting about the family dog, an acquaintance's abortion, her grandmother, her last drinking binge, and her plans to vote for the first time in the upcoming election for Barack Obama because she disapproved of the wars.
She related it all in the same easy monotone. Skaggs scolded her perfunctorily for drinking, and for supporting Obama. But otherwise, he absorbed all her varied tales with his usual blend of easygoing humor and affectionate teasing. Only once did she manage to penetrate his equanimity. He had asked her about a male friend they both knew and she reported indifferently that "he said something to the sheriffs, and they kicked the crap out of him. He's paralyzed now." Skaggs, face expressionless, flipped off the air conditioner and fell momentarily silent.
He took her to a pancake house. She told him she was smoking less, but then made him wait while she smoked a cigarette before entering the restaurant. Inside, she ordered as if starving. One plate of eggs and cheese—she made a big delicate fuss about the onions, telling the server she wanted them chopped very fine—and another plate of pancakes.
She continued chatting over breakfast, drawing up her shoulders when she laughed, dimples showing in both cheeks, waggling her shoulders and popping her neck just a little. She was still aiming to get the GED, she said. She had put in an application at a local drugstore. And now she was contemplating bartending school. Skaggs urged her to "put your goals on paper. Write 'em down."
For Jessica, it was not so easy. She didn't quite see that working in strip clubs came at the expense of developing other skills. She told herself it was an extension of her love of dancing, and she legitimatized the work in her own mind by setting absurdly prudish boundaries, vowing, for example, to stick to partial-strip dancing jobs where she was allowed to wear adhesive cups over her breasts. She had also ruled out lap dancing and was avoiding clubs where she knew her fellow dancers were turning tricks out back. She considered herself "clean" and did not want to fall off the wagon back into prostitution.
She knew enough of the world, however, to realize that she had never held what she called "a real, _real_ job." She had a sense of what Skaggs was getting at, but no clue how to go about it. She was relying on him even more than he realized and was worried whether Skaggs would "stay friends" with her after she testified.
When he left, he reminded her of the approaching court date. "Don't get too nervous till it's time to be nervous," he told her lightly. Jessica made no reply. She gave him a polite one-armed hug, the Southern California version of a handshake.
Just before noon down on 118th Place and Avalon, Nathan Kouri's bald head shone in the ruthless August sun. He was wearing his puzzled look, brow furrowed, with his leather notebook in hand, knocking on doors to investigate the unit's newest murder. Marullo, nearby, looked untouched by the August heat, relaxed in his dark suit, sunglasses fashionably placed on the back of his head. Near them, La Barbera was processing the crime scene himself to save on overtime.
At the end of the street, a small crowd stood behind the yellow tape. "La'Mere!" someone cried. "They got La'Mere this time!" The speaker was a woman in yellow with an aluminum cane and a Goody comb stuck in her unkempt hair. She was the mother of Ronald Tyson, murdered nearly five years before, the same woman who had vomited when notified of his death. The victim had been a friend of hers. He was La'Mere Cook, Sr., an oil rig worker with six children and no gang ties.
A young woman came up to the tape, light-skinned and wearing a lavender kerchief. She said she was a relative of La'Mere Cook and wanted to join the rest of her family. She called out to the officers guarding the tape. They glanced toward her, smirked, and turned away. She stood in the sun and pleaded. They ignored her.
Marullo and Kouri left for the police station to conduct interviews; La Barbera remained behind, smoking cigarette after cigarette, sweating as he pushed the measuring wheel in the hot sun, sourly noting the uniformed officers standing by.
Marullo hurried to the roll call room at Southeast where several of Cook's family members waited. He leaned on his fingertips to speak to them over a desk. They were all talking at once. Cook's uncle was angry that they had been kept waiting. He took it as indifference. "I'll have it done my way!" he snapped at Marullo. "I can get it done!" The uncle had been a gang member back in the day. Now he was a portly, ordinary-looking man with missing teeth.
It doesn't get any plainer. A middle-aged uncle raising his voice in the roll call room of a municipal police department to declare to, of all people, a homicide detective that he was seriously contemplating a revenge murder. The Monster is hardly subtle. Marullo tried to calm him, doing his boyish-charm thing, eyes wide, eyebrows raised. "I'm sorry, sir! I know you're upset..." Across the room, some uniformed officers glanced toward them and went back to their chatter, unperturbed.
At length, Marullo led a woman from the family away. He thought she was Cook's aunt. But as he escorted the woman downstairs, her movements were slow and labored. She sat and rocked. She was short and ample with a honey-brown face and little gray braids. She laid a white 8-by-11 sheet of paper on the table. Marullo began with a reference to her "nephew," and she slumped. "My son, my son. Oh Jesus. My only son!" She was sobbing.
Marullo was caught off guard. He had not understood this was the victim's mother. He made a quick readjustment, pulling his chair around the table so as to sit next to her and softening his tone. He touched her shoulder very lightly. "I'm sorry," he said. Then: "I don't want to seem like I'm being insensitive. I have to ask you some questions here. We want to find who did this."
The woman was leaning heavily on the table, breathing hard. Her name was Joyce Cook. Marullo asked her to spell the name and she buried her head on the table, sobbing and incoherent.
Marullo persisted gently with his questions, leaning forward, nodding, trying to keep her on track. She told him what she knew. La'Mere had just gone outside. The killers had driven right up to the house in a van, and a young man or boy had jumped out and fired. There had been shots, then more shots—"So many bullets!" Joyce Cook said. She had opened the door at the sound of gunfire and watched her son's murder unfold.
Marullo, tense, balanced a pen between his fingers. "I know you are hurting," he said at one point. "And I can't imagine what that's like."
Cook wept. Marullo tried to get her to focus. But she collapsed and then erupted: _"Too late!"_ she wailed. "Too late! You guys always come too late!"
Marullo stood accused. His eyes dropped. A ripple of emotion skimmed his face. "I wish I was there," he said to the tabletop. "I'd be there if I could." Joyce Cook seemed not to hear him. She had fallen forward, her head on the table, sobbing silently.
The paper she'd brought turned out to be a diagram. In the midst of chaos, having just watched the murder of her son, Joyce Cook had had the presence of mind to find a pencil and draw a picture of what she'd seen. Wobbly lines sketched the house, the van, the shooter. It was an astonishing record of the altered state of trauma, documented in real time. Scrawled here and there were snippets of thoughts, almost as if Joyce Cook had been writing in her sleep: "Didn't stop shuting till I open the door," she had written. "Still shuting." And, above, "La'Mere Cook, my only son."
The drawing was of little investigative value. The police already knew most of it, and Joyce Cook's tracings had a mad, rambling quality to them. Yet the diagram was a poignant artifact of the deep yearning for justice. Even as her son lay dying, Joyce Cook's thoughts had gone to the police investigation. Cops in South Bureau were constantly accusing "the community" of not caring enough to help them solve these crimes. Yet the cops themselves often seemed deaf to the community's pleas for their success.
To many officers, black residents of these ghettoside neighborhoods seemed so incomprehensibly perverse and hostile, so hell-bent on not making things better for themselves. And that same "community" bristled and postured in response. Yet beneath all this dysfunction, just as the cops yearned to be do-gooders who "helped people," the "community" yearned for their help.
But many officers couldn't pick up on it. Or perhaps the implications were just too painful if they did: after all, Joyce Cook was right. They were usually too late.
The Cook killing remains unsolved at this writing. The unit had many strong leads, and a few terrified but helpful witnesses. A suspect gang was identified: they lived on the same block as Barbara Pritchett. But after Marullo and Kouri passed the case on to colleagues, it stalled.
One witness was also, coincidentally, a witness on the Henry Henderson case, which Marullo was trying to get through court. The Cook suspects had seen her; a few days after, her house was ransacked. She recanted on the stand in the Henderson trial and disappeared.
Another witness refused to talk to the detectives at all. This was a sixteen-year-old black youth wearing blue who was on the street when the killers rolled up. He had seen them, and he was probably their intended target. But he was street-smart and quick as a gazelle; he escaped over a fence, leaving unsuspecting La'Mere Cook behind.
The previous February, this same sixteen-year-old had himself been shot by gang assailants. The bullet slammed into his trachea. It was a classic "almo-cide." The sixteen-year-old boy had nearly died. He had coughed blood, turned blue, and his throat had swelled. He was in intensive care for a week and required three surgeries, then remained hospitalized two more weeks, heavily sedated. Family members took turns at his bedside. La'Mere Cook came, too. The youth couldn't speak for weeks. The swelling caused his tongue to poke out of his mouth, a bizarre and horrifying sight.
He improved and went home. His mother was traumatized. She worried night and day. As with so many gun assaults in Southeast that did not end in death, the case remained unsolved. When Cook was shot, this mother rushed over, afraid it was her son again. Instead, she arrived to see that someone had rolled the dying Cook on his back. She saw a look of astonishment in his eyes. Then uniformed police arrived, and the first thing this mother saw them do was handcuff her son and demand to know if he was a gang member. When detectives came, much later, wanting her son to give a statement about what he'd seen, the mother refused to cooperate. She didn't see the point. To her, the police hadn't cared that her son had spent weeks in a hospital with his tongue sticking out. She didn't think they would solve La'Mere's case any more than they had solved her son's. "They never want to solve it if it is a young black man," she said. They seemed interested only in endangering her son further. And unbeknownst to the police, Joyce Cook had told her neighbors she did not expect them to put their children at risk because of La'Mere's killing. She did this out of compassion for them. To Cook, one dead son on the block was enough.
At La'Mere Cook's funeral, the sixteen-year-old boy pressed both hands against his face and sobbed like a child. He sat with the other pallbearers—black men and boys like him, their faces stricken with grief and bewilderment.
The pastor gripped the mike and looked at the pallbearers. "The devil is trying to make you think it is an honor to die for your 'hood!" he boomed. "The devil is trying to fool you!" The sixteen-year-old straightened and leaned forward, eyes fixed on the pastor, a look of deep thought on his face.
After the wake, several of Cook's friends gathered to mutter among themselves. The police would not solve the case, one said. To them, Cook's murder "is just another nigger dead," he said.
"We police our own," said another. "Soldiers are heroes. Why are we called gangsters?"
Joyce Cook was not surprised when her son's murder went unsolved. The same thing had happened when her husband, La'Mere Cook's father, was murdered back in New Orleans years before.
Cook did not allow family members to erect the usual shrine with candles on the spot where La'Mere had died. She was from New Orleans, where she'd been taught that candles would release the restless spirit of the murdered man into the air. Cook believed there were too many murdered spirits afoot in South Central already, and she was afraid.
The summer of 2008 also saw, at last, the preliminary hearing in the Tennelle case.
Devin Davis had become thickset during his six months in jail, and his hair was an unkempt bush growing down the back of his neck. He looked as boyish and awkward as ever with his big head and square face. His eyes roved around as he entered the courtroom, looking for his mother. Derrick Starks was mostly unchanged, big-shouldered as ever, hair cropped, hazel eyes alert, a suggestion of a mustache at the corners of his mouth.
The man in the wheelchair, now thirty-one, had been subpoenaed against his will. At first he had refused to come to court. Stirling had spent a half hour before the session fielding the man's concerns for his safety and that of his family. Now he sat in his wheelchair on the stand, sunk low. As Starks, seated a few feet away, surveyed him with an appraising look, the man recanted his statements to Skaggs and Gordon and asserted again that he had gotten the gun from a crack addict. Challenged, he insisted he'd been pressured by the investigators. He did not return Starks's gaze.
The prosecutors impeached him. As his own recorded voice filled the courtroom, laying out No Brains, the man pretended to study some papers in his lap. Then he looked angry. Then he started shifting in his seat. At last, he wilted in his wheelchair, abandoning all pretense with a hand over his mouth and a look of bleak terror in his eyes.
Pointing out that this man, who had barely survived a shooting, occupied the zenith of statistical homicide risk doesn't begin to describe the full dreadfulness of his situation. It wasn't just that he was already lucky to be alive and that he was now being exposed as a snitch before two accused gang murderers. He was also an "underclass" black man, one of society's outcasts. No newspaper was going to stop the presses if the man in the wheelchair got killed. No news station was going to cut into its regular programming. No detectives' supervisor was going to yank the case away from a veteran detective and reassign it if it didn't get solved.
The man in the wheelchair did not need any special powers to perceive his status. All his life, he had lived in the Southeast Division. Patrol officers there usually treated men like him three or four ticks more rudely than other people; the gradation between cold killers and paralyzed young men who sold marijuana for extra cash was not particularly well calibrated in their minds. If someone made yet another attempt to murder this witness and succeeded, he surely knew he wouldn't qualify as a "righteous" victim. But bullets had damaged his spine no less easily for that.
When the judge released him from testifying, he wheeled himself out of the courtroom so quickly that Skaggs did not have a chance to push him. Skaggs trailed out behind him. The man had been betrayed. Skaggs and Gordon had assured him that his statement was strictly anonymous. Perhaps this was in Skaggs's mind as he followed him out. Or perhaps Skaggs had simply worked Southeast long enough to comprehend how frightened the man must have been. "Hey. Sorry! You know I'm sorry!" Skaggs told him in the corridor. His manner was uncertain and oddly out of character. The man's eyes were full of despair. He did not respond.
The Beverly Hills High student turned probationer was similarly recalcitrant. He also denied his statements to Skaggs. He denied the interview had ever taken place. When they impeached him, he said it wasn't even his voice on the tape. The probationer's eyes locked briefly with Starks's as he was led out of the courtroom. Starks kept his eye on him. As he passed, Starks slowly rotated his chair and watched his retreating back—watched it all the way to the door. A long, hard stare.
Skaggs put Jessica Midkiff in a motel for the weekend for safety. Midkiff was excited about it. She had brought her daughter. The little girl was thrilled this time by the bathtub—they didn't have one at home. Midkiff let her sit in it and watch a movie. When Skaggs arrived to pick her up that morning at 6:15 A.M., she informed him that she had gone to bed at 6:00 A.M. and had slept for only fifteen minutes. Skaggs was appalled. He assumed it was her irresponsible ways again. But Midkiff had been too nervous about testifying to sleep.
She wore faded jeans, a nylon blouse with a floral pattern, high heels, and a ponytail, her half-lightened hair cascading down her back. She carried her black clutch purse to the stand and held it as she was sworn in.
Sitting on the stand to testify, Midkiff was ashen. Starks was watching her closely, swinging slightly back and forth, his chair twitching like a cat's tail. Her eyes flicked toward him. Between them was some complicated electricity.
Midkiff launched into her story, then faltered, breathing deeply. She kept hesitating and sighing, appearing to waver. "Give me a minute," she pleaded after one of Stirling's questions reduced her to stammering confusion. Asked if she was driving, she said: "I believe I was." It was nothing like her certainty in the interrogation. At last she waved a hand over her heaving chest. "Sort of hard for me," she murmured.
Skaggs, on his bench, jiggled and flexed his fingers.
During the weeks that Skaggs had been preparing her to testify, Midkiff had made it clear that she felt bad about being, as she saw it, a snitch. Moving away from the 'hood, she felt she had "lost her identity," and it was dawning on her that she had no real friends. She was more desperate than ever that Skaggs not abandon her. She made weak jokes about it to him, unable to approach the subject directly. "I thought you said we'd be friends!"
Now, on the stand, she thought she'd seen Starks give her a "sexual look" and for a moment entertained the notion that he might jump out of his chair and grab her. Then she realized he was chained. Later, she saw Starks's mother, Olitha Starks, among the onlookers and thought she caught a hard stare. She was so rattled that the judge called a sidebar.
Midkiff's nose itched as she testified; she didn't know what to do about it. A defense attorney cross-examined her and she grew belligerent, stretching her neck and laughing scornfully. Later, there was mention of her grandmother, who had passed away. Midkiff broke down and made a scene. " 'Scuse me!" Stirling brought her a tissue. Wally Tennelle, who attended the entire hearing alone, watched this scene unfold with a grim face, playing with a piece of Scotch tape adhered to the bench.
The case cleared "prelim"—that is, the judge ruled there was sufficient evidence for the pair to stand trial. But Midkiff had not increased Stirling's faith in her. The trial was months away. Stirling was really worried now.
It wasn't the horror that burned out ghettoside detectives. It was the frustration. Sam Marullo was beginning to drown in it. The day after Southeast victim La'Mere Cook was buried, the second trial of the defendant accused of killing Henry Henderson outside Pritchett's front door ended with another hung jury, despite Marullo's dogged work on the case.
Then Marullo learned that he was unlikely to be promoted to the rank of detective in recognition of the job he was already doing, despite his many successes.
The overtime crunch was getting to him. Recently, he had been told he could not attend a victim's funeral. Skaggs had taught him to always attend funerals. "You have all the burden of the families who think about nothing but this. And you can't do your best," Marullo said. "You try to detach yourself as a coping mechanism... but then the family breaks that down."
La Barbera still tried to crack bitter jokes about it. One evening around 4:30 he pulled a wooden whistle from somewhere, blew it, and yelled, "Fifteen minutes!" But he could see that Marullo was upset and thinking hard about his future. Worried about losing Li'l Skaggs—"my only Fire"—he called the squad for a meeting in mid-September to discuss the overtime restrictions. "I'm worried about the effect on you," La Barbera said.
He was sitting in a low chair. His detectives sat on desks or leaned against partitions. He had intended a pep talk. But someone pointed out that officers assigned to Compstat—the fashionable management-accountability program based on the mapping of crime statistics—had been given take-home cars, unlike homicide detectives. Marullo jumped in. Homicide worked to "restore faith in the community," he said. But since the work was so undervalued, "it's hard to ask people to give up their life for this." He gestured toward La Barbera. "Look what it's done to you!"
There was a stunned silence, broken by nervous laughter. Marullo was, after all, speaking to a superior officer, and a friend. "I can't believe you said that!" someone murmured. Marullo broke off, abashed.
But La Barbera waved his hands. "No, no!" he said. "You're right... It's ruined my life!" It was impossible to tell if he was joking.
Marullo recovered and plowed on. Why were they struggling for resources when crime was low and the police force had expanded so much? Why? He stood with one hand on his head, eyes troubled. "I don't get it," he said at last. "Someone's missing it here."
Chris Barling went up to Marullo afterward. "I've been there—don't get me wrong. I've been as frustrated as you because of the constraints," Barling told him quietly. But "you keep pounding away! You keep fighting!" Barling waved his hands, talking and talking, urging Marullo not to give up.
Nathan Kouri was sitting nearby. He listened, a hand over his mouth.
But when Barling finished, Marullo tossed his empty coffee cup into a garbage can with a bang. "I've made a well-thought-out decision," he said, and turned away.
A short time later, La Barbera came into the office in a particularly morbid mood. "Sammy broke up with me via text!" he announced.
Marullo had taken a P-3 position in the Southeast gang unit—a uniformed job as a training officer focused on crime suppression. La Barbera, predictably, took Marullo's defection personally. Marullo "is not a Fire," he snapped. "He just thinks he's a Fire."
#
# **LOST SOULS**
Skaggs hated multitasking. _One thing at a time, up against only today_ —this was yet another of his maxims. But he had no choice but to start a new job while winding down his old one.
It required months of shifting back and forth between roles. He continued to prepare for the upcoming trial in the Tennelle case while setting up his new office in the soon-to-open Olympic Division. The new station would include parts of Koreatown and a section of the LAPD's Rampart Division.
Back in the day, an open-air drug market in MacArthur Park and a kind of sectarian war in exile among Central American immigrants had made Rampart a savagely violent place. Crime was still relatively high when the LAPD secured bond funds to add a new station there. But by the time the station was built, wealthy Koreans, in flight from crashing Asian stock markets in the late 1990s, had snapped up real estate in the area, and developers had built hip new lofts that attracted students and professionals. At the same time, homicides had plummeted among the area's remaining Spanish-speaking immigrants.
It was an astonishing change. Among the lessons to be drawn was that poverty does not necessarily engender homicide. Even after gentrification began to take hold, nearly 40 percent of Rampart residents remained below the poverty line. Many of these poor city dwellers were illegal immigrants crammed into shabby brick apartment buildings; the neighborhood was relatively dense by L.A. standards. Yet black residents in South L.A. had vastly higher death rates from homicide.
Scholars have made similar findings elsewhere. Despite their relative poverty, recent immigrants tend to have lower homicide rates than resident Hispanics and their descendants born in the United States. This is because homicide flares among people who are trapped and economically interdependent, not among people who are highly mobile.
Immigrants are, essentially, in transit. Those in Rampart in the 2000s had left old ties behind in their native lands. They were deracinated. Their new neighborhoods were not like the underground, isolated, highly networked, communal enclaves of South L.A. Instead, they were stopovers. Their inhabitants would soon decamp from MacArthur Park to Whittier or La Puente. Hispanics had a further advantage over blacks: despite their high poverty rate, they had long enjoyed better private-sector opportunities than black Angelenos. Los Angeles employers had shown an "unabashed preference" for Hispanic labor over black for generations, historian Josh Sides showed. The supply of Mexican labor was one of L.A.'s first selling points, used by boosters to lure manufacturers. In the twenties, many employers who relied on Mexican immigrants refused to hire blacks. Organized labor in the 1930s bypassed black workers and directed its campaigns at Hispanics. During World War II, blacks, unlike Hispanics, were excluded from employment in the shipyards and docks, or relegated to inferior jobs. It wasn't that Hispanic workers didn't suffer discrimination—they did. But often they were treated badly in jobs that black people couldn't get in the first place. A preference for Hispanic labor in the food and metal industries had become entrenched by the 1960s. Later, black men, unlike Hispanic men, lost out in the great Southern California aerospace boom. Barred by racism early on, they were later marooned by geography as the industry moved to suburbs where whites and Hispanics could more easily buy homes. Black people couldn't buy homes or rent in many of the new defense and aerospace hot spots, first because of restrictive real estate covenants, then because of de facto efforts to continue these covenants in defiance of court rulings. Blacks became trapped in a sunny version of Detroit, living among shuttered tire and auto plants as the rest of Southern California enjoyed a second manufacturing boom. Although public employment remained a bright spot, by the 2000s, black people in L.A. had lower labor-market participation than their Hispanic counterparts, who as a group were less educated, and they still lived largely separate from whites, crowded into their own private Rust Belts.
This fit a national pattern. Blacks lived in figurative walled cities; Hispanics did not. Black people had long been vastly more segregated from white people than Hispanics, and were more concentrated. In fact, black people had remained more crowded together and isolated much longer than any other racial or ethnic group in America. "Black segregation was permanent, across generations," said the sociologist Douglas Massey. No one else had it as bad—not even residents of the Little Italys or Polish or Jewish immigrants to eastern cities of the nineteenth century. Black people couldn't outrun segregation if they tried. It followed them, reinforced by invisible dynamics, like real estate steering. In the year 2000, decades after the courts struck down restrictive covenants, black people in Los Angeles were no more likely to have white neighbors than they had been in 1970.
Segregation concentrated the effects of impunity. This helped explain why relatively modest differences in homicide clearance rates by race produced such disparate outcomes. Indices of residential segregation are strong homicide predictors. Homicide thrives on intimacy, communal interactions, barter, and a shared sense of private rules. The intimacy part was also why homicide was so stubbornly intraracial. You had to be involved with people to want to kill them. You had to share space in a small, isolated world.
By contrast, America's lonely, atomized upper-middle-class white suburbs were not homicidal. Their highly mobile occupants were not much involved with each other. They didn't depend on one another to survive. The occasional condominium board meeting might get ugly, but mostly there was enough law in such places—enough expectation of a legal response to violence—to keep the occasional neighbor dispute from getting out of hand. And if there wasn't—for example, if a young man grew tired of his brawling high school chums—moving somewhere else was easy enough.
In Skaggs's time, Rampart, despite its poverty, had a murder rate equal to the citywide average—and similar divisions in the suburban San Fernando Valley. The new Olympic Division would not resemble any place Skaggs had worked in years. Nonetheless, he was preparing eagerly for the new station's opening, spending most of his time in the new offices, which were still under construction.
His old colleagues in South Bureau derided him as a "traffic cop." They called his new division "Mission or Midwilshire or whatever that station is"—a swipe at the area's low crime rates. Then they accused him of taking custodial supplies with him, including power strips and cans of Dust Destroyer. These were coveted items in homicide, where the most basic office products were rationed. Under interrogation by Barling, Skaggs broke. He copped to stealing the Dust Destroyer.
Finally, Skaggs made a last visit back for the South Bureau Christmas party—enduring jeers of "West Bureau!" when he walked in—and said goodbye.
By that time, he was ready for the new station to open. He had a large whiteboard installed in his new office to list cases, just like La Barbera's. He had it stenciled so it wouldn't look messy. At the top, he wrote the old Southeast mantra "Always Be Closing" in red letters. He bought a top-notch coffeemaker and apple-spice Febreze air freshener.
He laid claim to a closet the size of a room and had new shelving installed. Skaggs knew that for all the slowdown in crime, he was sitting on top of a vast dark stain of unsolved homicides from the Big Years in Rampart—back when the bodies floated in MacArthur Park lake. He planned to improve on the Lost Souls Trailer. He dug up the unsolved cases himself. There were 453 of them going back to 1966.
Before the lights and floors were installed, John Skaggs had already gone through scores of the old books, and by the time the new station opened, he had assessed and sorted every blue binder. They stood in rows in his new closet, marked with labels that said SUPERHOT, SEMIHOT, and so on, all the way to SUPERCOLD.
The work was interesting. The homicides were different from those he knew. There had been, for example, a spurt of killings of gay men in the 1980s, never solved. Some of the victims in those cases had lived secret promiscuous lives. Others were transvestites. This aspect of murder was familiar to Skaggs. Like homeless people, female prostitutes, and criminal-class black men, these victims were vulnerable because they were marginal: the Monster feasts on the despised. Skaggs was determined to secure belated justice for these victims.
There were also gang killings among Hispanics. Overburdened detectives in the Big Years had barely investigated some of them. Skaggs found one case where police took three hours to respond to a shots-fired call. They came at last to find a body and no clues.
But Skaggs was struck most of all by how many cases had strong leads. This was very different from Southeast. In many instances, he saw, Rampart detectives had received "righteous calls" from witnesses, people coming forward to report what they had seen. Even though many of the neighborhood's residents had entered the country illegally, they appeared more apt to cooperate with police than people in Watts. In all his years in Southeast, Skaggs had never once taken a clue over the phone. He was amazed.
In between, he worked on the Tennelle case. There were jail tapes to listen to, witnesses to track. Skaggs brought his old Southwest partner Corey Farell to the new station to help him with this part of his work.
Farell had just had a second child. He promised his wife he would be home to help in the evening. She rolled her eyes: "You working for Skaggs?" she asked. "Yeah, right."
Skaggs alone dealt with Jessica. He felt she would be safe so long as she stayed where she was. But she would call him, then disappear. Skaggs would be left desperately trying to reach her, stuffing down his worries. "Probably has some dumb-ass boyfriend," he would tell himself, dialing again and again.
If she was gone long enough, he would lose a day's work to check on her. Usually she reappeared soon, claiming illness or some problem with her cell phone, then would tell him her rent was late and she was out of money. Or that she hadn't eaten and had no food. Skaggs, who had two teenagers already, felt that he had acquired a new daughter, a "nightmare child."
Yadira Tennelle made regular visits to Holy Cross Cemetery to replace the flowers on her son's crypt in the cemetery's mausoleum where Bryant's cremated remains were inurned. She yearned for Bryant's physical presence. The mausoleum seemed to bring him closer, yet the visits were always, in the end, achingly unsatisfying.
Still, Yadira would aim her car every Friday after work toward that sunny hilltop, its crest revealing the expanse of the city stretching south and toward the bay. Wearing her turquoise hospital pinafore, white tights, and white sneakers, a basket of red carnations and yellow roses on her arm, she would make her way quickly across the parking lot, sharp white globes of sunlight reflected in the parked cars all around her and sea breezes rattling mini-palms in landscaped beds.
Ignoring the view, she would vanish into the velvety shadows of the big multistory mausoleum. Yadira had a ritual: She bought flowers at the hospital, unwrapped them at the mausoleum, then used a long staff to mount them on Bryant's high-placed crypt.
Yadira couldn't stop the habit of cherishing Bryant, of thinking about him constantly in the way a mother does, planning for his future, noticing activities he might like, opportunities that might be good for him, jobs that might suit him. DeeDee was the same way. Going to work at LAX, she would notice the various municipal employees around her—the facilities crews caught her eye—and she would think of the possibilities for Bryant. The crews of men worked outdoors all day in active, hands-on jobs with decent pay and benefits—a good possibility for Bryant, she thought. It didn't matter that he was gone: such were the folds of maternal concern that had swathed him through life; they could not be loosened. Yadira Tennelle had to force her mind to conform to this new, hard reality, to accept that Bryant's life had been lived, that he was now "a sentence with a period," as she put it.
It was a fact, just a fact. But it was astonishing how painful a fact could be. For Yadira, contending with this enormous, bobbing balloon of agony pushing its way into every instant of her life required exhausting effort. When it first happened, she had not cried much. The hurt was too great for crying—tears belonged to a realm of earthly physics, but the murder of her son had transcended the coordinates of her world.
Only later, when the fact took shape as a dimension of her daily life, did it penetrate her flesh like an illness. Then she cried, and felt it in her whole body; it affected her physical health in bearable but bothersome ways. Being "strong" was a principle important to both Wally and Yadira Tennelle, but Yadira sometimes felt under assault. Bitterness was a temptation that pressed close around her; she had to keep herself ever alert. "Why be mad? Let him rest in peace," she would tell herself. But then another voice would object: He did not suffer. She did. The dead rested. The ones who stayed behind did all the suffering... But no. Yadira sometimes had to stop her own thoughts. She would not be negative.
She turned to her ritual. In the shade of the big, open mausoleum, the fall sunshine streaming through, she trimmed the carnations and roses with the cutters they provided, jammed their plastic bag back in her basket, and padded across the cement floor, up and around, to where a plaque stood high on a wall with Bryant's photo. "In Memory of Our Beloved Son, 'Brownie Boy,' 1988–2007."
Yadira raised her eyes to it, leaned on the staff, and wept.
_"Motherfuckers!"_
Nathan Kouri was soldiering on without Marullo. His new partner was Tom Eiman, the former proprietor of a door and window installation service who had joined the LAPD as a second career.
Eiman had become an effective undercover narcotics officer. He was the perfect Everyman—stout and middle-aged, with wire-rimmed glasses and a watchful bearing.
It had been left to Kouri to shepherd to trial the Laconia double homicide, which Marullo had abandoned midstream. So, with Eiman in tow, Kouri had pulled over this woman, one of several reluctant witnesses, as she was leaving for work. He had reached through her car's open window and laid a subpoena on her passenger seat. Now, she was screaming. "Motherfuckers! You are harassin' me!" A crowd gathered.
It had been like this with nearly every witness on the case. Two people involved were so afraid they would be attacked for cooperating with police they started carrying guns. One of them, a juvenile, had been caught with the gun and now faced weapons charges. A third witness had run into an ex-girlfriend of one of the defendants: the woman had "jumped on her" and beaten her up for snitching. A fourth witness, also a teenager, rolled himself into a ball at the preliminary hearing in Compton Courthouse and refused to enter the courtroom. He had to be carried to the stand by two police officers, crying, his legs thrashing.
Next, Daniel Johnson's grieving mother was threatened by members of the defendant's gang in the corridor outside the courtroom. It was "in her best interest not to testify," they said. Finally, the boyfriend of another witness was threatened in the courtroom itself by an older man. The man used the graphic sexual language of gang intimidation: "I'm a real motherfuckin' Crip with HIV and I fuck a nigger in the ass," he said. When Eiman leaped out of his seat to confront him, the "real motherfuckin' Crip" revealed that he was a gang intervention worker paid a salary from public funds. Then he dialed the cell phone number of an LAPD commander and complained that Eiman was harassing him.
Now this woman was accusing Kouri of misconduct for serving her with a subpoena. She appealed to the crowd: "I don't have anything to do with nothin'!" she shouted.
"Unfortunately, you do," Kouri retorted. They handcuffed her and bundled her into their sedan.
"Can we _talk_ about this?" Kouri pleaded.
Before deciding on police work, Kouri had attended nursing school, and even now his manner on the job was like that of a stern but warm-hearted nurse. He met hostility with disappointment, resistance with dismay. He administered a subpoena like a painful injection, briskly and sympathetically.
At length, he succeeded in calming the woman. They let her go, Kouri saluting her as if there had been no quarrel: "Take care!"
Marullo, meanwhile, was at the Southeast station, back in the Southeast gang-enforcement unit. He arrived for his first watch that fall, grinning. He tugged at his uncomfortably tight blue uniform, observing that it had mysteriously shrunk; a colleague rolled her eyes. His fellow gang detectives—muscles bulging under the short sleeves of their Class C's—mixed protein powder with bottled water as a sergeant discussed the night's tasks. Mostly, gang officers were supposed to drive around and make "obs" arrests—catch guys with drugs or guns. Or, as Marullo put it later, taking the wheel of his black-and-white, "that big ol' gangsuppression line you hear that no one knows the definition of." At Ninety-eighth and Main, his headlights swept the legs of a group of Main Streeters. He stopped. "Where you been?" one asked. One of the man's companions answered for Marullo. "He a homicide detective! He turned back over!" They eyed him, frowning. "Why you come back, man?"
The nights were mostly quiet that fall. Marullo got a pursuit or two. But mostly, he spent hours driving, talking up street sources, and revisiting his choices. By November, his grin had faded. He confessed to unease one night, heading back to Southeast through dark streets: "I feel bad sometimes—like I'm not contributing, you know?"
After John Skaggs returned Dovon's shoes, Barbara Pritchett had placed them in the center of her living room shrine.
It was early 2009, nearly two years after Dovon's death. But the shrine had, if anything, grown larger. The shoes stood on display between two teddy bears, surrounded by other tokens and balloons from Dovon's birthday party, which the family had held without him. Above them, Pritchett had affixed a map of homicides that had been printed in the _Los Angeles Times_.
Pritchett still could not speak of Dovon without weeping. But she was trying to keep it together for her thirteen-year-old brother, Carlos, the one she was raising as a son. She wanted to make sure he graduated. Her family rallied around her. Her children had pooled their resources recently and bought her a new couch and carpet.
Since Dovon's death, she had extended the motherly concern that came naturally to her to the police and prosecutors who entered her life during the ordeal. She called Skaggs often, and also Sam Marullo, Nathan Kouri, and Joe Porras, whom she had come to know through the case. She called them "family."
But this made no difference one spring morning at about 5:15 A.M. when a relative staying with her heard something outside. He looked and saw police surrounding their home.
It was Southeast officers, serving a search warrant. They were seeking another of Pritchett's five brothers on a robbery warrant. Pritchett was ordered outside. She had no shoes on and was wearing only a robe.
Among those staying in the house that night was a sister-in-law and her six-month-old baby. Pritchett's daughter emerged carrying the baby, upset because it was cold. The baby had been ill and she didn't have a blanket. She exchanged sharp words with an officer, who told her to put her hands up. Couldn't they see she was carrying a baby?
As officers stomped through their house, the family stood shivering next to the garbage can in the alley.
It turned out to have been a mistake. The warrant had named the wrong brother. The one they sought was not close to Pritchett and had a different address. Pritchett's daughter was furious. But Pritchett was just glad they hadn't ransacked the house. She resolved not to let the episode affect her newly favorable view of police.
Shortly after, a woman was nicked by gunfire down the street. Pritchett went out to see and spotted Sam Marullo in a blue uniform, no longer working as a detective. She knew by then that Skaggs had left South Bureau and Joe Porras had left Compton Courthouse _—all the good ones defecting except Kouri_ , Pritchett thought.
Some months later, an acquaintance was killed in Nickerson Gardens. Among the mourners was a young black man who knew Pritchett, and who had also known Dovon. The young man confided his doubts that this new case would be solved.
"We need John Skaggs back," he told Pritchett. She agreed.
But Skaggs was off at Olympic, growing bored.
He had thrown himself into his new job. He made his new young detectives dress immaculately, and he set squad meetings at 7:00 A.M. to make sure they got up early. He sweated them if they left so much as a paper clip holder on their desks. But for all that, by spring, his whiteboard remained blank. Not a single homicide had occurred in the new division. Skaggs was suffering the unaccustomed discomfort of energy to spare.
The Tennelle case continued to occupy him. Since the preliminary hearing, the two uncooperative witnesses, the man in the wheelchair and the young probationer who had fought Bryant's neighbors, had disappeared. Farell was searching for them.
And there was new evidence. Jail recordings had caught Starks remonstrating with Davis while the two were housed together. Starks had declared himself out of the business of killing. But he added: "If I were to kill a copper, it'd be Detective Skagg. Tall white boy. Wears only a shirt with a tie and no jacket." Skaggs seemed pleased—confirmation that he stood out from other cops. But the tape was unlikely to be admitted in court.
Stirling, the prosecutor, continued to fret about the prospects of winning a guilty verdict. Skaggs, like many people, found Stirling hard to take. But he had decided to approve of him and so he humored him.
The pair made a prison visit that spring. They had hoped to interview a prisoner with additional evidence. The prisoner turned out to have nothing to contribute to the upcoming prosecution. But the long trip was not a waste. It helped Skaggs and Stirling cement their working relationship. Stirling sat in the passenger seat and gave very poor directions. Skaggs drove, displaying perfect confidence in his bearings even after they became thoroughly lost.
Skaggs enjoyed provoking Stirling. He was annoyed at Stirling's worries and teased him about them. Stirling was not above provoking Skaggs back. When Skaggs stopped to buy a black coffee with a shot of espresso in it—he liked a coffee flavor that Starbucks called "bold"—Stirling ordered a blended caramel Frappuccino with whipped cream. "Holy shit!" Skaggs sputtered when the frilly concoction arrived. He passed it to Stirling with disgust. Stirling smiled serenely.
A jumble of squat prison buildings appeared on the horizon, round coils of barbed wire gleaming silver in the hazy light. A guard in a tower lowered a key to them using a bucket and string, reminiscent of Dr. Seuss's _The Lorax_. No high technology had proved superior to this method.
A prison guard met them, a huge black walkie-talkie on his chest and blue and green tattoos covering his forearms. Skaggs and Stirling entered the prison, passing between circles of fences with dead space between them. Signs warned of high-voltage danger and bore silhouettes of human figures struck by lightning.
The pair waited in an office adorned with American flags as big as bedspreads. On the wall was a display of mug shots labeled "busted." The "busted," who included many women, were prison visitors caught trying to sneak in narcotics. Stirling chatted with the guards. One told about the prison's new push on indecent exposure: "They've been giving them twenty-five years to life for exposing themselves to female guards!" he said brightly. Another boasted of a big-time Mexican Mafia leader who resided there. Stirling was impressed. But under questioning, the prison employee conceded that the capo was actually in the hospital. "He has kidney problems. He's getting old," he said.
Skaggs remained silent throughout, fingers tapping. The prison guards' bearing had a touch of self-importance. They sauntered in and out wearing jumpsuits and black baseball caps. They appeared proud of their status as law enforcement professionals and behaved as though Skaggs were one of them. They talked of their "investigations" in the confidential manner of equals sharing shoptalk. But the thin line of Skaggs's mouth suggested he did not consider the prison guards of quite the same caliber as himself.
Stirling, who often talked too much, instantly adopted the guards' tone. He began spilling details about the Tennelle case. Skaggs's fingers grew still, and his mouth tightened into a frown. It was clear he was very displeased.
The inmate they had come to see was a black man with gang ties to South Central. He was young and athletic-looking. He had an engaging manner and his eyes conveyed clearheaded intelligence. It was easy to imagine him in another kind of life, as a popular high school football player or a promising college student. But in this life, he had been shot at and assaulted repeatedly. He had lost friends to homicide. He had attacked people and hurt but not killed them, he said. His family's house had been "shot up." A man had beaten him, broken his gold chain, then departed with the words, "I coulda killed you. No one would say anything about it."
The young man was going to be released soon. He was worried. Prison was safer than freedom for young black men in California, who were much more likely to be murdered outside than in. Some gang members even described incarceration as a reprieve—a temporary break from the terror of the streets, like a soldier's leave from battle.
The young man indicated his "gang identity" was a ploy to survive. "Gotta play the role," he told Skaggs. He spoke wistfully of a gang member he knew who had escaped the life, finding a job in construction far away. He was in love with a woman, and he wanted to do the same. But he had no money, and he knew his prison record would make it difficult to get a job or an apartment, even a credit card.
Skaggs had long been struck by how many gang members, like this young man, seemed to be pretty regular guys. They were gang members in _spite_ of their normalness. They had joined gangs as thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boys. Some were forced. Others sought protection.
Still others were seduced by teenage enticements: Girls. Money. Adventure. A chance to brawl and "party." By their twenties, they were sick of it. They appeared despondent, as repelled by the violence as any sane person would be. They cried a lot. Their loyalties had shifted to girlfriends and kids. But they couldn't shake their adolescent ties.
There was, of course, a whole complex range of people in the ghettoside world. Some men liked hurting people. Some didn't. Some men started out not liking it but became brutalized and sadistic. Maybe the mix would differ in other groups of Americans. Maybe some other racial or ethnic cohort would contain a higher ratio of regular guys, or a lower ratio of men susceptible to becoming violent. Maybe the gnawing fear of getting murdered—estimated as high as one in thirty-five by a Justice Department report in the 1990s—would influence another group of men differently.
But this was hairsplitting. Take a bunch of teenage boys from the whitest, safest suburb in America and plunk them down in a place where their friends are murdered and they are constantly attacked and threatened. Signal that no one cares, and fail to solve murders. Limit their options for escape. Then see what happens. The young man turned on them somber, frightened eyes. He didn't want to be in prison and didn't want to die. He wanted out but couldn't find a way.
As Skaggs and Stirling went out through the prison gates, an alarm sounded. A guard waved a hand toward the window to show Stirling the cause—a house sparrow trapped between the fences. Birds "just blow up" when they touch the high-voltage wire, the guard explained. They'd flutter a few moments, then perish.
Stirling stopped to watch the sparrow trace its last desperate loops. "Poor little bird," he said, and walked on.
All through 2009, small motions played out in the Tennelle case. Skaggs and Stirling became acquainted with the two defense attorneys appointed for the defendants. Seymour Applebaum, Davis's attorney, had a deep voice seemingly made for addressing juries and could have been credibly cast as Socrates, with his white hair spilling over his collar and a white beard. Applebaum disdained computer gadgetry. He wrote with pencil on paper and spoke from a lectern, making eye contact with his listeners, not gazing toward a screen as so many prosecutors did. Ezekiel Perlo, Starks's attorney, was built like a ship's mast despite being nearly seventy years old. Perlo had an asymmetrical, humorous face and a slight limp, and he had recently battled lymphoma. Both attorneys were highend. They had considerably more experience than the prosecutors and were both qualified to try capital cases, which placed them among the elite of defense attorneys locally. The pair had been chosen for the case before the DA's decision not to seek the death penalty. Trial was set for 2010.
As the months wore on, Skaggs's new unit in Olympic finally got a few homicides—a justifiable committed by a juvenile who hit his adult attacker with his skateboard, a nineteen-year-old Latino youth killed in a drive-by, and a drunken man who had died two weeks after receiving a mysterious bump to the head.
Skaggs had been struck by how much more cooperative witnesses were in Olympic than they had been in Southeast. "I've been out on two shootings, and the wits didn't run off. They waited and talked to police!" he said.
Roosevelt Joseph, one of the old-timers from Seventy-seventh homicide, had long held that witness cooperation varied according to crime rates: "As homicide creeps up, witness cooperation drops off," he said. A feedback loop exists between murder rates and ambient fear; Skaggs was now seeing this firsthand.
Inwardly, he still chafed. He wasn't used to free time. He had started running at 3:30 A.M. before work. In April, he ran the Boston Marathon for charity. Friends had told him to start slow, to pace himself. Skaggs complied, though this went against all his instincts. He was still fresh at Mile 21 and finished in four hours, nine minutes, with energy to spare. "Bad tactics," he thought. He'd violated his own creed: _Never hold back_.
He still enjoyed his job and his home life. But he felt tested in both. His son had turned seventeen. Skaggs worried that the boy was prone to "bad decisions" and fretted that he had not found a job. Skaggs had always worked, pulling weeds starting at age twelve. He gave his son ultimatums, threatened to take the car. Finally, he found the less he said, the better. "Attitude!" Skaggs exclaimed. "He thinks he knows everything!"
Parenting a child in late adolescence is delicate work. For years, much research and advocacy directed toward homicide had focused on "youth violence." There were virtually no charity or government programs focused on adult male victims. But statistics suggested that it was not youth but _leaving_ it that heightened risk. Death rates for black men peaked at ages eighteen to twenty-two, then remained relatively high through the forties.
Black parents of homicide victims often felt criticized, as if their child's murder somehow indicated a poor upbringing. But homicide risk descends on young black men at exactly the moment when they shake off parental authority. It's a moment that also throws many white parents. Skaggs's son presented different challenges than Bryant. But as the father of a seventeen-year-old, Skaggs said he related "100 percent" to Wally Tennelle's struggles.
Then there was his other, lately acquired nightmare child.
Jessica Midkiff still needed constant tending. One day, Skaggs fetched her for a proceeding related to her probation. She came running out with her hair wet, breathing hard, clutching her HIV-test certificate. When she jumped into the car, Skaggs took off his sunglasses and gave her a long look. "You look healthy!" he exclaimed. She beamed. "I try to go to bed early," she said.
She was still dancing, making two hundred dollars a night. She still smoked. She fell asleep in the backseat. But Skaggs was feeling encouraged. Midkiff had met, for once, a man whom he considered a nice guy, a security guard at one of her clubs. And she was finally taking steps to finish her GED.
As they drove by the University of Southern California campus, Midkiff woke up. She peered at the college girls walking by: she had always wanted to see a university campus.
#
# **THE VICTIMS' SIDE**
La Barbera badly missed Marullo. Four of his detectives defected that year, all for assignments that seemed to offer more perks and fewer frustrations. He was left once again with too many inexperienced detectives, and too few sure hands to train them.
The overtime pinch was hurting. And he remained unsure of Kouri, who never seemed to be able to explain what he was doing.
Kyle Jackson, the group's new commander, had not been popular with the ghettoside crew at first. But he was showing signs of absorbing their subversive perspective. He fought for resources. He expressed compassion for what he described as the "desperately helpless community" of South Bureau.
La Barbera was surprised, but perhaps he shouldn't have been. Jackson, who was black, had grown up in Watts. His mother had been on welfare and he had spent some of his childhood in Nickerson Gardens. His stepfather had built the notorious Louisiana Hotel, whose sign adorned the Southeast roll call room.
La Barbera was not in the office one evening when Jackson loomed over Kouri's desk, lamenting Marullo's decision to leave. He pointed at Kouri in his theatrical way. "But _you_? Do _you_ want to stay?" he asked.
Caught off guard, Kouri answered without thinking: " _If_ they let us work," he griped.
Then he realized his mistake.
Kouri had been noticing the ease with which unsolved cases slipped into oblivion. Sometimes it seemed to him that investigators gave up too easily. Giving up was not acceptable. When Eiman had groused that the gang intervention worker from the Laconia case was going to "beef" him—that is, file a complaint against him—Kouri had countered solemnly: "You can't let that stuff stop you. It would paralyze you."
Now Kouri's head snapped up to meet Jackson's gaze. He realized his commander was testing him. "Yes!" Kouri corrected himself with sudden intensity. He _did_ want to remain in homicide. "Yes, I do!"
One strangely cool and misty afternoon in August 2009, a boy dressed up in "old school" gangster style with an orange bandana hanging out of his pocket ambled toward the corner of Broadway and Eighty-ninth Street across from the Celestial Church of Christ.
A dark-clad figure awaited him and raised a gun. He gripped it in both hands, braced his legs, and fired. The boy tried to run but fell mid-step and pitched forward. He lay still for a moment, lifted his head, then dropped it. He was crying. He raised his head once more. Above him, festive yellow and orange helium balloons promoting a neighborhood store bobbed in the wind.
A young woman ran to his side then rushed away, hands pressed to her face. A man carrying a baby stepped around the boy and went into the store.
Paramedics soon arrived, followed a minute later by a police car.
A big officer got out and glanced at the boy on the sidewalk, who was still moving. Then he turned away, pacing out a perimeter. He and his partner put up crime-scene tape and shooed the crowd away. The big officer paused, hand on hip, to bark something into his radio, then shooed some more, waving his arms, and turned to watch the paramedics remove the boy's clothing and shoes. By then, other officers had arrived.
They, too, stood and watched. Not one knelt to talk to the boy. Not one asked him who did it.
A short while later, Nathan Kouri, colored pens jutting from his pocket, stood on the street next to small, discarded shoes. Nearby, La Barbera waved his arms to stop an approaching police sedan: a pair of gang detectives were driving right through the crime scene. _"Hey!"_ La Barbera yelled, incredulous.
On the other side of the yellow tape, a small knot of people gathered. "They gonna clean the blood up?" said a young woman to no one in particular, wrinkling her nose. "They always leave it, and it smells."
The victim was a thirteen-year-old named Da'Quawn Allen. More than two years had passed since Bryant Tennelle's death, but the trial was still months away. In the intervening period, 545 black men and boys had been killed in Los Angeles County; Da'Quawn was the 546th.
Eiman was on vacation, and Kouri had been assigned to train the Southeast squad's newest recruit, a former gang officer with a master's degree in environmental science named Mike Levant. Kouri was still inexperienced. But La Barbera had no choice. Almost everyone else in the squad by this time had even less time in homicide.
Kouri and Levant jumped in their sedan, Kouri balancing his black folder on the dashboard. "Last few nights, Hoovers and Main Street been goin' at it!" he said into the phone, then snapped it shut. "A lotta movin' parts, buddy," he said to Levant. "Holy smokes."
They were on their way to Harbor-UCLA hospital, where Da'Quawn had been pronounced dead. Another shooting victim had come in to the trauma center at about the same time. Kouri thought the two shootings might be connected. He headed into the blinding late afternoon sun to the hospital, hoping to interview this survivor.
It turned out to be a false lead. The survivor was a young woman. She had been shot in the leg during an unrelated fight, which, by coincidence had unfolded at the same time as Kouri's case, just a few blocks away. The fight had involved a man's girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend, a baseball bat, and a stolen cell phone—what Skaggs would have summed up as "some drama." It was the sort of case that could easily have been a homicide had the bullet's angle been slightly different.
The woman greeted Kouri warmly from her hospital bed. She remembered him from her niece's murder case. The visit was not a waste. Standing in the trauma bay—among beeping machines and very young doctors darting in New Balance running shoes—Kouri and Levant were approached by a stocky patrol officer with sideburns.
Officer John Tumino had been looking for them. A witness had left a note with her phone number on the ground for the police guarding the crime scene. But the officers there had failed to pick it up. Tumino, who had come to the scene later, had somehow learned about this and tracked the woman down. He now handed Kouri her number. Kouri stared, astonished. "You know, thank you! _Thank you!_ " he exclaimed. He glanced away, laughing, with a small shake of his head. A patrol officer providing a lead. So simple. So rare.
Kouri and Levant took an elevator from the trauma bay and exited into a hall painted turquoise blue and decorated with illustrations of penguins and storks.
At the desk, a nurse shook her head. "He didn't even make it up here," she said. She sent Kouri and Levant back the way they came, past the painted storks and penguins—the children's intensive care unit that thirteen-year-old Da'Quawn had not lived long enough to see.
They found the doctor who had treated the boy, who gave the time of death: 2:14 P.M. Da'Quawn had been shot five times.
Next was the morgue. At the front desk, the attendant's eyes went from Kouri to Levant, then back. "I pity y'all," she said. She led them to a pair of double doors. Levant made a weak joke about not going in, then followed Kouri inside.
The morgue was cold, with little white and gray tiles on the floor like a locker room. Five enormous stainless steel doors lined the wall, each with a number at the top. "He on the bottom," the attendant said. Kouri plucked a pair of plastic gloves from a box on the wall, opened one of the doors, and pulled on the handle of a bottom drawer.
It rolled out, a zippered white bag, the lump of a small figure within. Kouri bent down, stepping gingerly around the drawer to pull down the zipper. Levant drew back, a wincing hesitation in his eyes.
Da'Quawn's body was wrapped in a sheet soaked with light pink blood. Kouri plucked at the sheet, and a corner fell away. The mask of the ventilator still covered the lower half of his face, its tubes twisted around his limp frame. Kouri worked quickly, touching only the sheet, searching for tattoos. He tugged a fold, and the sheet slid fully off the head.
On the back of Da'Quawn's head, soft fine curls tapered into light brown skin at the base of the neck. Kouri flipped another fold and exposed the thirteen-year-old's arms and chest, padded with a childish layer of fat. Last came the legs, skinny and coltish. No tattoos. Levant watched silently. Kouri replaced the sheet, pushed the drawer back in, and locked it.
They went outside. The sun was setting into a gray sea mist at the horizon, fading instead of flaring down, throwing the palm trees into silhouette. The air had a peculiar chill. They talked about other cases. Kouri brought up a witness on another of his cases, a woman nicknamed "Chocolate" who had run into the killer while waiting in line for county benefits. They praised Tumino. "That cop's pretty good," Kouri said. He had fallen into the homicide detectives' habit of referring to uniformed officers as "cops," as if they were a species apart.
Neither detective spoke of Da'Quawn. But when Levant's wife rang his cell phone, he told her he'd be late and explained, using delicate, uncoplike phrasing, that "a young man passed away."
They interviewed witnesses. They walked from house to house, past chain-link fences, graffitied couches. A gleam of orangey twilight played over the parked cars. Levant, with no flashlight, delivered painful bare-knuckled knocks on the screens of steel security doors.
Darkness fell, and they returned to the crime scene. A cluster of candles threw a white glow on the feet of about twenty mourners, stunned teenagers with their hands jammed in their pockets. A gray-haired man who described himself as a gang intervention worker carried a poster with Da'Quawn's photo—a sweet picture taken perhaps a few years before. He asked Kouri for masking tape. Only in South Bureau do people know that police carry tape. Kouri gave him some.
Back in the office much later, Kouri flipped through a stack of photos of recent graffiti, coded boasts, declarations of grief, and avowals of revenge. "We got a war here!" he exclaimed. His phone went off. A shooting in the Seventy-seventh Street Division. Retaliation for Da'Quawn, already.
Kouri took Levant back out to the sedan. They drove through dark streets under the pale gray sky: night is never black in L.A. Kouri leaned out the window into the cold air, talking casually to passersby. To a father in a front yard with children, Kouri called out, "You guys doing all right?" and the father grinned and pointed at his sons: "They don't gang-bang or nothin'! I don't let 'em get into anything!"
They knocked on more doors, Kouri calling out "It's the _po_ -lice," using the ghettoside pronunciation without affectation.
They found Da'Quawn's house. The living room was a mess. A Lakers clock on the wall, a lampshade teetering on a shelf, a stack of _Ebony_ magazines sliding across the coffee table, children's bicycles on the floor.
The boy's grandmother sat in the midst of the clutter, gap-toothed with a spray of curly brown hair framing a tired face, dressed in a shift. She sat with bare feet splayed in front of her. Near her, Da'Quawn's little brother, ten years old, leaned in the arms of an aunt, tears streaming down his face.
Kouri gave his condolences and talked about the case. A ceiling fan rattled overhead. On the couch, the little brother kept sobbing. It wasn't childish crying. It was convulsive, involuntary, uninhibited anguish. The boy wept as though he were being turned inside out. He stared with unseeing eyes.
As Kouri talked, Levant's gaze returned again and again to this boy. At last, the boy's aunt wrapped the child in her arms, lifted him like an infant, and carried him outside.
Da'Quawn's mother was incarcerated, so his grandmother had been caring for him. She confided that she had been worried about Da'Quawn's joining a gang. She had "been trying to get the hell out of here."
She was unusually frank about gangs. A cousin interjected: "But an adult killed a _kid_!" she snapped, looking hard at Kouri. She was annoyed. Uniformed officers had been jamming up young men on their block all evening, part of the LAPD's "saturation" response to the homicide. Fifteen young men were spread-eagled against a wall down the street as she spoke. The cousin dangled her keys and was caustic: Were they going to look for the killers, or just harass the victims?
Kouri and Levant bade her goodbye and walked out. The aunt was sitting on the front porch, cradling the brother, as they walked past. The boy turned his brimming eyes toward the detectives and, as if yielding to a reflex, Levant reached out. He laid a hand on the boy's head. Then he hurried after Kouri.
Police would later piece together that Da'Quawn Allen's killing was part of a tit-for-tat retaliation cycle. When it finally quieted a week later, the spasm of reciprocal violence had cost the lives of three black men and two black teenage boys and had left three people wounded. Two gangs were involved—a clique on Main Street in the Southeast Division and the 8-Trey Hoover Criminals in the Seventy-seventh Street Division.
Several other unrelated homicides happened in South Bureau the same week, and two officer-involved shootings. Homicide detectives were so swamped that one of the murder cases was assigned to a pair of trainees with only a couple of months' experience between them.
The cycle had begun with a Saturday night house party on the Eastside. Hoovers and Main Street gang members were socializing together. Then a brawl had broken out among the women there. Several hours later, the argument spilled over into the street. A car drove by. There was "chipping" between its occupants and some pedestrians. The car left and returned. Then shots. A young woman on foot was struck in the leg. She was Main Street. It was _on_.
Early that Sunday, Main Street assailants hit back at the Hoover neighborhood, shooting into a car where a couple sat at Eighty-ninth and Broadway. They missed. Main Street struck again that afternoon, this time hitting and killing Da'Quawn, with his orange bandana—Hoover gang attire.
That night, Hoover suspects struck back, killing twenty-one-year-old Christopher Lattier, who happened to be walking on Eighty-fourth and Main. Lattier was a school district employee with no criminal record. He had nothing to do with it. He was simply a convenient target because he was young, black, and male.
Shortly after that, Hoover suspects threw a glass beer bottle with a wick full of gasoline through the window of a home in their own neighborhood. An older Main Street gang member had been living there on a "pass." The "pass" had been revoked.
Nathan Kouri worked continuously through Sunday night and Monday. He had good leads, thanks in part to "friendlies" who had fed information to John Skaggs. Then Kouri got lucky. Cruising down dark alleys where homeless men lurked with ice picks, he came across a rental Pontiac driven by a man "on disability" because of injuries from a previous shooting. A clerk at the employment office had told him disability was "the best thing going." It turned out to be the suspect car, though the driver was not a suspect. The car had been passed around.
In the midst of this, Kouri got a call. An officer alerted him that county Children and Family Services workers were on their way to Da'Quawn's grandmother's house to take the remaining children into foster care. There had been no report of abuse, the officer said, just questions about Da'Quawn's death.
"DCFS," Kouri muttered, hanging up the phone. _"Oh my fucking God."_
An image rose before his eyes: social workers yanking Da'Quawn's sobbing brother from the arms of his aunt. Kouri turned the sedan around and intercepted the caseworker—a harried man in a polo shirt and dress shoes—on a dark street. Kouri planted himself on the sidewalk, stared at the sky for a moment, then spoke: "I know you are just doin' your job—"
The caseworker thought he knew what Kouri was going to say: "I know you don't want to be involved," he interrupted.
But Kouri shook his head and corrected him. "No, no!" he said. "We _are_ involved."
Nothing could be more obvious to Kouri. Involvement was the heart of his job. It was what made homicide work different—that intimate _involvement_ with people, with their problems, quarrels, and grievances.
Up at headquarters, where crime was all maps, numbers, and abstractions—"policing by the dots," one detective said—the enforcement of law was essentially about prejudgment. But down around Eighty-ninth and Broadway, where Nathan Kouri plied his trade, crime was what happened to individuals—real people—who were now his own. Kouri was not, like the LAPD airship, an instrument of law that hovered at such heights that those below were rendered an indistinguishable blur, victims and perpetrators blended into one mass of "at risk" inner-city blackness. Kouri had learned to wade among the inhabitants of the "desperately helpless community" and look into their faces, to choose a side and throw his weight behind it. He made individual injuries his own. His job was to anchor the law in the suffering of real human beings, to bring it down from on high and straight into the living rooms of Watts.
Nathan Kouri did not have a muddled mission like so many others in the police force. He knew exactly what he was fighting for, and for whom. His job was taking sides—always the same side, always without reservation. "The victims' side," Camus had written. "In every predicament, the victims' side." Now one of his victims' families faced calamity. Kouri _was_ involved. Profoundly.
As the caseworker talked, Kouri scrunched his face and kicked a toe on the pavement. Cars roared by on the boulevard beside them.
At length, Kouri cut in. Alienating the family could jeopardize the investigation, he suggested. "What's the bigger picture here? Taking two kids? Or solving a murder?"
The caseworker, a young black man, met Kouri's troubled gaze.
"Solving the murder," he said. DCFS backed off. Kouri swung back to work.
In the office the next morning, Da'Quawn's face appeared on the television behind Kouri's desk. His murder had qualified for media coverage because of his age. "Police say the victim is a known gang member," the newscaster said. This was consistent with the way LAPD brass had described the killing. One captain had gone so far as to call Da'Quawn "a hard-core gang-banger."
La Barbera was disgusted. Da'Quawn had just turned thirteen and had not a single tattoo. Gang involvement for such a child was "like playing cops and robbers," La Barbera thought. Da'Quawn's preposterous orange bandana, so outré and out-of-date, was like a cap gun and costume cowboy hat.
Nearby, Kouri picked up his cell phone to update Marullo on the case. This was typical. Though he remained in a gang unit, Marullo called constantly, wanting details on each new case. La Barbera cast a sour glance at Kouri. He had long abandoned his notion of Marullo as Li'l Skaggs. "Tell 'im if he wants to work homicide to come back here," he groused. "If he wants to run his numbers game, stay over there. If he wants to work fucking _homicide_ , come back!"
La Barbera was especially annoyed at the uniforms that week. He was furious at the way they had handled the crime scene, not bothering to talk to the dying boy, shooing his relatives away, then failing to pick up a phone number left by a witness. He'd been promised searches that hadn't materialized. Gang and narcotics officers were running around acting important, busily visiting what La Barbera called "proactive harassment" upon the people of Southeast. But they'd brought no leads. "I hate cops," La Barbera grumped. "I fuckin' _hate_ cops."
Late Sunday, long after the murders of Da'Quawn and Christopher Lattier, LAPD commanders had decided to mount a targeted "saturation" response. But the designated units had scheduled days off. So it took two days for the "surge" to hit the streets.
By then, another black man had died and two more people were injured.
Early Tuesday morning, in Main Street territory near Eighty-second Place and Main, forty-nine-year-old Thaddeus Risher was sitting in a car when Hoover suspects shot and killed him. Near the same time, two blocks away, candles in glass holders were smashed at the shrine for Christopher Lattier. Risher was an ex-convict and "straight hustler," according to his daughter, who loved him dearly. But he had nothing to do with this quarrel either. He was just out late in the Main Street 'hood. That same night, Main Street vandals struck back, smashing the candles at Da'Quawn's street shrine.
As the retaliations played out, a meeting was convened between gang leaders from both sides who wanted to quash the feud. These men considered the killing of a thirteen-year-old boy out-of-bounds, and they knew it would bring out the heat. But it didn't work. Younger gangsters either didn't know about the meeting or didn't care. They kept fighting.
By Tuesday afternoon, the LAPD surge was finally in full swing. Patrol cars passed every few minutes in the twelve-block area where the feud was playing out.
Officers bird-dogged Da'Quawn's sidewalk shrine, at one point "hemming up" four young mourners in their early twenties. They put them against the wall next to the balloons, candles, and white teddy bears. Uncuffed at length, the young men turned around to argue with the officers. One officer was scolding and contemptuous. But the other, in a reasoning voice, told the four to "be careful... There's been a lot of shooting." The young men seemed to hear only the contemptuous officer.
A watching crowd was angry. Why weren't police out catching the killers? "People are being shot, and what are they doing? Just jacking people up!" one woman said. "Their priorities are mixed-up," said a man nearby. "You should be out looking for _them_!" a woman yelled at the departing officers. A young man rejoined that this wasn't likely. Police wouldn't bother to solve the murder: "They put less effort on gang members than on others," he said. "It's like we are second-class citizens."
Later that night, when only a few mourners lingered, a car pulled up, and a youth in dark clothes jumped out with an AK-47. He opened fire, swinging the weapon around. A man at the shrine was grazed, and a young woman was hit in the leg. By Tuesday night, between fifty and seventy-five additional officers had been redeployed from other areas of the city to the twelve blocks, which commanders called "the box."
LAPD brass used a vocabulary their underlings did not. They spoke of "victimology," and of "biasing" and "stacking" resources, of responding "surgically." Mostly it meant deploying lots of cops to stop and search people and to conduct parole and probation searches. The surge brought in everyone from elite Metro platoons to Harbor Division traffic cops—the latter none too pleased to have been pulled from their regular duties.
South Bureau commanders were sensitive to the impact of this onslaught and genuinely concerned about the toll of the violence. But they had no other ideas, and in this as in everything else, they were compelled to adhere to civilian oversight, honor public expectations, and respond to political direction, which meant that "proactive" policing and crime "suppression" ruled the day. "I don't want to be perceived as an invading force," said Capt. Thomas McDonald, of Southeast patrol. "But at the end of the day, we just want it to stop."
La Barbera, like many homicide detectives in the south end, was skeptical. In October 2003, six-year-old D'Angelo Beck was killed by a bullet intended for someone else near Avalon and Eighty-seventh Place, after a patrol car had passed the scene seconds before. Skaggs, monitoring the retaliations by phone from Olympic, agreed: "If they don't see the black-and-white, they'll do it," he said.
But what really bothered La Barbera was that the saturation did not include detectives. Fresh officers in uniforms adorned every corner. But every member of his squad was exhausted, and they'd busted through overtime limits. Nathan Kouri had been living out of his sedan for days; the unit had lost the "salvage" cars they'd hoarded, so two detectives were bumming rides from colleagues to help out.
Still, if the saturation produced clues, La Barbera could get behind it. The brass had promised "task forces." There was always the possibility all those searches could produce a gun or a rumor. "You want to talk to people!" La Barbera said. "Use the laws to get into their cars—then talk. I tell these cops all the time: Be a salesperson. We don't need the Gestapo stuff."
But several days of the surge had produced not a single report to homicide detectives. Despite numerous arrests and citations, not one witness had been identified. Not one rumor. Not one gun. There was always this disconnect between so-called proactive policing and detective work.
It was late the following week when La Barbera finally got a report of the arrests made by a special narcotics buy team that was part of the surge. He scanned it, appalled.
The team was supposed to advance the investigations. Instead, it had gone to a parking lot where crack addicts camped in plain sight and picked up some sickly middle-aged addicts including several women on minor possession charges involving twenty- and thirty-dollar rocks of crack cocaine. La Barbera's crew knew that parking lot well: they had recently recruited a homicide witness from there, a homeless man who burst into tears when they tried to interview him. It turned out his daughter had been murdered.
The addicts had no part in the youthful violence; they weren't even in the territory of either suspect gang. "You gotta be kidding me," La Barbera muttered as he read. "The fucking _parking lot_!"
The surge had occasioned a modified tactical alert requiring the detectives to don their ill-fitting blue uniforms. Even mild Rick Gordon rebelled. Murders were happening, and "the department's reaction is to put detectives in uniform!" he exclaimed.
Detectives disliked looking like patrol officers, since people were then less likely to talk to them. The uniforms added to the sense that the neighborhood was under siege, but did nothing to insert justice into it. The spectacle of Rick Gordon, one of the city's most effective investigators, compelled to play the role of blue scarecrow at the very moment when his craft mattered most was a microcosm of how police had long functioned in the United States: preoccupied with control and prevention, obsessed with nuisance crime, and lax when it came to answering for black lives.
The following Tuesday, despite the massive deployment, two more black people were killed in a double homicide related to the retaliation. They were Drayvon James, twenty-nine—a gang member who had tried to escape the life but had returned to visit with family—and his cousin, Robert Lee Nelson, Jr., sixteen, a student with no criminal record.
To La Barbera, this meant the saturation hadn't worked. To those above him, it could be argued that things would have been worse without it. At a "crime control" meeting after the double homicide, commanders talked of "decoy" vehicles and personal theft statistics.
South Bureau chief Kirk Albanese praised the surge: "We put a stop to some issues that had a chance to be more explosive." When one supervisor cited his division's success in clearing backlogged cases, allowing detectives to attack new ones more aggressively, Albanese interrupted him with an old canard: "So you have a faster response from detectives!" he said. "But that doesn't lower crime!"
The LAPD called a press conference on the killing cycle. Nathan Kouri was ordered to speak, since his investigation was the most advanced. The other cases had stalled. Keep it short, he was told.
Kouri was miserable. Waiting for the press conference to start, stripes of sunshine cutting through the vertical blinds in the Seventy-seventh Street Division community room, he sat in a corner, ignoring the press release someone had placed in his hands.
As the cameras rolled, Kouri found a hiding place behind Albanese, a tall man. Albanese talked of "senseless violence" and remarked that when a suspect is sent to prison "nobody wins—we have to find another way." When it was Kouri's turn, Kyle Jackson had to push him forward with a hand on his back.
Kouri changed color twice, looked sick, then fell silent before the microphone. Sweat glistened on his upper lip. At last, prompted by a reporter, he spoke in a barely audible voice. He credited everybody else for things he had done almost entirely alone over his days of skipping sleep and living on Nutri-Grain bars. "We used numerous resources throughout the department," Kouri intoned, staring at the back wall. "Surveillance. ATF task force. Parole Probation. Various uniform entities."
Afterward, La Barbera was beside himself. Kouri had recently canceled his vacation to compensate for the overtime restrictions. Seeing Kouri, of all people—possibly the hardest-working cop in South Bureau—praise a useless and mostly theoretical "task force" for his own work was almost too much for La Barbera. But Kouri was just relieved to get through it. Fifteen minutes later, the press had packed up their cameras and his complexion had returned to normal.
During the press conference, Kouri had discovered that one of the reporters, Leo Stallworth, had grown up in Nickerson Gardens. Kouri sat down with Stallworth as the rest departed, relaxed, hands clasped on his head, quizzing the reporter about growing up in the Nickersons. "I fought every day! I remember that. I lived in total fear!" Stallworth told Kouri. It was the early seventies, and the gangs were thick there—"You join or you die," Stallworth said. Kouri was delighted—how he loved getting information from a good source. "How'd you get out?" he asked. "Football, man!" Stallworth said.
The five victims of retaliation that week in August fell across a spectrum. Their profiles exposed the falseness of the public's conception of "innocent victims." A thirteen-year-old boy with no tattoos. A twenty-one-year-old working man, clean-cut and decent. A forty-nine-year-old hustler with an old bank robbery rap living off girlfriends. A twenty-nine-year-old gang member trying to get out of the life. His sixteen-year-old cousin, full of promise.
"All those innocent people," Skaggs had once said. In this case, they all were, in a sense. Da'Quawn was the most likely of the five to have been killed for more than his skin color, since he was wearing the bandanna. The others, like Bryant Tennelle, were just unlucky.
And there was no difference in the grief left behind.
Thaddeus Risher's daughter frankly admitted her father's flaws and addictions—"He was a professional hobo!" she said. Even so, she sobbed talking of his murder. She had visions of his body slumped in the car. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She was astonished by the pain. "Does it ever stop?" she pleaded.
At Da'Quawn Allen's funeral, men in double-breasted suits, sunglasses, and earrings sat up front and wept. There was talk of the gang members who had recruited Da'Quawn. One rose to speak: "For him to look up to us—it ain't the way to be," he said. "We gotta give these babies a chance to live."
After the service, teenagers streamed by Da'Quawn's open casket—kissing his corpse, shaking their heads with eyes full of rage, then jamming on caps and stalking away.
At the double funeral for Robert Nelson and Drayvon James, a relative held James's toddler son so that his mother could view James. The mother wept over the open casket. The toddler, held high behind her, stared at his murdered father over her shoulder. His eyes were wide and confused. At last they bore him away. But the toddler twisted and looked back, eyes still fixed on his father's face.
At Christopher Lattier's funeral, a young black man took the podium. "This hurts me and scares me," he rambled, speaking quickly while staring at a point in space. "I'm afraid I'm gonna die."
Outside, the sky was brown from wildfires and the smell of smoke filled the chapel. A second young man rose. "I'm trying to live," he said. "At least to see twenty-one. That's a lot." A stir went through the crowd. A youth pastor sprang to his feet and called the young men back. He placed his hands on their shoulders. "We want better for you than just twenty-one! Understand?" His voice was thick. _"It is possible in our community to live on for a full life!"_
The pastor then called on all the young people present to stand. He told the crowd to place hands on them. _"Protect them from the evil thing that lurks in our community!"_ he cried. "Amen! Amen!" the crowd shouted. The young men for whom they prayed wept like children.
Hordes of cops patrolled "the box" for a week or so. Eventually, Metro officers barged into a Hoover party, arrested several people, and seized some guns. Sal La Barbera considered it the only "good caper" of the surge. But it generated no leads on any homicides.
By fall, his squad had exceeded the overtime allotment and he was sending detectives home to take unplanned days off. La Barbera was feeling moody and pessimistic. His squad too inexperienced. Resources still scarce. Two years since they'd moved to this office, yet the phones still didn't work. His personal problems were mounting. Cases were going unsolved or falling apart.
The suspect in Marullo's case from in front of Barbara Pritchett's house—the killing of Henry Henderson—had been tried unsuccessfully three times without being convicted. The suspect was back in Pritchett's neighborhood. She'd heard rumors he'd been involved in more shootings.
But Pritchett had her own worries. Carlos, her thirteen-year-old brother, had been "hit up" by men down the block. The men belonged to the same gang as the suspects in La'Mere Cook's killing, which remained unsolved. After the hit-up, Dovon's older brother had confronted the men, telling them to leave Carlos alone. Pritchett, learning of this later, was cold with fear. What if her surviving son were also killed? She would lose her mind, she thought. She might even retaliate.
That fall, after all the months of hard work, a mistrial had also been declared in the double-murder case on Laconia. This had been a complete surprise. After seemingly endless relocations, Kouri and Eiman had succeeded in forcing, coaxing, and physically carrying all of the terrified Laconia witnesses into the courtroom. One teenager had pulled the hood of his sweatshirt entirely over his face as he testified, but the marijuana dealer had been impressive on the stand—though she shook so violently that the hem of her T-shirt flapped against her chest.
In the end, however, jurors said they couldn't continue. Four of them said the defendants had mad-dogged them in the courtroom and corridor outside it. A fifth wrote a note saying he'd seen a defendant's relative at his local grocery store and felt menaced.
For the first time, Tom Eiman, Kouri's partner, still new to homicide, felt bad about being a police officer. He felt protective of the marijuana dealer. She was the sort of person he might have arrested in his old narcotics cop job. Now Eiman considered her principled and brave.
She and the other witnesses would have to testify again. "This is asking way too much of them," Eiman seethed. "How can you allow an environment like that and do a mistrial? You leave those jurors in the hallway...?"
To La Barbera, things were not much better than in his early days at Southeast. He had a sense of disintegration: Skaggs bored in Olympic, Marullo bored in his uniform, his own grand project thwarted. Retirement was inching up on him, but La Barbera had no legacy.
He had one consolation. Shortly after Da'Quawn Allen's murder, La Barbera had noticed Kouri at his desk, bent over the case file. La Barbera had given up communicating with Kouri, Marullo's introverted sidekick. But this time, Kouri glanced up and read his mind.
"I got this," he said.
#
# **THE OPENING**
It was cold and sunny the day the Bryant Tennelle murder trial opened.
The decor of Department 105 at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center reflected the modern era of public sector economy. Harsh strips of fluorescents overhead threw a dull oatmeal sheen over the courtroom and bounced a metallic glint off the judge's microphone. Slippery blue seat cushions were too short to cover the length of the wooden benches. Oily dark blotches left by weary jurors' heads stained the wall behind the jury box. On the witness stand, a box of tissues stood ready.
There was no one in the courtroom except lawyers and cops. The lawyers looked nervous—no matter how many years in, they never got over the pretrial butterflies. Stirling was flying around the room, tripping over things. His suit jacket was crooked, his hair askew. Colello paced, then sat, hunched. His eyes were red and watery, his skin pale and blotchy. He'd come down with the flu, and the combination of illness and anxiety had reduced him to a ball of misery.
The defense attorneys, Zeke Perlo and Seymour Applebaum, were better at playing it cool. Perlo, who would retire from trial work after this case, ending a forty-six-year career, was wearing a stylish pin-striped suit. Applebaum—not one to overlook such a transgression—flipped over the lapel to expose an Armani label. Perlo protested weakly: "It was on sale!"
But even Perlo and Applebaum's usual enjoyment of the courtroom scene was muted. Applebaum tightened his tie more than was necessary. Perlo jiggled. Only Skaggs seemed unperturbed. He was in a smart gray suit, watching Stirling's antics and shaking his head. His cheekbones were burned from a weekend in the sun; lifelong fair-skinned Californians get sunburned once a year, on the first hot weekend in March, caught slipping after a winter without sunscreen. Balanced in Skaggs's lap was the big blue binder, divided by neat yellow tabs.
Skaggs had faith in Stirling, though the two men were forged from different elements. Once Skaggs had described to Stirling a scene he loved from Steinbeck's _Cannery Row_ in which Mack and the boys, "healthy and curiously clean," in Doc's description, keep their backs turned to the Fourth of July parade. The scene appealed to Skaggs—the image of men so immune to popular taste that they were not tempted by the spectacle. But Steinbeck's lyricism, so resonant to Skaggs, was lost on Stirling, who wrinkled his face and asked such obtuse and literal questions ("Well, why were they _there_ , then?") that Skaggs grew irritated and cut the conversation short. "You don't get it!" he said. Skaggs and Stirling did not quite interact on the same plane. But Skaggs respected Stirling and they worked well together.
A door on one side of the courtroom opened and all four attorneys subsided into silence, taut and ready, as if awaiting the starter's gun. Devin Davis's round eyes wheeled around the room in a futile search for his mother as he was led in, handcuffed in blue fatigues. His body had finally grown in proportion to his large head; he looked like a man now. But his eyes were as childlike as ever. Derrick Starks entered next, massive shoulders stretching the yoke of an orange jumpsuit.
Judge Bob S. Bowers was tall and lean, with deep furrows on each side of his mouth. His dour expression was lightened only by an occasional glimmer of humor. Everyone stood. Court was in session.
There were some issues to be decided outside the jury's presence.
The testimony of the two witnesses who had disappeared—the man in the wheelchair and the young probationer who had told Skaggs, "Everybody know"—would be read into the record. But first prosecutors had to prove they had done everything possible to find them. In Los Angeles Superior Court, AWOL witnesses were as much a part of the culture as Scotch tape and mismatched furnishings.
Corey Farell took the stand to discuss the disappearance of the man in the wheelchair. Colello questioned him. Stirling sat at his side, anticipating his opening statement with such anxiety that he was bent double, hands over his eyes. Farell told Colello that detectives had tracked the man to another California city, then lost the trail. Farell had checked death records but found nothing to indicate the man had been killed. Perhaps he had finally "gotten out" and put his gang ties behind him, as he had long claimed he wanted to do.
Next Colello brought up the young probationer. Farell recited the nine visits detectives had made to the house, the long discussions with the boy's father. They thought the relationship was going well, he said. Then came an unexpected twist: another Seventy-seventh Street detective, Refugio Garza, had contacted the father, also trying to find his probationer son. It seemed the youth was a witness in yet _another_ homicide case.
The story was like so many others: Two years before Bryant Tennelle was shot, the probationer and his friends had crossed into rival gang territory over on the Eastside to visit a girl. They had stopped at a liquor store and exchanged words with a man inside who had ties to the Swans, a Blood gang. The quarrel ended in gunfire. The victim, Marquise Burnett, thirty-four, hadn't been an active gang member in years; he had been working in construction. The probationer had agreed to testify against the shooter, telling Garza that he didn't even know he'd had a gun. But as it became clear that the youth would be taking the stand in not one but _two_ homicide trials, his father balked. The young man fled, and the more detectives pressed his father for his whereabouts, the less cooperative he became.
Stirling moved successfully to admit Bryant's photograph, the one with his jacket thrown over his shoulder. Applebaum then moved successfully to redact "sexually explicit talk" from Starks's letters to Jessica, prompting Starks to laugh silently and blush lightly.
The discussion was routine. But it kept getting sidetracked because Stirling introduced arguments where there were none. He rose several times, moving his hands around, sprinkling his remarks with the phrase "If I may."
Stirling had a distinct way of gesturing. He framed his hands in front of him and moved them from side to side as if placing each point he made in space. Once placed, the various points remained in their places until finally they were all suspended somewhere in front of his nose. He would then rearrange them to make his arguments. It was as if he were stocking shelves with invisible shoeboxes.
Listening to him, Judge Bowers veered between amusement and impatience and at last grimaced, staring balefully as Stirling shuffled his imaginary shoeboxes. Finally, Bowers chided Stirling for creating confusion and needlessly repeating things. Stirling agreed heartily, repeating to Bowers exactly what Bowers had just said about repeating. Bowers glared. Farell, in back of the courtroom, suppressed a laugh. The morning's session was over.
In the afternoon the trial finally began in earnest. By 1:25 P.M., the hall in front of the courtroom was packed. Rick Gordon was there, along with half a dozen RHD detectives in natty RHD suits. And a surprise visitor: Skaggs's wife, Theresa. All week Skaggs had assured her that this trial was no big deal. Theresa knew him better than that. After watching Skaggs sweat over every detail of the case all weekend, she had bidden him goodbye, then dressed nicely and followed him to court. It was the first of his trials she had attended. Skaggs was clearly pleased.
A few Tennelle family members had arrived: Wally's mother, Dera, balancing on a cane, and Wally's sister. And then there was Wally Tennelle himself, occupying a halo of empty space in the crowded hallway. Yadira was not with him. Tennelle was thrumming with tension, his eyes brimming.
A few months before, Tennelle had dismissed questions about Bryant with a wave of his hand, saying that his grieving was over and he was moving on. But the approach of the trial had stripped him of his defenses. For days he had barely slept. He stood slightly stooped, embarrassed by his tears.
The RHD detectives fell back. But Skaggs walked right up to Tennelle. He clapped him on both shoulders in a hail-fellow-well-met spirit, then turned quickly away, lighthearted, shaking hands all around. Skaggs behaved as if he had not noticed Tennelle's tears. Experience had made him deft with homicide grief: his hearty handshakes, his whole manner lowered the tension palpably.
After the courtroom doors were flung open, the RHD detectives, eleven in all, filled the mismatched office chairs in back of the courtroom. Tennelle composed himself. He dragged a lip balm across his lips, then hunched over, staring at the floor, hands over his mouth.
There were two juries, one for each defendant. As the members filed in, Skaggs adjusted his jacket and studied their faces. In front of him, Starks was doing the same thing.
Perlo put on his glasses and moved his Vitamin Water bottle around on the defense table. Colello performed the same motions at the People's table, using an Arrowhead water bottle. Stirling looked as if he was playing giant solitaire: he had six notepads spread out in front of him and was arranging and rearranging them, leaving no surface of the desk uncovered. When he finished, he sat still, looking slightly nauseated.
Even Skaggs was showing the pressure. His small frown was pulled a little tighter than usual. He sat stock-still.
After the judge delivered his instructions to the jury at agonizing length, Stirling rose. A pause, and the room held its breath. Stirling played with his sleeve. Colello grinned nervously and took a sip from his red plastic cup. Then, as if on cue, the two prosecutors inhaled, and Stirling began.
He started by noting the disappointment on the faces of the jurors when they had been chosen for this trial, and he urged them to make the experience worthwhile. Then he launched into his statement, and it was suddenly clear why Stirling had his job. Gone were the neurotic tics, the Laurel and Hardy bumblings. His presentation was disciplined and exhaustively thorough, as if he were reading the table of contents of an academic treatise. Perhaps this was why Stirling laughed at himself so easily. There was at least one arena in which he excelled, and he knew it.
He told the jurors they needed a "historical backdrop" to the crime. "You have all heard of the Crips and the Bloods," he said. He launched into the oversimplified version of gang life in L.A. favored by the media and prosecutors. He talked of gangs as though they were rival governments, highly organized and bent on warfare.
By many accounts, the so-called Rollin' Hundreds were a relatively small, inconsequential, disorganized gang whose members were largely blood relations from a single family. But Stirling called it "a conglomerate." Kicking a chair aside to get to the overhead projector, he displayed a map with gang territories blocked out in lavender. It looked like an L.A. version of the board game Risk. The Rollin' Hundreds and the 8-Trey Gangster Crips "are mortal enemies, they hate each other," he said.
Privately, John Skaggs could have done without the gang enhancement legislation and the courtroom gymnastics it required. He thought that if appropriate sentences had been handed down all along for murder the system wouldn't need gang statutes. He wasn't even a big fan of life sentences. Forty years in prison for the killing of another human being—whatever the motive—and be done with it. The sentence wasn't as important as the fact that the killer was caught.
Stirling flipped through one transparency after another like a schoolteacher, his red laser pointer dancing over the screen. Then he introduced the victim, Bryant Tennelle. "He wasn't one to pay much attention to the politics of gang violence," he said. He flashed Bryant's graduation photograph on the screen. The soft smile. The curls. The jacket thrown over his shoulder. Tennelle, who had been sitting with his head down, raised his eyes and stared. A juror noticed and pressed a finger to his lips.
Stirling moved on to the next slide: graffiti, tattoos—Starks's arm tats, the name "Rollin' 100's" and hands forming the letters _b_ and _c_ for Blocc Crip.
Then Stirling said: "Friday, May 11." Behind him, Wally Tennelle's dress shoes began to tap the vinyl floor. Stirling picked up a paper bag and drew from it a faded black Houston Astros hat, a dry pinkish tint on it. He told the jury, incorrectly, that Wally Tennelle was the first officer on the scene. "The paramedics came, and"—Stirling paused for a long moment, took a sip of water—"he dies."
The prosecutor hadn't told the jurors which of the somber, suit-clad detectives crowding the courtroom was the victim's father. But some seemed to have guessed. They kept glancing toward Tennelle. Bryant's likeness to his father was most plain in the smile. But Detective Tennelle had not smiled. More likely, the jurors were tipped off by the tender grief that clung to him like a cloud.
Stirling talked and talked, methodically chronicling the seizure of the gun and its identification. Derrick watched him closely. Perlo made occasional pro forma objections. But for the most part, the trial seemed to unfold on cruise control. Stirling concluded with a terse admonition: "Keep an open mind, everybody."
Zeke Perlo rose. He spoke softly, plainly, extemporaneously, barely glancing at his notes. Unlike Stirling, Perlo was the same in front of a jury as he was on the street. He struck a reasonable, confidential tone that conveyed to jurors that he wouldn't try to put anything over on them. He didn't speak for long. He didn't need to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, as Stirling did. He had only to show the weaknesses in Stirling's case. He told the jurors that the defense would concede much of the evidence but would call into question the credibility of the man in the wheelchair, who he said was pressured by police, and of Jessica Midkiff. He pointed out that she hadn't come forward on her own, and she had reason to be angry at Starks. Starks sat with arms folded as his lawyer talked, looking over the jury. The judge rose; the day in court was over. As they exited the courthouse, a cold hard wind hit the jurors.
By the second day of the trial, the wind had died and the first orange California poppies were blooming on roadway medians. Devin Davis's mother appeared in a gray suit, and one of his sisters also came. Davis, at the defendant's table in tie and slightly rumpled white shirt, smiled at them.
It was time for the second jury to hear the opener. Throughout the trial, the dance of the two juries would make life complex for bailiff Dontae Hardy. Both juries were present for some testimony, but were separated for other portions. When both were in court, a section of the audience benches was marked off with police tape to accommodate them all. It made for close quarters. One day, Wally Tennelle sat elbow to elbow with Starks's mother, Olitha.
Stirling gave the Davis jury the same treatment the Starks jury had received the previous day.
This time he left Bryant's picture—the soft lips, the jacket thrown over the shoulder—up for a while. Wally Tennelle pulled his eyes away with effort, then kept glancing back at the photo.
Arielle Walker, as pretty and fluttery as ever, was a swirl of blond extensions and big swingy earrings on the witness stand. She declared that she had been dating Bryant for four and a half months. This absurdly meticulous timekeeping reminded everyone in the courtroom that these were just a bunch of teenagers, after all.
Arielle pursed her lips and began to cry when Stirling showed her Bryant's senior picture, and she cried through the rest of her testimony, sniffling and squeaking and wiping a tissue theatrically across her face, long orange fingernails flashing.
Arielle's testimony had the feel of a performance that, though entwined with authentic grief, was so saturated with adolescent self-regard that it negated all emotion. The jury seemed unmoved.
Bryant's friend Walter Lee Bridges was next, looking right at Phil Stirling with his solemn dark brown eyes, the tattoo on his neck plainly visible. Stirling asked him to step down from the witness stand to show where he was when the shots were fired. Walter, with a bearing far beyond eighteen, detached the microphone and raised it to his lips mechanically to answer Stirling's questions.
Stirling was finding his rhythm. He was a blur of horizontal and, strangely, vertical motion. He questioned and pointed, bobbing up and down and tugging his jacket. His movements were part of the courtroom atmosphere by then. At a couple of points, he even knelt on the floor. But because it seemed such a natural extension of all his other absurd tics, no one batted an eye.
Walter's testimony describing the shots was the third time that Bryant's death had played out in court that afternoon. Wally Tennelle kneaded his hands.
Next on the stand was Josh, describing Bryant's injuries in detail, as Wally Tennelle covered his mouth. Josh was the fourth of the teenagers who had been at the scene to testify that day. All of them spoke as if they still saw an image hovering somewhere just beyond their vision—that image of Bryant, his head blown open, dying on the grass before their eyes. The submerged horror in their faces made their testimony crushingly credible. As Josh walked out of the courtroom, Skaggs laid an approving hand on his shoulder.
The night before the third day of the trial, Skaggs was out on a homicide that had "broken open" in the middle of the night. A car had been found. Leads were suddenly pouring in. The suspect was the son of a Superior Court judge.
But Skaggs did not look tired when he arrived in court in his dapper gray suit. He sat down in his usual spot in the first row behind Starks and Davis, chewing gum, and studied his black leather notebooks filled with little jottings in black ink.
Starks was in one of the two pullover sweaters he wore each day of the trial. Davis, in his tie, was sitting nervously with a fist over his mouth, the proceedings suddenly real.
Tennelle appeared, smiling and relaxed. His brother had come up from San Diego for the trial, and the whole family had gone to supper at a super-trendy downtown restaurant called Palm the night before.
Tennelle had eaten nearly nothing and was still grousing about the high prices, drawing good-natured ribbing from his mother and sister.
Judge Bowers entered and Stirling stood. "The people call Wallace Tennelle," he said.
Tennelle rose with a frozen, intent look on his face, walked to the witness stand, and sat.
Stirling asked him to spell his name.
Tennelle began crisply. "W-a-l-l-a-c-e." But then he faltered. "T-e," he said, and broke off. A pause. No one seemed to breathe.
"T-e," Tennelle began again. But tears flowed and he could not continue. Jurors, attorneys—everyone froze. The seconds ticked by. Tennelle sat, in the dark blue RHD suit he had clearly chosen for the occasion, fighting for composure. In the jury box, hands clenched and lips tightened.
He wept. Then he recovered, straightened, and broke down again, conducting an excruciating battle with himself in front of a room full of people, unable to spell his own last name. "T-e-n-n-e-l-l-e," he fought out at last in a broken voice, barely audible.
Skaggs, his face impassive, knotted his fingers together. Tennelle's effort at self-control was wrenching, more thunderous than any of Arielle's histrionics. Having finally spelled his name, he dabbed his eyes with a tissue and returned Stirling's gaze with effort.
"How many children do you have?"
"Three," Tennelle said. "Well—" He caught himself. "Two, now."
He looked shrunken in the chair. In the jury box, no one moved.
"Did you have a son named Bryant?"
Tennelle emitted a tiny gasp. "Yes—yeah. Yes."
Stirling asked him what he did for a living. Tennelle raised his chin.
This time, his voice came clear and strong: "I am a detective for the City of Los Angeles."
Stirling walked the witness through the events of May 11. Tennelle gave weary answers in his quick-paced Alabama lilt. But as the narrative drew closer to the actual bullets—and the image of his son on the ground—he began to rock back and forth. He sighed deeply between phrases and pressed on, soldiering past the baseball cap, the blood—speaking, despite the rough emotion in his voice, with a detective's precision in that strange cop language of street numbers, picayune detail, and direction, easts and wests. He told of parking the car, securing the witness, and proceeding eastbound on Eightieth to reach "my boy."
Tennelle got through all of this. Then Stirling asked why he didn't go with Bryant in the ambulance. Tennelle said it was because—and here was the part that always blasted him—because, he said, choking with sobs, he had to go back home and "tell my wife."
The defense attorneys had no desire to prolong this. They asked no questions. Tennelle reeled from the witness stand.
Most of the spectators were teary-eyed. Stirling, who never seemed to make any effort to hide his emotions, retreated to the back of the courtroom to blow his nose.
But the jurors were not crying. They were stone-faced, focused on their job. Skaggs had never found a jury so hard to read.
Slides of the crime scene flashed by on the screen. Palm trees against the sky. Blood on the ground.
At the defense table, Davis's mother fussed over her son's attire, frequently appealing to Applebaum about some detail of his appearance. Almost every day, sheriff's deputies would deliver a coat hanger with a dress shirt on it for Devin. Inevitably, they carried the hanger carelessly, and the shirt arrived askew and wrinkled. Their indifference must have felt like the sharpest contempt to the always proper and neatly dressed Sandra James.
On the fifth day of the trial, Yadira Tennelle appeared in the courtroom, a heart-shaped locket at her throat.
Yadira remained stock still as the recorded sound of Davis's sniffling voice flooded the courtroom: "I didn't want to hurt nobody! I was just trying to fit in!" Davis shook his head violently as the tape rolled. A juror placed a hand on his forehead. Yadira kept her head up, arms folded, the sadness in her face so deep it seemed ancient.
Skaggs's turn on the stand came that day, too.
The chair seemed too small for his knees and elbows, an effect heightened by the giant blue binder he gripped in his hands. He half turned toward the jurors so they could see his face, fixing them with the blue eyes under the blond eyebrows, and he used a pointer and map as a teacher would. He was in command, calm and pleasant. Only once did Applebaum succeed in rattling him.
Applebaum was trying to make the case that Skaggs had overpowered the vulnerable and confused teenager Devin Davis. Under his questioning, Skaggs acknowledged that he sometimes lied to suspects to extract the truth. And, yes, he sought to manipulate them.
"You are a very persistent investigator, aren't you?" Applebaum demanded. Skaggs hesitated. But his confusion quickly passed. A half smile flickered across his face and his features resolved into their usual self-assurance. He returned Applebaum's gaze with conviction. "Yes!" he said.
There was no room for false modesty in Skaggs's world. He was, in truth, a very persistent investigator.
#
# **"WE HAVE TO PRAY FOR PEACE"**
"Salvation, not retaliation!" cried a voice outside the unit in Nickerson Gardens.
Inside, curled on the beige-specked linoleum floor, lay the body of a young man. He lay half rolled on his side, almost on his stomach, eyes closed, a sleepy, comfortable position like that of a napping child. One of his arms was stretched out straight along the floor. A hand clutched a few bills, tens and fives—a total of forty-five dollars. He had brown hair, grown out a little, and brown skin, and he was neither tall nor short, thin nor fat. Rather, he had that perfect, fully formed middle build, the birthright of healthy young men of his age, which was twenty-nine—that moment in men's lives when adolescence is fully shed and age not yet visible. A mazy web of faded tattoos covered his naked back. From under his torso seeped a large amount of blood, so much that it had pooled on the linoleum. There was a single sweeping brushstroke through it, perhaps from paramedics, or a last sweep of the young man's outstretched arm in death.
The room was empty except for a green Schwinn bicycle on its side, the upholstery torn from the seat, a blue Calypso soda on the countertop, and a shell casing on the floor. It was early in the morning. Somehow, the pallid California light streaming through the half-open door and the steel grates of the window above had washed away the shabbiness of this unit in the Nickerson Gardens public housing project, with its tan walls, peeling paint, and huge institutional fire alarm on the wall. The light had transformed architect Paul Revere Williams's small apartment unit into a bright and peaceful country cottage, its rays settling softly over the contours of the murdered young man's smooth skin like a baby's blanket, the most pitiful sight in the world.
Nathan Kouri was moving in and out of the room in a dark suit, a black leather notebook clutched to his chest, an intent wrinkle shaped like a little _v_ in his forehead. He was processing the crime scene. The cries of "Salvation!" were coming from a knot of people outside. A woman in Ugg boots was preaching: "We have to pray for peace!"
Michael Scott had been shot inside unit 88 of the project at 115th and Success Avenue early in the morning of March 13, 2010. His body had been found by the woman he called his wife. The sun was just beginning to burn through the night's mist as a crowd gathered to watch the police investigate.
The crowd coalesced into little knots among the geraniums, wafts of marijuana smoke drifting between them, the preacher's voice rising over murmurs and the thwack of pigeon wings in the wires overhead. Southeast patrol and gang officers were out in force for this emotional crowd with its rows of haunted eyes—stunned-looking eleven-year-old boys with earrings, weeping fifteen-year-old girls with Rococo cell phones.
Scott's family sat outside the unit on white plastic chairs, his grieving mother hunched in slippers, a pack of Aquafina water bottles at her feet. Her eyes were closed. Her head tilted skyward, her chest heaving. Off to one side, a man sat on a curb, head in his hands, shaking with sobs.
A woman appeared at the mother's side and embraced her: it was Barbara Pritchett. The mother was a dear friend. Barbara remained by her side throughout the morning, stroking her hair, watching the cops.
Nate Kouri had been scurrying out of sight, pen on his lapel, jacket askew over his gun. He was deep in thought, juggling too many objects at once—yellow plastic placards, notebook, manila envelopes, plastic bags. At last he emerged to talk to Scott's mother. Pritchett saw him.
She threw her arms around him—right there, in front of everyone in the projects. She knew people from her neighborhood might look askance at her for embracing a cop. But she didn't care. "Nathan!" she cried. "You tied to this?"
Twenty-eight uniformed cops formed a skirmish line so that Scott's body could be brought out to the waiting coroner's van. They stayed far back: "friendlies" in the crowd had promised the cops they would keep the crowd from rushing the corpse, a common hazard. A few officers chafed at the liberties being granted to the emotional Nickerson crowd. "They ought to be pushed back to a hundred and fourteenth," one grumbled, eyeing the knots of teenagers.
The coroner's van with its blue lettering pulled up, orange lights flashing. A stretcher rolled out of the unit, bearing the corpse in a blue body bag. Emotion caromed through the crowd at the sight of it. Someone cried out. A few people pressed forward. The friendlies hollered at them. "Stay calm!" As her son's body passed her, the mother cried out and collapsed. " _Oh no, no, no!_ Mikey, oh Mike!" she gasped. Her head lolled to the side with grief as the officers, watching from afar, drew in their lips, their faces betraying a trace of the anguish unfolding before them.
Scott had been in a gang. His rap sheet was almost twenty pages long. His murder was related to drug dealing, or some arcane argument within the gang. But there was more to the story, as always. Scott had almost escaped the life. He had fallen in love with a girl. They had fled to Bakersfield, where he got a good job in a glass molding plant and for a while was earning thirty bucks an hour. Then the recession hit. He lost his job. The couple had moved back to Los Angeles. They were just moving into the empty unit when he was killed.
Scott had a number of friends and relatives who were also in the gang. When Kouri and a detective named Gerry Pantoja sat down with one of them for an interview after the murder, he was frank about what was on his mind: "I hound this stuff myself... I'll kill that 'un myself," he told them. The man was almost apologetic about it.
"Don't do that," Kouri counseled quietly. "You all don't get 'em."
Kouri was by now running crime scenes with a sure hand. He had always insisted that he could never be as natural as his mentor, John Skaggs. So he had sought to make up for his supposed deficiencies by working harder than anyone else.
It turned out that his ability to work hard was its own brand of genius. Through endurance, focus, and sheer earnest effort, Kouri had found in himself his own version of Skaggs's relentlessness.
Kouri worried less about not being able to talk to people. He had discovered he could be effective simply by trying to reason with people without affectation, using the manner that came most naturally to him, stumbling over his words if he had to. He was not smooth. But he was sincere and nonadversarial, and people trusted him.
More important, Kouri's commitment to the craft had deepened with every case. This was really the key to his success: his emotional response to working homicide. He was open and sensitive enough to take in the misery of the people involved in his cases. He allowed their pain and terror to rework his understanding of the work he did.
Like Skaggs, like Skaggs's father before him, Kouri had found nothing was the same after working homicide. He could no longer invest any other type of police work with the same conviction. Homicide investigations had opened his eyes. Before, he hadn't understood the depths of grief and trauma in Watts—never comprehended the pain set in motion by each murder. In all his years in uniform, "I never saw it. Then you do these interviews. It's a whole 'nother world," he said.
His cases had shifted his allegiances. He had come to sympathize with the same people against whom he had directed the harshest doubts when he wore a blue uniform. Hustlers, drug dealers, prostitutes, probation violators had become his witnesses, his suffering family members, all united with him against the Monster. "I don't care who they are. It impacts them," he said.
Kouri no longer shared the views of some of his uniformed colleagues, who parroted the clichés insisting that the people of Watts lacked "values" and didn't value life. "Until you live it, you can't fully understand it."
Far from his commanders' assertions that detective work was "reactive," or that faster response from detectives would not lower crime, Kouri had become quietly convinced that solving ghettoside homicide cases was worth almost any price.
He believed in his heart that violence comes first—that law is built on the state's response to violence—and that responding was better than preventing. It was more true to the spirit of the law—and in the long run, more effective. This belief, more than anything else, made an ordinary investigator into a great one. Earlier that year, the Laconia case had finally concluded. It had been more than eighteen months since the murders. After the mistrial came a new trial. All of the witnesses were dragged through the ordeal of testifying again. This time, all four defendants were convicted.
As usual, by the end, the only people watching in the courtroom were parents. The mother of one defendant ran out just before the verdicts were read—just the sight of the manila envelope in the judge's hand was too much for her. When the judge said "guilty," victim Raymond Requeña's mother dropped her head and covered her eyes.
But the costs were great. One witness had been a promising high school student. Over the course of two trials, and various threats and relocations, he dropped out. The marijuana dealer ended up living far from the 'hood, where she had no means of support, and was beaten up at least twice. After one incident, Kouri came to see her and found her with a row of blue stitches across her forehead. She was relocated far from her family and her customers, and she continued calling Kouri for help with various personal problems for years after the trial.
Asked later why she had agreed to cooperate in the case, enduring threats and beatings for the sake of justice in the state courts, she gave a short answer. "I trust Nate," she said.
Kouri ended up handing off the Michael Scott case to Pantoja, who solved it, and the killer was convicted.
Unbeknownst to the detectives, Barbara Pritchett spent hours as the case unfolded arguing and pleading with various friends and acquaintances. They wanted to retaliate. Pritchett begged them not to. They did not believe the police would solve it. _Give the cops a chance_ , Pritchett countered. Over and over, she invoked the name of Nathan Kouri, whom she had hugged at the crime scene. Kouri was one of the good ones, Pritchett assured her friends. There was no need to strike back; they could trust him. She no longer talked of the need for John Skaggs to come back.
By that spring, in the closing days of the Tennelle case, La Barbera had to finally admit that Kouri was the talented apprentice he had so long hoped to find. He'd been their man all along, the real Li'l Skaggs, the personification of vigor in the face of societal indifference. Kouri was now what Seymour Applebaum had accused John Skaggs of being: "a very persistent investigator." In Skaggs's world, there was no higher compliment.
Daylight savings time arrived over the second week of the trial, so working days now ended in sunlit evenings. Perlo and Skaggs both now had the flu that had started with John Colello. It had made the rounds of the courtroom. Perlo joked that his coughing would win sympathy from the jurors.
It was Jessica's turn. Stirling had never had the faith in her that Skaggs had. She remained for him ever a prostitute, a street person, and, after all, the driver of a murderer's car. Midkiff offered the defense so many opportunities to discredit her. Even her repeated relocations might be portrayed in court as prosecutorial favors.
Stirling also feared the case being hurt should Midkiff grow testy or temperamental under defense questioning. The prosecution's theory that Starks had directed the murder relied heavily on her account. The cell phone records, the Suburban, and the many independent points of corroboration between Midkiff's and Davis's testimony amounted to quite a bit of evidence. But without Midkiff testifying well, the case would be much weaker.
Stirling had devoted much of the work of preparing for this trial to Jessica—asking her questions, allowing her to read her prior statement. He and Colello had met with her until late the previous night. Still, Stirling remained nervous. Her performance at the preliminary hearing had not reassured him, and this time, he worried, the high-pressure conditions of trial could push her over.
Skaggs, too, appeared uncharacteristically edgy. Later he would blame it on the discomfort of the flu. But it was also true that much of his work on this case rode on Midkiff's performance.
But this Jessica Midkiff was not the same chain-smoking, girlish young woman of two years ago. She was twenty-five now, seeing her daughter regularly, and she was within ten points of passing her GED exam—she had only to boost her math score. Her handsome new boyfriend was kind and decent. He had a job. It was miraculous, given where Jessica had been not so long before.
But what most impressed Skaggs was not the educational gains, not the sobriety, not the boyfriend, but the fact that Jessica had taken to _working out at a gym_. She was learning kickboxing. This fit well with Skaggs's notions of a wholesome life.
Jessica walked in all in black, long sleeves and high heels, with a gold cross around her neck. The dyed streak in her hair was gone. Her dark locks were pulled into a tight braid down her back. The braid plus her plucked eyebrows made a sharp, pious contrast with her vanilla complexion. On the stand, she heaved a sigh, lifting her shoulders once and dropping them. Then she leaned forward into the mike, her face serious and sad. This time, there were no opportunities for the discomforting sexual energy that had unnerved her at the preliminary hearing; she did not glance at Starks. Stirling began.
Jessica answered Stirling's questions one after another. There was no repeat of the dramatics of her earlier appearance, the tears or the temper. Instead, with a serious delivery and a small frown, Jessica plodded through her story, pausing now and then to look at the ceiling, or scooch up her mouth, trying to remember details now dim, admitting it readily when she couldn't recall them. Slowly, methodically, Stirling elicited all the details that Skaggs had first drawn out at the Seventy-seventh Street station so long ago, on the night when the Tennelle case "broke open." Matching Stirling's methodical tone, she related her story, the antithesis of the alternatively weeping and cutesy probationer Skaggs had first met in a jail cell in December 2007. In the back of the courtroom, Olitha Starks listened with her face twisted in skeptical disgust. She had been accompanied this day by a woman who sat next to her and regarded Midkiff with a look of blank hostility. Midkiff did not look back.
Skaggs gripped his hands together or played with his pen. Once, Jessica tilted her head up to view some point on the map, and her neck tattoo became fully visible to the jury. As the testimony wore on, she looked cold, sinking in her chair and drawing in her shoulders. But she missed no cue.
She was perhaps just a little too affectedly ladylike (she made an unnecessary show of delicacy when Stirling asked her if she'd been "intimate" with Starks), but apart from that, Stirling could not have asked for a better witness. He sat down and braced himself.
But neither Applebaum nor Perlo went after Midkiff. They cross-examined her in a perfunctory, careful manner, Perlo trying to build a case that Midkiff also knew the man in the wheelchair's cousin Bobby Ray Johnson, twenty-six, nicknamed "Gutta," whom investigators believed had been stabbed to death by one of his own comrades from the Bloccs in 2008. Perlo was planning to try to pin the murder on Johnson later in the trial.
Applebaum did manage to summon a little of Midkiff's old combativeness when he asked why she had at first hidden from police. "You didn't want to get caught?" he asked. "No," Midkiff snapped. "Who would?" But the cross-examination Stirling dreaded never materialized. Good defense attorneys know that if a witness is telling the truth, it can only hurt their case to attack. Midkiff stepped down without having lost an ounce of self-possession. As she passed the bench where Tennelle sat on her way out of the courtroom, he whispered to her, "Thank you."
On what was supposed to be the last day of testimony, an earthquake hit. People across the region were awakened at 4:30 A.M. by a 4.4 temblor under Pico Rivera.
John Skaggs, of course, was already awake. Further rattled was Arielle Walker, who was by then complaining to Skaggs about what she said were cars with tinted windows parking in front of her house since her testimony. She was convinced she was being threatened. Skaggs was not so sure.
Half of the jury, it seemed, was coughing and sneezing. The lineup offered no relief: a coroner's investigator and Rubin, the weapons analyst. Numbing talk of "muzzle climb" and "lead cores." The state patrol officer who arrested Starks in the Suburban testified. Then came the "gang expert," Sheriff's Detective Daniel Leon of the Lennox station, a crew cut and a chin in a light beige suit clutching an attaché case by the handle.
Leon spoke with confidence of the gangs' undying hatred of each other and the brazenness of their face tattoos as if he were describing some exotic tribe. They lived for "putting in work," he said. Leon's testimony was supposed to back up the gang enhancement charges in the prosecution's case. But when Stirling showed Leon graffiti of a down-pointing arrow—perhaps the most universal bit of gang shorthand in L.A., it means "this is our turf"—Leon could not tell him what it meant. Skaggs, watching, looked pained. Later, again, Leon failed to recognize graffiti containing the initials "S.C." Stirling had to tell him the obvious: "South Central."
A state-ordered furlough day due to budget cuts would put off the trial's conclusion for one more day. The defense felt the walls closing in. A glum Zeke Perlo summed up week two: the prosecution, he said, "was building a monster of a case."
But Phil Stirling was still nervous. The central problem—proving Starks's culpability—remained elusive. Everything, including Midkiff's testimony, had gone as well as possible for the prosecution. But there was no telling how the jury saw it. Like Skaggs, Stirling was unnerved by the stony faces in the jury box. If the jurors thought Jessica was more involved than she let on, or that Davis had taken the initiative to kill on his own, the case against Starks could still be weakened. The long, hot furlough day fell on a Wednesday and prolonged the suspense.
On Thursday, when the trial resumed, Devin Davis initially refused to come out of his cell. He was despondent. Five deputies were stationed in the courtroom to watch him in case he misbehaved.
Then Perlo stood and delivered a thunderbolt.
"The defense calls Derrick Starks," he said.
Perlo had spent the previous day and night pleading with his client not to take the stand. Perlo had a plan. It was not to tear apart the prosecution's case—he had gone through the pages and pages of Skaggs's investigation without spotting a hole—but rather to build a credible alternative theory of the murder, enough to sow doubt and confusion in the jury's mind. If Jessica's testimony could be called into question, there were plenty of other ways that the car and the gun and Bryant Tennelle might have come together without Derrick Starks. Chiefly, he planned to show that Bobby Ray Johnson, the cousin of the man in the wheelchair, had had access to all of them. He did not want any facts to come out that would conflict with the alternate theory, a strong possibility if the prosecution got hold of Starks.
He saw another danger: that Starks's testimony could open the way to the admission of evidence the judge had excluded. He hadn't had high hopes for the case before this. But at least he had a defense. An argument. Starks's testimony could ruin it.
But nothing he said made any difference. Starks, watching the prosecution take shape before him, had decided his attorney was incompetent. So now he swung his way into the stand, scooted around a little in the chair to get comfortable, and took a deep breath. Perlo, questioning him, did his best to conceal his dismay from the jury.
Starks had been working on a goatee during the trial. It was brown and neatly trimmed, with a little peak that ran up the middle of his chin. He wore a tan shirt, a maroon tie, and a small, self-confident smile. His mustache clung to the corners of his lips and his collar did not quite lie flat. His eyes had deep shadows above and below. From where the jury sat, the little tattoo under his eye looked like a birthmark. His face softened for an instant when his eyes fixed on his mother.
"Are you a member of the Blocc Crips?" Perlo asked. "Yes," Starks said, and they were off.
Starks was taking the "I'm no angel but I didn't do it" tack. He was all that the gang "experts" alleged, he said, but he had been out of town in North Carolina at the time of the murder. He had left a week before Bryant's death and heard about the murder after he returned. He had gone east to help a cousin move. She lived near Charleston, was pregnant, he said, and needed his truck. He was not in the Suburban when Jessica had the accident, he said. He had come running to see what had happened and got arrested.
Perlo took his time between questions, his expression flat. Starks rocked and swung slightly in the chair as he answered. At the noon break, Starks walked away from the stand with a little rolling step.
After the break, Devin Davis sauntered into court. His shirt was untucked, and now he was joking with bailiff Hardy and with Applebaum. Perlo resumed, and Starks offered the version of the case that Perlo had hoped to make plausible: _Johnson had sold his cousin the gun. Johnson had been running with Jessica at the time of the murder_. Starks was still swinging slightly, as if he heard music in his head. He seemed relaxed, rocking his head back and forth between questions, glancing periodically at the clock. Perlo finished and bowed his head.
Phil Stirling stood up. He crumpled a piece of paper in his hand and flung it down with a flourish.
Then he pounced.
Everything was fair game. He brought up Starks's recent criminal history—robbery, attempted burglary—and then laid into his story. He forced Starks to recount every detail of the trip to North Carolina, what he'd done every day, what he had eaten, whom he had stayed with. Starks grew noticeably tense. He pressed his lips together between answers, and he stopped swinging in his chair.
Stirling had calculated distances and driving times. He asked Starks how much gas his tank held and tested him on when and where he had stopped for gas. Starks was trapped into insisting he had driven at eighty miles per hour all the way to Baton Rouge, Louisiana barely stopping, amped up on energy drinks and NoDoz before heading up to North Carolina. Stirling asked about people he had seen on the way. Starks recalled some relatives but said he couldn't remember others.
The situation played to Stirling's strengths. He barely glanced at his notes. He did not bother to point out that Charleston was in South Carolina, that no one could drive that fast, that a man facing murder charges might be expected to at least try to corroborate his alibi. He didn't need to.
Starks said a cousin picked him up for the last leg of the journey from Louisiana to North Carolina. Stirling prodded. Starks said he couldn't recall in what type of car they rode. He mentioned another passenger. Stirling pressed. "I can't recall his name," Starks said. "You have been in jail two and a half years. Have you made an effort to learn that person's name?" Stirling asked.
By the end, Starks was asserting that he had stayed in houses in places he couldn't remember, occupied by people whose names he didn't know. He couldn't say who he was carpooling with, he said, because "I was pretty much inebriated through the whole way," drinking Courvoisier and smoking marijuana. He said he couldn't recall whether it was day or night when he departed.
Starks was stiff, but he faced Stirling squarely. Once, between answers, he drew a hand over his forehead in a gesture of exhaustion. Perlo suffered silently through his client's self-destruction, a finger over his lips, one leg jiggling.
Davis, watching from the defense table, appeared relaxed and jovial, as if he had given up. Skaggs went out to take a phone call and returned smiling a little irrepressible smile. A bunch of DAs had filed into the courtroom. Something was up.
But first, Stirling took Starks to task on all the recorded material from jail that up until now had been kept out of court. He was now able to introduce Starks's jailhouse reproach to Davis that "you should have kept your mouth shut," and his "bitch be squealing" remark in reference to Midkiff. "I was talking about somebody else," Starks said. But his voice was weak.
Finally, Stirling introduced Starks's threat against Skaggs on the jail tape. He displayed the transcript and asked Starks to confirm that he had said, "If I were to kill a copper, it'd be Detective Skagg"—the "tall white boy" he described as wearing only a shirt and a tie but no jacket.
"I don't recall," Starks said. Through it all, Olitha Starks kept gazing at the ceiling, a trace of a wan smile on her face.
The Starks jury at last betrayed a faint emotion: impatience with Starks's routine. Perlo noted it. The defense disaster was nearly complete.
Stirling returned to Starks's alibi, got him to insist again that he had been out of town on the night before the killing when Midkiff said they had stayed at the Desert Inn.
Then, without fanfare, Stirling laid a small slip of blue paper on the overhead projector.
It was rectangular and lined—an old-style motel receipt. It bore the Desert Inn logo, the hotel's name in a retro font with a palm tree. And it was dated 5-10-07. Also on the receipt were the printed name D. Starks, a driver's license number, and a signature.
The jurors peered. Stirling pointed to the slip and forced Starks to admit that it was his driver's license number and, grudgingly, that "it looks like my signature."
"Nothing further," Stirling said, and sat down.
After court adjourned, John Colello couldn't contain himself. "That's it!" he cried, rising from his seat and turning toward his fellow DAs in back. In the corridor, Stirling gave John Skaggs one of his awkward hugs. "A seven-year-old could have done that," he said. "A seven-year-old could have tried that case!"
The motel receipt was Skaggs's final contribution to the case. Prompted by Starks's testimony, he had sent Matt Gares, one of his young detectives from Olympic, down to the Desert Inn at the break. Gares had driven the length of the city in search of the receipt. Skaggs had given Gares no particular instruction for this assignment, except the usual one: "Do whatever you have to do."
Gares did. It meant searching through scores of tiny, flimsy receipts in the back office of the motel.
The management bundled the receipts in little stacks for each day. But when Gares looked, there was no stack from May 10, 2007.
So he went through the next day's receipts, and then the next. No luck. He went back in time. It was like the way Skaggs went back to knock on a door again and again. Just keep going, keep pushing, until that door opens. In the end, Gares resigned himself to searching randomly through box after box.
At length, he found the missing receipts. They had been filed by mistake under May 27. Gares pulled out what he was looking for: the little blue slip marked "D. Starks."
Court convened that Friday, the nineteenth of March, a cloudy, cool day. Stirling sported a shiny yellow tie that looked like trim from a bridesmaid's dress, and Colello was finally healthy. For the first time since the trial began, the pair appeared relaxed. Devin Davis had spent Starks's time on the stand nudging Applebaum over and over to confirm his suspicion that Starks was badly muffing it—"That's bad, right?" Now he, too, seemed relaxed, ready for it to be over. Even Starks seemed looser than usual, smiling at his family in the back, as if relieved.
Skaggs was called to confirm that he was likely the "tall white boy" wearing a shirt and a tie but no jacket that Starks had mentioned. Yes, he said, that's how he dressed on the job. Yes, he said, he did wear a jacket sometimes: for court appearances and always at the scene of a murder. His face was grave: to Skaggs the homicide dress code was a serious matter.
By 10:45 A.M., it was over, except for closing arguments. Yadira Tennelle looked exhausted.
Closing arguments stretched over two days, since each of the two juries got a separate rendition. John Colello closed the prosecution's case against Davis. He had a touch of color in his neck and cheeks, heightening the emotion in his delivery as he pounded home to the jury, once again, each and every element of the prosecution's massive case. He was a tad bathetic and indulged in prosecutorial clichés. He held up an imaginary gun and yelled _"bam, bam, bam"_ to reprise Davis's motions.
Applebaum rose, stroked his beard, and leaned on his beloved lectern. He began speaking, his hands in his pockets, a watercooler pose, jiggling coins or keys in one pocket as he talked. He sought to address the emotion of the case, acknowledging how charged it was to be defending Devin Davis in sad circumstances such as this, and he deftly sought to neutralize the trial's most affecting moment. "It's hard," he said. "John Colello here was almost in tears. All of us were almost in tears. Including me! Nothing worse than to see a hardened RHD detective... up here with tears running down his face." But he begged the jurors to be dispassionate.
He argued for second-degree murder on the basis of intent. Starks's intent had been to kill, but Davis, Applebaum said, had no idea of what he had gotten himself into until the last instant. He proceeded to hammer at what points he could. There weren't many—that Midkiff had testified to Starks's controlling ways, that nothing about the shooting suggested that Davis was particularly intentional or focused, and that much of the evidence suggested he was drugged out of his mind, terrified of Starks, and acting under pressure.
Applebaum mentioned that "Devin had snot coming out of his nose" and was crying for his mother during the confession. The image effectively reminded jurors of Davis's age. Applebaum used John Skaggs's relentlessness against him. "Because he was a police officer's son, they are not holding back," he said. Finally, Applebaum attacked Stirling's tedious use of clicking slides, a point guaranteed to be a crowd-pleaser, since the jurors had endured two weeks of remorseless PowerPoint torture at the hands of the prosecution. "I don't need to show you a slide show," Applebaum said contemptuously. "I want to _talk_ to you about this."
But for all his skills, Applebaum's most effective argument was sitting at the defense table. Jurors had watched the big-eyed, moon-headed, overweight Devin Davis fidget, fuss, yawn, and chuckle throughout the trial. The prosecution was trying to portray him as "sophisticated, smart," Applebaum said. As he spoke, Davis sat back, his legs stretched out, feet poking out from under the defense table like a bored schoolboy. Applebaum motioned toward him once or twice. "If he is so smart, why would he put the tattoos on after he is in jail?" More likely, he was just trying to survive, Applebaum said.
The unspoken implication was clear: to suggest that Davis was a calculating criminal capable of premeditated first-degree murder was ridiculous; _just look at the kid_.
Phil Stirling's rebuttal was so repetitive—he even reprised the pantomime of gunfire, _"boom-boom-boom!"_ —that the judge chastised him for being redundant.
So much talk. John Skaggs had work to do. Forced to sit still through these overly long closing arguments was the worst kind of punishment imaginable for him. As the long day in court wore on, Skaggs had gone from irritated to seething without moving any part of his body except his mouth, which had grown steadily tighter. Wasting time appeared to affect even his circulation: his skin had grown pale.
The next morning, the Starks jury got their closings. Stirling stood up, his voice ragged and hoarse. He adjusted his jacket, yanked his chair around, and began by saying that he would try not to be too redundant, then was, repeating the prosecution's case once again, giving due spotlight to what he called the "Perry Mason moment" when the D. Starks motel receipt had gone up on the screen.
Then Zeke Perlo stood to give the last closing of his career under circumstances that could only be described as a defense rout. He had been unusually quiet all morning.
Maybe the jurors felt for his predicament, for they seemed especially attentive. Like Applebaum, Perlo was relaxed, mature, conversational. His pen in one hand, folded glasses in the other, he gestured naturally. He began his attempt at damage control by saying, "I wouldn't expect you to believe Derrick Starks's testimony—but don't decide based on that."
He argued that the jurors needed to evaluate how much of the mountain of evidence that had been heaped on them really pertained to Starks's presence at the scene. This critical point, he said, was thin. The man in the wheelchair had reason to lie. Midkiff was not the innocent she pretended to be, he said. Was she an accomplice? He methodically sifted through the eyewitness testimony, noting the inconsistencies. Applebaum, who had come in late to observe, wore a look of quiet sympathy. Perlo was making the best of it.
When it was over Perlo walked out of the courtroom into the half sunlight, his forty-six-year career as a trial lawyer over.
Throughout the trial, the prosecutors had worried most about the case against Starks. But in the end, the case against Starks was concluded faster than the one against Davis. His jury deliberated only two days. With the Davis jury still out, they came back at 3:25 P.M. that Thursday with a verdict.
The afternoon was moist and cool. Wally Tennelle was on a training day. He came in response to the call wearing a Hawaiian shirt, the lone member of the family to appear to hear the verdict. Sixteen RHD detectives also showed up. "The question arises, who is patrolling the streets of L.A.?" Perlo murmured, surveying the phalanx of business suits milling in the courtroom.
His coworkers had come to support him, but Wally Tennelle did not mingle with them. He sat off to the side, an invisible wall around him, one arm draped along the back of the bench in a casual pose contradicted by the tension in his face. As the judge called the court into session, the prosecutors sat hunched together, flushed with emotion, Colello with a fist in his mouth. Skaggs did not attend, but Farell did.
Skaggs never went to hear verdicts, on principle: it was not part of his job. To attend would be a waste of time.
The jury filed in. As Judge Bowers began to read, Tennelle lifted his chin with an effort.
"Guilty," Bowers said. "Murder in the first degree..."
Starks stared straight ahead. His rib cage expanded with a deep breath followed by a heavy sigh. Tennelle swallowed hard. His eyes reddened. He appeared swept with weariness, holding himself up with effort, tired, sad, and hollowed out. The jurors were polled in turn, every one of them wearing an expression of profound seriousness. None showed relief, or triumph. None so much as glanced at Wally Tennelle.
Olitha Starks did not get to the courtroom in time to hear the verdict. She arrived at the courthouse door with her husband just after the rest had gone. Told that her son had been found guilty, she nodded, her face full of resignation and disgust.
Corey Farell sent a text message on his cell phone to John Skaggs to apprise him of the verdict that Skaggs had refused to come and hear. Farell's phone buzzed immediately with a blasé response. It was vintage Skaggs—one word: _sweet_.
The Davis jury came back the next morning. This time the courtroom was empty except for a gaggle of prosecutors, friends of Stirling and Colello. Wally Tennelle did not attend. Davis watched the envelope intently as it traveled across the courtroom in the clerk's hands from the jury to the judge. When the guilty verdict was announced, he put a hand over his mouth, swung his head upward, and stared at the ceiling as the long list of findings was read. As court adjourned, Davis sat shaking his head.
Corey Farell did not attend because he had been called in early to his new job with the Foothill Division in the San Fernando Valley. His new station had seen two homicides in a week, the victims a Latino man and a young black woman. The cases were problematic: none of the witnesses wanted to cooperate. But Farell kept tabs on the court proceedings by phone and notified Skaggs of the guilty verdict. This time, his text message prompted an even more laconic answer from the cop with a tie and no jacket: _Rog_ , for "Roger that."
#
# **THE MISSING**
Jurors reported being exhausted and emotionally spent. Several were terrified of retribution. Waiting to be escorted into the courtroom for the reading of the verdict, one juror admitted his hands were shaking. Despite their appearance of stoicism, several said that they had been churning inside and choking back tears.
Some thought the defense competent, others found it hopelessly passive. Some wondered why the defense had not gone more aggressively after Midkiff. A few thought the prosecutors' open expression of emotion during the trial was overkill. A couple of jurors said they did, indeed, feel sorry for Zeke Perlo.
Several also thought Stirling's cross-examination of Starks and the prosecution's closing arguments were excessive: the problems with Starks's deceptiveness didn't need to be belabored. Similarly, the drama of the hotel receipt was impressive, but apparently not game-changing. The reference to a "Perry Mason moment," however, elicited a spirited discussion in the jury room when it turned out a younger juror did not know who Perry Mason was.
The Davis jurors had more disagreements and prolonged discussions. They scrutinized the physical evidence closely to arrive at the conclusion that Davis had not been shooting randomly. All said they had taken their duties seriously. "I'm not going to forget any day of this," one said.
The defense attorneys, noting that the jurors were mostly white, had speculated that they could not relate to the circumstances of the case. But at least one juror was not as far from the ghettoside world as they thought. This was the Davis foreman, forty-four, a white man with blond hair and blue eyes who worked as an upper-level manager of a chain of local fast-food restaurants. His job often took him to Compton and other neighborhoods south of the Ten. He lived in the suburbs, but he had grown up in military housing in Washington, D.C., and attended schools that drew from the city's black neighborhoods. He had been in many a street fight. As an adolescent, he had learned the rules of the black inner city—learned that when it came to fighting in a lawless place, "if you back down, you back down forever," he explained.
Commenting on the Tennelle case, this juror proved more perceptive than some of the professional cops who had trailed in and out of the courtroom. He knew Midkiff had been a prostitute. He suspected, without its ever coming out at trial, that Starks had pimped her out. He was astounded by fellow jurors who couldn't understand why Bryant was wearing what he called the "stupid hat." "It's to feel safe in his environment!" he said.
Speaking of Bryant, the foreman seemed to comprehend the place the struggling eighteen-year-old had occupied among his friends. Told that Bryant's friends had thrown play punches, he nodded knowingly. They had to teach him to fight in order to risk hanging out with him, he remarked. A friend who was seen as weak could jeopardize one's respect and status and therefore one's safety.
Like many Angelenos, the foreman knew black-on-black homicide south of the Ten was deeply entrenched. He had picked up on Tennelle's choice to live in the Seventy-seventh Street Division, "trying to do good, and trying to be a role model," and realized that the killing had gotten little public attention. It bothered him.
"There is a perception that blacks are doing it to blacks, and if I'm white, it doesn't affect me," said the white jury foreman. His eyes flashed with sudden anger. "Well, get over it. _It does_."
The story of the lives of these two ghettoside craftsmen—Tennelle and Skaggs—converging in the death of a son seemed to deserve a dramatic ending. But in truth, the trial of Derrick Starks and Devin Davis was not even very suspenseful. The case that had gone unsolved for so long proved to be about as formidable as a sand castle on the beach. As the last waves of Skaggs's persistence washed over it, the defense crumbled.
For years, politicians on the right and left had been building the notion of "gang violence" in the public's mind as some kind of implacable social disease, springing from a deeply rooted moral crisis or from some kind of complicated family, economic, or cultural pathology.
But the Tennelle trial suggested a different idea: that it was really not so hard to insert legal authority into the chaos of extralegal violence among the young men of South Central, and that the state's monopoly on violence could be established fairly easily, after all.
But you had to be willing to pay the cost, to put in the effort. You had to be _very persistent_.
The Tennelle case wasn't just solvable. It was friable, breaking open so dramatically in the end that, as Stirling said, a seven-year-old could have tried it. Many people had heard about what Devin Davis and Derrick Starks had done. Rumors had flown freely. The suspects themselves had talked about it. They had made little effort to cover their tracks. They had brought a young woman with them and assumed she would obey the rules and regulations and keep their secret—assumed that she would not be as brave as she turned out to be, determined to stand up, change her life, and, as she put it later, "be a testament." They had assumed the attack would be just another barely noted, barely investigated skirmish in South Central—in short, a typical gang case—until word got back to them that they had killed a police officer's son. The case was eminently solvable—once the right kind of pressure was applied.
In Skaggs's hands, the murders were elevated in law to what they were in fact: atrocities that must be answered for every single time.
The world wasn't watching. The public, his superiors, and a large share of the country's thinking classes gave only glancing notice to the battle Skaggs had devoted his life to. But Skaggs didn't care; Skaggs turned his back to the parade.
And just as it is impossible to imagine that things in the South would not have been different if the legal system had operated differently—had black men's lives, for example, been afforded profound value as measured by the response of legal authorities—it is impossible to imagine that the thousands of young men who died on the streets of Los Angeles County during Skaggs's career would have done so had their killers anticipated a "John Skaggs Special" in every case.
If every murder and every serious assault against a black man on the streets were investigated with Skaggs's ceaseless vigor and determination—investigated as if one's own child were the victim, or as if we, as a society, could not bear to lose these people—conditions would have been different. If the system had for years produced the very high clearance rates that Skaggs was so sure were possible—if it did not function, in the aggregate, as a "forty percenter"—the violence could not have been so routine. The victims would not have been so anonymous, and Bryant Tennelle might not have died in the nearly invisible, commonplace way in which he did.
The Tennelle case stood for all of them. Yes, certainly, sometimes, as the detectives said, the cases _were what they were_ —a few casings on the ground and no willing witnesses. But the Tennelle case strongly suggested that many more of these murders were solvable than the dismal clearance rates suggested, the assaults as much as the homicides, and that the Monster Skaggs had been chasing his whole career could be beaten.
It was an _evil thing_ , as the pastor had said. The Monster arose from what was meanest and most vicious in human nature. But the dark swath of misery it had cut across generations of black Americans was a shadow thrown on the wall, a shape magnified many times the size of its source because of a refusal to see the black homicide problem for what it was: a problem of human suffering caused by the absence of a state monopoly on violence.
The Monster's source was not general perversity of mind in the population that suffered. It was a weak legal apparatus that had long failed to place black injuries and the loss of black lives at the heart of its response when mobilizing the law, first in the South and later in segregated cities. The cases didn't get solved, and year after year, assaults piled one upon another, black men got shot up and killed, no one answered for it, and no one really cared much.
Starks's defense attorney Ezekiel Perlo had never heard of John Skaggs before the Tennelle case. He walked out of the courthouse on the last day of his trial career overpowered on every front by the evidence that had been assembled against his client and assuming that Skaggs must have been handpicked from the elite RHD unit to solve this case.
Later, when Perlo found out that that was not so—that Skaggs was a mere divisional detective who had spent his whole career in the backwater unit of Watts and whose name had been unknown to the homicide lieutenant from headquarters—he shook his head in surprise. If the police department had any sense, Skaggs "should be training people," he said.
And then, without prompting, Perlo made the observation that is the point of this account:
"If all these cases were investigated like Tennelle," he remarked, "there'd be no unsolved cases."
Both Starks and Davis were sentenced to life without parole.
Afforded the privilege granted to victims' families to speak in court, Yadira Tennelle stood up to speak at the sentencing of Devin Davis.
She bade Davis to look at her.
Then she forgave him.
But the signature image of these events was not that of Yadira standing alone and facing Davis, but rather of Wally Tennelle, alone and in tears after the reading of the Starks verdict.
It came after his colleagues had filed out of court in their suits without him. Tennelle, rather too deliberately, lingered behind, congratulated the two prosecutors in his gracious way, then putzed about for a few moments more until the courtroom was nearly empty and the hall outside quiet. The coast clear, Tennelle made his way to the slow, creaking, roaring elevators, rode down, and walked out briskly into the cool, moist afternoon.
A wind was rippling through downtown Los Angeles, and an evening mist was just beginning to drift toward the ground. It was getting late, and small knots of office workers were starting to exit buildings and trickle through the streets on their way home.
As he walked down Spring Street from the Clara Foltz Center in the cool spring air, Tennelle sought to return to business. All signs of his earlier weeping had vanished from his face. Except for a trace of that haunted look, the "homicide eyes" of all the bereaved, he was as matter-of-fact as ever, a professional man of duty, headed back to his counterterrorism training session, one of the many obligations of his job as "a detective for the City of Los Angeles."
That city, rustled by a wet wind that evening, was incomplete. It was missing a son—for Bryant Tennelle was a native son if there ever was one, a young man who personalized all the city's best qualities, its beauty, its practical, hardworking, enterprising spirit, its relaxed generosity, its artistic whimsy—the child of a family of municipal workers, half black, half Latino, with the name _Los Angeles_ tattooed on his back. Bryant Tennelle would have been just fine had he made it past the rough adolescent stage in which death took him. There was too much good in him, too much of the sheer force of the Tennelle family wholesomeness in his nature, for any other outcome to be conceivable. He should have been among the movements in the drawing dusk that night—should have been out there somewhere, advancing through his life. The fact that he wasn't stood as a reproach.
As Wally Tennelle disappeared into a city without Bryant, the gathering clouds and erratic wind had a haunted quality. They seemed to buttress Joyce Cook's view that there should be no more candles on the streets of L.A., since too many spirits of the murdered lingered there already. Tennelle went back to his job serving a city that did not deserve him—a city that rolled on indifferently, barely seeming to notice all the people missing from the crowd.
And even if, in the future, some of the lessons of Bryant's death are absorbed and something is learned from the John Skaggs Special that was applied to his case, those people will still be missing. The losses will still be incalculable. We will still be less than we might have been.
"All those innocent people!" Skaggs had lamented. So many of them—it was true. Bryant Tennelle murdered, and so many more. So many black men down.
# **EPILOGUE**
After two prison transfers and a spell in solitary confinement, Derrick Starks ended up for a time at Pelican Bay State Prison near the Oregon border, a spot so remote that even his mother went months without visiting him. The prison lies alongside a desolate, windswept coastal lagoon called Lake Earl, about ten miles northeast of the small town of Crescent City. For anyone used to Los Angeles, it is a cold place. Starks spent days there alone in a cell, looking out at a concrete wall. At the base of the wall, yellow dandelions sprouted. The flowers fascinated Starks. They closed at night, opened in the morning, and turned their faces to the sun throughout the day. How did they do it? An answer came to him: "They're alive!" His voice was freighted with awe. Starks spent most of his time alone in a cell without roommates because he was considered dangerous. He had been in various scraps and fights in prison. He said he liked to be in the cell alone—liked being in solitary confinement, in fact—because it was better than the alternative. His fellow inmates made for stressful companions. According to prison policy, he was being held in the same area as other Blocc Crips, including some men he had known in the neighborhood. He disliked this. Infighting among fellow gang members held more potential for violence than rivalry between men of different gangs, he remarked. He feared the former more.
Often, he wished he were dead. But then again, he added, glancing up at the gray Northwest sky over the prison yard, he had often wished that when he was still free; life outside had been its own kind of prison. So many neighborhoods he couldn't go to safely, and no way to escape his gang associations. He had learned to be "down" whether he felt like shooting or not, he said—"You make it look good." Early on, he said, an older gangster had pressed a gun in his hand and driven home the point with just one word: "Here." He loved his family's ancestral home near Baton Rouge. It was peaceful and far from any street violence, but his people there did not accept him. They found him too rough, too gangster, as he put it. He came back.
Starks readily admitted that he had lied on the stand. He said he did so out of desperation. He insisted on his innocence. He said that Devin Davis had committed the murder with Bobby Ray Johnson, "Gutta," the cousin of the man in the wheelchair, and that Jessica Midkiff was there, too, and that, afterward, his friends had conspired to falsely accuse him. He had been in the 'hood at the time, he said, hanging out, but couldn't remember what he had been doing. He said he was determined to get out of prison—somehow. He said it several times. "I _will_ get out." He expressed sympathy for Tennelle in court, though he remembered his name with difficulty. "Wallace?" he asked.
Starks was angry toward Skaggs. But he seemed to bear no ill will toward Phil Stirling, the prosecutor whose work had imprisoned him. He had grown to like Stirling, he admitted.
Devin Davis drew a better card. He ended up serving his life sentence at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, in Lancaster, the closest prison to L.A. He opted for protective custody in prison, severing his gang ties (a status Starks, too, would later choose), and described his environment as safe and peaceful. Davis had become a Muslim and appeared much healthier in prison than during the trial. He had lost weight and was down to about 160 pounds. He did not complain about prison at all, and he appeared trim, energetic, and relaxed. He said he was taking medication regularly for his various conditions, including bipolar disorder. His eyes still wheeled around, however, and he moved jerkily and spoke quickly. Face-to-face, Davis appeared more agitated and unpredictable than Starks, and was much less coherent.
Davis talked of the gang fights he'd been in before prison. He defended his role. "Gotta police ourselves," he explained. When it was suggested to him that gang members usually do not make very good police, he laughed and agreed. "Yeah, gangs shoot everyone," he said. "If you're black."
Davis, too, denied involvement in the killing, but gave a different account than Starks. He said that Starks, Midkiff, and Bobby Ray Johnson had taken him in the car with them, but that he had not known of their plans and never got out. In one regard, his account harmonized with that of Starks: like Starks, he claimed that Johnson was a fourth in the car, and like him, he claimed that Johnson was the real murderer. Otherwise, their two accounts bore little resemblance. Davis said he had confessed to Skaggs purposefully. He said he had earlier agreed to take the fall for Johnson and thought that, because he was a juvenile, the sentence would be light. But for all that he insisted he was innocent, Davis said he planned no further efforts to seek release. He said he didn't know what he would do if he got out of prison—didn't know how he would survive. "It's okay," he repeated when pressed. He mentioned the Tennelles. "They lost his life, I lost mine. So it's okay," he said.
Skaggs continues to work for the LAPD as a homicide detective and has occasional lunches with Jessica Midkiff, who works full-time and continues to make progress toward her goals, her previous life now behind her. Frustrated with his exile to the Olympic Division, Skaggs made some efforts to get himself transferred back to South Bureau after the Tennelle case concluded. But before he succeeded, he became annoyed at what he considered a deficient administrative structure in his new bureau. It struck him as flawed—not as efficient as it should be, detrimental to certain investigative best practices.
Without pausing to consider what might happen, Skaggs shot off a blunt memo to his commander criticizing the existing organization and arguing that, given the scant number of cases, the West Bureau homicide investigation function should be centralized. He spelled out how such a centralized unit would work. Among other benefits, he argued, a change would ensure that young detectives would get consistent caseloads. They would learn better, he wrote. Getting enough cases had never been a problem in South Bureau, but in West Bureau, detectives went months between callouts.
The commander liked the memo. Before Skaggs knew what had happened, he was being asked to head up a new centralized West Bureau homicide squad along the lines he'd suggested. Skaggs realized belatedly that he couldn't back out. He remains in West Bureau. He is in the spotlight a little more. But he says the pace is slow. He misses the south end. He is nearing retirement, however, and he is unlikely to return.
As Barbara Pritchett's little brother neared his high school graduation, she looked forward, for the first time since she was very young, to freedom from child care. Then one of her sisters died of complications of childbirth. The baby survived. Pritchett took the new infant home, fed him and cared for him. She is raising him now—starting over with one more baby in her late forties. She still weeps about Dovon every time this writer calls on her. She remains in Watts. One of her nephews was recently murdered.
Sam Marullo decided he could no longer stand being a gang officer. He shed his blue uniform for a tie and returned to working homicide. He is assigned again to South Bureau homicide squad, and has resumed being one of its most effective practitioners. He has finally been granted the lowest detective rank, D-1.
Nathan Kouri works in the same unit. Pritchett offered a description of him that perhaps best describes his present status. "Nate," she said, "is always Nate." His boss is Rick Gordon, who calls Kouri one of the strongest investigators in the group. Sal La Barbera shifted jobs in the homicide group, working under the lieutenant and planning retirement. The "retal" cycle pitting Main Street Crips against Hoovers that began with events the week of Da'Quawn Allen's killing continues as of this writing. A subsequent victim was Harold Germany, twenty-one, one of the young men hemmed up at Da'Quawn's shrine in this narrative. That murder has not been solved. Another recent victim was Jarret Crump, twenty-one, a janitor on his way to dinner, mistaken for a Main Streeter because of the car he drove.
Wally Tennelle continues to work at RHD and still solves cases with regularity. The Tennelles now have several grandchildren and are very involved in their lives. They remain in the same house where Bryant grew up.
The motive for Bryant's murder remains unclear. Skaggs believes that Starks and Davis may have been targeting Bryant's friends down the block, and that Davis shot Bryant by mistake or as a proxy. Skaggs said that the details of the case suggest a personal grudge, not mere gang rivalry. It's significant, he said, that in both Davis's and Midkiff's accounts, Starks's recital of directions seems to indicate that he sought a remembered spot—a specific street. If Skaggs is right about this, it means that, like so many "gang" murders, this one was actually related to an argument, maybe a previous fight. And it means that Skaggs is probably also right about another point: Bryant's hat didn't matter much. Davis shot him because of where he was.
It is difficult to gain more insight from Starks's and Davis's divergent accounts. However, Starks offered a version that, though unverifiable—and offered chiefly to underscore what he said was his minor role—has the sound of authenticity.
He said that Bobby Ray Johnson, though well loved by some, was at times an obnoxious drunk. Before the murder, Johnson had punched an older, respected fellow member of the Bloccs while drinking. Powerful members of the gang plotted to kill him in revenge. Johnson needed to prove his loyalty, Starks said. This, he claimed, was the backdrop to the hit. Asked if these events led to Johnson's murder months later, Starks shook his head. That was separate, he said—that fight involved a woman. As for who committed the still unsolved in-house killing of Bobby Ray Johnson, Starks grimaced: "Everybody knows, _everybody_ knows!" he said.
At this writing, homicides in Los Angeles County have fallen to levels that would have been unimaginable to Skaggs at the turn of the century, when he came to Southeast. By 2010, the year Starks and Davis were tried, homicide death rates for black men ages twenty to twenty-four had fallen to about 158 per 100,000, or less than half their peak in the Big Years, though of course this figure is still twenty or thirty times higher than the national mean. Killings have gone down further since. In the city of Los Angeles, the drop has been especially dramatic. There were 297 homicides in the city in 2011. By 2013, there were 251, a breathtaking decline. But the figures had a similar tilt as in years past: Three high-crime station areas—Southeast, Southwest, and Seventy-seventh—accounted for 109 homicides, or 43 percent of the city's total. Nearly all the victims in the three divisions were men, more than three quarters of them were black (double the proportion of black people in the area's population)—and 84 percent of the killings with known suspects were intrarace. Still, the slack has allowed LAPD investigative units to breathe a little—to better archive and investigate cold cases and to clear more new ones. Caseloads are falling. Detectives have more time and clearance rates are rising. There is no longer a need for the trailer behind the Southeast station: the LAPD at long last has been entering those cases into computer databases. The firearms laboratory recently adopted new technology to allow better, faster matches of bullets to revolvers.
Some neutral factors, a few positive ones, and at least one negative one have helped drive the decline in murders. For the city of L.A., it is clear that demographic change is an important driver. The city's black population is fast disappearing: black Angelenos were once nearly a fifth of the city's population, but they made up a scant 9 percent in the 2010 census. Their numbers have been dropping steadily each year as the city's black residents scatter to the exurbs. To some extent, their high homicide rates travel with them. But the change has also coincided with—at long last—a dramatic easing of the residential hyper-segregation that set the conditions for sky-high inner-city murder rates. As black people finally begin to integrate into more mobile and mixed communities, the Monster is in retreat.
That change perhaps has been aided in part by a related development—an increase in public benefits paid to poor black people, particularly men, primarily in the form of SSI (Supplemental Security Income, a payment available to people with disabilities). One reason for this is prison reforms. The federal Second Chance Act in 2005 inspired new efforts to provide SSI to prisoners upon reentry; many prisoners qualify, since a third of the state's inmates have been diagnosed with mental illness. As we have seen, autonomy counters homicide. Cold cash paid out to individuals is a powerful thing: this author has watched SSI transform many aspects of life in South Central Los Angeles over about a decade, but the change for indigent black men has been especially dramatic. Statistics reinforce these observations: enrollment of working-age African Americans in SSI in 2009 was nearly twice their representation in the population, and African American children made up nearly one-third of SSI recipients age fifteen to seventeen. African American recipients of SSI are more likely to be poor and less likely to be college educated than SSI recipients generally, suggesting this money is indeed finding its way into the hands of the urban poor—including adult men who historically have been cut out of social welfare programs.
Money translates to autonomy. Economic autonomy is like legal autonomy. It helps break apart homicidal enclaves by reducing interdependence and lowering the stakes of conflicts. The many indigent black men who now report themselves to be "on disability"—many of them with mental disabilities, such as ADD and bipolar disorder—signal an unprecedented income stream for a population that once suffered near-absolute economic marginalization. An eight-hundred-dollar-a-month check for an unemployed black ex-felon makes a big difference in his life. The risks and benefits of various hustles surely appear different to him. He can move, ditch his homeys, commit fewer crimes, walk away from more fights. Doubtless many people will criticize this trend and decry the expense of SSI. But this author can't condemn a program that appears to have saved so many from being murdered or maimed.
For those not convinced by humanitarian arguments, it's worth noting that homicide is expensive, too. Health insurance for these same indigent black men through the new Affordable Care Act may change the picture further. Another factor reducing murder rates is a bleak one—large numbers of black men in prison. Imprisonment brings down homicide rates because it keeps black men safe, and they are far less likely to become victims in prison than outside it. California's rate of imprisonment increased fivefold between 1972 and 2000. Homicide deaths among this largely black and Latino population of tens of thousands number just a handful per year. But this is, it need hardly be said, a rotten—and expensive—way to combat the problem. Other factors, such as the shift to cellphone sales of drugs, the abuse of legal pharmaceuticals, computer games that keep adolescents indoors, and the improved conduct of police (former chief Bernard Parks deserves much credit for the latter in L.A.), probably count, too.
People are much safer, on the whole, in America than they used to be, and this is good. But anyone who tracks homicide in L.A. County and elsewhere still can't escape the obvious: black men remain disproportionately victimized. Solving this problem deserves every honest effort. People may disagree about the remedies—particularly the balance between preventive and responsive measures—but they should not disagree about the problem's urgency.
The homicide problem lost two of its great intellectual prophets in the course of the events described in this book—William J. Stuntz and Eric Monkkonen. Both scholars believed that an understanding of violence must proceed from a study of the structure of law and the working of formal legal institutions. Both died young, of cancer. It remains for others to do the considerable work required to turn back the plague. Stuntz died in 2011. His pithy summation of the problem still applies: "Poor black neighborhoods see too little of the kinds of policing and criminal punishment that do the most good, and too much of the kinds that do the most harm." Monkkonen, a professor at UCLA, died in 2005. He did not live to see the recent, stunning homicide declines here in L.A. But he left these lines for the future: "The challenge for the twenty-first century," he wrote, "is to keep pushing for lower rates even when it seems as though this is happening automatically."
# **AUTHOR'S NOTE**
This book grew out of reporting on homicide in Los Angeles extending from late 2001, when the _Los Angeles Times_ put me on the police beat, to 2012, when I wrapped up the field research for this book.
A year or two into the beat, I sought the LAPD's permission to "embed" at its Seventy-seventh Street Division and was given a desk in the detectives' squad room on the second floor of the station house. From then on, I focused on the streets of South Bureau and the squad cars and roll calls of the Seventy-seventh and neighboring Southeast stations, reporting on homicides and other crimes, talking to witnesses, bystanders, suspects, and families of victims. I first met Sal La Barbera during that period, and also John Skaggs and Chris Barling. Around that time, I began assembling the data used in these pages with the help of analysts within the LAPD, epidemiologists at the Injury and Violence Prevention Program at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, and the staff of the Los Angeles County coroner's office.
In late 2006, I launched "The Homicide Report" on the _Los Angeles Times_ website. This was an attempt to provide a comprehensive, day-by-day accounting of every homicide in the county. I reported about a thousand homicides for The Homicide Report over the course of the next two years, working mostly out of my car—a 2001 Ford Escort. I carried a police radio, went to crime scenes, talked up people I met on the street, and got to know police officers. By the time I started compiling the blog, I had already covered many homicides and was familiar with homicide statistics. Still, I found the project to be profoundly revealing. Suddenly, I was watching the statistics unfold in real time—living the data, not just reading it on a page. Every corpse, every weeping relative, and every sleep-deprived detective was linked to a data point in my hard drive, as if—in traversing the county's four thousand square miles—I was guiding my Escort across a vast Excel file. I saw patterns I hadn't seen before and found myself inventing new categories to keep my charts organized. "Group home." "Party." "Hangfire" (sheriff's shorthand for cases in which victims linger in hospitals or in nursing homes). I will never look at statistics quite the same way again. I wrote briefly about Bryant Tennelle in 2007, and also about Dovon Harris, whose mother, Barbara Pritchett, I met when I knocked on her door a few days after his death.
In mid-2008, the Times suspended The Homicide Report, and I began working on this book, researching and writing it in intervals over the next five years, between hiatuses to meet other work or personal obligations. Beginning in June 2008, I embedded myself once again in the Seventy-seventh, shadowing homicide detectives as I had in the early 2000s. Sam Marullo and Nathan Kouri had joined La Barbera's squad by then, now working under the same roof with the Seventy-seventh and Southwest's squads. For more than a year, I accompanied Southeast detectives to crime scenes, court hearings, and interviews, peeling off in the evenings and on weekends to visit victims' families, attend funerals, or walk the streets. I spent subsequent months in follow-up interviews and library research.
The events, scenes, and details described in this book were, in all cases, either directly observed by me or reconstructed after the fact using interviews with participants. Wherever possible, court documents, police reports, and other official records were used to verify particulars. All names are real names; some names were withheld due to safety considerations, with particular care extended to witnesses possibly facing reprisal.
I have consistently had problems reconciling reported homicide data with my own data collected through real-time reporting. Officially reported clearance rates, as this book suggests, are frequently at odds with the data reported by detectives when they are asked, point-blank, "Were charges filed?" But to a surprising extent, straight tallies of homicides vary, too. There are unappreciated complexities involved in counting homicides, and these have caused me no small share of headaches.
For this book, I have largely relied on lists of homicides assembled by the coroner's office, cross-checked with police data, detective-squad tallies, and my own reporting, as this is the most immediate, detailed, and directly sourced information I could come by. The tables I've compiled include names of victims, circumstances of deaths, and, in many cases, observations made at crime scenes and funerals and information provided by families and detectives. Over the years, in search of clarity on clearance rates, I have conducted surveys of case outcomes by calling or visiting the assigned detectives or their field supervisors and asking for updates.
For years now, I have tried to penetrate the mystery of disproportionate black homicide. Correlation is not causation. I wanted to know exactly what was happening and why. I've sought answers in reported facts and observations, and tried to avoid pat speculation and received wisdom. Mostly, I've relied on what I have myself seen or heard directly from those who are close to homicide. I have made deliberate efforts to listen to the bereaved—to seek out the parents, siblings, spouses, and children of black homicide victims, whose viewpoints are under-represented in our national debates over criminal justice. I tried to discipline myself to find people in great pain, from a sense that the sad and disturbing nature of this subject matter is one of the reasons it is avoided and underemphasized. These interviews, in particular, led me to consult scholarly research on the history of black homicide and the attitudes and policies of legal authorities toward it. So, although statistics are important—the high homicide rate for black men is, after all, the reason I wrote this book—I am with John Skaggs in his preference for the field and the unmediated detail of lived experience. This book is my attempt to relate what I've learned—a circumstantial case, to be sure, but the one I saw.
_For Christopher_
# **ACKNOWLEDGMENTS**
This book would not have happened without the faithful and keenly intelligent efforts of my brother, Steven Leovy, who read every draft, checked facts, and advised and argued with me through every stage, despite his own full-time career and duties. My brother, an engineer, was an unlikely participant in this. But he contributed on every level, from deep issues of writing and story-telling to small matters of jargon and typos, and also provided moral support and every manner of practical assistance. I cannot thank him in any manner that would equal his contribution. I can only reiterate that his commitment to this project is the reason it exists.
Many other people helped in ways great and small. I will not name all of them here, but they include my editors and colleagues at the _Los Angeles Times_ , who launched and supported the efforts that supplied the context for this book. They include John Spano, Sam Enriquez, Miriam Pawel, Doug Smith, Sandi Poindexter, and especially Gale Holland, one-of-a-kind editor and friend, who oversaw the Homicide Report blog and also read drafts of this book. I owe gratitude to scores of people in the LAPD, many of whose names do not appear here but who brooked my intrusions for the best of reasons—to make sure I got it right. A short list must include Matt Mahoney, Glenn Krejci, Pat Gannon, Dorayya Dasari, Gerry Pantoja, Roger Allen, Rick Gordon, David Garrido, Carlos Velasquez, Kyle Jackson, Paul Vernon, Mike Owens, Brent Josephson, and especially Kerri Potter and Mark Hahn. Very special thanks to Tom Eiman, whose brief mention in this book belies his selfless, thoughtful contributions. Thanks also to William Bratton, Charlie Beck, Earl Paysinger, Andy Smith, Rick Jacobs, Jim McDonnell, and Willie Pannell for access, multiple interviews, and general transparency, and also to the crew of South Bureau Criminal Gang Homicide. Special appreciation to Bernard C. Parks, who has generously enlightened me for years with his unmatched knowledge of the LAPD. Finally, I must recognize the late Kenneth O. Garner, who died midway through my work. Garner believed in truly open public institutions and was of great assistance.
Boundless thanks to Farley Chase, who saw the potential of this work when there was no reason to, and to Cindy Spiegel and Julie Grau and their colleagues at Spiegel & Grau, who embraced its complexities and stuck by it through difficulties. To my genius editor, Chris Jackson, whose work transformed this book, I am not just indebted but in awe. Thanks also to W. Fitzhugh Brundage, who kindly reviewed historical portions of this manuscript, Grace Rai, La Wanda Hawkins, Douglas Lee Eckberg, Carter Spikes and Butch Lemon of the Businessmen, eyewitness expert Steven E. Clark for research help, Ben Adair, Brian Vander Brug, Jill Connelly, Craig Harvey, Tom Dotan, Jeffrey Adler, Douglas Massey, Luis Montes and his colleagues at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Timothy Tyson and the staff of L.A. City Street Trees, Monique Jordan, Ferroll Robins of Loved Ones Victims Services, and many other family members of victims who courageously chose to speak out. Apologies to the hundreds whose loved ones' names did not appear here; you are the reason for this book. Deep thanks to my friends and family, who buoyed me through years of sometimes trying work—my parents, both of whom passed away during its research, my steadfast sisters, and my husband, Marc, incomparable journalist, editor and friend.
# **NOTES**
## CHAPTER 1
**The Plague** The name "The Plague" is borrowed from Albert Camus, as are various themes in this book. The opening quote and subsequent ones are drawn from both Stuart Gilbert's and Robin Buss's translations of his 1947 novel _The Plague_ (in French, _La Peste_ ).
**Most had been killed by other black men and boys who still roamed free** Analysis by the author, LAPD homicide data. Characteristics and status updates of 16,435 homicides in the city of Los Angeles from 1986 to the first quarter of 2009 were provided by the LAPD at the author's request. To reach this conclusion, 3,333 killings of black males were considered, committed between 1991 and 2006. Thirty-eight percent were cleared by arrest in this period. The clearance rate presented here is calculated differently than the federal rate. It represents the outcome of each case, not the sum total of cases cleared each year measured against new homicides, and it excludes cases "cleared by exceptional means," that is, cases closed with no arrest made. (In recent years, the LAPD has balked at providing this data and said it would no longer update the status of cases or release information more than six months old.) As in the rest of the country, homicide in Los Angeles occurs mostly between people of the same race. In 2006, for example, just 22 of 236 LAPD South Bureau homicides—or ten percent—crossed racial lines.
**"Nigger life's cheap now"** Leon F. Litwack, _Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery_ (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), p. 275
**"a simple mention is made of it"** Gilles Vandal, _Rethinking Southern Violence_ (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000), p. 180.
**"Providence has chosen to exterminate them in this way"** Vandal, _Rethinking Southern Violence_ , p. 159.
**"This is a case of one negro killing another"** Douglas A. Blackmon, _Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II_ (New York: Doubleday, 2008), p. 305. Governor Cole Blease provided the lyrics to this "song" in his explanation: "Hot supper; liquor; dead negro."
**"complaisance toward violence among the Negroes"** Hortense Powdermaker, _After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South_ (New York: Viking Press, 1939) p. 173.
**"One less nigger"** Edward L. Ayers, _Vengeance & Justice: Crime and Punishment in the 19th Century American South_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 231. The full quote offered by the anonymously cited Southern police officer is as follows: "If a nigger kills a white man, that's murder. If a white man kills a nigger, that's justifiable homicide. If a nigger kills another nigger, that's one less nigger." It would seem to have folkloric status. Black sources interviewed in Los Angeles rendered it various ways, including, "One less of 'em to deal with" and "one less gang member."
**"if a black man kills a black man,"** _Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders_ (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), p. 308.
**what Max Weber called a** **_state monopoly on violence_** Max Weber, _The Vocation Lectures: Science as a Vocation, Politics as a Vocation_ (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004), p. 33.
Here and throughout this book, I am indebted to the work of legal scholar Markus Dirk Dubber for articulating the problems of legal theory inherent in preventive policing. For a fuller exploration of the connection between legal autonomy, violence, and what Dubber terms the policing of "inchoate" crimes, that is, crimes that have not yet been committed, see Markus Dirk Dubber, _Victims in the War on Crime: The Use and Abuse of Victims' Rights_ (New York: New York University Press, 2002).
**In Jim Crow Mississippi** Mississippi figures from Powdermaker, _After Freedom_ , pp. 173, 395. Los Angeles figures based on Fredric N. Tulsky and Ted Rohrlich, "And Justice for Some: Solving Murders in L.A. County," _Los Angeles Times_ , Dec. 1, 1996, and Dec. 3, 1996.
Tulsky and Rohrlich's in-depth analysis of 9,442 cases found less than one-third of reported killings resulted in conviction for murder or manslaughter, and that black- and Hispanic-victim cases were less likely to result in charges and brought lighter penalties than white-victim cases. (The study found that cases involving white victims were 40 percent more likely to be solved than those involving black or Hispanic victims.) But Tulsky and Rohrlich did not include in their findings the 7 percent of all cases that remained to be adjudicated. So the percentage presented here for blacks in the early 1990s is the author's estimate. It takes into account lower clearance rates for black victims but adds pending cases to the count, adjusted for average conviction rate. It is compared against the author's analysis of LAPD homicide case data for those years and reported conviction rates published by the California Department of Justice, which yield a similar result. See also Catherine Lee, "The Value of Life in Death: Multiple Regression and Event History Analysis of Homicide Clearance in Los Angeles County," _Journal of Criminal Justice_ , 33, no. 2 (November–December 2005): pp. 527–34. Lee analyzed the _Times_ data and arrived at similar conclusions.
**"which places the Negro outside the law"** Powdermaker, _After Freedom_ , p. 173. She expands elsewhere, saying: "Since no Negro can expect to find justice by due process of law, it is better in the long run to suffer one's loss—or to adjust it oneself. From this angle, the 'lawlessness' sometimes ascribed to the Negro may be viewed as being rather his private individual 'law enforcement' "(p. 126).
**black-on-black homicide is much of the reason** Blacks, who make up about 12 percent of the county's population, account for nearly half of its homicide victims. Homicide data from several sources, including the FBI data and James Alan Fox and Marianne W. Zawitz, "Homicide Trends in the United States" _Bureau of Justice Statistics_ (2007); see "Trends by Race, 1976–2005." A total of 186,807 people died from homicides in the United States between 1995 and 2005, according to Fox and Zawitz. Of these victims, 89,991 were black, or 48 percent.
Homicide numbers reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are consistently a little higher that the FBI's because they are drawn from a different data set—mortality records. But the racial disparity is similar. For example, between 2005 and 2010, the agency reported that about 47 percent of U.S. homicide victims were non-Hispanic blacks. (See "Fatal Injury Reports").
**But historians have traced** For example, historian Eric Henry Monkkonen found that disproportionately high black rates emerged in the last decades of the nineteenth century in his study of New York (Eric H. Monkkonen, _Murder in New York City_ [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001], p. 164.). Vandal found the same in his study of Louisiana, and Lane in his study of Philadelphia (Roger Lane, _Roots of Violence in Black Philadelphia 1860–1900_ [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986]). Explaining why high black murder rates should not be attributed to developments in black industrial "inner cities" of the twentieth century, Vandal wrote: "The first signs of this even predated the great migration.... It was in the political and economic conditions of the Reconstruction era that the roots of modern African American violence can be traced" ( _Rethinking Southern Violence_ , p. 208). The gap between black and white rates in New York is distinct by the late 1880s, Monkkonen found. It grew wider and became a chasm as early as the 1930s. "The twentieth-century difference in black and white rates is so large as to cry out for explanation and understanding," he wrote (p. 139).
Historians once talked about a U-curve in homicide rates over time, based on research that suggested that homicide in the United States fell to comparatively low levels in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, then rose sharply after. This is incorrect. Work by Douglas Lee Eckberg and others has shown that homicides were almost certainly undercounted in the decades at the bottom of the U-curve. The omission of Southern homicides and the large number of killings classified as justifiable—up to 50 percent in some cities—led to the error. We now know there was probably no turn-of-the-century dip, and that Americans have been fairly murderous all along. See Douglas Lee Eckberg, "Estimates of Early Twentieth Century U.S. Homicide Rates: An Econometric Forecasting Approach," _Demography_ , vol. 32, no. 1: pp. 1–16.
**black death rates from homicide nationwide** H. C. Brearley, "The Negro and Homicide," _Social Forces_ 9, no. 2 (1930): pp. 247–53.
**Southern observers also noticed startling rates of black violence** All the great social scientists of the South in that era—Powdermaker, Charles S. Johnson, John Dollard, and Davis/Gardner/Gardner—remarked on the phenomenon. Later studies echoed their findings. One found that 85 percent of homicide victims in Birmingham, Alabama, were black, though blacks were less than half the city's population. Howard Harlan "Five Hundred Homicides," _Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology_ 40, no. 6 (1950): pp. 736-52.
**in the 1940s, a Philadelphia study found** Marvin E. Wolfgang, _Patterns in Criminal Homicide_ (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958; 1975 reprint), pp. 33, 223, 84. Interestingly, Wolfgang also found that those black Philadelphians used guns far less than they used pen knives, ice picks, and various blunt instruments, yet they maintained death rates similar to today's. This reinforces the conclusion that guns are not a root cause of black homicide. Wolfgang examined the years 1948 to 1952 and found that nonfirearm killings such as stabbings and beatings were 61 percent of black male homicides in Philadelphia in that era, and this mix of weapons produced an overall black homicide death rate of 23 per 100,000 per year. Nationally, in recent years about 67 percent of homicides nationally were committed with guns, and the black rate of death from homicide was about 21 per 100,000. In L.A. in the 2000s, guns were used in 70 percent of black homicides, and the black rate of death was probably in the low thirties per 100,000. (FBI Uniform Crime Reports and Mary-Ann Hunt, "2007 Homicide Analysis," Los Angeles Police Department Robbery-Homicide Divison, Powerpoint presentation, slides 13, 15).
**remained as much as ten times higher** _Health, United States_ , National Center for Health Statistics (Hyattsville, Md.: 2005, etc.), Mortality trend tables. See also Henry Allan Bullock, "Urban Homicide in Theory and Fact," _The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science_ 45, no. 5 (1955): pp. 565–75; U.S. Census statistics; and A. Joan Klebba, "Homicide Trends in the United States 1900–1974," _Public Health Reports_ 90, no. 3 (1975): pp. 195–204.
**five to seven times higher** Fox and Zawitz, "Homicide Trends in the United States." According to them, the black rate was six times that of whites in 1980; five times in 1985; seven times in 1990; nearly seven times in 1995; six times in 2000; and six times in 2005. More recent crime data is not available, but 2010 mortality data from NCHS Vital Statistics System shows black rates were eight times white rates, though, as noted above, this figure is not comparable to the previous ones.
**young black men are murdered two to four times more frequently** Mortality file data was analyzed at the author's request by the Injury and Violence Prevention Program of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and the county's Department of Public Health, Data Collection and Analysis Unit. Many thanks to epidemiologist Isabelle Sternfeld for years of help with these records.
**violent crime was plummeting in Los Angeles County** Countywide homicides reached a high of 2,113 deaths in 1992 and had fallen to 1,085 in 2006, according to statistics provided at the author's request by Craig Harvey, Los Angeles County coroner's office. Crime would, of course, fall much lower after that.
**"progressives tend to avoid or change the subject"** James Forman, Jr., "Racial Critiques of Mass Incarceration: Beyond the New Jim Crow," _Faculty Scholarship Series_ 3599 (2012): p. 128.
**"The familiar dismal statistics"** Randall Kennedy, _Race, Crime and the Law_ (New York: Vintage, 1998), p. 145.
## CHAPTER 2
**such calls, at least in this year, came more than once a day, on average** There were 835 shooting victims in South Bureau in 2007, and 1,016 in 2006—Los Angeles Police Department, _Crime and Arrests Weekly Statistics_ , Dec. 31, 2007.
## CHAPTER 3
**Los Angeles's nineteen police precincts were called divisions** There were eighteen LAPD divisions for most of Skaggs's career. By 2014, there were twenty-one. This point in the narrative takes place after the LAPD's nineteenth police station, Mission, was opened in the San Fernando Valley. LAPD officers don't like the word "precinct" and it has no official use, but it is sometimes used here for clarity.
**One of Skaggs's colleagues picked up a word** Detective Roger Allen.
## CHAPTER 4
**exceeded nine hundred per hundred thousand people** Various, including Fox and Zawitz, "Homicide Trends in the United States"; Alexa Cooper and Erica L. Smith, "Homicide Trends in the United States" (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2011); FBI Uniform Crime Reports.
**similar to the per capita rate of death for U.S. soldiers deployed to Iraq** County mortality data; Iraq data from Samuel H. Preston and Emily Buzzell, "Service in Iraq: Just How Risky?" _The Washington Post_ , Aug. 26, 2006. Preston and Buzzell calculated a military death rate of about 392 deaths per 100,000 among American troops deployed to Iraq 2003-2006. According to their figures, if only combat deaths are considered, the military rate in Iraq would total about 309 deaths per 100,000. For twenty- to twenty-four-year-old black males, the homicide death rate in Los Angeles County hit a high of 368 per 100,000 population in 1993.
**striking several with batons** Homicide of Stephanie Smith, Dec. 7, 2008, 546 W. 102nd St. Smith was thirty-seven.
**the constitution places many constraints on legal procedure** Carol S. Steiker, "The Limits of the Preventive State," _The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology_ 88, no. 3 (1988): pp. 771–808.
**LAPD's South Bureau and Central Bureau "homicide experts"** This term was technically applied within the LAPD to denote working D-3s in RHD. There were very few working D-3s in South Bureau, although such a position was badly needed to counter the chronic inexperience that hampered homicide units there. Skaggs and other south-end cops who were promoted to the D-3 supervisory rank liked the term and used it, however. The reason is obvious: They were, indisputably, homicide experts. For a long time, Skaggs hoped to devise a permanent working D-3 slot in South Bureau—solving cases, not overseeing people—but apart from his brief stint in Southwest, it never happened.
**"Women work through men by agitating them to homicide"** June Nash, "Death as a Way of Life: The Increasing Resort to Homicide in a Maya Indian Community," _American Anthropologist_ 69, no. 5 (1969): p. 462.
**Canadian Inuits... Jim Crow blacks** E. Adamson Hoebel, "Law-Ways of the Primitive Eskimos," _Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology_ 31, no. 6 (1941): p. 677; M.A.O. Malik, "A Profile of Homicide in the Sudan," _Forensic Science_ 7 (1976): p. 143; Powdermaker, _After Freedom_ , p. 164. See also John Dollard, _Caste and Class in a Southern Town_ (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1937; 1949 reprint), p. 278.
**"touts" kneecapped in Northern Ireland, informants necklaced** **in South Africa** See Rachel Monaghan, "Not Quite Lynching: Informal Justice in Northern Ireland," in _Globalizing Lynching History: Vigilantism and Extralegal Punishment from an International Perspective_ , Manfred Berg and Simon Wendt, editors (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 157–58; also Colin Knox and Rachel Monaghan, _Informal Justice in Divided Societies: Northern Ireland and South Africa_ (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).
**murderous neighborhood-watches of Ghana** Mensah Adinkrah, "Vigilante Homicides in Contemporary Ghana," _Journal of Criminal Justice_ 33 (2005): p. 423
**grabbing one's friends from police** Lars Buur, "Democracy and its Discontents: Vigilantism, Sovereignity and Human Rights in South Africa," _Review of African Political Economy_ 35, no. 118 (2008): p. 580.
**They fixate on honor and respect** John Dollard, discussing the premium Jim Crow black men placed on aggressive, boastful posturing, compared it to the "admiration felt on the frontier for the individual who is physically and morally competent to take care of himself." The reason it arose, he said, was that "the formal machinery of the law takes care of the Negroes' grievances much less adequately than of the whites', and to a much higher degree the Negro is compelled to make and enforce his own law with other Negroes." Dollard, _Caste and Class in a Southern Town_ , p. 274.
**arson, for some reason, gets a starring role** E.g., Stephen P. Frank, _Crime Cultural Conflict, and Justice in Rural Russia 1856–1914_ (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), p. 19; Michael Schwaiger, "Salmon, Sagebrush, and Safaris: Alaska's Territorial Judicial System and the Adventures of the Floating Court, 1901–1915," _Alaska Law Review_ 26, no. 1 (June 2009): p. 97; E. M. Beck and Stewart E. Tolnay, "When Race Didn't Matter: Black and White Mob Violence Against Their Own Color," in _Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the South_ , W. Fitzhugh Brundage, editor (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), p. 140; Manfred Berg, _Popular Justice: A History of Lynching in America_ (Lanham, Md.: Ivan R. Dee, 2011), p. 113.
See also Julia Eichenberg, "The Dark Side of Independence: Paramilitary Violence in Ireland and Poland after the First World War," _Contemporary European History_ 19, no. 3 (August 2010): pp. 231–48.
**"individuals willingly give up their implicit power to the state"** Monkkonen, _Murder in New York City_ , p. 164.
**High homicide rates have also been recorded among hunter-gatherer** **peoples** E. Adamson Hoebel, "Law-Ways of the Primitive Eskimos," _Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology_ 31, no. 6 (1941): pp. 662–83; Bruce M. Knauft, "Reconsidering Violence in Simple Human Societies: Homicide Among the Gebusi of New Guineau," _Current Anthropology_ 28, no. 4 (1987): pp. 457–500, p. 458; Richard Borshay Lee, _The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979; 1984 reprint), p. 398; Wilfred T. Masumura, "Law and Violence: A Cross-Cultural Study" _Journal of Anthropological Research_ 33, no. 4 (1977): pp. 388–99.
**Thus, some Indian tribes in Canada and the U.S**. Anthony N. Doob, Michelle G. Grossman, and Raymon P. Auger, "Aboriginal Homicides in Ontario," _Canadian Journal of Criminology_ 36, no. 29 (1994): pp. 29–35; Steven W. Perry, "American Indians and Crime: A BJS Statistical Profile," U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, _BJS Profiles 1992–2002_ NCJ 203097 (December 2004).
**as do ethnic and immigrant enclaves** See Roberta Belli and William Parkin, "Immigration and Homicide in Contemporary Europe," p. 253, and Nora Markwalker and Martin Killias, "Homicide in Switzerland," p. 351, in Marieke C. A. Liem and William Alex Pridemore, editors, _Handbook of European Homicide Research: Patterns, Explanations, and Country Studies_ (New York: Springer, 2012). See also Patsy Richards, "Homicide Statistics, Research Paper 99/56," House of Commons Library, May 27, 1999: pp. 20–21. (This paper further notes that in only 40 percent of those black-victim cases in England and Wales was a suspect identified, compared to 90 percent in cases involving white victims.)
**non-Dutch ethnics suffer many times the homicide rate** Soenita M. Ganpat and Marieke C.A. Liem, "Homicide in the Netherlands," in Liem and Pridemore, _Handbook of European Homicide Research_ , pp. 329, 336.
**Eighteenth-century rates among settlers** Randolph Roth, _American Homicide_ (Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 2009), p. 162. Rates among black people in South Los Angeles ranged from 20 to 40 per 100,000 in the period discussed in this book, according to the analysis by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Data Collection and Analysis Unit; Roth reports that homicide-death rates for white adults were 25–30 per 100,000 from the Georgia Piedmont to the Ohio River Valley, 1760–1812.
**"As long as it's Arabs killing Arabs"** Edmund Sanders, "Arab Citizens Call for More Israeli Police," _Los Angeles Times_ , Oct. 30, 2012. Estimated rate computation by the author.
**The ancient Greeks wrote of the Furies** Aeschylus, _The Eumenides_. In the play, Athena convinces the Furies to surrender the power to adjudicate wrongs to her formal court. Thus, "the shackles of the primitive vendetta lend their rigor to the lasting bonds of law," said classicists Robert Fagles and W. B. Stanford. _The Oresteia: Agamemnon, the Libation Bearers, the Eumenides_ , translated by Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin Books, 1966; 1977 reprint); quote is from the introduction by Robert Fagles and W. B. Stanford, p. 22.
## CHAPTER 5
**only about a tenth of all murders resulted in a conviction** Monkkonen, _Murder in New York City_ , p.167.
**Less than half did in Philadelphia and Chicago** Chicago data for 1875 to 1920 kindly provided at the request of the author by Jeffrey S. Adler of the University of Florida. Adler found that about 41 percent of black-on-black murders involving men resulted in a conviction, and that rates for other groups were not much different. Philadelphia figures are from Roger Lane, _Roots of Violence_ , p. 89. Lane notes only that fewer than half of homicide offenders arrested were convicted of any offense; convictions relative to all homicides committed were probably even lower. Also see William J. Stuntz, _The Collapse of American Criminal Justice_ (Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 2011), p. 137.
**a suspiciously large percentage of homicides** Author's computation based on LAPD annual reports. The reports reinforce Eckberg's conclusions about uncounted homicides, noted above. For example, in fiscal year 1932–1933, the city reported 107 homicide deaths but called eight of these justifiable and twenty-one "killed while committing a crime." An additional twenty remaining cases were reported closed because the suspects committed suicide—a much higher proportion than is typical today. In six cases, the suspects escaped, but, oddly enough, these were categorized separately from unsolved cases.
In another forty-two cases, police declared the investigation closed because suspects had been "arrested or killed"—they didn't specify which. Thanks to so many justified killings, mysteriously vanished suspects, and untimely deaths, the LAPD's investigative results that year looked pretty good: the department reported that only ten cases were "unsolved." Reports from the late twenties and thirties reports also mention a handful of homicides classified as "mercy killings." They do not elaborate on what this meant.
**"had merely taken the law into their own hands"** June 17, 1925, "Screen Writer Bandit Killed," _Los Angeles Times_. The victim was a black man.
**But California prison rolls tell a different story** These proportions were computed by the author based on statewide criminal-homicide data reported by the California Department of Justice, compared against historic censuses published by what is now the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The relevant tables contain tallies of felons newly committed to California institutions by offense. Women and juvenile offenders were included and vehicular manslaughter felons excluded. The analysis used ten-year increments to capture the lag time between killings and the time it takes for police to catch suspects and courts to process them. See, California Department of Corrections, "Summary Statistics of Felon Prisoners and Parolees," "California Prisoners," and "California Prisoners and Parolees," and related reports; tables are titled "Felons Newly Received from Court." Also, California Department of Justice, _Homicide Crimes in California 2004_ , p. 14.
Obviously, a better way to measure the vigor of criminal justice in response to murder would be to track individual case outcomes and assemble conviction rates from these. But there are problems in state justice department data in this area, so the prison reception counts were used instead. The downside of using these prison counts is that there is no way to differentiate between cases involving a single victim and suspect and those involving multiple victims or multiple suspects. However, studies suggest that one-on-one cases predominate among murders, and multiple suspects of single victims are more common than the reverse. Given this, these ratios perhaps understate the number of homicide cases in which no one went to prison.
**Killers of whites received the harshest penalties** Tulsky and Rohrlich.
**people who kill blacks get lighter penalties** David C. Baldus, _Equal Justice and the Death Penalty: a Legal and Empirical Analysis_ (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), pp. 185, 401.
**a suspect was arrested in 38 percent of 2,677 killings** Author's computation from LAPD files, as above.
**In L.A. County, a much larger area, similar patterns prevailed** A suspect was in custody six months later in only 38 percent of killings involving black victims countywide in 2007. This finding, for the entire county, which is more than twice as populous as the city of L.A. alone, is based on the author's interviews, six months later, of investigating officers involved with 710 homicide cases across all major police agencies in the county, excluding the city of Pomona's. The survey eliminated murder-suicides from consideration and counted double and triple homicides as single cases. Cases in which the suspect remained outstanding on a warrant were counted as cleared, since they represent well-advanced investigations.
**an average of more than 40 per square mile** Jill Leovy and Doug Smith, "Getting Away with Murder in South L.A.'s Killing Zone," _Los Angeles Times_ , Jan. 1, 2004. Mapping and data analysis by Smith, a colleague to whom the author owes thanks for his careful work on homicide statistics over many years.
**four or five injury shootings for every fatal one** Various, including, Los Angeles Police Department "Weekly Crime and Arrest Comparison Report," Dec. 25, 2004. The number of reported "shooting victims" investigated by police exceeded the number of people killed by four and a half times in 2002, 2003, and 2004. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the ratio of assault firearm injuries versus deaths at about five times.
**A waggish colleague of Skaggs** Detective Gerry Pantoja.
**Some thirty almocides occurred each month** On average, Southeast Division had thirty-two cases per month involving nonfatal shooting victims in 2002, 2003, and 2004. Los Angeles Police Department, "Weekly Crime and Arrest Comparison Report, Dec. 25, 2004.
**only about 17 percent ended with an assailant convicted** Official numbers are from LAPD Statistical Digests. The conviction rate here was calculated by detective-supervisor Lou Leiker of Southeast Division at the request of the author. Leiker considered 234 Southeast category-one assault cases that his "table" of detectives had handled in 2004. Category one cases include those involving serious injuries and those with strong leads.
**hundreds of arsons a year in Los Angeles** Les Wilkerson, Los Angeles city fire investigator, interview by the author, Aug. 31, 2009. Wilkerson said about half were gang-related Molotov cocktail cases—"message-sending" arsons, he called them, aimed at intimidating people, and very difficult to solve. "No one wants to talk," he said.
**When the Swedish social scientist Gunnar Myrdal** He further concluded that "leniency toward Negro defendants in crimes involving other Negroes is actually a form of discrimination." Gunnar Myrdal, _An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1944; 1962 reprint), pp. 542, 551.
**"the principal injury suffered by African-Americans"** Kennedy, _Race, Crime and the Law_ , p. 19.
## CHAPTER 6
**and for years, the cops declined to do so** In 2001, an LAPD press release reported that twenty-three percent of officers lived in the city. The release hailed this as progress, citing housing incentives. Los Angeles Police Department news release, March 8, 2001.
## CHAPTER 7
**the nine square miles of Watts were home to about 130,000 people, 39 percent of them black** Los Angeles City Planning Department, Southeast Area population and housing study.
**they got the City of Los Angeles to annex it instead** Douglas Flamming, _Bound for Freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America_ (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), p. 264.
**"An infected pocket of misery"** Theodore H. White, "Lesson of Los Angeles: A Call for New Thinking About Race Relations in the Big City," _Los Angeles Times_ , Aug. 22, 1965.
**George Kelling and James Q. Wilson's famous essay** James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling "Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety," _The Atlantic_ (March 1982), pp. 29–38.
**Southeast led the city in killings** LAPD figures; race breakdown by Southeast detectives.
**So there was little political pressure to address them** Police agencies are subject to civilian control, and in Skaggs's time the Los Angeles police chief answered to the city's elected mayor. So police executives could not responsibly enact any dramatic structural realignment of resources without some public backing even if they saw the need for it, which they frequently did. There is a tendency for critics of the criminal-justice system to lay blame on police professionals generally for failings that should more fairly be placed at the feet of political leaders and the voters who elect them.
## CHAPTER 8
**the "colossal" problem of ghettoside homicide cases** Halim Dhanidina, now a Los Angeles superior court judge.
**40 percent of all cases in which witnesses played any role** Survey conducted by the author. Findings are based on interviews with investigating officers involved in 381 L.A. homicides in 2008. Investigators were asked to give case details and prioritize reasons they remained unsolved.
**the real figure was probably at least a dozen** Witness murder counts are based on the number of homicide defendants charged with a special allegation of witness murder—PC 190.2(a)(10)—in Los Angeles County Superior Court from 1999–2004. "Known" cases include those in which the killer of a witness was charged, not cases that remain unsolved. Report prepared by officials with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office at the author's request. Thanks to Sandi Gibbons.
**rewards offered for help on cases were virtually never collected** See Susannah Rosenblatt, "Crime Rewards Net Few Payoffs," _Los Angeles Times_ , Nov. 23, 2007; Jill Leovy, "Rewards Fail to Lure Witnesses," _Los Angeles Times_ , Aug. 25, 2003; Nicholas Riccardi, "Rewards for Crime Tips Rarely Help," _Los Angeles Times_ , Oct. 18, 1995; Hugo Martin, "Most Rewards for Crimes Go Unclaimed," _Los Angeles Times_ , May 29, 1994.
**They bartered goods, struck deals, and shared proceeds** For this wording and these insights—as applicable to L.A. as to Chicago—I'm indebted to Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, and particularly his groundbreaking work in _Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor_ (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006).
**an East Coast Crip gang member** The name of this gang is said to refer to the old restrictive-covenant boundary along Main Street, not to the Atlantic coast of the United States. "East Coast" was a lyrical version of "eastside," that is, the east side of Main Street, to which black people were effectively confined in the midcentury period. Main Street runs north-south behind Seventy-seventh Street Station.
**moonshiners who intimidated people and killed snitches** Frank, pp. 124, 126; Lane, _Roots of Violence in Black Philadelphia_ , p. 9; Monkkonen, _Murder in New York City_ , p. 73; W. Fitzhugh Brundage, _Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880–1930_ (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), p. 23.
**"sown in the nature of man"** Quoted from the Federalist Papers in Cass R. Sunstein, "The Enlarged Republic—Then and Now," _The New York Review of Books_ , March 26, 2009.
**so few gang homicides stemmed from drug deals** Later, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study would confirm what LAPD homicide detectives already knew—that very few street homicides directly involve drug deals. The study found that less than 5 percent of all homicides in Los Angeles and Long Beach involved the drug trade. See Arlen Egley, Jr., et al., "Gang Homicides, Five U.S. Cities, 2003–2008," _Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report_ , Jan. 27, 2012. For a fascinating discussion of the idea that gangs are protective agencies, see Russell S. Sobel and Brian J. Osoba, "Youth Gangs as Pseudo-Governments: Implications for Violent Crime," _Southern Economic Journal_ 75, no. 4 (2009): pp. 996–1018. The authors argue that gangs may exist to compensate for the absence of a state monopoly on violence by providing people alternate means of protection, and so could actually serve to _lower_ crime rates, not the reverse.
**"They have their own business"** Porras is now a Los Angeles County superior court judge
**"there's** **_rules and regulations_** **behind living there"** This witness spoke at trial in the killing of Rendell Woods, age twenty-four, April 24, 2008, 1471 E. 109th St. Woods was an acquaintance of Barbara Pritchett.
**"the law to her is a vague and sinister force"** Powdermaker, _After Freedom_ , p. 190.
**"moral comfort" to people who didn't want to testify** James Q.Whitman, _The Origins of Reasonable Doubt: Theological Roots of the Criminal Trial_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).
## CHAPTER 9
**"Murderers are mean"** Monkkonen, _Murder in New York City_ , p. 56
**the name of a typical seminar** California Homicide Investigators Association, 35th Annual Conference and Golf Tournament, March 3–5, 2004, agenda, p. 7.
## CHAPTER 10
**the homicide death rate for San Bernardino's young black men** Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Compressed Mortality File 1999–2010 on CDC WONDER Online Database, January 2013.
## CHAPTER 14
**"proxy crimes" to substitute for more difficult** William J. Stuntz singled it out as a particularly damaging trend. Stuntz, _Collapse of American Criminal Justice_ , pp. 270, 269-274.
**a man in a wheelchair from a gunshot injury had been murdered** Akkeli Hollie, twenty-nine, killed July 4, 2003, on 114th Street.
**The high-tech NIBIN system** NIBIN is administered by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In an interview, ATF spokesmen Tim Graden and Chris Amon said that, although they did not know the specifics of the events described in this narrative, they had no reason to doubt Hudson's account. They confirmed that NIBIN has had difficulty with revolver matches for the reasons she described, and the system mostly matches semiautomatic pistols to casings. It would therefore not be surprising that the LAPD, though a large-scale user of the system, had made no revolver matches as of 2007, they said.
**one of the most dangerous tasks a state can perform** From Stuntz: "Enforcing criminal law is one of government's most important tasks, yet also among the most dangerous." _Collapse of American Criminal Justice_ , p. 63.
**a gang called the Rollin' Sixties** This style of gang names reflect L.A.'s grid geography. "Rollin' " refers to the gangs associated with blocks north and south of streets bearing that number. Thus, the sets of the Rollin' Thirties are associated with South 30th through 39th streets, sets of the Sixties with South 60th through 69th streets (roughly), and so on. The fact that numbers grow bigger as streets move south often added a few killings to the official tallies every summer and fall. Numbered gangs celebrated their "birthdays" on corresponding calendar days. The 8-9 Family Bloods from South 89th Street, for example, gathered on August 9; the 9-7 Gangster Crips from South 97th Street gathered on September 7, and so forth. Such gatherings could lead to violence.
**Vigilantism and vendettas flourished** For an extraordinarily thorough description of violence in America before and after the revolutionary war, see Randolph Roth, _American Homicide_ (Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 2009). See also Stuntz, _Collapse of American Criminal Justice_ , p. 68; Monkkonen, _Murder in New York City_ , pp. 162, 167; and Berg, _Popular Justice_.
**roughing up people to teach them lessons** Monkkonen quotes a popular refrain: "More justice in a nightstick than in a statute book." Monkkonen, _Murder in New York City_ , p. 166.
**their work consisted largely of rounding up drunks in paddy wagons** As late as 1956, Los Angeles police arrested more than two hundred thousand people yearly for "drunkenness" and various municipal code violations, a number equal to nearly a tenth of the city's population. Police today don't arrest nearly so many people—Los Angeles Police Department statistical digests (population figures from historic U.S. census data, 1950 and 1960).
**long, painful history of caste domination and counterrevolution** The emphasis here on the counterrevolutionary foment in the south is not accidental. First, conservatives opposed Reconstruction; then blacks and dissenting whites occasionally challenged and, more often, surreptitiously resisted the ruling order of the Redemption period. This culminated, eventually, in the second Reconstruction. All this upheaval in the decades following the Civil War leads the author to conclude that the legitimacy of the state was never really a settled question in the South, creating a situation that inevitably fuels high rates of personal violence. Civil wars and revolutions are homicide engines, said homicide historian Randolph Roth. Just as homicide exploded in the South after the Civil War, Roth noted, it surged among the French following the French Revolution, the Germans in the Weimar period and the Italians and Belgians after World War II. Nothing fuels homicide quite so well as what Roth calls "an unending series of revolutions and counter revolutions." (Roth, pp. 243, 146, 436–43.) For an eye-opening exploration of the patterns of intra- and interracial violence before Redemption, and the change after former Confederates regained power, see Vandal, _Rethinking Southern Violence_.
**the racist atrocities of Southern law** Powerfully catalogued by Blackmon in _Slavery by Another Name_ , a story of law gone very wrong. Blackmon noted, incidentally, that black people in the early twentieth century were sometimes punished severely for murdering other black people, and the murder of a single black person could result in the arrest of many others (p. 334). This runs counter to the observations of other Jim Crow sociologists and anthropologists, who emphasized the leniency of the southern system on black-on-black violence. But to this author, it does not seem a contradiction. No one has asserted that black people weren't punished for murder—they were, and still are, in significant proportion. But the picture Blackmon paints of a system corrupted by the need to conscript black men as labor fits with a larger picture of law rendered plastic and meaningless, which was also the conclusion of many contemporary observers. Whether lax or excessive, law in the south was twisted to serve a shadow state; the fact that it functioned partially—arresting some killers, some of the time—gave the whole system plausible deniability and a staying power that it would not have had if southern authorities had refused to prosecute any black killers. This situation of law-as-window-dressing is perhaps even more conducive to homicide than outright lawlessness.
**black people dismissed the whole framework** E.g., Leon F. Litwack, _Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 278.
**a "winking" system** Mark Schultz, _The Rural Face of White Supremacy: Beyond Jim Crow_ (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005), p. 135.
**real power was upheld outside the law** This section owes much to the work of Christopher Waldrep, _Roots of Disorder: Race and Criminal Justice in the American South, 1817–80_ (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998).
**that historian Mark Schultz dubbed "personalism"** Schultz, _Rural Face of White Supremacy_ , p. 37. See also Kennedy, _Race, Crime and the Law;_ Litwack, _Trouble in Mind;_ and Eric Foner, _Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1988; 1989 Perennial Library edition). Also Vandal, _Rethinking Southern Violence_.
**"shot down for nothing"** 1899 black tenant farmer reporting from Mississippi, quoted in Terence Finnegan, "Lynching and Political Power in Mississippi and South Carolina," in W. Fitzhugh Brundage, editor, _Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the South_ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), p. 205.
**"so much cutting and killing going on"** Charles S. Johnson, _Shadow of the Plantation_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934; 1966 Phoenix Books edition), p. 190.
**In Atlanta in 1920... In Memphis in 1915** "Mortality Statistics reports, 1921 and 1920, Twenty-First Annual Report," U.S. Department of the Census. Thanks to Douglas Eckberg. These are astoundingly high rates for a general population—much higher than on tough streets of LAPD's South Bureau—because women and children dilute the count. One can assume the rates for adult men, who always dominate among homicide victims, were much higher. It's not clear what was happening in these places, but whatever it was, it must have been horrible for those who lived through it.
**Black people even lynched each other** We know details of this thanks to Stewart E. Tolnay and E. M. Beck's astonishing study: _A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882–1930_ (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995).
**White people "had the law"** E.g., "They got the law," in Litwack, _Trouble in Mind_ , p. 278. Also, interviewed in Schultz, a black sharecropper from Hancock County, Georgia who said: "What little you made, they'd take it... They'd say they had the law" (Schultz, _Rural Face of White Supremacy_ , p. 34).
**"serve the ends of the white caste"** Dollard, _Caste and Class in a Southern Town_ , p. 280.
**together just because they were the same color** The anthropologist Bruce M. Knauft has suggested that, contrary to what is sometimes assumed, egalitarian societies whose members share power evenly may be more, not less, likely to have high personal homicide rates. A scholar of the traditional Gebusi people, who were extraordinarily homicidal, Knauft identified the group's reliance on consensus, not headman or elders, as one of the conditions for violence. This is not to overstate the similarities: Gebusi killings often had to do with witchcraft, and their homicide rate has plummeted since Knauft first wrote about it. But his suggestion that equality disperses violence among individuals, resulting in more argument deaths, remains relevant. Black people in the Jim Crow south must have been similarly leaderless and disorganized, thrown together in conditions of chaotic equality. They were subject to social restrictions that did not permit even the minimal stratification that would produce class structure. Knauft, "Reconsidering Violence," p. 476. For the lack of class distinctions among black southerners, see Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, _Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941; reprint University of South Carolina Press, 2009), p. 241.
**They enlisted blacks as spies** Mention of spies and informants crops up in many accounts of the Jim Crow south—for example, Powdermaker's description of a "mulatto man who acts as a 'go-between' for the white and colored people and who is something of a spy, with an unsavory reputation" (Powdermaker, _After Freedom_ , p. 184), and also Gunnar Myrdal's mention of the use of black "informers, spotters, and stool pigeons" by police (Myrdal, _An American Dilemma_ , p. 541). But one of the most vivid examples was offered to this writer by Ray Knox, a retired L.A. County Youth Authority counselor born in 1951, who is black and was a frequent childhood visitor to his family's native McComb, Mississippi. "If someone was lynched, or shot, killed, or whatever... and if you knew what happened, you couldn't talk about it among other black people," Knox said. "There was always someone there that was receiving something from people in charge: white people."
**favored "their Negroes"** Dollard, _Caste and Class in a Southern Town_ , p. 283. Southern history offers many examples of how white patrons and protectors placed some black people at an advantage over their fellows in criminal and business matters, including the white practice of obtaining leniency for black criminals who worked for them. Reports Dollard, "If a white man gets a Negro off on a murder charge because he 'needs him on the plantation,' that Negro is indebted to him." Interestingly, Dollard compares this unofficial system to premodern legal settings. He called it "a feudal protectoral relationship." Dollard, _Caste and Class in a Southern Town_ , pp. 282–85. See also Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, _Deep South_ , pp. 520–23; Schultz, _Rural Face of White Supremacy_ , p. 152.
**and used them as pawns in their battles** The many incidents when southern white police, and occasionally white civilians, challenged and fought mobs in an effort to protect black people from lynching come to mind here. At least half of threatened lynchings failed because they were averted in this manner. Brundage's finding that many lynchings were committed furtively, as if the perpetrators could not trust other whites to back them, also hints at the degree of white division in the south. In courtrooms, white people also sometimes saw to it that black people they liked were given an advantage over whites held in low esteem. See Larry J. Griffin, Paula Clark, and Joanne C. Sandberg, "Narrative and Event: Lynching and Historical Sociology," in Brundage, _Under Sentence of Death_ , pp. 26, 24–47. See also Davis, Gardner, and Gardner: They describe a case in which a black woman, considered a " 'good nigger,' deferential and hardworking," prevailed in a court case over a white "young city man" whom locals disliked and viewed as arrogant. _Deep South_ , pp. 524–26.
**a contested prize in a low-level, unfinished revolution** For good reason, this phrase finds its way into the subtitle of Eric Foner's history of Reconstruction. Eric Foner, _Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863–1877_.
**as a systematic extension of the campaign of terrorist violence** For example, in Litwack, _Trouble in Mind:_ "When whites after Reconstruction moved on every front to solidify their supremacy, nowhere was the reassertion of power over black lives more evident than in the machinery of the police and the criminal justice system" (p. 247).
**"submit to... arrest by any damned rebel police!"** Howard N. Rabinowitz, "The Conflict Between Blacks and the Police in the Urban South 1865–1900," in _Black Southerners and the Law, 1865–1900_ , Donald G. Nieman, editor, African-American Life in the Post-Emancipation South, volume 12 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994), p. 292.
**they wrested friends from police hands** Rabinowitz, "Conflict Between Blacks and the Police," pp. 292–98.
**Nashville's "Black Bottom," Atlanta's "Darktown"** Rabinowitz, "Conflict Between Blacks and the Police," p. 297.
**"but rather stayed on the main thoroughfares"** Mydral, _An American Dilemma_ , p. 1341.
**"at least to some extent, self-policing"** Harlan Hahn and Judson L. Jeffries _, Urban America and Its Police: From the Postcolonial Era Through the Turbulent 1960s_ (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2003), p. 125.
**They brought with them their high homicide rates** In Los Angeles, the black homicide problem clearly predated the rise of crack cocaine and modern gang organizations, such as Crips and Bloods. As early as 1941, twenty-one percent of homicide victims in the city were black, although blacks made up less than 5 percent of the population, and all but one of these victims was killed by a black suspect. Similarly, in 1952, mostly black Newton Division—the original "South Central" since it lies along South Central Avenue—the homicide rate was shockingly high: more than 80 deaths per 100,000. Most people don't associated the fifties with high crime, but this rate of killing in what would come to be known as L.A.'s "Negro Community" was much higher than the citywide black rate in the 2000s. (LAPD annual reports and historic U.S. Census data).
Older black men in Los Angeles are often the strongest proponents of the idea that black homicide is a new phenomenon, created by a vicious young upstart generation. They insist that they fought with fists not guns, and that the new gangs are more lethal than the old. But statistics suggest otherwise, and, as the Philadelphia study quoted earlier found, a lot of people end up dead even when guns are not the weapon of choice. Shane Stringer, a member of an old-style L.A. gang called the Businessmen, active in the 1960s and 1970s, offered a typical view: "In my time, it was ninety percent fistfights," he insisted. "Very seldom would we see gunplay. Stabbings, yes. We had the normal stabbings." And of course, he admitted, the "fistfights" included assaults with "bumper jacks and ties—they'd hurt 'em bad."
**the LAPD spent four times as much per capita in Newton Division** Los Angeles Police Department, 1961 _Annual Report_ , author's computation.
**remains a cherished template for left-leaning critics of criminal justice** I'm indebted to James Q. Whitman for a version of this wording.
**It practiced victim-discounting on a mass scale** The scale of the Monster swiftly swamped the deployment formulas mentioned above. By 1975, LAPD's mostly black Southwest Division had more than six times the murder rate of West Los Angeles Division, but only one and a half times as many police per capita. (Los Angeles Police Department, _Statistical Digest 1975_ ).
**making this country one of the world's most lenient** Mark A. Kleiman, _When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment_ (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), pp. 8–15; Stuntz, _Collapse of American Criminal Justice_ , pp. 2, 34, 246.
**only a third of California's convicted homicide perpetrators** "California Prisoners, 1977 and 1978: Summary Statistics of Felon Prisoners and Parolees," _State of California Health and Welfare Agency, Department of Corrections_ (table 30a), p. 79.
**seemingly blind to the ravages of underenforcement** Two recent exceptions: Forman, cited above, and Alexandra Natapoff, "Underenforcement," _Fordham Law Review_ 75 (2006); _Loyola Law School Los Angeles Legal Studies Paper No. 2006-44_.
**the largest single category of new prison arrivals** California State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, _Prisoners and Parolees_ (2007), p. 3 (Arrivals). They churned in and out and ended up comprising about one-sixth of all incarcerated inmates.
**In fact, homicide solve rates dropped** From 79 percent to 62 percent nationally between 1976 and 2005 (including cleared other), according to Fox and Zawitz, "Homicide Trends in the United States."
**not the harshness of punishment but its swiftness and certainty** Kleiman, _When Brute Force Fails_ , p. 23.
**homicide rates for all Americans still lag behind those of the safest European nations** Aki Roberts, "Predictors of Homicide Clearance by Arrest: An Event History Analysis of NIBRS Incidents," _Homicide Studies_ 11 (2007): p. 82.
## CHAPTER 17
**He never expressed resentment of Miranda** Skaggs may have not minded all those procedural reforms, but the legal scholar Stuntz wrote provocatively about what he said was America's misplaced focus on them. He found fault with Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren for not seeing that violent crime is a civil-rights issue, too, and suggested that it's unjust for black people to suffer disproportionately. There's an alternate interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Stuntz suggested—that "equal protection" could imply a right to an equal measure of safety. In the murderous early days of the amendment, he wrote, the idea might have spawned more robust violent-crime prosecutions, and even a federal homicide law (Stuntz, _Collapse of American Criminal Justice_ , pp. 104–22, 232–33).
## CHAPTER 18
**One detective coined a noun in the aftermath of the arrests—a "John Skaggs Special"** Bill Ritsch.
## CHAPTER 19
**Felony conviction rates in California were much higher** California Department of Justice, _Crime in California 2007_ , p. 149. The agency's adult felony arrest disposition data shows that 48.4 percent of felony cases ended in conviction in 1975, and an average of 56 percent of cases in the subsequent five years. By 2005, conviction rates for felony arrests had reached 71 percent.
## CHAPTER 20
**At the same time, homicides had plummeted** Jill Leovy, "A Complex Portrait of Rampart's Redemption," _Los Angeles Times_ , July 13, 2006.
**poverty does not necessarily engender homicide** Monkkonen makes this point forcefully. He singles it out as one of the chief lessons of the history of homicide. "In some of New York City's most miserable periods, murder rates were at their lowest," he writes (Monkkonen, _Murder in New York City_ , p. 8). Nor was there a homicide spike during the Great Depression.
**nearly 40 percent of Rampart residents remained below the poverty line** Data from the Los Angeles City Planning Department based on 2000 U.S. Census figures.
**recent immigrants tend to have lower homicide rates** Ramiro Martinez, Jr., _Latino Homicide: Immigration, Violence, and Community_ (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 105–8.
**Instead, they were stopovers** For demographic studies indicating that Hispanics were dispersing, see Philip J. Ethington, William H. Frey and Dowell Myers, "The Racial Resegregation of Los Angeles County," Public Research Report 2001-04, _Race Contours 2000 Study_ (University of Southern California–University of Michigan, 2001).
**an "unabashed preference" for Hispanic labor** Josh Sides, _L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present_ (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 4, 6, 14, 25, 33, 60, 65–74, 80–88, 94.
**"Black segregation was permanent, across generations"** Douglas S. Massey, interview with the author, March 8, 2012.
**No one else had it as bad** Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, _American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass_ (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
**black people were no more likely to have white neighbors** Ethington, Frey and Myers, pp. 8, 14.
**Indices of residential segregation are strong homicide predictors** E.g., Ruth D. Peterson, Lauren J. Krivo, "Racial Segregation and Black Urban Homicide," _Social Forces_ 71, no. 4 (June 1993): pp. 1001–26; and Matthew R. Lee, "Concentrated Poverty, Race and Homicide," _The Sociological Quarterly_ 41, no. 2 (Spring 2000): pp. 189–206
**Prison was safer than freedom** The overall homicide death rate for black, white, and Hispanic men over eighteen in California in 2009 and 2010 was two and a half times greater than the corresponding death rate in the prison population. Men outside prison suffered a much higher homicide death rate even though they are, on average, older than the prison population, and so should be at lower risk.
The safety benefit of prison for the highest-risk group—young black men—is probably even greater than these figures suggest. Prison homicide victims are nearly always older men. Press releases on homicides during the year above, nearly all of which list the age of the victim, mention only one inmate victim who was in his twenties, a twenty-six-year-old, and nearly all the rest were in their forties or even sixties. Given the very high death rates of black men in their early twenties outside prison, the absence of any victims in this age category inside prison walls is especially noteworthy. This is not to dispute that there are a lot of nonfatal assaults in prison—fistfights and worse—but simply to note that the lethality is on a much lower scale than outside. (Computation by the author. Prison population statistics and homicide releases are published by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Homicide counts to verify them were provided by CDCR at the request of the author; thanks to Bill Sessa. California homicide death rates for adult males are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Injury Prevention and Control: Fatal Injury Reports. Demographic age data provided at the request of the author by Jonathan Buttle, California State Census Data Center, Demographic Research Unit, California State Department of Finance.)
**estimated as high as one in thirty-five** "The 1997 Chances of Lifetime Murder Victimization," Section V, in _Crime in the United States, 1999_ , Uniform Crime Reports, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. The figure used here is for a black male of the prisoner's age by five-year interval. The corresponding chance for a white male was 1 in 251.
## CHAPTER 21
**545 black men and boys had been killed in Los Angeles County** Files provided by the Los Angeles County Coroner's office. Thanks to Craig Harvey for years of assistance with this data.
## EPILOGUE
**a dramatic easing of the residential hyper-segregation** Thanks to demographer William H. Frey for help in interpreting segregation patterns.
**enrollment of working-age African Americans in SSI in 2009** See Patricia P. Martin and John L. Murphy, "Research and Statistics Note, No. 2014-01: African Americans: Description of Social Security and Supplemental Security Income Participation and Benefit Levels Using the American Community Survey" (Social Security Administration, Official of Retirement and Disability Policy, Office of Research, Evaluation and Statistics, January 2014), p. 13.
# **SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY**
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———. _Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery_. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1979; 1980 reprint.
Martinez, Ramiro, Jr. _Latino Homicide: Immigration, Violence, and Community_. New York: Routledge, 2002.
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# **ABOUT THE AUTHOR**
JILL LEOVY is an award-winning reporter for the _Los Angeles Times_. She lives in Los Angeles.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaBook"
} | 14 |
Grzegorz Proksa (born 23 November 1984) is a Polish former professional boxer who competed from 2005 to 2014. He is a two-time former European middleweight champion and a world title challenger.
Professional boxing record
|-
|align="center" colspan=8|29 Wins (21 knockouts, 7 decisions), 4 Losses, 0 Draws
|-
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Res.
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Record
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Opponent
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Type
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Rd.,Time
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Date
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Location
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Notes
|-align=center
| Loss
|29–4
|align=left| Maciej Sulęcki
|KO
|7
|2014-11-08
|align=left| Kraków Arena, Kraków
|
|-align=center
|Loss
|29–3
|align=left| Sergio Mora
|UD
|10
|2013-06-28
|align=left| Florida
|
|-align=center
|Win
|29–2
|align=left| Norbert Szekeres
|UD
|6
|2013-02-09
|align=left| Belfast
|
|-align=center
|Loss
|28–2
|align=left| Gennady Golovkin
|TKO
| 5
|2012-09-01
|align=left| New York City
|align=left|For WBA and IBO middleweight titles.
|-align=center
|Win
|28–1
|align=left| Kerry Hope
|TKO
|8
|2012-07-07
|align=left| Yorkshire
|align=left|Won European middleweight title.
|-align=center
|-align=center
|Win
|27–1
|align=left| Rudolf Varga
|TKO
|3
|2012-05-10
|align=left| Budapest
|
|-align=center
|Loss
|26–1
|align=left| Kerry Hope
|MD
|12
|2012-03-17
|align=left| Yorkshire
|align=left|Lost European middleweight title.
|-align=center
|Win
|26–0
|align=left| Sebastian Sylvester
|RTD
|3
|2011-10-01
|align=left| Neubrandenburg
|align=left|Won European middleweight title.
|-align=center
|Win
|25–0
|align=left| Peter Vecsei
|TKO
|2
|2011-06-23
|align=left| Budapest
|
|-align=center
|Win
|24–0
|align=left| Pablo Navascues
|KO
|9
|2011-04-15
|align=left| Leganés
|align=left|Retained European Union middleweight title.
|-align=center
|Win
|23–0
|align=left| Joe Rea
|KO
|4
|2011-03-05
|align=left| Yorkshire
|align=left|
|-align=center
|Win
|22–0
|align=left| Theophilus Tetteh
|TKO
|5
|2010-11-06
|align=left| Newport
|
|-align=center
|Win
|21–0
|align=left| Alex Spitko
|TKO
|4
|2010-07-09
|align=left| London
|align=left|
|-align=center
|Win
|20–0
|align=left| Tyan Booth
|TKO
|5
|2010-02-12
|align=left| London
|align=left|Won European Union middleweight title.
|-align=center
|Win
|19–0
|align=left| Paul Buchanan
|TKO
|6
|2009-11-06
|align=left| Magherafelt
|
|-align=center
|Win
|18–0
|align=left| Jamie Coyle
|TKO
|3
|2009-06-12
|align=left| Merseyside
|
|-align=center
|Win
|17–0
|align=left| Lee Noble
|TKO
|3
|2009-03-13
|align=left| Cheshire
|
|-align=center
|Win
|16–0
|align=left| Taz Jones
|TKO
|4
|2008-12-05
|align=left| Dagenham
|
|-align=center
|Win
|15–0
|align=left| Mihai Macovei
|UD
|6
|2008-10-10
|align=left| Barleben
|
|-align=center
|Win
|14–0
|align=left| Jairo Alvarez
|PTS
|6
|2008-04-12
|align=left| Castlebar
|
|-align=center
|Win
|13–0
|align=left| Andrei Rimer
|UD
|6
|2007-12-15
|align=left| Dessau-Roßlau
|
|-align=center
|Win
|12–0
|align=left| Gotthard Hinteregger
|TKO
|2
|2007-10-12
|align=left| Peterlee
|
|-align=center
|Win
|11–0
|align=left| Vitalie Mirza
|TKO
|4
|2007-07-20
|align=left| Wolverhampton
|align=left|WBC and IBF Youth middleweight titles.
|-align=center
|Win
|10–0
|align=left| Ojay Abrahams
|RTD
|2
|2007-03-02
|align=left| Neath
|align=left|
|-align=center
|Win
|9–0
|align=left| Steve Conway
|PTS
|6
|2006-12-15
|align=left| London
|
|-align=center
|Win
|8–0
|align=left| Ignacio Lucero Fraga
|UD
|10
|2006-10-13
|align=left| Port Talbot
|align=left|Retained WBC and IBF Youth middleweight titles.
|-align=center
|Win
|7–0
|align=left| Ben Hudson
|PTS
|4
|2006-09-15
|align=left| London
|
|-align=center
|Win
|6–0
|align=left| Kenneth Van Eesvelde
|TKO
|7
|2006-03-03
|align=left| Hartlepool
|align=left|Won WBC and IBF Youth middleweight titles.
|-align=center
|Win
|5–0
|align=left| Gene Newton
|TKO
|3
|2006-01-21
|align=left| Las Vegas
|
|-align=center
|Win
|4–0
|align=left| David Kehoe
|TKO
|3
|2005-09-12
|align=left| Iver Heath
|
|-align=center
|Win
|3–0
|align=left| Surinder Sekhon
|PTS
|4
|2005-09-09
|align=left| Sheffield
|align=left|
|-align=center
|Win
|2–0
|align=left| Sean Rawley Wilson
|TKO
|2
|2005-05-07
|align=left| Las Vegas
|
|-align=center
|Win
|1–0
|align=left| Adam Capo
|TKO
|1
|2005-03-05
|align=left| Las Vegas
|align=left|
References
External links
Living people
1984 births
People from Mysłowice
Sportspeople from Silesian Voivodeship
Polish male boxers
Middleweight boxers | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 8,822 |
{"url":"https:\/\/cran.opencpu.org\/web\/packages\/DesignCTPB\/readme\/README.html","text":"# DesignCTPB\n\nUSER NEED TO KNOW: NVIDIA GPU CARD IS A MUST FOR RUNNING OUR PACKAGE AND BEFORE YOU USE OUR PACKAGE, PLEASE CHECK CUDA AND CUDATOOLKIT ARE WELL INSTALLED. AS FOR THE INSTALLATION OF CUDA DRIVER, PLEASE REFER TO: https:\/\/www.nvidia.com\/Download\/index.aspx\n\nThis is the beta version of R package for designing clinical trial with potential biomarker effect.\n\nFor a given setting of input parameters, this package can solve up to 5-dimension alpha-split problems. This can also be expended to handle higher dimension problems. But in practice, we do not suggest consider too high dimensions, since considering too many subpopulation leads to too much loss in power, and not being the optimal choice.\nThis package can also guide the choice of size of nested populations, i.e.\u00a0find optimal r-values. The function visualizes and optimizes r-values, but only supports 3-dimension. The optimization of r-values in more than 3-dimension is trivial, but visualization can be too hard.\n\nWe implemented it with GPU computing and smoothing method(thin plate spline).\n\n## How to install in R:\n\ndevtools::install_github(\u201cubcxzhang\/DesignCTPB\u201d)\n\n## How to run in R:\n\nlibrary(DesignCTPB)\n\n### Calculating optimal alpha-split for a given setting of input parameters\n\nalpha_split(r=c(1,0.5,0.3),N3=2000,sd_full=1\/sqrt(20),delta_linear_bd = c(0.2,0.8))\n\n### Calculating optimal alpha-split for many settings of r values (i.e.\u00a0size of nested subpopulations), and visualize their results and calculate optimal choice of r values\n\nres <- design_ctpb(m=24, n_dim=3, N3=2000, sd_full=1\/sqrt(20),delta_linear_bd=c(0.2,0.8))\nres$$plot_alpha # *<font face = \"Times New Roman\">to see the 3-d rotatable plot of optimal alpha versus r2 and r3.<\/font>*\\ res$$plot_power # to see the 3-d rotatable plot of optimal power versus r2 and r3.\nres$$opt_r_split\\ res$$opt_alpha_split\nres\\$opt_power\n\n**The default inputs give the results of the strong biomarker effect in our paper. Users can change the values of input parameters to generate plot and obtain the optimal alpha and r values.\n\nIn our package, the user can specify the standard deviation of each population by giving SIGMA as input, and the harzard reduction rate DELTA for each population. Just give input values to SIGMA and DELTA, but note that the entered matrix should coincides with the matrix of r-split setting.\n(e.g.\u00a0if m=24 and n_dim=3, which means we are going to have 276 r-split setting(like our default setting), so each row of the SIGMA(DELTA) matrix should coincides with the corresponding row of r-split setting).\nFor obtaining the r-split setting, user can specify it personalized or follow our r_setting(m,n_dim) function.\n\n#### Note for selection of N3\n\nWe are developing a better selection of N3, than presented in our paper, which should consider the proportions of each subset. This feature will be in the production version of this package.\n\n## R Dependencies:\n\nR\/4.0.2\nreticulate(Package to interface python in R)\nmnormt\/fields\/plotly\/dply\n\n## Python Dependencies:\n\nPython >=3.6.3 numba >=0.46.0 scipy\/numpy\/pandas\n\n## GPU and other Dependency\n\ngcc\/7.3.0\nCUDA Tookit >=9.0","date":"2022-06-27 14:35:37","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.3940354287624359, \"perplexity\": 3394.3991930809407}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2022-27\/segments\/1656103334753.21\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20220627134424-20220627164424-00590.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
This Civic is the ultimate in unexpected F1 memorabilia
Event Coverage, Breakfast Club
Arriving at Hot Hatch Breakfast Club on a cold and clear November morning, we were expecting a decent variety of high-performance cars. What some of us weren't expecting, was to be delivered a sting of '90s Formula One nostalgia, in the shape of a Honda Civic VTi-S Jordan.
Sitting on the grid in its distinctive yellow bodywork, and even more eye-catching black and yellow leather interior with Jordan Racing hornet logos to boot, the Civic Jordan was one of the highlights of the day.
Built in 1999 to celebrate Honda's relationship with the Jordan Formula 1 team, at the peak of their powers with Damon Hill and Heinz-Harald Frentzen facing up to, and sometimes beating, the biggest names on the F1 grid, the Civic VTi-S Jordan was, at the time, the fastest Civic available in the UK. Built on the standard 1.6 VTi-S, the Jordan boasted 160bhp and could hit 140mph. Hot hatch box well and truly ticked then.
The appeal of these yellow hornets is on the up, much like their increasing rarity. Only 500 of them were ever made and today it's estimated about 300 are still out in the wild, which explains the interest the car is receiving from the ever-knowledgeable Breakfast Club punters.
New Honda Civic Type R? It will be all white on the night!
Review: 2017 Honda Civic
First Drive: Honda Civic i-DTEC
Next Civic Type R 'more exciting than ever' and has manual gears. Anything else you need to know?
Owner James Hutchings, was just another admirer of the car, before a spot of luck gave him the chance to own one.
"An elderly lady in my village owned the car from new, direct from Honda," he said. "After seeing it for years and years on the roads locally, I finally bumped into the car and the owner at the same point, and immediately asked to try and buy it. She said no, but I left my details."
It was a savvy move, as the original owner apparently used to get stopped and talked to about the car often. James says the only thing that had attracted her to the car in the first place was the fact it was the only yellow car available in the Honda dealership she happened to walk into. Incredible.
It took half a decade for the owner to finally get back in touch with the eagle-eyed James: "Five years later, I got an email out of the blue at work saying she was ready to sell. I had a regular VTi as my first car, and that's because I could never buy or get hold of the Jordan model. I've always had a thing for them, the shape. I'm a big fan of the V series VTECH engine. So, it was a nice surprise to get the email".
Today the car has 71,000 miles on the clock and happily ventures out for a blast along country roads on dry, sunny mornings such as this, and we're thankful it does. Thanks for the '90s nostalgia James!
"It's like a new car to drive," he added. "There's not a knock or a bang or a squeak anywhere. It drives well, and it's nice that it's not modified. Totally original, apart from the radio. I've even got its bill of sale. You've got to drive it and enjoy it though"
Photography by James Lynch.
Classic first drive: 1995 Honda Civic
Paris Motor Show: Honda Civic Type-R
Geneva 2016: All-New Honda Civic Breaks Cover (Yes There Will Be Another New Type-R)
The Goodwood Test: Honda Civic Type R – A car that makes even Jenson envious
Show Comments Share Tweet
Gallery: Behind the scenes – Andrew Jordan and the BMW 528i
Thank Frankel It's Friday– The Golden Age Of WEC? It's Right Now
Thank Frankel it's Friday: Hello 700bhp Supersports, farewell Continental GT
Andrew Frankel – The Honda That Taught the Supercar Establishment | {
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Carvão de artista é um material de artes seco normalmente usados por artistas pelas suas propriedades versáteis como a sua textura áspera que deixa marcas menos permanentes que outros materiais. Pode produzir linhas mais claras e escuras enquanto são facilmente removíveis e vulneráveis a deixar manchas no papel. Pode ser aplicado em quase qualquer superfície desde lisa a muito grossa. Fixativos são normalmente utilizados para proteger o trabalho, prevenir apagamentos e manchas.
O tipo de madeira e método de preparação permite a criação de diferentes tipos de carvão. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
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You need a case for your EFB and WingStats needs your support. See below to complete your entries. There are several ways to enter the drawing: Visit/follow our Facebook/Twitter/Linkedin, Tweet about the giveaway, and get the most entries by creating a WingStats Account (I encourage everyone to definitely do the last one)! Complete all entries and increase your chances of WINNING!! Also, support WingStats by liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter, and Instagram.
Up for grabs is a Travelpro Crew9 Briefcase. Plenty of room for your EFB and your own tablet and/or laptop. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 5,050 |
Lindsay Lee-Waters (Oklahoma City, 28 de junho de 1977) é uma tenista profissional estadunidense, seu melhor ranking de simples de N. 33, e em duplas de 86 em duplas.
Ligações externas
Perfil na WTA
Tenistas dos Estados Unidos
Naturais de Oklahoma City | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 7,515 |
PBS debuts BBC landmark film on 'Life of Muhammad'
August 17, 2013 by David Crumm
'The Life of Muhammad' narrator Rageh Omaar spends a lot of time hiking over rocky hills.
Reporting and Review By DAVID CRUMM
Editor of ReadTheSpirit online magazine
When the British television network, BBC Two, unveiled its three-hour series, The Life of Muhammad, in 2011, British journalists and top Muslim leaders were invited to a special preview screening. They were met by network executives crowing about this historic event: They called it the first full history of Muhammad's life produced for "Western TV."
However, their claim was debatable. Millions of Americans already were familiar with the PBS network's 2002 documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet. That two-hour PBS documentary has subsequently been shown in countless schools, congregations and small groups nationwide—and around the world. The BBC officials were claiming that their three hours were so exclusively focused on Muhammad's life that their film was a Western-media "first." In truth? The BBC was splitting hairs in making its claim.
That's one reason American media coverage of the August 20 PBS debut of that BBC series is muted, compared with the debut in the UK. Most American viewers assume that public television already has covered the Prophet's life.
The documentary's narrator and chief journalist Rageh Omar in a typical segment of 'The Life of Muhammad.' Here, he speaks to viewers with Medina in the background.
In fact, there are a lot of similarities between the productions. For example, Karen Armstrong appears as one of the main "talking heads" in both productions. Also, both the BBC and PBS networks bowed to Islamic requirements that only Muslims are allowed to visit the sacred cities where most of Muhammad's life unfolded. In the case of PBS, the American convert to Islam Michael Wolfe was the chief correspondent and, as an observant Muslim, was allowed to film in the sacred cities. In the UK, BBC executives tapped Director Faris Kermani and chief on-screen correspondent Rageh Omaar. Both are Muslim. Curiously, as PBS promotes its debut of the British series, press releases emphasize only that Rageh Omaar has worked as a journalist for the BBC and for ITV News. In fact, in the British press, he was better known in 2011 as a correspondent for Al Jazeera's English-language network.
On balance? Both documentaries were produced with an obvious awareness that these films could do more harm than good. There is a painstaking balance to both films that occasionally makes them slow going for casual viewers. Contrast these films with the much more provocative documentaries about Jesus and various eras of Christian history—some of which wind up on American cable TV channels each year—and you will feel the weight that PBS and BBC officials clearly feel on their shoulders.
How do these two productions differ? As its title indicates, the PBS series really is about Muhammad's legacy and focuses quite a bit on the millions of diverse Muslim families in the U.S. The BBC series stays for all three hours with the Prophet's life, spanning the 6th and 7th centuries. Overall, the BBC series is heavily weighted toward British experts and media personalities.
'LIFE OF MUHAMMAD'—WHAT WE THINK:
Rageh Omaar on location in 'The Life of Muhammad.' In this sequence, he is showing viewers around the Masjid al-Qiblatain, an ancient and world-famous mosque in Medina that Muslim tradition says is the place where the Prophet Muhammad commanded Muslims to change the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca.
Our Read The Spirit viewpoint: If you care about world religions and the growing religious diversity in the United States, this is "must see" television. You may even want to purchase the entire 'Life of Muhammad' series on DVD, via Amazon
. As Editor of Read The Spirit, I watched all three hours and can highly recommend the film. In tackling one potentially controversial issue after another, Omaar carefully presents various points of view and, in the course of the series, paints the kind of balanced portrait of Islam that fans of Karen Armstrong's books will be comfortable watching on their TV screens.
The BBC deliberately costumed Omaar in this series as a humble journalistic traveler. Wherever he appears around the globe, he always is wearing a simple navy-blue or sometimes charcoal shirt, no tie, comfortable khaki slacks and sturdy hiking boots. Over his shoulder is a simple brown tote bag from which he occasionally pulls a book or some notes. We often see Omaar's "talking head" popping up in dramatic settings to explain what we are seeing. The other experts he interviews usually are sitting in comfortable scholarly offices or libraries. At one point, Omaar does remove his traveler's uniform to demonstrate for viewers how Muslim pilgrims to Mecca change into simple white garments. The production design of this series tells us loud and clear: These are all reasonable people talking wisely and compassionately about one of the world's great faiths.
In other words, it's a series you'd expect to watch in a class on world religions. Presumably, that's where most of the DVDs for sale on Amazon are headed.
'LIFE OF MUHAMMAD'—WHAT OTHER JOURNALISTS SAY:
In the UK, the conservative-leaning newspaper The Telegraph assigned two journalists to cover the BBC Two debut. The newspaper's TV writer Chris Harvey called The Life of Muhammad "an excellent primer, tracing Muhammad's journey from orphaned son to prophet of a new religion. … I enjoyed it."
However, the Telegraph's religion writer Christopher Howse was less impressed. He criticized the great lengths to which BBC Two went to please Muslims with the series, including bowing to Muslim requirements that only Muslims are allowed inside the sacred cities. The BBC would not have been so deferential in reporting on Judaism or Christianity, Howse argued. And, he has a point. On the other hand, the PBS network made the same choice by tapping Michael Wolfe for its film.
The more liberal-leaning newspaper The Guardian assigned Riazat Butt, a veteran religion writer with long experience in covering Islam, to cover the British roll-out of the series. In general, her columns on the documentary reported positive reactions. Her main criticism was that the filmmakers seemed bent on checking off an inventory of "typical" elements in Muslim culture.
Riazat Butt wrote, in part: "Even though we didn't see the Prophet, we did see shots of praying (tick!), veiled women (tick!), jihadi references such as the planes flying into the twin towers … and veiled women praying (double tick!). There were also shots of camels. My score card is full. The opening episode deals with the circumstances and society that Muhammad was born into. It charts his childhood and early years—being orphaned, being taken in by his uncle—and the narrative is interspersed, interrupted I'd say, with shots of Rageh praying, Rageh brooding, Rageh climbing over rocks in a manful and foreign correspondent-like way."
Want to see the series? Be sure to check local TV listings in your region as public television show times vary widely.
AND: Consider ordering the earlier PBS documentary from Amazon: Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet
Please, share this column with friends by clicking on the blue-"f" Facebook icon or the envelope-shaped email icon. You also can email us at [email protected] with questions.
(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, interfaith news and cross-cultural issues.)
Filed Under: Movies and TV, MuslimTagged With: 9/11, Families, Film, Middle East, Television
Where to find DC's first Muslim Green Lantern hero
September 15, 2012 by David Crumm
If you know a Muslim family, ask the kids about the new superhero in the DC Comics universe. Frankly, ask any comic fan about this. Given the Green Lantern's legions of followers over the superhero's 70-year history—millions of Americans have heard of the new hero: He's Simon Baz, the newest Green Lantern, an Arab-American Muslilm hero from Dearborn, Michigan.
Who is Green Lantern
and What's His Origin?
AMONG THE OLDEST AND MOST COURAGEOUS: From his debut in 1940, Green Lantern now ranks as one of the oldest and most popular super heroes—even if the 2011 Green Lantern movie
wasn't greeted with the same kind of rave reviews lavished on Batman, Spiderman and Avengers movies.
GROUNDBREAKING SOCIAL CONSCIENCE: His reputation for having a larger-than-life conscience is longstanding. Back in the late 1960s, a restless, young generation of artists and writers emerged at DC Comics and chose the Green Lantern as one of their standard bearers. Through most of the 1960s, mainstream comic books had avoided dealing with serious social ills. Then, in 1970 and 1971, DC dared to put issues like drug addiction and racism on the covers of superhero comic books. It was a salute to the brave and venerable reputation of Green Latern that he was chosen to co-star in that series with another old-school hero, Green Arrow. Just this summer, DC released a full-color volume of the Green Lantern and Green Arrow series from 1970-71
, which now is available from Amazon.
FROM WORLD PEACE TO COSMIC PEACE: Most Americans know a good deal about Superman, Batman and Spiderman—individual heroes trying to do the right thing. Green Lantern is different. Think of the knights in King Arthur's round table. Think of the Jedi Knights in the Star Wars saga. The origin of his power resides with a cosmic round table, the Guardians of the Universe. These Guardians have distributed many power rings through the universe to all shapes and sizes and genders of heroes. The most famous "current" Green Lantern is American test pilot Hal Jordan who received his ring as shown in the 2011 movie—and suddenly found himself a cosmic peacemaker. Of course, in the realm of superheroes, peacemaking involves more battles than quiet negotiations. Think of the Seven Samurai from Japan or the Magnificent Seven from Hollywood Westerns—battling to restore peace, or so their stories go.
How Did a Muslim Get a Green Lantern Ring?
Now, we're in the heart of the story unfolding in the latest DC Comics.
The re-launch of the entire Green Lantern saga occurred in 2011, when DC Comics re-started all of the longstanding superhero series. You can catch up on the latest storyline through Green Lantern Vol. 1, containing the first half year of the new Green Lantern comics
in a single volume from DC and carried by Amazon. By this summer, it was becoming clear that at least a couple of green lantern rings—the official connection with the Guardian-authorized power—were likely to be on the loose. By early next year, the entire first year of individual Green Lantern comic books will be available in book-length collections. For now, though, the debut of Simon Baz is only available in Green Lantern #0 "The Introduction and Origin of a Surprising New Green Lantern!"
That individual comic book is available through Amazon resellers and at comic stores, if they're not already sold out. Some Amazon resellers already have their prices jacked up by more than three times the original $2.99 cover price. This is sure to become a classic.
Detroit Free Press staff writer Julie Hinds has published some of the best coverage of this landmark in Muslim media representations. In her first story about Simon Baz as Green Lantern, Julie accurately pointed out that there have been other Muslim and Arab characters in superhero comic books. In fact, some years ago, a team of Muslim comic creators launched The 99, an elaborate multi-media universe of male and female super heroes representing the best values in Islam. (Here's a ReadTheSpirit story on a documentary film about The 99 that's fascinating viewing for anyone who cares about these issues.)
In her second story, Julie covered DC executive Geoff Johns' visit to metro-Detroit, where he was celebrated by Dearborn Arab and Muslim families. Julie wrote in part: Now based in Los Angeles, Johns grew up in Grosse Pointe and Clarkston and graduated from Michigan State University. To make sure he got all of the details of Baz's heritage and hometown right, he consulted on the script with the museum in Dearborn. "He did his research," said Matthew Stiffler, the Arab American National Museum researcher who worked with Johns. "He came to the museum because he didn't want to reinforce stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims. He's really helping to break down stereotypes."
Simon Baz is introduced to readers, beginning with a flashback to the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001. The comic then very quickly summarizes the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias that followed, even though the vast majority of Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans are deeply patriotic American citizens. Unfortunately, as a young man, this fictional Simon Baz gets caught up in an international web of investigations and—well, without spoiling the comic, it's safe to say … he winds up with a green ring.
Our Recommendation: Sometimes interfaith peacemaking involves attending conferences and joint worship services; sometimes it takes long-term education and negotiation; and sometimes peacemaking is picking up some comic books and engaging kids in a fresh perspective on our world.
Please help us to reach a wider audience
We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
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Plus, there's a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.
Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.
Filed Under: Children and Families, Muslim, PeacemakingTagged With: 9/11, Children, Comics, Peacemakers
Brian McLaren on why interfaith peace begins at home
Brian McLaren's new book is prophetic, as we explained in Part 1 of our coverage. That also means there's real heat surrounding the book's launch—at least in some quarters. Clearly, Brian now has legions of fans who follow his books for their inspiration and their fresh ideas. We dug into those ideas in …
HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH BRIAN MCLAREN ON
'WHY DID JESUS, MOSES …"
DAVID: You've faced firestorms. It's got to hurt when some other evangelicals claim that you're no longer a Christian—or say worse things. As a journalist covering religion in America for nearly 40 years, I can tell that you're clearly one of the most passionately committed Christian voices, today. So, how does it feel when you sometimes face misguided fire?
BRIAN: It's always a little hurtful and sad. It's ironic, too. If a Christian Fundamentalist says I'm not a Christian, I think: Well, I've met other Christians—Eastern Orthodox Christians for example—who think that American Fundamentalists aren't Christians. So, the truth is: Everyone defines their terms in different ways. Some people don't realize how big the Christian pond truly is.
DAVID: This new book, your first book really focused on interfaith relationships, is likely to fuel more fire, right?
BRIAN: All I can say is that I'm 56 now and I'm glad that I didn't have to deal with this when I was 26. It would have been devastating then. Now that I'm older, it's not as hard to deal with this kind of response. What we're seeing in those responses really is an anxiety within our religious community. When we're anxious, we immediately guard the doors and gates. We guard them not only because of who might get in—but because of who we fear might get out.
CRIS: CONFLICTED RELIGIOUS IDENTITY SYNDROME
DAVID: I've researched this and we can say that you're the person who has coined the new term CRIS, shorthand for Conflicted Religious Identity Syndrome. That phrase describes people who are, indeed, committed Christians but who find the label "Christian" full of troubling baggage and likely to cause misunderstandings.
BRIAN: It's funny to see how far that term I started using a year or so ago is spreading. I came up with it to describe what a lot of people are experiencing today. We are Christians, but the term is loaded for so many people—so we wind up going through all these explanations and adding all these adjectives to describe the kind of Christian we are to others.
ANNE RICE FACES THE FIRE
DAVID: In your book, you write about Anne Rice's turbulent relationship with Christianity. I know that you've had some contact with Anne Rice as she began writing her series of Christian books.
BRIAN: I read an early version of her first book about the childhood of Jesus, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt
. I was asked to read the manuscript and see if there were things in the story that might be offensive to Christians from my background. I remember there were two or three things that I thought should be revised. These were things she had picked up from extra-biblical traditions and I just thought they threw up some red flags that she didn't need to provoke. I recommended she take them out and she was very gracious and hospitable to my suggestions. Writing about Jesus and Christianity was a whole new world for her. I was impressed with her.
DAVID: She's in your new book because you describe how she has sort of rejected Christianity, or at least she has rejected the power structure of "Christian" leaders who like to beat up on vulnerable people like Rice's gay friends.
BRIAN: That's the problem I'm describing. This problem of Conflicted Religious Identity Syndrome really came to a head with Anne Rice, when she said she was quitting Christianity. She announced her change on Facebook. She made it clear she still loves God and believes in Jesus, but she didn't want to be associated with a community that seemed so hostile toward nonmembers and toward people who didn't agree on any number of matters.
CRIS: A BROADER INTERFAITH PROBLEM
CLICK THE COVER to jump to the book's Amazon page.DAVID: OK, so here's where it gets interesting. CRIS isn't a problem just for Christians, right? That's a point you make in your book.
BRIAN: Right. You see this problem in so many forms. I was just talking with some Mormons yesterday and when I raised this point, they laughed. They said they certainly feel this. They see themselves as Christians but many other Christians say they're not.
DAVID: And, Christians aren't alone in condemning fellow Christians. I know lots of Muslims and Jews and Native Americans and people of other faiths who publicly reach out across religious boundaries—and other members of their groups condemn them as betraying the core faith. You're saying we share this problem with people of other faiths.
BRIAN: Yes, that's one of the most important points in the new book. I don't think we will achieve greater harmony and understanding among the faiths by minimizing our differences in belief and practice. But one of the things we hold in common is that there are features of our identity and our internal conflicts that we all do experience.
ENCOURAGE YOUR CONGREGATION TO READ NEW VOICES
DAVID: You're a good friend of Rob Bell, who has followed a similar vocational course. He's now left his big Midwest pulpit for the independence of life in California and the freedom to preach and write in any way he sees fit. Having recently interviewed Rob and seeing all these similarities in your career paths, let me ask: Are we in an era when our world is more in need of prophets than pastors?
BRIAN: Rob and I have been friends for years and, yes, we are frequently on the phone sharing advice with each other about different things. We both come from very conservative evangelical backgrounds. As pastors, we were growing, thinking human beings who publicly went through changes in our thinking. I read your interview with Rob in ReadTheSpirit and I hope other people read it, too.
We do have examples today where pastors are prophetic, but it usually means that they're prophetic on behalf of their congregations. All good pastors are trying to bring their congregations along in their ongoing preaching and teaching. I hope that Rob's books and my books and ReadTheSpirit all are helping pastors. If pastors can encourage people in their congregations to start reading websites like yours and books like the ones we're writing now, then that puts a pastor in a much better position as a moderator for what the congregation is reading and is discussing. It's a lot better, as a pastor, to be in the role of advocate and moderator helping your congregation think through the new things they're reading.
COMING TO TERMS WITH CHRISTIAN HOSTILITY
DAVID: I've described this as your first interfaith book, but it's not like most of the other "interfaith" books on my library shelves. This really is a deep exploration of the barriers that Christians throw up against their neighbors of other faiths.
BRIAN: One of the biggest insights that came to me, as I was researching this book, is the realization that it's not our differences that are keeping us apart. What's keeping us apart is something we actually have in common: The way we often try to build our own identity through hostility. Leaders build loyalty among "us" by building hostility toward "them." It won't work to simply rush off into interfaith dialogue until we deal with some of the deep work within our own identity. We won't get far in our relationships with others until we deal with some of the often hidden ways we have defined ourselves through our hostility.
Perhaps we can see this problem more easily in the political campaign going on right now. If you took away hostility toward Democrats, I'm not sure how much substance is left in the Republican Party. And, if you took away hostility toward Republicans, I don't know how much substance there is in the Democratic Party. The same problem exists in our religious communities.
INTERFAITH PEACEMAKING BEGINS AT HOME
DAVID: That's a key insight and, when readers actually go through the book, they'll see that you explore this in detailed ways. You look at liturgy. You look at our missional outreach. You look at the Christian calendar. You get down into the nuts and bolts of parish life. I would describe your message as: There's almost more danger to our diverse communities in the way we talk amongst ourselves, inside our houses of worship, than what we actually say in public. Or maybe: Interfaith peacemaking begins at home.
BRIAN: Yes, that's fair to say. Think of it this way: Even if 10 or 15 percent of us are involved in interfaith experiences—or, let's even say it reaches 25 percent of us who are doing these things—the problem is that leaves 75 percent of us isolated and stoking fires of hostility in our home congregations. Sooner or later, we have to deal with that identity issue.
DAVID: As I read your book, I turned down corners of pages and circled words. The opening half directly addresses the many ways we stoke the fires. Dozens of times, you use words like tension, hostility, conflict, attack, threaten, rivalry and violence. Then, in the second half, when you get into the nuts and bolts of building healthier and more welcoming communities, your chapters are full of terms like benevolence, generous, harmony and unity. Is that a fair way to express the movement between the first and second sections of your book?
BUILDING STRENGTH WITHOUT HOSTILITY
BRIAN: Yes. That's the challenge I'm asking readers to grapple with in the book. When we build our identity around hostility, it's a very strong identity. Then, we begin to fear that, if we reduce the hostility, we will weaken our identity. If I say that it matters less to me that you're Muslim—then does it also matter less to me that I'm Christian? Does it have to be like that?
I think the phrase "spiritual but not religious" is one sign people are giving that they want to end the hostility that they perceive is part of "religion." We can build a strong and benevolent society—we can choose to do that and pursue it. But the second half of my book really is looking at the obstacles we have to overcome in building a Christian identity within our society that is strong, robust and highly committed—but that achieves this strength without defining itself against people who don't share our identity.
DAVID: Before we end this, let's update readers on where you're based now.
BRIAN: For 24 years, I was a pastor in Maryland just outside of Washington D.C. Then, six-and-a-half years ago I left the pastorate for more time writing and speaking. For a couple of years, I continued to be involved in the church where I was pastor. Then, three-and-a-half years ago we moved here to Florida. I live in southwest Florida in a small town and I go to a small church where I don't think anyone has read my books. It's been wonderful to go from the pulpit to being the guy who sits in the fourth row from the back.
DAVID: And what's next?
BRIAN: The next project looks at the whole church year. I have been working on an outline for 52 sermons and a kind of alternative lectionary that would give people a fresh introduction to the Christian faith. What I'm envisioning now is something that, when it's finished, will be useful for a single family, or a congregation or even a whole diocese to adopt for a year. Individuals could sit around a table together, once a week, and go through the year together—or a whole region could do it together. Right now, the most important challenge I see is to help people take a fresh look at what it means to be a Christian in our world.
Care to read Part 1 in this coverage of Brian McLaren's interfaith book?
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(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering spirituality, religion, interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)
Filed Under: Author Interviews, Great With Groups, Jewish, Muslim, PeacemakingTagged With: 9/11, Peacemakers
Brian McLaren: Why did Jesus, Moses, Mohammed …
Click the cover to visit the book's Amazon page.Brian McLaren
marks 9/11
with a plea
for a new
'Generosity'
In his 19th book, the prophetic evangelical author Brian McLaren is publishing his first interfaith book. It's timed to appear on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that opened and still define this turbulent new century.
As you will read in our interview with McLaren later this week, the best-selling writer argues that this new book is far from the typical appeal for interfaith understanding that other writers are producing these days. While many of those books are noble, he has a different purpose in Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World
. While smiling over the old joke in the main title—don't miss that the book's real focus lies in the sub-title about "Christian Identity." This book is a passionate appeal to enrich Christian appreciation of cross-cultural relationships by doing some thorough house cleaning within Christianity itself. In this book, Brian is primarily writing to the Christians who comprise a majority of the American population.
FROM OUR INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN (coming later this week in ReadTheSpirit): Brian says, in answer to a question in the interview …
One of the biggest insights that came to me, as I was researching this book, is the realization that it's not our differences that are keeping us apart. What's keeping us apart is something we actually have in common: The way we often try to build our own identity through hostility. Leaders build loyalty among "us" by building hostility toward "them." It won't work to simply rush off into interfaith dialogue until we deal with some of the deep work within our own identity. We won't get far in our relationships with others until we deal with some of the often hidden ways we have defined ourselves through our hostility.
Read the entire interview with Brian McLaren, later this week.
A Return to Brian McLaren's 'Generous Orthodoxy'
Reviewing Brian McLaren's new book as Editor of ReadTheSpirit, I was struck immediately by the return this book represents to themes that he raised in his 2004 cross-over book: A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I am a missional, evangelical, post-Protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopeful, emergent, unfinished Christian.
In addition to setting a record for longest sub-title on the cover of a spiritual book, Brian staked out the term "Generous" for what he also has described since 2004 as "harmony," "unity" and "civility." McLaren urges people to sit down together across a table, to eat together and to begin forming a good-spirited community—rather than flashing doctrinal swords. Such words of wisdom echo what we are hearing from bright young Christian writers like Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, these days.
It was McLaren's "Generous" book that turned heads nationally among non-evangelicals. As a religion newswriter, at that time based at the Detroit Free Press, "Generous" was the first Brian McLaren book that I actually read cover to cover. It was the first McLaren book that I found my newspaper readers asking me about and telling me that they were reading themselves. McLaren was deliberately making a provocative play on words in selecting "Generous" as his mantra. Evangelicals always have set the high mark among Christians for giving money and sweat equity to missions—they always excel (and even boast) about that kind of "generosity." But, Brian was calling for us to focus on a distinctly different meaning of that word. He also was chiding his fellow evangelicals to become truly generous.
In continuing to use the term "generous," McLaren is not talking about drumming up dollars for the collection plate. He's talking about what other writers today are begining to call "kindness" and "hospitality." In his new book, he passionately describes a great "Reformulation" he sees possibly unfolding within Christianity—neither a rejection of orthodoxy nor a rejection of the Protestant Reformation—but a rethinking and a renewed appreciation of what core Christian beliefs truly mean in light of God's diverse world.
McLaren: 'Could doctrines become healing teachings?'
McLaren writes in the new book: Could it be that our core doctrines are even more wonderful and challenging than we previously imagined, asking us not simply to assent to them in the presence of our fellow assenters, but to practice them in relationships with those who don't hold them? Could our core doctrines in this way become "healing teachings" intended to diagnose and heal our distorted and hostile identities—restoring a strong and benevolent identity, and unleashing in us a joyful desire to converse and eat with the other? Could our core teachings be shared, not as ultimata (Believe or die!) but as gifts (Here's how we see things, and here's what that does for us— )?
McLaren: 'We must provide lots of support'
This is not an easy task, McLaren argues in the new book. He writes that, if Christians take his challenge seriously, they must face up to problems in traditional forms of liturgy, preaching and missional outreach. Late in the book he writes: Because the cost of embracing a strong and benevolent Christian identity is so high, we must provide lots of support for those who respond—support through fellowship, support through teaching (knowledge) and training (know-how), support through ritual and symbol, support through guided practice and mentoring. But since we are still young and inexperienced in this new identity, we have a long way to go in learning how to provide this support, and each of us must take whatever little we have learned and pass it on to others, even as we look for others who can pass more on to us.
McLaren: 'What will we discover in that crossing?'
In the final pages, McLaren writes: So, imagine then, Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed crossing the road to encounter one another. Imagine us following them. What will we discover together in that crossing? Surely, it will be holy and humbling in that sacred space. Surely there will be joy, grace, and peace. Surely justice, truth and love. We will find hospitality there, not hostility, and friendship, not fear, and it will be good—good for our own well-being, good for the poor and forgotten, good for our grandchildren's grandchildren, and good even for the birds of the air and the flowers in the meadow and the fish out at sea. "This is very good," God will say. And we will say, "Amen."
Filed Under: Author Interviews, Caregiving, Jewish, Muslim, PeacemakingTagged With: 9/11, Buddhist, Hindu, Hospitality, Peacemakers
Beauty of Ramadan, the fasting month for 1 billion
July 8, 2012 by David Crumm
Ramadan lights going up in the Muslim section of Jerusalem's Old City.
Click the cover to learn more about this book.Ramadan Mubarak!
That's the phrase to greet Muslim neighbors and colleagues. The word Mubarak (the same as the name of Egypt's former president) means "Blessed," so the greeting "Ramadan Mubarak" conveys the wish, "Have a Blessed Ramadan!"
Ramadan 2012 is different!
That's largely due to the Olympic games coinciding for the first time with Ramadan. Because more than 1 billion people around the world are Muslim, that means many athletes traveling to London will have to adapt for the fasting month. Ramadan rarely plays a positive role in global headline news distributed in non-Muslim countries. This year, it will, thanks to the Olympics.
Today, ReadTheSpirit recommends that readers consider ordering a copy of "The Beauty of Ramadan," by Najah Bazzy, a nationally known cross-cultural nurse and human-rights activist. Najah's book is packed with fascinating information about the religious and also the health concerns surrounding Ramadan. Even if you are not a Muslim, this information is vital to educators, public-safety professionals, medical personnel and community leaders.
WHEN DOES RAMADAN BEGIN IN 2012?
Fast begins in daylight hours, Friday July 20 or Saturday July 21.
The actual beginning of the fast depends on many factors: Does one follow the lunar cycles with scientific instruments? Or does one start the fast only with eye-sight confirmation of the moon? What do leading imams in your region decide for the larger community? Is there an official schedule for your nation? News media reports across the Middle East and Asia are pointing toward July 21 for some regions, based on reporting by the Islamic Crescents' Observation Project. (On the Project's website, you can find elaborate astronomical charts.)
Across most of the U.S., the first fast is set for July 20: The Fiqh Council of North America is led by Muslim authorities across the U.S. from a wide range of ethnic groups and both the Sunni and Shi'a sects. The Council accepts calculation of the new crescent moon, marking Ramadan, by using scientific instruments. So, the Fiqh Council declares for the U.S.: "The first day of Ramadan is Friday, July 20, insha'Allah." (That final phrase means, "God willing.") Then, the fasting month ends with a huge celebration (the "Eid u-Fitr"), marked by a new lunar crescent that starts a new month. The Fiqh Council declares: "Eid ul-Fitr is Sunday, August 19, insha'Allah."
MYTH: DURING RAMADAN, MUSLIMS EAT LESS
The world's billion-plus Muslims certainly eat and drink less during daylight hours, but during the evenings—and, in some cultures and communities, all night long—Muslims enjoy a festive Thanksgiving-like relationship with their food and drink. This is a time of family gatherings; friends spend time together at mosques and in cafes; family matriarchs pull out all the stops in making favorite dishes.
How much extra food? The oldest English-language newspaper in the Middle East, the Egyptian Gazatte, reports that Egyptians are anxious about food prices as each Ramadan rolls around. A July 4 Gazette report explained to readers: "People eat 70 per cent more during Ramadan, according to a study conducted by the Chamber of Foodstuffs. Consumption of sugar and pastry increases even by 100 per cent, meat and poultry by 50 per cent and diary products by 60 per cent. The consumption of rice and wheat increases only by 25 per cent."
Price gouging and price supports? In such a month, price gouging can be a problem and one UAE news publication reports: "Ministry of Economy's office in the Emirates has intensified price checks to ensure that all outlets, including super markets, groceries, salons and maintenance service shops, are not increasing prices." Recognizing the huge importance of Ramadan, the government of Pakistan actually provides national subsidies to needy families through thousands of regional food stores. The program provides bundles of typical foods families need to provide night-time meals, bought in mass quantities by the government, bundled into "Ramadan Packs," then sold at a deep discount to low-income families.
RAMADAN AND THE OLYMPICS: POSITIVE NEWS FROM THE UK
The Muslim calendar is based on lunar cycles. So, observances like Ramadan "move forward" through the world's standard calendar. In 2011, Ramadan was entirely in August. In 2012, the start of fasting moves into mid-July and that's a crisis for Muslim athletes competing in the 2012 Olympics.
In their Ramadan reporting, the Times of India and Reuters are citing a university study that, in a typical summer soccer match, an athlete loses 2 liters of body fluids. Fasting under such conditions seems impossible—but Islam traditionally exempts travelers from fasting as well as anyone for whom fasting poses a health risk. Olympic competitors might claim either exemption; and Muslim scholars are suggesting a range of other ideas from "making up" the fast later to donating funds for feeding hungry families.
Across the UK, non-Muslims are suddenly well aware of Ramadan in a positive way. Muslim athletes suddenly are talking about the depth of their faith—and their commitment to peacemaking and helping the poor during Ramadan. And there's more! Muslim organizations in areas around the Olympic venues are welcoming both Muslim and non-Muslim visitors for Iftars (breaking-the-fast dinners after the sun sets). The UK grocery giant Tesco has set up a Ramadan portal within its website, already declaring: "Ramadan Mubarak." Among the featured Tesco items are dates, traditionally the first bite each night as the fast is broken.
Also: Read the News Release on Ramadan posted within the official 2012 London Olympics website.
And: There is more about the Olympics debate in Stephanie Fenton's Holiday column on Ramadan.
RAMADAN: A GREAT TIME FOR VISITING
Red-Carpet Hospitality in the UK: Given the global focus on London during Ramadan, various UK nonprofits and religious groups have established Iftar 2012, a program to organize and publicize a wide array of welcoming events. The information is centered on the Iftar 2012 website, a colorful collection of newsy posts and information.
Iftar 2012 describes its mission this way: "The British Muslim community invites you and your Olympic team to celebrate a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join them in a Ramadan fast-breaking meal during the London 2012 Olympic Games. Never before has the Olympics in the modern era coincided with the Islamic calendar month of Ramadan. Iftar 2012 is hoping to deliver the Ramadan experience with the help and support of Mosques, Islamic centers, community groups during the 2012 Olympics." In many places on the website, the organization emphasizes that this is open to "Muslims and non-Muslims, people of all colors and races, people of faith and no faith."
Hospitality across the United States: While Iftar 2012 in the UK already had generated a lot of news coverage, the same hospitality is shown by Muslim communities across the U.S. Generally, non-Muslims are welcome to visit mosques on most nights of Ramadan. It's best to visit with a Muslim friend or to call ahead to ensure that someone from the mosque will orient you to the evening's program. Most American Muslim centers do not provide nightly Iftar meals; that's not typically a part of the evening gatherings for prayer and inspirational talks. However, most American Muslim communities do host occasional Iftars for friends and visitors. Call a local mosque or Muslim center and ask about local plans in your part of the U.S.
SERMON WELCOMING RAMADAN BY PROPHET MUHAMMAD (PBUH)
The Prophet's sermon on Ramadan is one of the world's most famous Muslim texts. Countless versions rendered in English are floating around the Internet, some of them more difficult to understand than others. For her book, The Beauty of Ramdan, Najah Bazzy consulted Muslim scholars and, then, gives readers this formal and yet accurate paraphrase in English. Note on parenthetical terms: The letters PBUH are a way for Muslim writers to show respect for the Prophets in their religious tradition, including Moses and Jesus. They stand for "Peace Be Upon Him." In most English translations of Muslim texts in Arabic, parentheses are used to indicate words that go further than translation to add clarity to the otherwise unwritten context of a line.
Muslims enjoy the Quran inside the huge mosque in central Jakarta, Indonesia. Another popular form of worship is to recite the various Arabic "names" or attributions of God, often using a string of beads that sometimes are described, in English, as a rosary.O People! The month of God (Ramadan) has approached you with His mercy and blessings. This is the month that is the best of all months in the estimation of God. Its days are the best among the days; its nights are the best among the nights. Its hours are the best among the hours.
This is a month in which He has invited you. You have been, in this month, selected as the recipients of the honors of God, the Merciful. In this holy month, when you breathe, it has the heavenly reward of the praise of God on rosary beads (tasbeeh), and your sleep has the reward of worship.
Your good deeds are accepted in this month. So are your invocations. Therefore, you must invoke your Lord, in right earnest, with hearts that are free from sins and evils, that God may bless you. Observe fast, in this month, and recite the Holy Quran.
Verily! The person who may not receive the mercy and benevolence of God in this month must be very unfortunate having an end as bad (in the Hereafter). While fasting, remember the hunger and thirst of tomorrow in eternity. Give alms to the poor and the needy. Pay respect to your elders.
Have pity on those younger than you and be kind towards your relatives and kinsmen. Guard your tongues against unworthy words, and your eyes from such scenes that are not worth seeing (forbidden) and your ears from such sounds that should not be heard by you.
Be kind to orphans so that if your children become orphans they also may be treated with kindness. Do invoke God that He may forgive your sins. do raise your hands at the time of Salat (Prayers), as it is the best time for asking His mercy. When we invoke at such times, we are answered by Him; when we call Him, He responds; and when we ask for anything, it is accepted by Him.
O People! You have made your conscience the slave of your desires; make it free by invoking Him for repentance and forgiveness. Your back is breaking under the heavy load of your sins, so prostrate before Him for long inervals and lighten your load.
Do understand fully well that God has promised in the name of His Majesty and Honor that He wil lnot take to task such people who fast and offer prayers in this month and perform prostration, and will guard their bodies against the punishment on the Day of Judgment.
O People! If anybody amongst you arranges for the Iftar (food for the ending of the fast) of any believer, then God will give you a reward as if you have set free a slave. He will forgive your minor sins.
Then the companions of Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said: "But everybody amongst us does not have the means to do so?"
Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) told them: Keep yourself away form God's wrath, by inviting for Iftar, though it may consist of only half a date or simply with water if you have nothing else. O People! Anybody who may cultivate good manners in this month wil walk over the bridge to the next life with ease, though his feet may be shaking.
Anybody who in this month may take light work from his servants (male or female), God will make easy his accounting on the Day of Judgment.
Anybody who covers the faults of other sin this month, God will cover his faults in this life and in eternity. Anybody who respects and treats an orphan with kindness in this month, God shall look at him with dignity in the Hereafter. Anybody who treats well his kinsmen, in this month, God will bestow His mercy on him, while anybody who mistreats his kinsmen in this month, God will keep him away from His mercy.
Whoever offers a recommended prayer in this month, God will give him freedom from Hell. Whosoever offers one obligatory prayer in this month, for him the Angels will write the rewards of 70 such prayers, which were offered by him in any other month.
Whosoever recites repeatedly Peace and blessings upon me, God will keep the scales of his good deeds heavy, (promising heaven).
READ MORE ABOUT MUSLIM LIFE AND RAMADAN
More about Ramadan in our Holidays column. Writer Stephanie Fenton follows Holidays and Festivals around the world. Her column already has additional details about the start of Ramadan. You may also want to bookmark the URL to her column https://readthespirit.com/religious-holidays-festivals/ so that you can follow upcoming stories about individual holidays that are marked within the month of Ramadan—whch will be published as Stephanie files those stories.
Read an interview with Dr. John Esposito, widely regarded as a top English-language scholar on Islam. ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm conducted this interview with Esposito a couple of years ago, but most of the scholar's conclusions are relevant to this day.
Athlete's point of view: Female Tae Kwan Do instructor Fidaa Bazzi talks about the difficult challenge of following the Ramadan fast as an athlete and college student in the U.S.
Mom's point of view: Cooking during Ramadan is quite an effort, explains Zahia Hassen.
Hearing the Quran recited during Ramadan is one of the most beautiful and memorable experiences for Muslims around the world. Radwan Almadrahi talks about this experience.
LEARN MORE ABOUT 'THE BEAUTY OF RAMADAN,' a complete book about this season by cross-cultural nurse Najah Bazzy. This book not only explains the month of fasting in detail, but also contains information that is helpful to educators, health care professionals and community leaders.
Filed Under: Great With Groups, Muslim, PeacemakingTagged With: 9/11, Asia, Food and Drink, Prayer, Ramadan
ONE & Oprah: How a small-town Dad is inspiring millions
June 6, 2012 by David Crumm
Click the DVD cover to visit ONE's Amazon page.The story behind ONE
sounds like a Hollywood fairy tale: A group of friends get together and decide to put on a show. They pool their resources. Despite the longest of long-shot odds—these eager first timers produce a hit!
That is, indeed, the true story of ONE, although the feature-length documentary isn't exactly an overnight sensation. A decade ago, Ward and Diane Powers were typical American parents, active in their local Catholic church, when the terrorist attacks hit on 9/11. As ordinary residents of a Midwest community, the Powers thought and prayed a lot about how they could teach their three daughters not to fear the world's diversity. The Powers knew that the world's varied religious traditions—at their best—promote a unified call for compassion even in the midst of diversity. Rather than contributing to the overall post-9/11 anxiety, the Powers wanted to help highlight that compassionate message.
Much like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney putting on a makeshift Hollywood show, Diane and Ward enlisted their friends in their ambitious project. When they began, they didn't even own a quality video camera. They were not journalists—they weren't even writers. They had no experience contacting major religious leaders. Yet, they began making a list of people who ordinary American parents would want to question at such a turbulent time in world history.
Now, after years of barnstorming through film festivals and indie screenings, Oprah is announcing that ONE will air on her OWN network. Later this year, the whole world will see the Powers' show.
And, what a show it is! Moved by these parents' sincere request, one major religious figure after another agreed to appear in the film. Now, even as ONE hits a global audience thanks to Oprah, the documentary already has become a cinematic classic—marking wisdom at the dawn of this new millennium from some of the world's most famous religious sages (some of whom sadly won't be with us that much longer).
ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm, as a long-time religion news correspondent, has been covering the ONE story since its inception. Today, David talks with the small-town lawyer and father of three, Ward Powers, who became one of the world's most unlikely filmmakers.
ON THE OPRAH ANNOUNCEMENT
ABOUT THE SPIRITUAL MOVIE: ONE
DAVID: Today, there are millions of filmmakers on YouTube. (And in Part 1 of our coverage of ONE this week, we include several YouTube clips that are out-takes from the movie.) So, let's begin by stressing that ONE isn't just another YouTube creation. This is a high-quality, feature-length documentary that took you a couple of years to produce. So, this leads to another question: How old are your kids, now?
WARD: Let's see. I'm 54. Diane is 52. Our daughters are 17 to 21. When this started they were little kids and we were thinking about what we needed to show them about the world just after 9/11. Now, one daughter is in law school. As a family, we do mark time in relation to ONE. You know, we'll be trying to place events through the years and we'll say: This happened or that happened just after we finished ONE.
The whole story began in April of 2002, about six months after 9/11, when war drums were pounding in the campaign to attack Iraq, which our country finally did in early 2003. So, as the idea for ONE came to me, the tragedy of 9/11 already was leading toward another tragedy.
I was really disturbed that, right after 9/11, Americans were being taught that there were a billion Muslims around the world who we were supposed to fear or even to hate. Diane and I realized that this was contrary to the reality of life on this planet. Humanity is an interconnected web. All living things are one. That was a truth we held very close, but we could feel that truth moving away from us in that really fearful time. We were just a Mom and a Dad living in suburban Detroit. But, what we saw going on in our world called us out of our comfortable home. We kept asking ourselves: How can we create something that will focus much needed light back on the truth? And that truth is, as our title says: In this world, we are—ONE.
That April, there was this one particular morning—quite early that morning. I was kind of half awake in bed and my mind was drifting. The idea came to me: We should set off on a journey with our friends and make a movie. For us, it would be a personal journey.
DAVID: When people watch the opening of ONE, they'll see a generic man waking up in a generic hotel room. Does that represent the morning when you woke up with this idea?
WARD: No, it's not that specific a reference to my waking up with the idea. But, I can also say: Yes, this is a guy like everyone, you know, waking up in bed and looking for a fresh start in life. This particular nameless character we see is staying in a dumpy hotel room, waking up with some kind of unnamed troubles in his life. And, we see him start his day. We're trying to encourage everyone to wake up and head out with us on this journey of awareness. And, I should say: This movie isn't some big crusade to convert anyone to any particular religious tradition. This is a personal call to viewers to get up, start a new day, and take a fresh journey to discover the world's underlying truths.
ONE, THE MOVIE: COVERING ALL COMPASS POINTS
DAVID: That is an important aspect of ONE, Ward. We do see an incredible diversity in this film. You've got pretty much all the compass points covered.
WARD: For example, a group of atheists were having a picnic for the summer solstice. So we went out and filmed interviews with some of the atheists. About the same time, we interviewed a Christian talk show host. We talked with all points of view. This project wasn't about us picking and choosing a particular point of view that we were pushing. No, we wanted to capture the whole range of humanity.
This turned out to be the right decision on many levels. When we were interviewing the atheists, we ran into a reporter who was writing a story for a Detroit newspaper. He was fascinated by what we were doing and wrote a story about us. When that appeared, it opened up a whole new range of possibilities. Suddenly, people were aware of what we were doing; we were authentic at that point and the project grew. One day, there was this young guy who just showed up at the front door of my offices. He told me that he had read the newspaper story about the film and he was carrying this book by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee. He said, "You've got to include Llewellyn in your movie." Now, at that point, I'd never even heard of Llewellyn, but this young guy made a strong case for our including him. The connections flowed like that: We were at a picnic, there was a reporter, there was a story, there was a kid at the door, there was Llewellyn. That was the magic of how the doors opened.
ONE, THE MOVIE: A UNIQUE SPIRITUAL SNAPSHOT
DAVID: And ReadTheSpirit has just published a fresh interview with Llewellyn. Your film is unique because it includes so many giants: Father Thomas Keating, Robert Thurman, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ram Dass and others who won't be with us forever. These are major voices who are speaking for themselves in this film—not their followers or some scholar talking about them—but the real Keating, Thurman, Ram Dass and Thich Nhat Hanh. Figures like Keating, Thurman and Ram Dass go back to the explosion of religious diversity in America from the 1960s into the 1970s. This film still is fresh and inspiring to new viewers. But, already ONE is a must-see classic that captures a particular range of great voices in American faith, culture and history. I don't think anyone could duplicate this treasure.
WARD: It takes the background of someone like you to appreciate this about ONE. It's true: These voices all have unique things to tell us. Yet, they somehow all come together here in ONE. It helped that we were keeping our own orientations out of what we were filming. We looked East and West. We looked for traditional religious language and more contemporary language. But this idea of ONE-ness permeates all of these voices. We opened up a welcoming space where all of these voices felt comfortable sharing their perspectives.
DAVID: At ReadTheSpirit, we value journalism—accuracy, balance and the goal of conveying someone's voice honestly to our audience. That kind of balance is part of the value of ONE. You're not a religious leader. In fact, you're an attorney. You're trained in critical-thinking skills; you're schooled in techniques of careful observation through your profession. Do you think that your professional background help you?
WARD: Yes, I think it did. In fact, after ONE was finished, I wound up traveling and speaking at a number of bar associations around the country. We tend to think of trial lawyers, which is my own specialty, as people who are pitted against each other as advocates for their one side against another side. By showing ONE and talking about it with other lawyers, I was able to address my own profession and say: Let's look at what we do again. The reality of what we do, beyond beating somebody on the other side, is to serve justice. And justice is something bigger than winning. The law is intended to give people a language and a place to breach their differences and to work out and compromise and resolve their differences. The goal of law is to find justice and balance again. After those bar association programs, I had some remarkable and rewarding responses from trial lawyers. We all need to realize that we're part of something bigger.
ONE, THE MOVIE: VALUE OF CULTURAL COMPETENCY
Click the cover to visit the book page.DAVID: This is a really important point: There are strong secular and civic reasons to see a film like ONE. Let me give you an example from another colleague: Stuart Matlins of the SkyLight Paths publishing house has found that a book he publishes, How to Be a Perfect Stranger, is popular among professionals in international business. "Cultural competency" is a hot skill set to develop right now.
WARD: A lot of people have started using the film in that way. For example, there was one banking professional who began using the film with his professional colleagues. Later, for a while, he worked out of my offices, designing some educational programs using clips from ONE for different audiences: high school and college students, executives, corporate groups embarking on tasks together. That's an amazing outgrowth of ONE.
DAVID: There are many professional groups interested in this information: medical personnel, public safety officers, on and on. In this film you have authentic, high-level voices from the world's religious traditions. In ONE, viewers are getting the real deal.
WARD: Quite honestly, I like ONE more now than when it first came out. As I have seen it stand the test of time, I am appreciating the larger value of the film. I do keep seeing new connections. That's partly because the world keeps turning and news keeps coming out about people and ideas related to ONE.
Another reason it's so valuable is this isn't one more message about how to make a fast buck, how to get what I want, how to get more stuff for myself. That idea of success and personal satisfaction—dream your own dream and grab your own success—is very popular in Western culture. I understand the appeal, but that idea has its limitations.
DAVID: ONE was born out of post 9/11 anxieties, but flash forward to this current era of global economic crisis. People around the world are realizing that, even though they may live in a developed country, their lot in life isn't going to be better than their parents' generation. That's a huge shift in global anxieties. One limitation of prosperity preaching is that it's a tough sell in the midst of such a crisis. But, ONE is very appropriate in this era. You're not offering cheap avenues to personal success through spirituality. ONE is talking about ideas that might actually help us in these troubled times.
WARD: I'm glad you said that. Yes, ONE is about finding our way back together again in this divided world. The movie starts with this down-and-out guy waking up in his bed and wondering what this new day holds. ONE is about the catalysts that can shake us out of our own individual corners. The whole idea of ONE is to offer a place where what seems so divisive in our world—our religious voices—can offer a gateway back to unity. That's why ONE remains so powerful. There are things in that film that I could never have dreamed would be relevant with each passing year. But, ONE takes people wherever they're at today—and it talks to them about some big truths they may have been missing in their lives. This film touches people in new ways with each new viewing. That's why this whole journey has been so magical.
Filed Under: Author Interviews, Great With Groups, Movies and TV, Muslim, PeacemakingTagged With: 9/11, Asia, Atheism, Film, Television
Parker Palmer, 2: 'Good news from within our lives'
January 4, 2012 by David Crumm
This is the conclusion of our interview with Parker Palmer.
You may also want to read a brief excerpt of his book, Healing the Heart of Democracy.
Then, if you haven't read it already, here is Part 1 of the interview.
HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH PARKER PALMER
ON 'HEALING THE HEART OF DEMOCRACY,' PART 2
CLICK THE COVER TO JUMP TO AMAZON.DAVID: In this new book, you use "heartbreak" as a metaphor for where we are now as a nation. You write: "We will never fully understand why people respond so differently to experiences of heartbreak. There is an eternal mystery about how the shattered soul becomes whole again. But people whose hearts break open, not apart, are usually those who have embraced life's 'little deaths' over time, those small losses, failures and betrayals that can serve as practice runs for the larger deaths yet to come."
As a nation, we are heartbroken now, you tell us. Throughout the book, you are pushing people to use this sudden opening of hearts in a compassionate way—not to allow ourselves to sink into bitter despair and anger. But I have to ask: When there suddenly is a tragic shift in our life's core assumptions as fundamental as losing one's job, or one's long-promised pension, or the value of one's house—when such values that form the foundation of our lives suddenly are overturned—then it's awfully hard to react in a compassionate way, isn't it?
PARKER: You're absolutely right. When you discover that your home suddenly is worth less than you thought it was—and you may never recover your life's investments—this is very scary. I agree with your analysis. It gets even scarier when your job disappears, or even when your job is suddenly less secure. This is one of the reasons that, in my book, I take issue with what other observers commonly call "the politics of rage" to explain where we are as a nation. I am saying that we must look beneath the rage we are seeing and, when we do, we find what I am calling "the politics of the broken hearted."
Just think about this: Perhaps a third of the homeless people in this country are our veterans. Or consider: A quarter of our children in this country are at risk. Many children go to bed hungry every night in our country. Poverty is growing. Many people have at least a sense that these things are happening, even if they don't know the specific details. To allow these conditions to continue shows a hardness, a crudity, a seeming disregard for the value of life in our country. And, all of this—all we have been talking about here—contributes to our heartbreak as a nation.
DAVID: Your book offers lots of sage advice about this. As we introduce your book, we will include the text of your "Five Habits of the Heart," which is part of your advice to readers. But, these Five Habits are advice for the journey, aren't they? In the end, there is no sure-fire, 10-point plan for success, is there?
PARKER: That's right. And, I don't propose one big answer to this big problem, because problems this big don't have big answers. They have a million little answers that have to be acted out in a million lives. Promising one big answer, at this point in our nation's life, is not wise. Such promises may be appealing, but they backfire with results ranging from the discovery that it's a false hope—to accepting a totalitarian takeover as a way to reach that promised big solution.
We have to start this process with a good diagnosis. If what we diagnose is rage, then we are likely to rage back at people or to go hide out somewhere. That's a simple diagnosis and a simple answer, but raging at people or hiding out ultimately will undermine what holds our democracy together. If we leave the diagnosis at rage, then the creative, life giving, noble possibilities of our democracy are endangered. But, if the diagnosis is heartbreak, then we can start to come together. The prescription for heartbreak is different. We can begin to search for some kind of common ground in our shared experience.
HEARTBREAK AT HOME; HEARTBREAK AROUND THE WORLD
DAVID: You're mainly addressing an American audience, but this has applications all the way around the world. Over the past decade, we have reacted to what we perceive as anti-Americanism with rage. We've gone to war twice over the past decade.
PARKER: That's right. For example, in the Christian world, there are lots of folks who perceive men and women in the Muslim world to be enraged extremists. What we are actually seeing, in many cases, are people who are heartbroken over their prospects in the world, too. Many are heartbroken, in particular, about the prospects for their children, much as we are.
I ask people to remember that period right after 9/11 when people around the world were saying things like: "I am an American with you, today." And: "I understand your pain and your loss as Americans." In so many parts of the world, people had a deeply compassionate response. That was a moment of shared heartbreak.
My dear late friend Henri Nouwen used to say: We join with each other more through our brokenness than we do through our strength. It's an ancient Christian theme and it's true today. In his song Anthem, Leonard Cohen asks us to "Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There's a crack in everything—that's how the light gets in." This is ancient human wisdom that, in our heartbreak, it is possible for us to come together.
In the case of 9/11, that moment of shared heartbreak lasted a very short period of time before we turned to an eye-for-an-eye response and we didn't much care where we would take our revenge. The attack in Iraq had very little to do with the 9/11 attacks. That was irrational violence and it ended our post-9/11 opportunity to come together with people in many parts of the world through our shared broken heartedness.
CONFRONTING BIG BAD MEDIA; DISCOVERING OUR OWN VOICE
DAVID: One of the most provocative things you say in your new book involves "media." For most Americans, that M-word summons up an image of network TV, major newspapers and magazines. But, in fact, "media" is simply connection through all sorts of means—from human tissue to digital transmission, from paint and ink to music. In your book, you warn us—as you warned us in Part 1 of this interview—about the dangers of mass media today.
But, hey, you're a part of mass media yourself. You're a popular author with a bunch of books listed on Amazon. Henri Nouwen? His books have circled the globe. Leonard Cohen? His music is performed on hit TV shows all the time. Cohen was just performed on X-Factor. So, you're not really urging us to give up all media.
Quite the contrary, I would argue, you're actually giving us some advice, in this new book, about two things: How to discern the flaws in the media we accept into our lives, and how to raise our own voices—perhaps daring to do so for the first time—in a healthy and helpful way. Am I understanding you correctly? I don't think it's possible to achieve what you hope to achieve without media, right?
PARKER: Again, a great question. The real problem is that too many of us spend our lives in schools and churches that treat us as if we are supposed to sit there and receive information as empty vessels. I write that "many of us lack confidence in our own voices and in our power to make a difference. We grow up in educational and religious institutions that treat us as members of an audience instead of actors in a drama, and as a result we become adults who treat politics as a spectator sport."
The idea we're given is that we're not supposed to have knowledge or wisdom within us as individuals. This leaves lots of people dependent on external sources for what they regard as "truth"—to the extent that people even use that word today. Steven Colbert understands what's happening here, so he's turned the word into "truthiness."
What I am talking about is the need to use all the ways possible to help restore people's confidence that they do, indeed, have life experiences and inner processes that are, in themselves, sources of insight and knowledge. In my own life, this was a struggle. I was the first person in my family to go to college. I felt very intimidated in an academic environment and I had to struggle for many years, a struggle that culminated at Berkley in graduate school where I finally claimed my own.
We need to do everything we can to help people reclaim the authority and validity of what they already know inwardly. We need to help people realize that they need to check and correct themselves with other people, as well. This business of "knowing" becomes an interactive, co-creative process.
No, there's not much good news in the news media, but there is good news in the wisdom traditions from within our religious communities. And, there's also good news that comes from within our own lives.
Remember: You can order a copy of Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit
from Amazon.
Filed Under: Author Interviews, Great With Groups, PeacemakingTagged With: 9/11, Peacemakers, The Arts | {
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The supercritical coal-fired power plant in Mauban, Quezon, Philippines under San Buenaventura Power, Ltd. Co. (SBPL), is a partnership between Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen) and New Growth BV, a subsidiary of the Electricity Generating Public Co., Ltd. or EGCO Group of Thailand. The power plant is said to be the first in the country to use state-of-the-art technology, which is more efficient than all other existing coal plants in the Philippines. The power plant will play a crucial role as electricity demand grows, especially in Luzon, which accounts for 70% of the country's gross domestic product. | {
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package cn.edu.nuc.acmicpc.service.impl;
import cn.edu.nuc.acmicpc.service.RecentContestService;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;
import java.util.List;
/**
* Created with IDEA
* User: chuninsane
* Date: 16/4/5
* Recent contest service implement.
*/
@Service
public class RecentContestServiceImpl implements RecentContestService {
@Override
public List<RecentContestService> getRecentContestList() {
//TODO
return null;
}
}
| {
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Сенан () насеље је и општина у источној Француској у региону Франш-Конте, у департману Горња Саона која припада префектури Везул.
По подацима из 2011. године у општини је живело 128 становника, а густина насељености је износила 25,5 становника/-{km²}-. Општина се простире на површини од 5,02 -{km²}-. Налази се на средњој надморској висини од 278 метара (максималној 293 -{m}-, а минималној 232 -{m}-).
Демографија
График промене броја становника у току последњих година
Види још
Списак општина у департману Горња Саона
Референце
Спољашње везе
База података: -{Insee}-
Cenans на страници Националног географског института Француске
Cenans на страници организације -{INSEE}-
Најближа насеља (километража, правац и координате)
Положај места Cenans на мапи Француске (са основним подацима о месту)
План насеља Cenans на мапи (-{Mapquest}-)
Департман Горња Саона у Француској
Википројект географија/Насеља у Француској | {
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\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:Sec1}
Jets are produced in hard scatterings of colliding particles. Emerging from the early stages of collisions they are ideal tools to study final states, hadronisation processes and hadron production. Such questions can be addressed through investigation of fragmentation properties of quark and gluon jets in different event shapes (2- or 3- jet) and jet-production channels.
In the following, we show how gluon contribution to hadron spectra changes with collision energy, moreover, that this contribution is dominant for protons. Further, in the case of 2- and 3-jet events, we show that extra hard gluon radiation has an effect of 20\% - 40\% to the relative proton production. The presented MC analysis is an extension of multiple jet studies (\cite{Abreu:1995hp} - \cite{Acosta:2004yy}), with the perspective of implication in the future experiments at LHC, which offer high momentum particle identification capabilities.
The data were simulated using PYTHIA event generator \cite{Sjostrand:2006za} with the settings of P0 tune \cite{Skands:2008}. Three types of data-sets, were created for each collision energy - $\mathrm{200\ GeV}$, $\mathrm{1800\ GeV}$ and $\mathrm{7\ TeV}$ including pure gluon (GG), pure quark (QQ) and mixed (QG) jet event production. Every sample contains 300 000 events. Separating the production channels, we were able to see the parton-type effect on single hadron spectra. Additionally, as a reference, three respective minimum bias (MB) samples were generated, each containing 1M events.
In order to study particle production in different event shapes, we selected 2- and 3-jet-like events based on the so called thrust variable, $T$ \cite{Sjostrand:2006za}. Events with $T$ smaller than $0.9$ were treated as 3-jet-like, events with higher values as 2-jet-like. This separation was earlier proposed for multi-jet analysis at LEP, see e.g Ref. \cite{Barreiro:1985av}.
The effects of GG, QQ and QG production channels where studied via $p+\bar{p}/K^{+}+K^{-}$ (p/K) and $p+\bar{p}/\pi^{+}+\pi^{-}$ (p/$\pi$) ratios.
\section{Particle ratios in selected production channels}
\label{sec:Sec2}
At first we examined the separate contributions of individual jet-production channels to the whole spectra (see Table \ref{tab:table1}) and to the p/$\pi$ and p/K ratios (Figure \ref{fig:dSigmaPt}).
\begin{figure}[ht]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=150mm,height=90mm]{./fig1.eps}
\end{center}
\caption{p/$\pi$ (left panels) and p/K (right panels) for various production channels; GG (blue triangles), QG (magenta triangles), QQ (red triangles) compared to all production channels (black triangles) and MB (green circles). At $\mathrm{\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200\ GeV}$ ratio is compared to STAR data \cite{STAR:2006}.}
\label{fig:dSigmaPt}
\end{figure}
\begin{table}
\caption{Integrated fraction of jet events in MB production (second column) and fraction of various production channels contained in a jet production.}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{l || l l l l}
\hline
$\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ [TeV] & Jet/MB & GG/Jet & QQ/Jet & QG/Jet \\
\hline
$0.2$ & $0.1 \%$ & $17.7 \%$ & $27.3 \%$ & $55 \%$ \\
$1.8$ & $34.2 \%$ & $49.7 \%$ & $7.6 \%$ & $42.7 \%$\\
$7$ & $95 \%$ & $60 \%$ & $5.3 \%$ & $34.7 \%$\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\label{tab:table1}
\end{table}
In the case of jet sample generation, we have taken into account, that the cross section for jet production varies strongly with jet energy. For this reason, the jet sample was generated in three $p_{T}^{hard}$ bins ($p_{T}^{hard}=\{15-50\ \mathrm{GeV/c}, 50-100\ \mathrm{GeV/c}, 100\ \mathrm{GeV/c} \leq \}$), where $p_{T}^{hard}$ is the transverse momentum of the partons in the rest frame of the interaction. After proper cross section scaling, the partial $p_{T}^{hard}$ samples where merged into one.
We can see, that the fraction of jet events contributing to the MB spectra rises with energy, furthermore, jet sample becomes gluon dominated.
For both p/$\pi$ and p/K, in the $2-6\ \mathrm{GeV/c}$ region, the highest value of the ratio is achieved for GG events and the ratio for all channels rises towards the GG value with collision energy (Figure \ref{fig:dSigmaPt}). Specifically, p/$\pi$ ratio reaches values between $\approx 0.25-0.3$ and p/K ratio rises up to $\approx 1$. This behaviour can be connected to how protons are formed within the popcorn fragmentation model in PYTHIA \cite{Sjostrand:2006za}, \cite{Andersson:1983ia}. Observing the ratios experimentally can contribute to further understanding of particle production mechanisms.
The MB points seem to prefer the region between QG and QQ values, especially in the region above $\mathrm{3\ GeV/c}$, where hard scattering becomes important. In this sample we also observe a rising trend towards higher collision energies.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=150mm,height=50mm]{./fig2.eps}
\end{center}
\caption{GG production channel contribution to all production channels for individual particle spectra.}
\label{fig:GG}
\end{figure}
In Figure \ref{fig:GG} we plotted the GG channel contribution to the jet spectra for individual hadrons as it changes with hadron momentum and collision energy. The contribution weakens with momentum and rises with collision energy (also see Table \ref{tab:table1}). The highest contribution belongs to protons, which complements Figure \ref{fig:dSigmaPt}.
\section{Particle ratios in 2- and 3-jet like events}
\label{sec:Sec3}
In the second part of our investigation, we focused on how the studied ratios are changing in the presence of extra hard gluon radiation, i.e in 3-jet events.
In Figure \ref{fig:RatioProtons} we plot the p/K and p/$\pi$ ratios for 2- and 3-jet like events. The extra hard gluon radiation, present in 3-jet like events, causes an excess in proton spectrum w.r.t pion or kaon. The effect being stronger for p/$\pi$. This is true for regions below $\mathrm{6\ GeV/c}$, where increase is up to $\approx 40\%$ for p/$\pi$ and up to $\approx 20\%$ for p/K. The enhancement, caused by hard gluon radiation, in the individual spectra originates, as mentioned in section \ref{sec:Sec2}, in the fragmentation model used within PYTHIA.
Above $\mathrm{6\ GeV/c}$, the differences between 2- and 3-jet like events vanish. This is consistent with Figure \ref{fig:GG} in the high $p_{T}$ region. The gluon contribution varies between protons as baryons, and pions and kaons as mesons.
\begin{figure}[ht]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=100mm,height=70mm]{./fig3.eps}
\end{center}
\caption{Top panels: p/$\pi$ (blue) and p/K (red) ratios for all production channels spectrum. Bottom panels: (3-jet ratio)/(2-jet ratio).}
\label{fig:RatioProtons}
\end{figure}
\section{Discussion}
\label{sec:Sec4}
We presented a MC study of particles originating from hard scatterings. Through the investigation of p/K and p/$\pi$ ratios in different jet-production channels we were able to see if and how the differences in the ratio values reflect the different fragmentation properties of quarks and gluons. Generally, we observed that gluon contribution to jet spectra rises with energy (see Table \ref{tab:table1}), and the gluon contribution to the spectra is highest for protons (Figure \ref{fig:dSigmaPt}, Figure \ref{fig:GG}).
When comparing 2- and 3-jet like events, we saw that additional hard gluon radiation, which is present in the 3-jet case, causes an enhancement in proton spectrum w.r.t pion (up to $\approx$ 40\%) as well as kaon (up to $\approx$ 20\%) (Figure \ref{fig:RatioProtons}).
To conclude, the differences in particle production in the individual production channels (GG, QG and QQ) as well as 2- and 3-jet events are present in the mid-$p_{T}$ region ($\mathrm{2-6\ GeV/c}$) and are directly connected to the fragmentation model used in PYTHIA. Further they are related to the way how "soft" and "hard" parts of the event interplay. In this sense, the presented study suggests methods to investigate fragmentation and coalescence in an experimentally interesting momentum region for this kind of analysis.
\section*{Acknowledgements}
I would like to thank Peter L\'evai, Gergely G. Barnaf\" oldi and Levente Moln\'ar for fruitful discussions on the presented topic. The work has been funded by OTKA NK77816, PD73596 and E\"otv\"os University, Budapest.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 6,072 |
Q: Which groups can have $GSp(4)$ as local component? In some cases the relations between a global group $G$ (over the adeles $\mathbb{A}$ of a field $F$) and its local components $G_v$ (where $v$ are the places of $F$) are well known. Obviously a group determines its local components, so the question aims at, given a family of local groups , understanding whether or not it can arises as the local components of global group. Some examples:
*
*the local components of a quaternion algebra are $GL_2(F_v)$ almost everywhere, and an even number of local division quaternion algebras $B_v$
*the local components of a unitary group are $GL_2(F_v)$ at the split places, and any collection of local unitary groups at the other places, maybe safe one (Hasse invariants condition, empty if the number of variables is odd)
Now here is the question:
what natural global group can have $GSp(4)$ as (one, many or every) local component(s)?
A: In addition to the relatively boring extension/restriction of scalars for $GSp(2n,\widetilde{k})$ for an extension field $\widetilde{k}$ of the ground field $k$... :
The Galois twist groups often denoted by $Sp^*(p,q)$ (or $GSp^*(p,q)$...) over ground field $\mathbb R$, defined via non-degenerate quaternion-symmetric forms with quaternion algebras over the ground field (or over extensions...) almost everywhere locally become $Sp(p+q,k_v)$, because the quaternion algebra splits almost everywhere locally. (Throwing in the similitudes is minor...)
That is, with quaternion (division) algebra $B$ over ground field $k$ (a global field), with non-degenerate $B$-valued, symmetric form on a $B$-vectorspace $V$ of $B$-dimension $n$, the isometry group $G$ has $k_v$-points isomorphic to $Sp(2n,k_v)$ locally almost everywhere.
EDIT: it may be worth adding that this sort of Galois twisting allows easy creation of compact quotients analogous to Shimura curves for $SL(2)=Sp(2)$, by choosing a symmetric form whose signature at one real place is $(0,q)$ or $(p,0)$, so that (by a standard, if not widely understood, reduction theory result) the arithmetic quotient is compact. But/and the representation theory is just that of (locally, split) $Sp(n)$ almost everywhere.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 1,862 |
/*
* Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
* you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
* You may obtain a copy of the License at
*
* http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
*
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
* distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*/
package io.prestosql.operator;
import com.google.common.collect.ImmutableList;
import io.airlift.stats.TestingGcMonitor;
import io.airlift.units.DataSize;
import io.prestosql.RowPagesBuilder;
import io.prestosql.memory.MemoryPool;
import io.prestosql.memory.QueryContext;
import io.prestosql.spi.Page;
import io.prestosql.spi.QueryId;
import io.prestosql.spi.memory.MemoryPoolId;
import io.prestosql.spi.type.Type;
import io.prestosql.spiller.SpillSpaceTracker;
import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.ScheduledExecutorService;
import java.util.function.Function;
import static io.airlift.concurrent.Threads.daemonThreadsNamed;
import static io.airlift.testing.Assertions.assertBetweenInclusive;
import static io.airlift.testing.Assertions.assertGreaterThan;
import static io.airlift.testing.Assertions.assertLessThan;
import static io.airlift.units.DataSize.Unit.GIGABYTE;
import static io.airlift.units.DataSize.Unit.MEGABYTE;
import static io.prestosql.RowPagesBuilder.rowPagesBuilder;
import static io.prestosql.SessionTestUtils.TEST_SESSION;
import static io.prestosql.operator.OperatorAssertion.finishOperator;
import static io.prestosql.spi.type.BigintType.BIGINT;
import static io.prestosql.testing.TestingTaskContext.createTaskContext;
import static io.prestosql.testing.assertions.Assert.assertEquals;
import static java.util.Objects.requireNonNull;
import static java.util.concurrent.Executors.newCachedThreadPool;
import static java.util.concurrent.Executors.newScheduledThreadPool;
import static org.testng.Assert.assertFalse;
import static org.testng.Assert.assertNull;
import static org.testng.Assert.assertTrue;
public final class GroupByHashYieldAssertion
{
private static final ExecutorService EXECUTOR = newCachedThreadPool(daemonThreadsNamed("test-executor-%s"));
private static final ScheduledExecutorService SCHEDULED_EXECUTOR = newScheduledThreadPool(2, daemonThreadsNamed("test-scheduledExecutor-%s"));
private GroupByHashYieldAssertion() {}
public static List<Page> createPagesWithDistinctHashKeys(Type type, int pageCount, int positionCountPerPage)
{
RowPagesBuilder rowPagesBuilder = rowPagesBuilder(true, ImmutableList.of(0), type);
for (int i = 0; i < pageCount; i++) {
rowPagesBuilder.addSequencePage(positionCountPerPage, positionCountPerPage * i);
}
return rowPagesBuilder.build();
}
/**
* @param operatorFactory creates an Operator that should directly or indirectly contain GroupByHash
* @param getHashCapacity returns the hash table capacity for the input operator
* @param additionalMemoryInBytes the memory used in addition to the GroupByHash in the operator (e.g., aggregator)
*/
public static GroupByHashYieldResult finishOperatorWithYieldingGroupByHash(List<Page> input, Type hashKeyType, OperatorFactory operatorFactory, Function<Operator, Integer> getHashCapacity, long additionalMemoryInBytes)
{
assertLessThan(additionalMemoryInBytes, 1L << 21, "additionalMemoryInBytes should be a relatively small number");
List<Page> result = new LinkedList<>();
// mock an adjustable memory pool
QueryId queryId = new QueryId("test_query");
MemoryPool memoryPool = new MemoryPool(new MemoryPoolId("test"), new DataSize(1, GIGABYTE));
QueryContext queryContext = new QueryContext(
queryId,
new DataSize(512, MEGABYTE),
new DataSize(1024, MEGABYTE),
memoryPool,
new TestingGcMonitor(),
EXECUTOR,
SCHEDULED_EXECUTOR,
new DataSize(512, MEGABYTE),
new SpillSpaceTracker(new DataSize(512, MEGABYTE)));
DriverContext driverContext = createTaskContext(queryContext, EXECUTOR, TEST_SESSION)
.addPipelineContext(0, true, true, false)
.addDriverContext();
Operator operator = operatorFactory.createOperator(driverContext);
// run operator
int yieldCount = 0;
long expectedReservedExtraBytes = 0;
for (Page page : input) {
// unblocked
assertTrue(operator.needsInput());
// saturate the pool with a tiny memory left
long reservedMemoryInBytes = memoryPool.getFreeBytes() - additionalMemoryInBytes;
memoryPool.reserve(queryId, "test", reservedMemoryInBytes);
long oldMemoryUsage = operator.getOperatorContext().getDriverContext().getMemoryUsage();
int oldCapacity = getHashCapacity.apply(operator);
// add a page and verify different behaviors
operator.addInput(page);
// get output to consume the input
Page output = operator.getOutput();
if (output != null) {
result.add(output);
}
long newMemoryUsage = operator.getOperatorContext().getDriverContext().getMemoryUsage();
// Skip if the memory usage is not large enough since we cannot distinguish
// between rehash and memory used by aggregator
if (newMemoryUsage < new DataSize(4, MEGABYTE).toBytes()) {
// free the pool for the next iteration
memoryPool.free(queryId, "test", reservedMemoryInBytes);
// this required in case input is blocked
operator.getOutput();
continue;
}
long actualIncreasedMemory = newMemoryUsage - oldMemoryUsage;
if (operator.needsInput()) {
// We have successfully added a page
// Assert we are not blocked
assertTrue(operator.getOperatorContext().isWaitingForMemory().isDone());
// assert the hash capacity is not changed; otherwise, we should have yielded
assertTrue(oldCapacity == getHashCapacity.apply(operator));
// We are not going to rehash; therefore, assert the memory increase only comes from the aggregator
assertLessThan(actualIncreasedMemory, additionalMemoryInBytes);
// free the pool for the next iteration
memoryPool.free(queryId, "test", reservedMemoryInBytes);
}
else {
// We failed to finish the page processing i.e. we yielded
yieldCount++;
// Assert we are blocked
assertFalse(operator.getOperatorContext().isWaitingForMemory().isDone());
// Hash table capacity should not change
assertEquals(oldCapacity, (long) getHashCapacity.apply(operator));
// Increased memory is no smaller than the hash table size and no greater than the hash table size + the memory used by aggregator
if (hashKeyType == BIGINT) {
// groupIds and values double by hashCapacity; while valuesByGroupId double by maxFill = hashCapacity / 0.75
expectedReservedExtraBytes = oldCapacity * (long) (Long.BYTES * 1.75 + Integer.BYTES) + page.getRetainedSizeInBytes();
}
else {
// groupAddressByHash, groupIdsByHash, and rawHashByHashPosition double by hashCapacity; while groupAddressByGroupId double by maxFill = hashCapacity / 0.75
expectedReservedExtraBytes = oldCapacity * (long) (Long.BYTES * 1.75 + Integer.BYTES + Byte.BYTES) + page.getRetainedSizeInBytes();
}
assertBetweenInclusive(actualIncreasedMemory, expectedReservedExtraBytes, expectedReservedExtraBytes + additionalMemoryInBytes);
// Output should be blocked as well
assertNull(operator.getOutput());
// Free the pool to unblock
memoryPool.free(queryId, "test", reservedMemoryInBytes);
// Trigger a process through getOutput() or needsInput()
output = operator.getOutput();
if (output != null) {
result.add(output);
}
assertTrue(operator.needsInput());
// Hash table capacity has increased
assertGreaterThan(getHashCapacity.apply(operator), oldCapacity);
// Assert the estimated reserved memory before rehash is very close to the one after rehash
long rehashedMemoryUsage = operator.getOperatorContext().getDriverContext().getMemoryUsage();
assertBetweenInclusive(rehashedMemoryUsage * 1.0 / newMemoryUsage, 0.99, 1.01);
// unblocked
assertTrue(operator.needsInput());
}
}
result.addAll(finishOperator(operator));
return new GroupByHashYieldResult(yieldCount, expectedReservedExtraBytes, result);
}
public static final class GroupByHashYieldResult
{
private final int yieldCount;
private final long maxReservedBytes;
private final List<Page> output;
public GroupByHashYieldResult(int yieldCount, long maxReservedBytes, List<Page> output)
{
this.yieldCount = yieldCount;
this.maxReservedBytes = maxReservedBytes;
this.output = requireNonNull(output, "output is null");
}
public int getYieldCount()
{
return yieldCount;
}
public long getMaxReservedBytes()
{
return maxReservedBytes;
}
public List<Page> getOutput()
{
return output;
}
}
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 3,706 |
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources >
<string name = "pull_to_refresh_pull_label" >Trage pentru a reîmprospăta…</string >
<string name = "pull_to_refresh_release_label" >Eliberează pentru a reîmprospăta…</string >
<string name = "pull_to_refresh_refreshing_label" >Încărcare…</string >
</resources >
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 1,183 |
Le massacre dans le monastère des jésuites, rue Rakowiecka à Varsovie est un meurtre de masse dont plusieurs dizaines de Polonais ont été victimes dans le monastère des jésuites à Mokotów, commis par les Allemands lors du deuxième jour de l'insurrection de Varsovie. Le , dans le bâtiment appelé « Dom Pisarzy » (fr. « La maison des écrivains »), 61 , les officiers SS assassinent près de 40 personnes – dont 8 prêtres, 8 frères de la Compagnie de Jésus et plus de 20 personnes laïques (au moins 8 femmes et un garçon de 10 ans).
Monastère à l'heure H
Au moment du déclenchement de l'insurrection de Varsovie, la position du monastère est particulièrement défavorable, car la rue Rakowiecka est l'un des foyers de la résistance les plus importants, à proximité immédiate des forces allemandes, logées dans la SS-Stauferkaserne, 4 rue Rakowiecka, à l'entrée de la (Flakkaserne), l'immeuble de l'Université des sciences de la vie de Varsovie (pol. Szkoła Główna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego, SGGW), les batteries d'artillerie antiaérienne de Pole Mokotowskie, l'école Wawelberg et la forteresse de Mokotów.
Le , les soldats de l'Armée de l'intérieur (District V « Mokotów ») attaquent les positions allemandes tout au long de la rue Rakowiecka. Ce jour-là, les batailles ont lieu en dehors du monastère. À cause de la fusillade dans les rues. Plus d'une dizaine des civils (parmi eux le garçon de 10 ans, Zbyszek Mikołajczyk) se réfugient dans le monastère. Le soir, il y a environ 50 personnes dans l'enceinte du monastère – 25 frères, 12 habitants laïques de la maison et plus d'une dizaine de civils.
Entrée des Allemands
Le calme ne dure pas très longtemeps. Au matin du , le monastère est attaqué avec des armes antiaériennes allemandes situées à proximité, à Pole Mokotowskie. Le tir ne fait pas de victime, mais bientôt une unité SS composée de 20 personnes, envoyée probablement de Stauferkaserne, entrent dans le monastère. Les officiers SS accusent les Polonais de tirer sur les soldats allemands.
Après la fouille rapide qui ne donne aucune preuve, les Allemands font sortir l'abbé Edward Kosibowicz du bâtiment sous prétexte de lui demander des explications supplémentaires. Il est assassiné d'une balle dans la nuque dans Pole Mokotowskie. Au même moment, les soldats rassemblent le reste des prisonniers dans la chaufferie, au sous-sol du monastère. Des frères parlant allemand essayent d'établir un contact avec les SS et de détendre l'atmosphère, mais sans succès.
Massacre
Au bout d'un moment, les Allemands font sortir, l'un après l'autre, les prisonniers de la chaufferie. Ils les spolient de leurs biens personnels et les font entrer dans une petite chambre, occupée par le charretier du monastère. Une fois les prisonniers rassemblés dans la chambre, ils ouvrent le feu et lancent des grenades. Pendant plusieurs heures, les soldats achèvent les blessés. Selon les récits des témoins, un petit garçon de 10 ans, d'origine allemande, assiste les officiers SS, en leur désignant les victimes donnant encore des signes de vie.
Après le départ des Allemands, 14 personnes, sortent du tas des corps. Neuf d'entre eux se cachent derrière des tas du charbon, dans la chaufferie. Les cinq autres se réfugient derrière le bois de chauffage, dans la cuisine du monastère. Les Allemands reviennent bientôt pour verser de l'essence sur le tas des cadavres et y mettre le feu.
Le chapelain du monastère, l'abbé Franciszek Szymaniak est la dernière victime du massacre. Inconscient du meurtre, il est venu chercher des hosties consacrées. Il est exécuté dans la chapelle.
Le , dans le bâtiment appelé « Dom Pisarzy », rue Rakowiecka 61, les officiers SS assassinnent environ 40 personnes – y compris 8 prêtres (sans compter l'abbé Kosibowicz), 8 frères de la Compagnie de Jésus et plus de 20 personnes laïques (au moins 8 femmes et un garҫon de 10 ans). Il est impossible de déterminer la liste exacte des morts, parce qu'on ne connaît que 32 noms des victimes du massacre.
Fuite des survivants
Après le massacre, les Allemands pillent et dévastent le monastère en mettant le feu à plusieurs endroits du bâtiment. Ils ne découvrent cependant pas les Polonais qui ont survécu au massacre. La nuit du 2 au , les cinq personnes cachées dans la cuisine décident de s'échapper du bâtiment. Les quatre prêtres se séparent et réussissent à se mettre à l'abri. Le sort de la cinquième personne, une femme non identifiée qui est revenue à Mokotów à la recherche de ses enfants, n'est pas connu. L'abbé Jan Rosiak, un des fugitifs, affirme qu'elle a survécu à l'insurrection.
Deux jours plus tard, les Polonais cachés dans la chaufferie réussissent à informer les voisins de la situation. Le , les ambulancières de l'hôpital évacuent les survivants du monastère sur le terrain contrôlé par les insurgés.
Commémoration
Au bout de certain temps, le père Bruno Pawelczyk, jésuite, arrive sur le lieu du crime. Il reste en dehors du monastère, mais cela n'empêche pas les Allemands de le capturer et de l'emmener à la caserne militaire Stauferkaserne. Après avoir compris le sort de ses confrères, il rejoint un commando sanitaire qui s'occupe d'enterrer les morts. Parvenu au monastère de la rue Rakowiecka, il convainc les membres du commando d'emmurer les corps dans la chambre au lieu de les transporter et de les inhumer. Plus tard, cette décision aura facilité la tâche de retrouver et exhumer les victimes.
Après la guerre, les restes des victimes sont placés dans quatre cercueils qui sont enterrés sous le sol de la chambre où le massacre a eu lieu. La chambre est transformée en chapelle. Les pèlerins partant pour le sanctuaire de saint André Bobola la visitent régulièrement.
Deux plaques commémorent le massacre : l'une, située à côté de la clôture du sanctuaire, du côté de la rue Rakowiecka et l'autre, conçue par Karol Tchorek, est fixée au mur de l'école Bobolanum.
Le , l'évêque de Pelplin, Jan Bernard Szlaga met en route une procédure de béatification de 122 victimes du nazisme. Parmi eux, figure le Père Władysław Wiącek, un des jésuites tués le dans le monastère de la rue Rakowiecka.
La même année est publié un livre « Masakra w klasztorze » (fr. Massacre au monastère), sous la rédaction du Père Felicjan Paluszkiewicz, décrivant les événements de l'été 1944 avec les témoignages des survivants du massacre. Un an plus tard, un film documentaire-fiction de Krzysztof Żurowski, est réalisé d'après le livre. Sa première a lieu le , à l'occasion du anniversaire du massacre.
Notes
Références
Sources
Histoire de la Pologne | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 932 |
Adventures of the strangest team of Shaolin monks. It is composed of, future warrior dragon Omi, cowboy, CLIA, Filipino Raimundo, and American nano-the girl is Kimiko and the dragon, Dojo-Kanojo-ZiO. Before these guys is not an easy task, saving the world, balancing the balance of power, and the battle with one of the strongest ancient sorceress in the world of Wuyi. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 9,258 |
import React from "react"
import styled, { ThemeProvider } from "styled-components"
import ThemeContext from "Stores/themeContext"
import useTheme from "Hooks/useTheme"
import useSiteMetadata from "Hooks/useSiteMetadata"
import NavBar from "Components/navBar/navBar"
import styledTheme from "Styles/styledTheme"
import GlobalStyle from "Styles/globalStyle"
import packageJSON from "../../package.json"
const { name, homepage } = packageJSON
const Layout: React.FC = ({ children }) => {
const { theme, themeToggler } = useTheme()
const { title, author } = useSiteMetadata()
const copyrightStr = `Copyright © ${author}. Built with `
return (
<ThemeProvider theme={styledTheme}>
<ThemeContext.Provider value={theme}>
<GlobalStyle />
<Container>
<NavBar title={title} themeToggler={themeToggler} />
{children}
</Container>
<Footer role="contentinfo">
<Copyright aria-label="Copyright">
{copyrightStr}
<RepoLink href={homepage} target="__blank">
{name}
</RepoLink>
</Copyright>
</Footer>
</ThemeContext.Provider>
</ThemeProvider>
)
}
const Container = styled.div`
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
min-height: calc(100vh - var(--footer-height));
background-color: var(--color-post-background);
`
const Footer = styled.footer`
display: flex;
text-align: center;
justify-content: center;
align-items: center;
height: var(--footer-height);
background-color: var(--color-gray-1);
`
const Copyright = styled.span`
font-size: var(--text-sm);
font-weight: var(--font-weight-regular);
color: var(--color-gray-6);
`
const RepoLink = styled.a`
color: var(--color-blue);
&:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
`
export default Layout
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 2,453 |
{"url":"https:\/\/discuss.leetcode.com\/topic\/108889\/easy-java-solution-with-knapsack-approach-and-explanation-21-ms","text":"# Easy Java solution with Knapsack approach and Explanation(21 ms)\n\n\u2022 First of all we mark that for state 0 (sum 0) we have found a solution with a minimum number of 0 coins. We then go to sum 1. First, we mark that we haven\u2019t yet found a solution for this one (a value of Infinity would be fine). Then we see that only coin 1 is less than or equal to the current sum. Analyzing it, we see that for sum 1-V1= 0 we have a solution with 0 coins. Because we add one coin to this solution, we\u2019ll have a solution with 1 coin for sum 1. It\u2019s the only solution yet found for this sum. We write (save) it. Then we proceed to the next state \u2013 sum 2. We again see that the only coin which is less or equal to this sum is the first coin, having a value of 1. The optimal solution found for sum (2-1) = 1 is coin 1. This coin 1 plus the first coin will sum up to 2, and thus make a sum of 2 with the help of only 2 coins. This is the best and only solution for sum 2. Now we proceed to sum 3. We now have 2 coins which are to be analyzed \u2013 first and second one, having values of 1 and 3. Let\u2019s see the first one. There exists a solution for sum 2 (3 \u2013 1) and therefore we can construct from it a solution for sum 3 by adding the first coin to it. Because the best solution for sum 2 that we found has 2 coins, the new solution for sum 3 will have 3 coins. Now let\u2019s take the second coin with value equal to 3. The sum for which this coin needs to be added to make 3 , is 0. We know that sum 0 is made up of 0 coins. Thus we can make a sum of 3 with only one coin \u2013 3. We see that it\u2019s better than the previous found solution for sum 3 , which was composed of 3 coins. We update it and mark it as having only 1 coin. The same we do for sum 4, and get a solution of 2 coins \u2013 1+3. And so on.\n\n``````int[] dp = new int[amount+1];\nArrays.fill(dp, Integer.MAX_VALUE-1);\ndp[0] = 0;\nfor(int coin:coins){\nfor(int i=coin;i<=amount;i++){\nif(dp[i-coin]+1<dp[i])\ndp[i] = dp[i-coin]+1;\n}\n}\nreturn (dp[amount]==Integer.MAX_VALUE-1)?-1:dp[amount];\n}\n``````\n\nLooks like your connection to LeetCode Discuss was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.","date":"2018-01-20 09:37:24","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": false, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.8455227017402649, \"perplexity\": 303.857812258118}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2018-05\/segments\/1516084889542.47\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20180120083038-20180120103038-00401.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
package org.apache.ambari.view.slider;
import java.util.Map;
public class SliderAppComponent {
private String componentName;
private int instanceCount;
private Map<String, Map<String, String>> activeContainers;
private Map<String, Map<String, String>> completedContainers;
public String getComponentName() {
return componentName;
}
public void setComponentName(String componentName) {
this.componentName = componentName;
}
public int getInstanceCount() {
return instanceCount;
}
public void setInstanceCount(int instanceCount) {
this.instanceCount = instanceCount;
}
public Map<String, Map<String, String>> getActiveContainers() {
return activeContainers;
}
public void setActiveContainers(
Map<String, Map<String, String>> activeContainers) {
this.activeContainers = activeContainers;
}
public Map<String, Map<String, String>> getCompletedContainers() {
return completedContainers;
}
public void setCompletedContainers(
Map<String, Map<String, String>> completedContainers) {
this.completedContainers = completedContainers;
}
}
| {
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HomeMuseumsMiami Art Museum presents Kimsooja: A Needle Woman
Miami Art Museum presents Kimsooja: A Needle Woman
Miami Art Guide Museums, News 0
From June 29 through August 26, 2012.
Kimsooja, A Needle Woman (Lagos), 1999-2001. Eight-channel video installation, silent. 6:33 minute loop. Courtesy of the artist
Miami Art Museum is opening an exhibition of videos by Korean artist Kimsooja. The exhibition's title, Kimsooja: A Needle Woman, is borrowed from the centerpiece of the exhibition, a multi-channel video installation exploring globalization's impact on cities throughout the world. Kimsooja: A Needle Woman will open with an artist talk and preview on Thursday, June 28, from 6 – 9 pm. In conjunction with the exhibition, MAM will host related programs including: movement workshops for children (July 14) and adults (July 28) designed to bring about greater awareness of the relationship between oneself and one's surroundings; and a film screening of LAGOS / KOOLHAAS (August 18), a documentary exploring the complex city of Lagos, one of the cities featured in Kimsooja's A Needle Woman, through the observations of urban theorist Rem Koolhaas. For more information, please visit miamiartmuseum.org.
Kimsooja's A Needle Woman (1999-2001) consists of eight synchronized videos projected at large scale, each depicting the bustling center of a major world city: Cairo, Delhi, Lagos, London, Mexico City, New York, Shanghai, and Tokyo. In each projection, a lone figure wearing neutral gray clothes stands utterly motionless with her back to the camera, immersed amid a torrent of pedestrians. With this simple gesture, the artist exemplifies the perennial struggle to preserve a place for the individual within society, while embodying the experience of being engulfed within a foreign culture. In the process, she provides a vivid sense of the effects of globalization at street level.
"The figure that appears in these images confronts head-on the fearsome power of the contemporary city; at the same time, through her stillness, she personifies the possibility of making peace with it," said René Morales, MAM associate curator. "Issues of urbanism and the rhetoric that surrounds the 'global city' construct have particular resonance here in Miami. Kimsooja deals with these topics with nuance and poetry."
This presentation also includes two closely related works by Kimsooja: In A Needle Woman – Kitakyushu, the artist lies prostrate atop a rocky peak as clouds swirl hypnotically above her; while in A Laundry Woman – Yamuna River, she stands at the banks of a sacred waterway in India, suspended amid an ethereal void created by the sky's reflection on the river surface. Offering a direct counterpoint to the larger series, the pair creates a space of timeless serenity within the installation, a momentary respite from the frenetic energy of the 21st-century cities that surround them.
Kimsooja was born in Taegu, South Korea in 1957, and lives in New York, Paris, and Seoul. Her work has been exhibited internationally since the 1990s. Solo exhibitions have been presented at prestigious venues including P.S.1/MOMA, New York, USA; Crystal Palace of Reina Sophia, Madrid, Spain; Baltic Center, Gateshead, UK; BOZAR Brussels, Belgium; Yong Gwang Nuclear Power Plant Project by the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon-si, South Korea; Atelier Hermes, Seoul, South Korea; Fondazione Bevilacqua, La Masa, Italy; La Fenice, Venice, Italy; Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland; Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria; Rodin Gallery of the Samsung Museum, Seoul, South Korea; Institute of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan; Center for Contemporary Art, Kitakyushu, Japan; Contemporary Art Museum, Lyon, France; Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf, Germany; and Padiglione d'Arte Conetmporanea, Milan, Italy. She has participated in numerous international biennial exhibitions including those of Venice, São Paulo, Istanbul, Lyon, Kwangju, Busan, Sydney, Valencia, Thessaloniki, and Moscow.
Artist Talk and Exhibition Preview: Kimsooja: A Needle Woman
Thursday, June 28, 2012, 6-9pm
Talk begins 6:30pm (Space is limited. First come, first seated.)
MAM members free, non-members $10
Second Saturdays are Free for Families: "Stillness & Movement". Saturday, July 14, 2012, 1 – 4 p.m., tour 2 p.m. Free and open to the public
Tour and Workshop: Stillness & Movement
Saturday, July 28, 2012, 2-3:30pm
MAM members free, non-members $8 (general museum admission)
Following a curator-led tour of Kimsooja: A Needle Woman, explore exhibition themes through this interactive workshop. Participants will explore the multiple possibilities of bodily movement and stillness, both at the level of the individual and as a human collective. Priscilla Marrero and Carlota Pradera, professional dancers and choreographers, will facilitate together with Gustavo Matamoros, sound artist. Space is limited. RSVP is required to 305.375.4073 or education@miamiartmuseum.org.
Film Screening: LAGOS / KOOLHAAS, directed by Bregtje van der Haak
Saturday, August 18, 1 – 4 p.m. (screenings begin 1pm, 2pm and 3pm)
This hypnotic documentary explores the complex city of Lagos through the observations of award-winning architect and urban theorist Rem Koolhaas and the residents themselves. The film will be screened three times, to different audio: 1-2pm commentary by Rem Koolhaas; 2 – 3 p.m. commentaries by residents of Lagos; 3 – 4 p.m. sounds of the city. Details at 305.375.4073 or education@miamiartmuseum.org.
Miami Art Museum
www.miamiartmuseum.org
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Home »Stained glass »Designers »England »John Hardman and Company »St Joseph - Avon Dassett
St Joseph - Avon Dassett
walwyn Tue, 03/15/2011 - 00:16
The Roman Catholic Church of Saint Joseph in Avon Dassett was opened in 1854. The church is in the Early English Style, the architect is said to have been Augustus Pugin's builder George Myers. At the opening ceremony the guests included the Bishop of Birmingham, and the Bishop of Southwark. The choir of St Chad's Birmingham was led by John Hardman who performed a Gregorian chant.
All the stained glass windows in this church are by John Hardman many were installed at the church's opening in 1854, and the rest between 1857 and 1877.
The East window has a central figure of Christ, within a vesica piscis, is sat on a rainbow that is above New Jerusalem. A number of Seraphim make up the ruby red background of the mandorla. Angels and the Dove of the Holy Spirit are above him. At the bottom of the panel are the symbols of the four evangelists.
The lancets to the left shows the Virgin Mary holding a lily that symbolizes the Annunciation, and the lancet to the right shows St Joseph holding a flowering rod. The roundels beneath both of these lancets are dedicated to the donors Mary Knight and Joesph Knight who built the church.
The window in the west wall is another crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist in the lancets to the left and right. At the foot of the cross are the figures of St Thomas à Becket and St Anne. The window is dedicated to Thomas Perry and his wife Anne both of whom died in 1838.
Lady Chapel - Avon Dassett
Nave windows - Avon Dassett
‹ Mary Magdalene at the Tomb - Ladbroke, Warwickshire up Lady Chapel - Avon Dassett ›
All Saints - Ladbroke, Warwickshire
Crucifixion - Holy Cross, Byfield
Gloucester Cathedral
Mary Magdalene at the Tomb - Ladbroke, Warwickshire
Tewkesbury Abbey
Worcester Cathedral | {
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Since the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, sports content creation, digital fan engagement and the world of sports has taken a large step in terms of the way broadcasters can disseminate their coverage. The age of simply watching a football match, or any sport for that matter, on the television is a thing of the past. Fans can watch their countries compete in the tournament through their television provider's streaming website, social media, Youtube, Hulu, or even in some cases virtual reality.
With a range of selections available for fans to experience the 2018 World Cup, there is no denying that this year's tournament will be very heavily focused on the digital aspect. Most fans of the sport have already become accustomed to having their favourite sporting events have a digital factor. However, this should generally be the first experience for fans of the World Cup because of it only occurs every four years.
According to FIFA.com, the 2014 World Cup had more than one billion people tune in for the final between Argentina and Germany. Over the course of the tournament, it was estimated that 280 million people watched matches on their mobile device or online. We can expect this figure to only increase for the 2018 World Cup with so many options available for fans.
Of course, this increase in viewership options allows sponsors and sports digital publishers to intervene across all platforms. In the United States, the main broadcaster for the 2018 World Cup is Fox Sports. The company has partnered with Twitter and Snap to stream live coverage of stories and match-day highlights. A partnership like this only adds to potential revenue for Fox as they broadcast the tournament. Of course, they will receive plenty of revenue via their normal broadcasts on the television.
As the tournament draws nearer, we should expect to see more deals like this for various broadcasters across the world. The focus on digital broadcasting will be one of the more intriguing "behind the scenes" stories of the 2018 World Cup because it could serve as a massive step into the future of sports broadcasting and can have a huge effect on sports digital media. The average sports fan has moved past the idea that they have to watch their favourite team or sport on a television at their house with advertisements shown only at halftime. They care more about simply being able to watch it, regardless of their location. This group of people is OK with paying for streaming services with short advertisements during the actual program. | {
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\section{Introduction}
The atomic nucleus is a physical system that exhibits a rich variety of intrinsic
geometrical shapes: spherical, prolate and oblate.
The coexistence and evolution of the different intrinsic shapes has been a major theme
of interest in nuclear structure physics. It has been investigated
extensively from both theoretical and experimental sides in the past
decades \cite{wood92,andre00,julin01rev,heyde11,duppen84,heyde85,heyde87}.
In some specific regions of the Nuclide Chart, the energies of the three
intrinsic geometrical shapes bunch together leading to the spectacular
coexistence of three $0^{+}$ states (including the ground state) in even-even nuclei.
Neutron-deficient Lead isotopes present a nice example of the shape
coexistence phenomena \cite{andre00}: In the $^{186,188}$Pb nuclei, the presence
of three low-lying $0^{+}$ states and other additional
experimental data strongly suggest the
coexistence of spherical, prolate and oblate shapes.
In the context of the nuclear shell model \cite{federman77,heyde85,heyde87,heyde92}, the
emergence of low-lying excited $0^{+}$ states is traced back to the proton
particle-hole excitation across the $Z=82$ closed shell.
The residual interaction between protons and neutrons is enhanced
due to this cross-shell excitation, resulting in the lowering of the excited $0^{+}$ states.
In the vicinity of the $N=104$ mid-shell, the effect is strengthened
and has a stronger impact on excitation energies.
For the $^{186}$Pb nucleus, the three lowest $0^{+}$ states are within a
range of 700 keV and the two intruder
$0^{+}$ levels have the lowest excitation energy among the members of the Pb chain.
The first excited $0^{+}$ state is interpreted as a proton
two-quasiparticle $(\pi h_{9/2})^{2}$ intruder configuration, while the
second excited $0^{+}$ state could be interpreted as a proton four-quasiparticle
$(\pi h_{9/2})^{4}$ intruder configuration.
These $0^{+}$ states correspond to oblate and prolate equilibrium shapes.
More quantitative results using large-scale shell model calculations can
only be obtained in lighter nuclei. However, for heavy nuclei including the Lead
isotopes the dimension of the shell model configuration space becomes exceedingly large
and a truncation strategy preserving the essential
ingredients of the low-energy spectrum is required.
The Interacting Boson Model (IBM) \cite{IBM} has been successfully used for describing the
low-lying states of medium-heavy and heavy nuclei, and presents a severe
truncation of the full shell-model space \cite{Arima77,OAIT,OAI}. In this case, the building blocks are
$s$ and $d$ bosons, which reflect the collective
$J^{\pi}=0^{+}$ and $2^{+}$ pairs of valence nucleons, respectively \cite{Arima77,OAIT,OAI}.
Within the IBM, the description of intruder $0^{+}$ states is based on the model by Duval and
Barrett \cite{Duval1981,Duval1982}. They proposed to mix the normal ($0p$-$0h$)
configuration, comprised of $N$ bosons, with intruder configurations comprised of $N+2n$
($n\geq 1,2,\ldots$) bosons, which takes into account the $2n$-particle-$2n$-hole excitation
across the closed shell. In the case of Pb isotopes with three low-lying
$0^{+}$ levels, the model consists of
three different Hamiltonians corresponding to $0p$-$0h$, $2p$-$2h$
and $4p$-$4h$ configurations.
The idea of configuration mixing in the IBM framework has been applied to spectroscopic
analyses
\cite{Barfield83,heyde92,Fossion03,Hellemans08,Garcia11},
algebraic features \cite{DeCoster96,Lehmann97}, and geometry and phases \cite{frank04,frank06,morales08}
associated with the shape coexistence observed in the Lead and Mercury region.
In these studies, the parameters for the configuration-mixing IBM
Hamiltonian have been extracted from a fit to the experimental spectra and
transition rates.
The different configurations of the
shell model are related in the mean field language to the minima of the
corresponding mean-field
deformation energy surface.
The self-consistent mean-field method using microscopic energy density
functionals (EDFs) currently provides an accurate and universal
description of nuclear ground-state properties and low-energy collective
excitations, including mass, density distributions, surface deformation,
giant resonance, etc.
The most popular EDFs can be of zero-range Skyrme \cite{Ben03rev},
finite-range Gogny \cite{Gogny}
as well as several parameterizations of the relativistic mean-field (RMF)
Lagrangian \cite{vre05rev,Nik11rev}. The qualities and
instabilities of the self-consistent
description of shape coexistence, based on a series of Skyrme
interactions, were examined in \cite{Reinhard99}.
On the other hand, the so called NLSC RMF parametrization has been
tailored to describe the pronounced shape coexistence
in Pb, Hg and Pt isotopes \cite{Nik02sc}.
The Nilsson-Strutinsky method has also been used to study the neutron-deficient
Pb and Hg isotopes \cite{Naza93}.
At the mean-field level, however, important symmetries of the system
are spontaneously broken. Therefore, to describe the
spectroscopic properties of a given
nucleus, one needs a systematic treatment of the dynamical effects
associated with the restoration of the broken symmetries and fluctuations in the
collective coordinates.
It is then necessary to project
the mean-field solutions onto states with good symmetry quantum numbers and mix the different configurations.
Configuration mixing calculations, in the spirit of the generator coordinate method
(GCM) have been performed for both Lead and Mercury nuclei, based on Skyrme \cite{Duguet03,Ben04Pb} and Gogny
\cite{Chasman01,Rayner04Pb,egido04} EDFs.
A sound approximation to the full GCM configuration mixing
calculation is represented by the solution of a five-dimensional
collective Hamiltonian.
Both vibrational and rotational mass parameters are obtained, from mean-field
calculations, as
functions of the quadrupole collective variables. The collective potential is
then taken as the total energy surface resulting from the mean-field approximation from
which, the zero-point energies associated with the rotational and vibrational
motions are subtracted \cite{Delaroche2010,Li10}.
This method can be also used for the description of shape coexistence phenomena
based on an arbitrary EDFs, e.g., using the Gogny-D1S functional for Hg
isotopes \cite{Delaroche94}.
More recently a comprehensive way of deriving the parameters of the
IBM Hamiltonian has been introduced \cite{Nom08}.
By mapping the potential energy surface, obtained within
the constrained self-consistent mean-field
method with a given EDF, onto the expectation value of the corresponding
IBM Hamiltonian, the
energy spectra and electromagnetic transition rates have been computed.
This method has been successfully applied to various shape phenomena,
including vibrational and $\gamma$-unstable \cite{Nom10} as well as
rotational deformed \cite{Nom11rot} nuclei, prolate-oblate shape
transitions \cite{Nom11pt} and to the study of the fingerprints of triaxiality \cite{Nom12}.
In this paper we extend the method of Ref.\cite{Nom08} to take into account
configuration mixing within the IBM. We will show, how the parameters of the
configuration mixing IBM Hamiltonian can be determined without a fit
to the experiment by using the microscopic input provided by mean field
energy surfaces in an appropriate way. Using this method, we are able to
describe the emergence and evolution of shape coexistence.
Our method is applied to the neutron-deficient Pb isotopes since
the existence of three minima in some of them represents a quite stringent
test of the model. Moreover, they
are well studied both experimentally and theoretically offering us the possibility to
benchmark our method with other proposals.
Concerning the mean-field calculation, we use the Gogny-D1M
\cite{D1M} functional that was originally fitted to binding
energies and radii. It has also shown good spectroscopic properties as already
exemplified in previous studies \cite{rayner10odd-1,rayner10odd-2,rayner10odd-3}
where it has been shown that D1M keeps essentially the same predictive power
as the standard Gogny-D1S EDF \cite{D1S}.
The paper is organized as follows:
In Sec.~\ref{sec:theory}, a brief review of the
configuration mixing within the IBM and the geometrical interpretation is given.
The mapping of the microscopic PES to the IBM one with
configuration mixing is described and the way to extract the IBM parameters
is discussed in Sec.~\ref{sec:pes}.
In Sec.~\ref{sec:pb}, the results of the diagonalization of the IBM Hamiltonian
including energy level systematics, the detailed level scheme
and the $B$(E2) transition strength values for
specific nuclei and the evolution of the
spectroscopic quadrupole moment in the considered Pb chain are presented.
Finally, Section \ref{sec:summary}
is devoted to the conclusions and work perspectives.
\section{Description of the model}
\label{sec:theory}
\begin{figure*}[ctb!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=15cm]{pb_pes4.eps}
\caption{(Color online) Contour plots of the PESs as a function of the
deformation parameters $\beta$ and $\gamma$ are given for the $^{182-192}$Pb isotopes.
The plots denoted by D1M correspond to the microscopic mean field calculation
with the Gogny-D1M EDF. The ones denoted by Mapped correspond to the
mapped PESs used in fitting the IBM parameters. The color scale ranges
from zero (the mean field ground state) to 3 MeV.}
\label{fig:pes}
\end{center}
\end{figure*}
We start with the self-consistent constrained
Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB)
approximation based on the Gogny-D1M EDFs. As constraints we use the mass quadrupole moments
associated with the
quadrupole deformation variables $\beta$ and $\gamma$ of the geometrical
collective model \cite{BM}.
For a given set of collective coordinate
variables $q=(\beta, \gamma)$, HFB calculations are performed to obtain
the potential energy surface (PES) given by the HFB
total energy denoted as $E^{\rm HFB}(\beta, \gamma)$ (for details the
reader is referred to \cite{rayner10pt}).
Note that, in some studies dealing with the five-dimensional
collective Hamiltonian obtained from EDF calculations \cite{Delaroche2010,Li10},
the PES is regarded as the total energy obtained after subtraction of the
rotational and vibrational zero-point energies to the HFB energy. In our model
the PES is simply the HFB energy and no zero-point energy correction
are considered. A typical example of such PESs is
shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:pes} where the Gogny-D1M PESs in the ($\beta, \gamma$)
plane are given for the nuclei $^{182-192}$Pb. The Gogny-D1M EDF calculation produces a
remarkable triple minima in $^{184-190}$Pb nuclei, where each local
minimum is well isolated from each other.
In the considered Lead nuclei, the spherical minimum is always present
while a prolate minimum develops from $^{182}$Pb to $^{186}$Pb,
so does the oblate one. The prolate minimum becomes less significant
from $^{188}$Pb to $^{190}$Pb and finally disappears in $^{192}$Pb.
Within our model the Gogny-D1M EDF PES for an individual nucleus is
mapped onto the corresponding IBM PES (to be discussed below), as
shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:pes} in the panels to the right of the Gogny ones.
Let us turn to the IBM description of shape coexistence.
In the present study, we consider the proton-neutron version of the
IBM (usually referred as IBM-2) \cite{Arima77,OAI} since it
takes into account proton excitations more
explicitly than the original version of the IBM (IBM-1), which does
not distinguish between proton and neutron degrees of freedom.
The IBM-2 comprises the neutron (proton) $s_{\nu}$ ($s_{\pi}$) and
$d_{\nu}$ ($d_{\pi}$) bosons, reflecting the neutron (proton)
$J^{\pi}=0^{+}$ and $2^{+}$ collective pairs of valence nucleons \cite{Arima77,OAIT,OAI}.
The number of neutron (proton) bosons, denoted as $N_{\nu}$ ($N_{\pi}$),
equals the number of neutron (proton) pairs outside the inert core.
To describe a system consisting of three different intrinsic shapes,
the Hilbert space is expressed as a direct sum of the
orthogonal subspaces for the normal ($0p$-$0h$) and the two intruder
($2p$-$2h$ and $4p$-$4h$) configurations \cite{Duval1981,Duval1982}.
The Hamiltonian of the system is written as
\begin{eqnarray}
\hat H&=&\hat P_{0}\hat H_{0}\hat P_{0}+\hat P_{2}(\hat
H_{2}+\Delta_{2})\hat P_{2}\nonumber \\
&&+\hat P_{4}(\hat
H_{4}+\Delta_{4})\hat P_{4}+\hat H_{\rm
mix}^{02}+\hat H_{\rm mix}^{24}
\label{eq:ham-tot}
\end{eqnarray}
where the $\hat H_{i}$ ($i=0,2,4$) represent the Hamiltonians for the $ip$-$ih$
configurations associated with the different intrinsic shapes,
$\hat H_{\rm mix}^{02}$ ($\hat H_{\rm mix}^{24}$) are the
interaction terms mixing the $0p$-$0h$ ($2p$-$2h$) and the $2p$-$2h$ ($4p$-$4h$)
subspaces. The operators $\hat P_{i}$ are projectors onto the $ip$-$ih$ configuration
spaces and finally the $\Delta_{i}$ ($i=2,4$) parameters represent the energies
needed to excite protons across the
$Z=82$ shell, which will be detailed later.
We employ the Hamiltonian $\hat H_{i}$ written as
\begin{eqnarray}
\hat H_{i}=\epsilon_{i}\hat n_{d}+\kappa_{i}\hat
Q_{\pi}^{\chi_{\pi,i}}\cdot \hat
Q_{\nu}^{\chi_{\nu,i}},
\label{eq:ham}
\end{eqnarray}
where the first term $\hat n_{d}=\hat n_{d\pi}+\hat n_{d\nu}$ represents the
$d$-boson number operator while the second one is the quadrupole-quadrupole
interaction between proton and neutron bosons.
The quadrupole operator is defined as
$\hat Q_{\rho}^{\chi_{\rho,i}}=s_{\rho}^{\dagger}\tilde
d_{\rho}+d_{\rho}^{\dagger}s_{\rho}+\chi_{\rho,i}[d_{\rho}^{\dagger}\tilde
d_{\rho}]^{(2)}$ ($\rho=\pi,\nu$). In this case $\epsilon_{i}$, $\kappa_{i}$
and $\chi_{\rho,i}$ are parameters.
The Hamiltonian in Eq.~(\ref{eq:ham}) is taken in its simplified form in
order to reduce the number of parameters
that are not directly determined from the PES. It keeps, however,
the essential aspects of a more general IBM-2 Hamiltonian.
The mixing interaction terms $\hat H_{\rm mix}^{i-2\,i}$ ($i=2,4$) are defined as
\begin{eqnarray}
\hat H_{\rm
mix}^{i-2\,i}
=\omega_{1}^{i-2\,i}(s_{\pi}^{\dagger}s_{\pi}^{\dagger}+s_{\pi}s_{\pi})
+\omega_{2}^{i-2\,i}(d_{\pi}^{\dagger}\cdot d_{\pi}^{\dagger}+\tilde
d_{\pi}\cdot\tilde d_{\pi}),
\end{eqnarray}
where $\omega_{1}^{i-2\,i}$ and $\omega_{2}^{i-2\,i}$ stand
for the mixing strengths.
In a shell model picture, the proton $2p$-$2h$ excitation across the closed
shell $Z=82$ creates one particle and one hole pairs in the $Z=82-126$
and the $Z=50-82$ major shells, respectively.
Since the IBM normally does not distinguish
between particle and hole states, the $2n$-particle-$2n$-hole
configuration comprises $2n$ additional proton bosons, and hence the
model contains
$N_{\nu}$ neutron bosons and $N_{\pi}+2n$ proton bosons.
For the considered $^{182-192}$Pb nuclei, the
doubly magic systems $^{164}$Pb and $^{208}$Pb
are assumed to be the inert cores.
As a consequence, the proton boson numbers are $N_{\pi}=$0, 2 and 4 for regular, $2p$-$2h$
and $4p$-$4h$ configurations, respectively, while $N_{\nu}$ varies
between 8 and 11.
A given IBM Hamiltonian can be related to the geometrical model by the
coherent-state framework \cite{GK}.
The coherent state $|\Phi\rangle$ represents the intrinsic wave function of the boson
system, and is written, up to a normalization factor, as
\begin{eqnarray}
|\Phi\rangle
=\prod_{\rho=\pi, \nu}
\Big(s^{\dagger}_{\rho}+\sum_{\mu=-2}^{2}a_{\rho\mu}d_{\rho\mu}^{\dagger}\Big)^{N_{\rho}}
|0\rangle
\label{eq:coherent}
\end{eqnarray}
where the coefficients $a_{\rho\mu}$ are given by
$a_{\rho 0}=\beta_{\rho}\cos{\gamma_{\rho}}$,
$a_{\rho\pm 1}=0$ and
$a_{\rho\pm 2}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\beta_{\rho}\sin{\gamma_{\rho}}$. Here
the parameters $\beta_{\rho}$ and $\gamma_{\rho}$ represent the axially-symmetric
and the triaxial deformations for neutrons ($\rho={\nu}$) and protons ($\rho={\pi}$), respectively.
For simplicity we assume $\beta_{\nu}=\beta_{\pi}=\beta_{B}$ and
$\gamma_{\nu}=\gamma_{\pi}=\gamma_{B}$.
The $\beta$ parameter for the IBM is proportional to the one in the geometrical model.
The proportionality coefficient is significantly larger than one due to the difference in the
size of the model spaces \cite{GK}. On the other hand, the $\gamma$ variable can be
the same for the IBM and the geometrical model.
The PES for the IBM system of interest is given analytically as an energy expectation value
of the coherent state \cite{GK}.
The geometrical interpretation of the configuration mixing IBM was
provided by Frank {\it et al.} \cite{frank04}.
The coherent state in Eq.~(\ref{eq:coherent}) for a single configuration
should be extended to be a direct sum of the coherent state for each configuration.
The PES for the configuration mixing IBM is obtained as the lowest eigenvalue of the
following $3\times 3$ matrix \cite{frank04}
\begin{eqnarray}
E(\beta,\gamma)=\left(
\begin{array}{ccc}
E_{0}(\beta,\gamma) & \Omega_{02}(\beta) & 0 \\
\Omega_{02}(\beta) & E_{2}(\beta,\gamma)+\Delta_{2} & \Omega_{24}(\beta) \\
0 & \Omega_{24}(\beta) & E_{4}(\beta,\gamma)+\Delta_{4} \\
\end{array}
\right), \nonumber \\
\label{eq:pes}
\end{eqnarray}
where the $E_{i}(\beta,\gamma)$ ($i=0,2,4$) in the diagonal part stands
for the expectation value of the Hamiltonian $\hat H_{i}$
\begin{eqnarray}
&& E_{i}(\beta,\gamma)
=
\frac{\epsilon_{i}(N_{\nu}+N_{\pi,i})\beta_{B,i}^{2}}{1+\beta_{B,i}^{2}}
+\kappa_{i}N_{\nu}N_{\pi,i}\frac{\beta_{B,i}^{2}}{(1+\beta_{B,i}^{2})^{2}}\nonumber \\
&\times&\Big[
4-2\sqrt{\frac{2}{7}}(\chi_{\nu,i}+\chi_{\pi,i})\beta_{B,i}\cos{3\gamma}+\frac{2}{7}\chi_{\nu,i}\chi_{\pi,i}\beta_{B,i}^{2}
\Big].
\label{eq:pes-diag}
\end{eqnarray}
Here $\beta_{B}^{i}=C_{\beta,i}\beta$, with $C_{\beta,i}$ being the
proportionality coefficient of the $\beta$ variable defined for the
different mean-field minima associated with each configuration
$ip$-$ih$, and $N_{\pi,i}$ denotes the proton boson number in the $ip$-$ih$ configuration.
The non-diagonal entries $\Omega_{i-2\,i}(\beta)$ ($i=2,4$) represent the expectation values of
the mixing interactions $\hat H_{\rm mix}^{i-2\,i}$, given as
\begin{eqnarray}
\Omega_{i-2\,i}(\beta)
&=&
\frac{\sqrt{N_{\pi,i}(N_{\pi,i}-1)}}{1+\beta_{B,i}^{2}}(\omega_{1}^{i-2\,i}+\omega_{2}^{i-2\,i}\beta_{B,i}^{2})\nonumber \\
&\times&
\Big(
\frac{1+\beta_{B,i-2}\beta_{B,i}}{\sqrt{(1+\beta_{B,i-2}^{2})(1+\beta_{B,i}^{2})}}
\Big)^{N_{\nu}+N_{\pi,i-2}}.
\label{eq:pes-nondiag}
\end{eqnarray}
Each of the microscopic PES, presented in Fig.~\ref{fig:pes},
is mapped onto the corresponding IBM PES, i.e., the lowest eigenvalue of
the matrix in Eq.~(\ref{eq:pes}).
Since the three local minima are well separated from each other, a set of
parameters for each configuration are determined independently from each others.
First, the $0p$-$0h$ configuration is assigned to the mean-field minimum with the smallest deformation.
Then the $2p$-$2h$ configuration is assigned to the minimum
with second larger quadrupole deformation.
Likewise the $4p$-$4h$ configuration is associated with the minimum with the
third larger quadrupole deformation.
For each configuration, the parameters $\epsilon_{i}$,
$\kappa_{i}$, $\chi_{\nu,i}$, $\chi_{\pi,i}$ and $C_{\beta,i}$ in
$E_{i}(\beta,\gamma)$ of Eq.~(\ref{eq:pes-diag}) are determined, using the method of
Ref.~\cite{Nom10}, so that the topologies, i.e., curvatures in both $\beta$ and
$\gamma$ directions, around the corresponding minima are reproduced.
For $^{186}$Pb, for instance, the Hamiltonians for $0p$-$0h$,
$2p$-$2h$ and $4p$-$4h$ configurations are assigned to spherical ($\beta=0$),
oblate ($\beta\approx -0.2$) and prolate ($\beta\approx +0.3$) minima, respectively.
Since the number of proton bosons $N_{\pi}$ is zero for all the considered Pb nuclei,
the second term in Eq.~(\ref{eq:ham}) vanishes,
and the parameters $\kappa_{0}$, $\chi_{\nu,0}$ and
$\chi_{\pi,0}$ can be set to zero.
Therefore, in the present study, the $0p$-$0h$ configuration always represents a pure U(5) limit
of the IBM \cite{IBM}.
The $\Delta_{i}$ parameters in Eq.~(\ref{eq:pes}) are constants
depending on the nucleus and they are fixed so that the energy difference
between the mean-field spherical and intruder configurations
is reproduced. These energy differences between mean-field minima are
denoted as
$\delta E_{i}=E^{\rm HFB}(\beta^{i}_{\rm min},\gamma^{i}_{\rm min})-E^{\rm
HFB}(\beta^{0}_{\rm min},\gamma^{0}_{\rm min})$
with ($\beta^{i}_{\rm min},\gamma^{i}_{\rm min}$) being the coordinates
that give the minimum for each of the $ip$-$ih$ configuration in the HFB PES.
These quantities should be in reasonable agreement with the
observed $0^{+}$ excitation energies.
However, the values of the $\Delta_{i}$ derived
from the estimation above should not be used
in the spectroscopic calculations with the Hamiltonian of
Eq.~(\ref{eq:ham-tot}), i.e., different values of $\Delta_{i}$ should be used
in Eqs.~(\ref{eq:ham-tot}) and (\ref{eq:pes}).
From the original definition, the $\Delta_{i}$ ($i=2\,{\rm or}\,4$) represents the offset energy
added to the eigenenergies of the $ip$-$ih$ Hamiltonian so
that its ground-state $0^{+}$ energy exceeds that of the normal configuration by
an amount that is roughly equal to the observed excited $0^{+}$ energy
and hence to $\delta E_{i}$.
More explicitly (cf. Appendix C of \cite{Duval1982}),
\begin{eqnarray}
E_{i}(0^{+})+\Delta_{i}=E_{0}(0^{+})+\delta E_{i},
\label{eq:delta}
\end{eqnarray}
where $E_{i}(0^{+})$ represents the lowest (ground-state) $0^{+}$ eigenvalue of
the $ip$-$ih$ Hamiltonian in Eq.~(\ref{eq:ham}).
Note that the amount of energy gained by the mixing between normal and
intruder configurations is much
smaller than the typical range of $\Delta_{i}$ values and is considered negligible in this rough estimate.
In the considered Pb isotopes, since there is no
deformation-driving term in the Hamiltonian $\hat H_{0}$,
the $E_{0}(0^{+})$ energy is always equals to zero for the $0p$-$0h$ configuration.
The lowest $0^{+}$ eigen-energy
comprises the energy gained through the deformation at the mean-field
level (equivalent to the depth of the minimum in the PES) and the extra correlation
energy arising from quantum effects beyond the mean field.
The $\Delta_{i}$ values determined solely by looking at the PES,
do not take into account this quantum correlation energy, and hence is too
small to describe correct spectroscopic tendencies consistent
with the indications of the microscopic PESs.
Let us consider, for example, the nucleus $^{186}$Pb.
The $\Delta_{2}$ value derived from the PES, to be used in
Eq.~(\ref{eq:pes}), is 4.014 MeV.
Nevertheless, with this value, the intruder
$0^{+}$ state becomes ground state after the mixing.
This is apparently not consistent with empirical facts as well as with
the indication of the microscopic PES.
Since the $2p$-$2h$ configuration gives $E_{2}(0^{+})=-3.676$ MeV, to reproduce $\delta E_{2}=1.208$ MeV
the $\Delta_{2}$ value to be used in Eq.~(\ref{eq:ham-tot}) should amount to
$\Delta_{2}=1.208-(-3.676)=4.884$ MeV.
The difference between the two $\Delta_{2}$ values ($=0.870$ MeV), identified as the
quantum correlation energy that the $2p$-$2h$ configuration gains through the
diagonalization, seems so sizable as to change the conclusion.
Therefore, for the spectroscopic calculations with the Hamiltonian of Eq.
(\ref{eq:ham-tot}), we propose to use the formula in
Eq.~(\ref{eq:delta}) to take into account the necessary quantum
correlation effects.
Also the $\Delta_{i}$ in Eq.~(\ref{eq:ham-tot}) can be related to the
ones in Eq.~(\ref{eq:pes}) by replacing
$E_{i}(0^{+})$ in Eq.~(\ref{eq:delta}) by the deformation energy
$E_{i}(\beta^{i}_{\rm min},\gamma^{i}_{\rm min})$, and vice versa.
The uncertainty in the parameters relevant to the configuration mixing
has also been pointed out in Ref.\cite{frank04}, where the PES of
the configuration mixing IBM-1 Hamiltonian for Lead nuclei was analyzed.
Although the parameters of the Hamiltonian give a good description of
the spectroscopy, only two (spherical and prolate) minima remain
after configuration mixing in the $^{186}$Pb nucleus \cite{frank04}.
This result seems to support our finding that the $\Delta_{i}$ values to
be used in spectroscopic calculations may not at the same time give
the IBM mapped PES similar in topology to the mean-field PES.
To perform a fully consistent mapping of $\Delta_{i}$ in the present
framework, the addition of some interaction term between like neutron bosons,
such as of $\kappa_{\nu}\hat Q_{\nu}\cdot\hat Q_{\nu}$ type, to the $0p$-$0h$
Hamiltonian may solve the problem. The reason is that such term drives deformation
and provides the energy which could compensate for the quantum correlation energy
the intruder configuration gains.
In fact, if one tries to put $\kappa_{\nu}\hat Q_{\nu}\cdot\hat Q_{\nu}$
with the realistic interaction strength $\kappa_{\nu}=-0.013$ MeV in the
mapped Hamiltonian $\hat H_{0}$ in Eq.~(\ref{eq:ham}) for $^{186}$Pb,
the $0p$-$0h$ configuration gives $E_{0}(0^{+})=-0.870$ MeV, which is
exactly the same as the correlation energy gained in the $2p$-$2h$ configuration.
Nevertheless, since the microscopic Gogny-D1M PES suggests purely
spherical minimum for the normal configuration, it is practically not
possible to determine the strength parameter for such additional
interaction term. Another possible solution which could work out is to map the
angular-momentum projected PES onto the corresponding IBM PES.
This could represent an interesting work for the future which is out of the scope
of the present paper.
The non-diagonal matrix elements, $\Omega_{i-2\,i}(\beta)$ in
Eq.~(\ref{eq:pes-nondiag}), concern the barrier between the mean-field
minima but are only minor as compared to the diagonal parts in Eq.~(\ref{eq:pes-diag}).
Therefore, the parameter $\omega^{i-2\,i}$ can be introduced only
perturbatively and is determined so that the barrier
height for two different minima in the microscopic PES is reproduced.
For the sake of simplicity, we assume
$\omega_{1}^{i-2\,i}=\omega_{2}^{i-2\,i}\equiv\omega^{i-2\,i}$.
\section{Mapped IBM potential energy surfaces and derived parameters}
\label{sec:pes}
\begin{figure*}[ctb!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=16.0cm]{pb_para_d1m_2.eps}
\caption{Derived IBM parameters (a) $\epsilon_{i}$, (b) $\kappa_{i}$,
(c) $\chi_{\nu,i}$, (d) $\chi_{\pi,i}$, (e) $C_{\beta,i}$, (f)
$\Delta_{i}$ and (g) $\omega^{i-2\,i}$ for the considered $^{182-192}$Pb nuclei as functions
of mass number A. Figure legends for (a) through (f) are shown in the right hand side of panel (g). }
\label{fig:para}
\end{center}
\end{figure*}
The mapped IBM and the microscopic Gogny-D1M HFB PESs are plotted in
Fig.~\ref{fig:pes} for the nuclei $^{182-192}$Pb.
In the case of $^{192}$Pb the HFB approximation suggests two minima, and
therefore only the $0p$-$0h$ and $2p$-$2h$ configurations are mixed in this
nucleus. The location, relative energy differences as well as the
energy barriers between the coexisting minima in the microscopic
PESs are reproduced rather well in
the mapped IBM PESs. Note that, due to the limited number of bosons,
the mapped PESs are generally flat along the oblate axis.
Although very shallow triaxial minima at $\gamma\approx 10^{\circ}$
are displayed in the
HFB PESs of $^{188,190}$Pb, in the mapped IBM PESs such minima
are approximated by axial ones. As a result, some deviations
of the barrier heights between the oblate and prolate minima
occur for these nuclei. In order to describe the
detailed energy systematics of quasi-$\gamma$ band, a boson
three-body term \cite{Nom12} is required which is, however,
out of the scope of the present work.
The IBM parameters, derived for the considered isotopes $^{182-192}$Pb, are
displayed in Fig.~\ref{fig:para}. Consistent with the evolution
of the topology in the PESs shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:pes}, no rapid
change with mass number is observed in these
parameters. The comparison between the $\epsilon$ parameters, for a given nucleus, in Fig.~\ref{fig:para}(a)
reveals that $\epsilon_{0}$ is the largest, $\epsilon_{4}$ is the smallest
while the $\epsilon_{2}$ value is always in
between them. On the other hand, as a function of the mass number,
$\epsilon_{0}$ looks parabolic with respect to the mid-shell
nucleus $^{186}$Pb, while $\epsilon_{2}$ and $\epsilon_{4}$ remain almost constant.
Let us stress, that these boson
number dependencies are consistent with the earlier phenomenological
(see Ref.~\cite{IBM} and references are therein) and microscopic
\cite{OAIT,Mizusaki97} IBM-2 studies on collective structural evolution.
The parameter $\kappa_{2}$ is, in general, larger than $\kappa_{4}$ as
the model
space of the latter contains a larger number of bosons.
As functions of the mass number the $\chi$
parameters, shown in Figs.~\ref{fig:para}(c) and
\ref{fig:para}(d), also display a weak dependence. Nevertheless, the sign
of $\chi_{\nu}$ is always opposite to the one of
$\chi_{\pi}$. Their sum $\chi_{\nu}+\chi_{\pi}$ is positive (negative) for the
oblate (prolate) $2p$-$2h$ ($4p$-$4h$) shapes.
The $C_{\beta}$ value (i.e., the scale factor for the $\beta$ variable) does
not change too much. This parameter is determined from the position of
the axial minimum and the curvature along the $\beta$ axis.
Actually, the location of each axial minimum in the HFB PES in
Fig.~\ref{fig:pes} remains almost the same in the corresponding IBM PES.
Figures~\ref{fig:para}(f) and \ref{fig:para}(g) show the energy offset
$\Delta_{i}$, defined in Eq.~(\ref{eq:delta}), and the mixing parameters for the
Hamiltonian $\hat H^{i-2\,i}_{\rm mix}$, respectively.
The magnitudes of both $\omega^{02}$ and $\omega^{24}$ are notably
larger than those used in some fitted calculations within the configuration-mixing
IBM-1 model \cite{Fossion03,Hellemans08}: $\omega^{02}\approx 10$ keV and
$\omega^{24}\approx 20-30$ keV in the latter studies, while we have obtained
$\omega^{02}\approx 50$ keV and $\omega^{24}\approx 200$ keV.
The present $\omega^{24}$ value, which is particularly larger than the
one derived from phenomenology, implies that our microscopic EDF
approximation suggests a complex topology of the mean-field PESs in the
studied Lead isotopes in $\gamma$ direction.
Therefore, it may require a mixing between the two intruder
configuration spaces stronger than estimated from the pure fitting calculations. In
particular, the mixing between the regular and $2p$-$2h$ configurations seems to be
quite large in the case of $^{188}$Pb.
The offset energy $\Delta_{i}$, depicted in Fig.~\ref{fig:para}(g), roughly
amounts to 4 and 8 MeV for the $2p$-$2h$ and $4p$-$4h$ configurations, respectively. These values are
approximately twice as large as the ones obtained
in the IBM-1 phenomenology \cite{Hellemans08}.
One sees from Eq.~(\ref{eq:delta}), that a larger $\Delta_{i}$ energy is needed
when the $0^{+}$ eigenenergy of the intruder configuration is sufficiently
large in magnitude compared to the $0^{+}$ energy of the normal configuration.
The quadrupole-quadrupole interaction for the intruder configuration
appears to be stronger in the present mapped IBM system than it is in
the IBM-1 phenomenology.
The intruder configuration gains a large amount of energy, giving rise to
remarkable differences between our $\Delta_{i}$ values and the
phenomenological \cite{Fossion03,Hellemans08} results.
In fact, the derived $\kappa_{2}$ and $\kappa_{4}$
values are larger in magnitude than those extracted from the fit.
This may be due to the fact that the microscopic Gogny-D1M
calculation (see, Fig.~\ref{fig:pes}) provides a pronounced minimum.
\section{Spectroscopic results}
\label{sec:pb}
Having determined all the parameters required by the IBM Hamiltonian in
Eq.~(\ref{eq:ham-tot}) for each individual nucleus, the energy spectra and
transition rates are calculated by diagonalizing the Hamiltonian within
the enlarged model space consisting of the direct sum of
the $0p$-$0h$, the $2p$-$2h$ and the $4p$-$4h$ subspaces.
The results shown below are obtained without any fit to the
experimental data, but only from the Gogny-D1M HFB approximation
and the mapping procedure described above.
We have performed a diagonalization of the mapped IBM-2 Hamiltonian in the so
called boson $m$-scheme basis.
The eigenfunction for each excited state gives rise to various spectral
observables. In particular, the E2 transition rates and the
spectroscopic quadrupole moments are important quantities by which one
can gauge the emergence and the evolution
of the coexistence and competition between different shapes
in the considered isotopes.
For the E2 operator $\hat T^{({\rm E2})}$, we use the boson quadrupole
operator $\hat Q_{\rho,i}$, where the same parameter $\chi_{\rho,i}$ as
the one used in diagonalization is used, based on the idea of Casten
and Warner for the IBM-1 case \cite{War83}.
Within the configuration mixing IBM framework this E2 operator can be written as \cite{Duval1981,Duval1982}
\begin{eqnarray}
\hat T^{({\rm E2})}=\sum_{\rho,i}e_{\rho,i}\hat P_{i}\hat
Q_{\rho,i}^{\chi_{\rho,i}}\hat P_{i},
\label{eq:E2}
\end{eqnarray}
where $e_{\rho,i}$ represents the proton and neutron boson effective charges for
each configuration.
For simplicity, these charges are assumed to be the
same (i.e., $e_{\nu,i}=e_{\pi,i}\equiv e_{i}$).
For the effective charges, we have adopted the values
given in Ref.~\cite{Hellemans08} (i.e., $e_{0}=0.110$, $e_{2}=0.140$ and
$e_{4}=0.170$ eb).
The effective charge should, in principle, be determined by taking into
account core polarization effects. Such an effect could be renormalized
in the effective charges used here, while
a fully microscopic derivation of the boson effective charge still represents an
interesting open problem. With all this in mind, the reduced E2 transition
$B({\rm E2};J\rightarrow J^{\prime})$ between states with spins
$J$ and $J^{\prime}$, can be written as
\begin{eqnarray}
B({\rm E2};J\rightarrow J^{\prime})=\frac{1}{2J+1}|\langle
J^{\prime}||\hat T^{({\rm E2})}||J\rangle |^{2},
\end{eqnarray}
where $|J\rangle$ and $|J^{\prime}\rangle$ represent the wave functions
of the initial and the final states with angular
momenta $J$ and $J^{\prime}$, respectively.
The spectroscopic quadrupole moment $Q^{(s)}(J)$ for the state with spin $J$
is given by
\begin{eqnarray}
Q^{(s)}(J)=\sqrt{\frac{16\pi}{5}}
\left(
\begin{array}{ccc}
J & 2 & J \\
-J & 0 & J \\
\end{array}
\right)
\langle J||\hat T^{({\rm E2})}||J\rangle,
\label{eq:qm}
\end{eqnarray}
where use is made of the well known Wigner's 3-j symbol \cite{varshalovich1988quantum}.
\subsection{Level-energy systematics}
\begin{figure*}[ctb!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=14.0cm]{pb_spec.eps}
\caption{(Color online) Level-energy systematics for $^{182-192}$Pb
isotopes with mass number. Theoretical level energies resulting from the mapped IBM-2
Hamiltonian (a) are compared with the experimental (b) energies. The
experimental data are taken from the ENSDF database
\cite{data}. To guide the eye, each point has been connected. Solid,
dashed and dotted lines stand for the lowest two excited $0^{+}$ states, yrast states with
$J\geq 2$ ($2^{+}_{1}$, $4^{+}_{1}$, $6^{+}_{1}$ and $8^{+}_{1}$)
and non-yrast states with
$J\geq 2$ ($2^{+}_{2}$, $4^{+}_{2}$, $6^{+}_{2}$ and
$8^{+}_{2}$), respectively. Note that the experimental $2^{+}_{1}$ and $0^{+}_{3}$
excitation energies for $^{186}$Pb ($^{188}$Pb) are 662 (724) keV and
655 (725) keV, respectively. }
\label{fig:level}
\end{center}
\end{figure*}
Figure~\ref{fig:level} displays the theoretical (a) and the experimental
\cite{data} (b) low-lying spectra as functions of the mass number.
In the nuclei $^{184-188}$Pb, the relative location of the $0^{+}_{2}$
and $2^{+}_{1}$ experimental levels is nicely reproduced. Our
calculations reproduce the correct location in energy for
these first excited
$0^{+}$ states, with the $0^{+}_{2}$ level coming down
as we approach the midshell nucleus $^{186}$Pb and becoming the lowest-energy
one at $^{186}$Pb or $^{188}$Pb. Both prolate and oblate minima
become lowest in energy for these nuclei (see, Fig.~\ref{fig:pes})
and therefore the residual quadrupole-quadrupole correlation between neutron bosons
and the intruder proton bosons become maximal, giving rise to
these notably low-lying excited $0^{+}$ states.
The comparison between our results and the few available
data for the excitation energy of the $0^{+}_{3}$
states reveals that our values overestimate the experimental
ones. This could be due to the fact that in the considered
isotopes, the third lowest-energy minimum in the mean-field
PESs appears higher than expected from the
experimental point of view and also because of the level repulsion.
Note, that the parabolic behaviour of the
$0^{+}_{3}$ levels with respect to mid-shell is in good agreement
with
the relative location of the three minima in the
Gogny-PESs (see, Fig.~\ref{fig:pes}): the
three minima are closest to each other around
$^{186}$Pb while
the second and third minima become
less pronounced and only the spherical one remains
as we
approach the closed shells.
The present calculations also reproduce the parabolic tendency of
states with angular momenta $J\geq 2$. The collectivity of
the intruder configurations becomes stronger and, as a result, the
intruder states with $J\geq 2$ become most compressed around the midshell.
Nevertheless, the change in all the calculated energy levels, including
the excited $0^{+}$ ones, takes place faster as compared with the
experimental trend. Let us also stress that, similar to
the situation observed for the $0^{+}_{3}$ levels, the calculated non-yrast
$2^{+}_{2}$,
$4^{+}_{2}$, $6^{+}_{2}$ and $8^{+}_{2}$ spectra are
more stretched than the experimental ones.
\subsection{Structure of eigenfunctions}
\begin{table}[cb!]
\caption{\label{tab:frac} Fraction of each configuration in the lowest
three $0^{+}$ states of the considered $^{182-192}$Pb isotopes (in \%). }
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c}
\hline\hline
\textrm{$J^{\pi}$}&
\textrm{Configurations}&
\textrm{$^{182}$Pb}&
\textrm{$^{184}$Pb}&
\textrm{$^{186}$Pb}&
\textrm{$^{188}$Pb}&
\textrm{$^{190}$Pb}&
\textrm{$^{192}$Pb}\\
\hline
& $0p$-$0h$ & 100.0 & 99.8 & 99.7 & 98.6 & 99.7 & 99.6 \\
$0^{+}_{1}$ & $2p$-$2h$ & 0.0 & 0.2 & 0.2 & 1.3 & 0.3 & 0.4 \\
& $4p$-$4h$ & 0.0 & 0.0 & 0.1 & 0.1 & 0.0 & - \\
\hline
& $0p$-$0h$ & 0.0 & 0.1 & 0.1 & 1.4 & 0.5 & 0.5 \\
$0^{+}_{2}$ & $2p$-$2h$ & 9.0 & 14.6 & 24.3 & 65.5 & 92.8 & 99.5 \\
& $4p$-$4h$ & 91.0 & 85.3 & 75.6 & 33.1 & 6.7 & - \\
\hline
& $0p$-$0h$ & 34.1 & 0.9 & 0.5 & 0.7 & 98.7 & 93.2 \\
$0^{+}_{3}$ & $2p$-$2h$ & 41.2 & 67.9 & 67.5 & 36.1 & 1.2 & 6.8 \\
& $4p$-$4h$ & 24.7 & 31.2 & 32.0 & 63.2 & 0.1 & - \\
\hline\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{table}
To interpret the dominant component in the calculated excited states and
the structure of the wave functions, we show in
Table ~\ref{tab:frac}, the
overlap probabilities of the basis
states and the eigenfunctions corresponding to the
three lowest-excited $0^{+}$ states for all the considered
Lead isotopes. In all the isotopes the
$0^{+}_{1}$ state corresponds to the spherical ground state
with a nearly 100 \% dominance of
the $0p$-$0h$ configuration. For the nuclei $^{182,184,186}$Pb, the first excited $0^{+}$ state is comprised
predominantly of the $4p$-$4h$ configuration, which corresponds to the prolate
minimum in Fig.~\ref{fig:pes}.
The extent of mixing between the $2p$-$2h$ and the $4p$-$4h$
configurations for the first excited $0^{+}$ state becomes gradually
stronger from $^{182,184}$Pb to $^{186}$Pb, which
correlates well with the finding in Fig.~\ref{fig:pes} that the oblate minimum becomes more
significant from $^{182,184}$Pb to $^{186}$Pb.
Experimentally both $^{186,188}$Pb are regarded as the most spectacular
examples of shape
coexistence in the Pb isotopic chain. In this case, one sees a stronger
mixing between different configurations in the first
and the second excited $0^{+}$ states. The $0^{+}_{2}$ state in $^{186}$Pb is
more or less clearly
of $4p$-$4h$ character while the two intruder configurations are mixed
for the $0^{+}_{2}$ state in $^{188}$Pb. The earlier IBM-1 fitting
calculation \cite{Fossion03} suggested almost the same
predominance of the $0^{+}_{2}$ and the $0^{+}_{3}$ eigenfunctions
while the three configurations appear to be
more strongly mixed for $^{186}$Pb. On the other hand, the present
results for $^{186}$Pb seem to be consistent with
the ones obtained within the symmetry-projected GCM approximation
based on both the
Skyrme-SLy6 \cite{Duguet03} and Gogny-D1S \cite{Rayner04Pb} EDFs.
In such studies \cite{Duguet03,Rayner04Pb}, the collective wave function for the
$0^{+}_{2}$ ($0^{+}_{3}$) excited state is peaked
on the prolate (oblate) side. We also find, that our results
for the nucleus $^{188}$Pb agree qualitatively well with the ones
of previous symmetry-projected GCM studies
\cite{Rayner04Pb,Ben04Pb} where collective wave functions
strongly peaked at the oblate and prolate sides have also been
predicted. For the nuclei $^{190,192}$Pb, there is almost no
mixing between the different configurations for the three
$0^{+}$ states. In fact, the fraction of the $4p$-$4h$ configuration
is too small for them.
\subsection{Level scheme: $^{186,188}$Pb nuclei}
In this section, we discuss in more detail the results obtained
for the isotopes $^{186}$Pb and
$^{188}$Pb which are the most distinct cases of shape
coexistence in the considered chain. We compare in Figs.~\ref{fig:pb186}
and \ref{fig:pb188} our theoretical
and the experimental energy levels and transition rates for these nuclei.
The assignment of the calculated excited state to each band is
done according to the predominance of a given configuration in the
corresponding eigenstate and the E2 transition strength that exhibits a
clear collectivity.
For $^{186}$Pb, in Fig.~\ref{fig:pb186}, the
calculated first
excited $0^{+}_{2}$ state, predicted to be predominantly
prolate, is quite close to the experimental value. From
the experimental point of view, such state
has been identified \cite{andre00} as the oblate band head.
On the other hand, our result in Fig.~\ref{fig:pb186} is
consistent with
earlier predictions for the same nucleus within the
symmetry-projected GCM approximation based on the functionals
Skyrme-SLy6 \cite{Duguet03} and Gogny-D1S \cite{Rayner04Pb}.
Actually, as seen from Table~\ref{tab:frac}, the $4p$-$4h$ (prolate in the
present IBM framework) component
dominates 75.6 \% of the $0^{+}_{2}$ state.
A strong collective energy pattern is also predicted for this
prolate band, with the ratio $\Delta E_{ 4^{+}_{1}}/\Delta E_{ 2^{+}_{1}}=2.75$.
The $B$(E2) transitions among the members of this prolate band exhibit
a collective behavior while the $2^{+}\rightarrow 0^{+}$ E2 transition is
very weak in the spherical band. Concerning the oblate
band, the theoretical $0^{+}_{3}$ excitation
energy overestimates the experimental one.
Note that, experimentally, this $0^{+}_{3}$ state is recognized as the prolate
bandhead \cite{andre00}. The experimental $2^{+}_{1}$ and $0^{+}_{3}$ levels look nearly
degenerated, and so does the present calculation except that the
$2^{+}_{3}$ level lies slightly below the $0^{+}_{3}$ level since the
mixing between the two intruder configurations may be too strong.
\begin{figure}[ctb!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=8.6cm]{pb186_spec.eps}
\caption{(Color online) Experimental and calculated energy spectra and
$B$(E2) transition rates (in Weisskopf units) for the $^{186}$Pb
nucleus. Experimental energies and $B$(E2) values are taken from
\cite{data,Grahn06}. In the plot the experimental $0^{+}_{3}$ and $2^{+}_{1}$
look nearly degenerated, but their excitation energies are 650 keV
and 662 keV, respectively. The experimental $B({\rm E2})$ of 510(120) and
6 (2) (W.u.) correspond to the $4^{+}_{1}\rightarrow 2^{+}_{1}$ and
$2^{+}_{1}\rightarrow 0^{+}_{1}$ transitions, respectively. }
\label{fig:pb186}
\end{center}
\end{figure}
One notices from Fig.~\ref{fig:pb188}, that our model
provides a similar level of quality in the description of the isotope
$^{188}$Pb.
Although the calculated excitation energy for the $0^{+}_{3}$ state
is a bit high, the calculated
$0^{+}_{2}$ state lies close to the experimental one.
The present study also suggests, that the $0^{+}_{2}$ and the $0^{+}_{3}$
levels correspond to oblate and prolate configurations, respectively, which is
consistent with symmetry-projected GCM calculations based on
the Gogny-D1S EDF \cite{Rayner04Pb}.
Nevertheless, the first and the second excited $0^{+}$ states are
experimentally \cite{data} interpreted as the
prolate and the oblate bandheads, respectively.
Moreover, the present study suggests a
pronounced collective pattern for both the prolate ($4p$-$4h$) and the
oblate ($2p$-$2h$) bands, and supports the experimental evidence for the
strong E2 transition pattern in the
band comprised of $2^{+}_{1}$, $4^{+}_{1}$, $6^{+}_{1}$,
and $8^{+}_{1}$ states.
In our calculations, the two intruder $0^{+}$ levels are rather
close in energy, compared to the case of $^{186}$Pb.
In fact, among all the considered nuclei, the prolate-oblate
energy difference obtained from the
Gogny-D1M PESs in Fig.~\ref{fig:pes} reaches its lowest value
for $^{188}$Pb. Due to the level repulsion, however, the
excitation energy of the
$0^{+}_{3}$ state
is larger than the energy difference between the spherical and prolate minima
of the corresponding HFB PES in Fig.~\ref{fig:pes}.
\begin{figure}[ctb!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=8.6cm]{pb188_spec.eps}
\caption{(Color online) Same as Fig.~\ref{fig:pb186}, but for the $^{188}$Pb
nucleus. Note that the theoretical $0^{+}_{3}$ and $2^{+}_{3}$ excitation
energies are 1.086 MeV and 1.047 MeV, respectively. The following theoretical
$B({\rm E2})$ in the right panel are listed here to help identify the
corresponding transition in the plot:
$B({\rm E2};4^{+}_{2}\rightarrow 2^{+}_{3})=236$,
$B({\rm E2};2^{+}_{3}\rightarrow 2^{+}_{2})=63$,
$B({\rm E2};2^{+}_{3}\rightarrow 2^{+}_{1})=42$ and $B({\rm
E2};2^{+}_{3}\rightarrow 0^{+}_{1})=1$ (in W.u.).}
\label{fig:pb188}
\end{center}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Spectroscopic quadrupole moment}
The spectroscopic quadrupole moment $Q^{(s)}$, computed according
to Eq.~(\ref{eq:qm}), is shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:qm} as a function
of the mass number for the three lowest $2^{+}$ excited
states of the considered
Lead isotopes. In the case of
$^{182}$Pb, $Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{1})\approx 0$ eb and
$Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{2})\approx Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{3})$ $\approx$
-2 eb, reflecting the spherical and prolate character
of the $2^{+}_{1}$ and $2^{+}_{2},2^{+}_{3}$ states, respectively.
The microscopic and the mapped PESs for this nucleus
(see, Fig.~\ref{fig:pes}) suggest a
global spherical minimum and a well developed prolate deformation.
The two non-yrast $2^{+}$ states should originate from such a pronounced
prolate minimum. For $^{184,186}$Pb, both the HFB and
the mapped PESs in Fig.~\ref{fig:pes}
indicate the development of triple coexistence.
The trend of the considered quadrupole moment changes accordingly.
The $Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{1})$ ($Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{3})$) value is nearly $-2$
($+1.5$) eb, suggesting that this state is
prolate (oblate). From Fig.~\ref{fig:pb186}, one
realizes that the prolate band consisting
of the $0^{+}_{2}, 2^{+}_{1}, 4^{+}_{1}, 6^{+}_{1}\,{\rm and}\,8^{+}_{1}$
states comes down in energy. On the other hand, our
calculations suggest that the third band in
$^{186}$Pb, comprised of the $2^{+}_{3}$, $0^{+}_{3}$, $4^{+}_{2}$,
$6^{+}_{2}$, and $8^{+}_{2}$ states, originates from the $2p$-$2h$ oblate configuration.
Note, that the quadrupole moment for the $2^{+}_{3}$ state
is positive. The same arguments apply to the nucleus $^{184}$Pb.
\begin{figure}[ctb!]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=7.0cm]{pb_qm_d1m.eps}
\caption{Calculated spectroscopic quadrupole moments $Q^{(s)}$ for the lowest
three excited $2^{+}$ states of the considered Pb nuclei as functions
of mass number. Solid, dashed, and dot-dashed lines connect the
calculated $Q^{(s)}$ values for $2^{+}_{1}$, $2^{+}_{2}$ and
$2^{+}_{3}$ states, respectively. }
\label{fig:qm}
\end{center}
\end{figure}
A change in the spectroscopic quadrupole moments
from $^{186}$Pb to $^{188}$Pb
is also apparent from
Fig.~\ref{fig:qm}. In $^{188}$Pb, $Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{2})=0.19$ eb
while $Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{1})=0.36$ eb. On the other hand, the
$Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{3})$ value becomes negative ($=-1.10$ eb).
As can be observed from the level scheme displayed
in Fig.~\ref{fig:pb188}, the
$2^{+}_{1}$ state consists exclusively of the regular (spherical)
configuration. The band consisting of the
$0_{2}^{+}, 2^{+}_{2}, 4^{+}_{1}, 6^{+}_{1}$ and $8^{+}_{1}$ states
emerges
with predominant $2p$-$2h$ oblate character while the one
comprised of the
$0^{+}_{3}, 2^{+}_{3}, 4^{+}_{2}, 6^{+}_{2}\,{\rm and}\,8^{+}_{2}$
states emerges with $4p$-$4h$ prolate character.
It should be noted, however, that
the spectroscopic quadrupole moment $Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{2})$ for
the $2^{+}_{2}$ state, assigned
to the oblate band due to its
stronger E2 transition to the
$0^{+}_{2}$ state, is quite close to the
$Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{1})$ value.
This is mainly due to the fact that the mixing
between the different configurations is
too strong for these two $2^{+}$ states: for the $2^{+}_{1}$ ($2^{+}_{2}$)
state, 58 (41), 32 (38) and 10 (21) \% of its
eigenfunction is composed of spherical $0p$-$0h$, oblate $2p$-$2h$
and prolate $4p$-$4h$ configurations, respectively.
The value $Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{3})=-1.10$ eb reflects a more clear prolate
character, as the three configurations are less strongly mixed in this
$2^{+}_{3}$ state: 2, 38 and 60 \% of the eigenfunction is composed of $0p$-$0h$, $2p$-$2h$
and $4p$-$4h$ configurations, respectively.
For both $^{190,192}$Pb, we obtain that $Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{1})$ is
close to zero so that the $2^{+}_{1}$ state is supposed to
to be of spherical character.
Our result seems to
support the fact that the $2^{+}_{2}$ state is
composed predominantly of the
$2p$-$2h$ oblate configuration.
This result agrees well with
the corresponding PESs, shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:pes}, for which
the oblate minimum lies
much lower, compared to $^{182-188}$Pb, than the prolate one.
Note also that $Q^{(s)}(2^{+}_{3})<0$
for $^{190,192}$Pb implying, that the $2^{+}_{3}$ state is prolate.
\section{Summary}
\label{sec:summary}
To summarize, the emergence and evolution of the shape coexistence in the neutron-deficient
Lead isotopes have been investigated within the
configuration mixing IBM model with parameters extracted solely from
a mapping of the mean-field PESs obtained with the
Gogny-D1M EDF. The diagonalization of the IBM Hamiltonian provides
energy levels as well as
transition rates between the excited states.
It is important to emphasize that,
although the IBM configuration mixing model contains many parameters, they
can be determined unambiguously by relating the IBM PES for each
configuration to the corresponding mean-field deformation minimum in
the microscopic PES. No additional adjustment to experimental data is required.
A potential difficulty and uncertainty of the fully consistent mapping
concerning the offset energy $\Delta$ has been addressed and possible remedies for it have
been discussed.
The considered Lead nuclei present the most spectacular example of the
coexistence of spherical, oblate and prolate equilibrium shapes.
The relative location of the three associated $0^{+}$ states were reproduced.
In one of the most stringent tests, the $^{186}$Pb nucleus, the present
calculation suggested that the $0^{+}_{2}$ and the $0^{+}_{3}$ states
are predominantly of prolate ($4p$-$4h$) and oblate ($2p$-$2h$) nature, respectively.
For the $^{188}$Pb nucleus, another typical example with more
available experimental data to compare with, the present work predicts the oblate bandhead as the
first excited $0^{+}$ state and the prolate band as the second excited $0^{+}$ state.
The calculated E2 transition pattern, albeit the quantitative deviation
of the inter-band transitions from the experimental data, provides
indications of strong collectivity for the relevant prolate and oblate
shapes.
The experimental level-energy systematics is well reproduced by our calculations.
The study of the prolate-oblate dynamics has been complemented by looking at
the spectroscopic quadrupole moment. Its value for different configurations
and nuclei is consistent
with the implications of other quantities and the suggestions of the mean-field
microscopic calculations.
Using the proposed methodology, many new
research directions concerning complex shape dynamics are opened up.
A possible application would be to analyze neighboring isotopic chains, Mercury, Polonium and Platinum
isotopes. In particular, the study in the Platinum isotopes will help to
disentangle if the single-configuration is the appropriate picture to describe those
isotopes (see, e.g., Ref.~\cite{Garcia11,Nom11pt} and references are therein).
Other mass regions, including neutron-deficient krypton,
selenium and germanium isotopes, and neutron-rich krypton, strontium and
zirconium isotopes, which are also known as regions of
shape coexistence \cite{heyde11} would be a potential target.
The predictive power endowed to the model by the microscopic input makes
possible the application of the present methodology to the study of
exotic nuclei like the ones that will be experimentally accessible in
the near future.
\begin{acknowledgments}
Authors would like to thank J . Jolie and R. V. Jolos for valuable discussions,
and T. Otsuka for his continuous interest in this work.
Author K. N. acknowledges the support by the JSPS Postdoctoral
Fellowships for Research Abroad.
LMR acknowledges support of MINECO through grants Nos. FPA2009-08958 and
FIS2009-07277 as well as the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 program CPAN
CSD2007-00042 and MULTIDARK CSD2009-00064.
Author N. S. acknowledges the support by SPIRE field 5, MEXT, Japan.
\end{acknowledgments}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 7,580 |
potentially use omega 3 or omega 6 oil containing items, such as cashews and walnuts. maybe one ounce. near bedtime. leaving a light coating of natural oils in throat. just a guess.
Coincidentally, I had 2 small packets of cashews before sleep a couple nights ago... still had the dry mouth.
Anyway, my Dreamwear nasal pillows just came in yesterday and I used it with my Dreamwear. Nasal fitment doesn't seems to be as good as the Nuance Pro but I still prefer the tube on top of the head. AHI went up as well. Nevertheless, I will still continue with the Dreamwear with nasal pillows for the time being.
Very good progress from the charts. I believe you are using a flex setting which for the PR APAP would require a higher min pressure which you are now at 9.5. The machine has to manage the switch between the two pressures (EPAP & Pressure). Since you are getting reasonable AHI numbers, just stay at these settings for a week or two for the body to acclimatize and get used to the presence of the mask. Down the road, you may reduce or remove the flex setting and will probably get better results at the same min pressure.
If you sleep in air conditioning, that will aggravate the dryness.
Thanks Newbee2016. You are right, I'm sleep in air conditioning. Flex is at default 2. AHI is dropping a little with the Dreamwear mask, still aiming to get it below 1. Will give it a few more tries.... will probably switch back to Nuance Pro mask if the AHI still can't match it soon.
you might get just a little better AHI with another slight bump up in minimum pressure from 9.5 to 10.
Ok Qal... Will try that tonight. Thanks.
OK, increasing from 9.5 on Dreamwear seems to have done the trick. Very glad the Dreamwear has worked out. Thanks again Qal.
Last 2 days on Dreamwear have not been good, I wonder why.... another thing... 95% pressure is at max!
It's still not bad, though. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 346 |
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 16 "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 6:1 As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says, "At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you." See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! 3 We are putting no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, 7 truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
Piety can be heard as a judgmental word. People often use piety to mean something that is put on as a religious exaggeration, hypocritical rather than authentic. The reading from Matthew begins, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them." Another way to translate the word used in Matthew for piety is righteousness. Jesus says, "Beware practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them." Jesus is critiquing the motivation for public esteem, not the acts of righteousness themselves. This is still the Jesus who's preaching to his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount to do righteous "acts of mercy, make peace, to be transforming salt and light, to seek reconciliation, for men to treat women justly without lust, to honor marriage commitments, to practice integrity, to resist evil creatively and non-violently, and to love enemies." Given Jesus' words against hypocritical piety, it can give us pause as we worship together on Ash Wednesday. But, lest you think that we are here simply practicing personal piety, think again.
In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes to a church that has become bogged down in leadership issues, embarrassed by the socially low, and repelled by Paul's culturally awkward focus on Jesus' crucifixion. He begs them to be reconciled to God on behalf of Christ. He begs them as a group, emphasizing their shared experience of enduring "afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, [and] hunger." This part of Paul's letter highlights how the crucified Christ shapes the life of God's people "by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God." Similarly, as baptized people, our lives become ever-more Christ-shaped through the crucified one.
Paul's speech is pure theology of the cross. Meaning, that it is exactly in the mess of things where Christ meets us. One might even say on Ash Wednesday that it is in the dustiest, death-loving corners of ourselves where Jesus says, "Yeah, I'll meet you in that corner…that's where God's righteousness will begin." We begin Lent together on Ash Wednesday because our sight is limited when we're by ourselves. We struggle to see God's righteousness through our failures. When we go after this by ourselves, we tend to let shame immobilize us. When we go after this together, we have a better chance at discerning God's presence, God's righteousness, in the midst of the mess.
One of things we're doing together to see God's righteousness is the daily lent devotions from the book called Free Indeed. Sold out in hard copy, there are a few left at the sanctuary entrances for you to pick up after worship and the e-book is still available online. In today's devotion for Ash Wednesday, the question is asked, "What are you most afraid of losing?" Like I told the parents in Sunday school a few weeks ago, for me it's my kids. For many things, I can look to God and wonder how God is going to work through whatever mess is happening. When it comes to my kids, not so much. That thing that we're most afraid of losing? That's the thing we've put in God's place. That is our idol. Thankfully, God's righteousness is something God does. Not us. The cross of ashes are placed on our foreheads with the words, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." This reminder is sweet relief. God is God. We are not. The world may see failure. We may see shame. But today we are reminded what God sees. God sees the world that God so loves. God sees and loves us. God sees and loves you.
The ministry of reconciliation, of bringing us back to God, begins with God's self-sacrifice on the cross. How do we recognize our reconciliation to God and to each other? According to Paul, the evidence is in the brokenness that we endure. And, in that brokenness, the hope that the gospel brings new life through the cross. Our repentance today turns us to that cross. We hold God to God's promise of new life even though our tendency is to choose death over life. More specifically, through the cross of Christ, God chooses life for us when we're not inclined to choose it for ourselves. Thanks be to God and amen.
Michael Ficke, Preacher's Text Study on Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 for Ash Wednesday on March 1, 2011.
Brian Peterson, ibid., and 2 Corinthians 5:6-7a. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 4,604 |
using System;
using Alachisoft.NCache.Common;
using System.IO;
using Alachisoft.NCache.Common.Protobuf.Util;
using Alachisoft.NCache.Web.Caching.Util;
using Alachisoft.NCache.Web.Communication;
namespace Alachisoft.NCache.Web.Command
{
internal sealed class VerifyLockCommand : CommandBase
{
private Alachisoft.NCache.Common.Protobuf.LockVerifyCommand _lockVerifyCommand;
public VerifyLockCommand(string key)
{
base.name = "VerifyLockCommand";
base.key = key;
_lockVerifyCommand = new Alachisoft.NCache.Common.Protobuf.LockVerifyCommand();
_lockVerifyCommand.key = key;
_lockVerifyCommand.requestId = base.RequestId;
}
internal override CommandType CommandType
{
get { return CommandType.LOCK_VERIFY; }
}
internal override RequestType CommandRequestType
{
get { return RequestType.InternalCommand; }
}
protected override void CreateCommand()
{
base._command = new Alachisoft.NCache.Common.Protobuf.Command();
base._command.requestID = base.RequestId;
base._command.lockVerifyCommand = _lockVerifyCommand;
base._command.type = Alachisoft.NCache.Common.Protobuf.Command.Type.LOCK_VERIFY;
}
}
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 2,760 |
\section*{Supplementary material}
See supplementary material for a study of the influence of the air gap on the device performance in terms of the far-field, outcoupling efficiency and group delay dispersion.
\section*{Acknowledgments}
The authors acknowledge funding from the ERC grant CHIC (724344). We thank the company TOPAS Advanced Polymers GmbH for free samples of TOPAS\textsuperscript{®} COC, and J. Andberger and F. Appugliese for technical help.
\bibliographystyle{apsrev4-1}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 3,795 |
Brain Health Supplements Market Growing At A CAGR 8.3% From 2022 To 2030
The brain health supplements market size was valued at USD 7.68 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.3% from 2022 to 2030.
By Rahul Nikade 08 Jun 2022
Brain Health Supplements Industry Overview
Consumers have dramatically shifted toward proactively tackling health and wellbeing and have dedicated themselves to improving their brain health and overall longevity to improve attention and focus, which has led to higher acceptance of these supplements. Proactive young consumers are seeking out cognitive health products now, including brain supplements and natural products.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a positive impact on the market and fueled the demand for these products among consumers mainly because of the deteriorating mental and emotional state of people. Thus, consumers are increasingly spending on memory supplement products due to the uncertainty associated with the continued COVID-19 cases across the globe. During the pandemic, the supply chain has witnessed a disruption in raw material procurement as well as in the supply of finished products. Many countries have imposed a ban on the import and export of raw materials, which has hampered the production of supplements to some level.
Gather more insights about the market drivers, restrains and growth of the Global Brain Health Supplements Market
The adoption of the product among consumers in the U.S., especially millennials and the aging population, has gradually increased in recent years and is likely to continue over the forecast period as well. Supplements targeting brain health have quickly emerged in the U.S. owing to growing health-consciousness among the population. People are looking to improve the performance of the brain, enhance their focus, and relieve stress.
In the U.S., there has been a growing prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) among adults, which is driving the demand for these supplements. As per a report published by the National Institute of Mental Health in 2019, 9.6% of females and 6.0% of males suffered from MDD. According to data published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine in April 2020, nearly 75% of the U.S. adult population consumes dietary supplements that contain vitamins, minerals, and herbal ingredients to improve brain health, energy, and performance. These trends are likely to boost the market growth in the country.
Manufacturers have been focusing on the production of various supplements that are targeted specifically at athletes who emphasize on performance enhancement and maintaining mental composure. This is expected to boost the demand for brain health supplements over the next few years. For instance, in January 2019, EXOS, a human performance company, named Onnit Labs, Inc. as its official performance nutrition partner. This partnership was aimed to bring both companies together to focus on helping the athletes better by providing appropriate nutrition products.
The market for brain health supplements is characterized by an increasing number of product launches in response to the growing demand for high-quality supplements to support and maintain brain health, enhance memory, and improve brain function. For instance, in March 2022, Cosmos Holdings, an international pharmaceutical firm, announced the launch of its luxury nutritional supplement product line - 'Brainlit' for brain health. The company's RD team developed an advanced formula that is designed to support and enhance brain function as certain brain-related conditions such as Alzheimer's, dementia, Parkinson's, depression, and anxiety have been on the rise in recent years.
Browse through Grand View Research's Consumer FB Industry Research Reports.
Dietary Supplements Market - The global dietary supplements market size was valued at USD 151.9 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.9% from 2022 to 2030. Increasing consumer awareness toward personal health and wellbeing is expected to be a key driving factor for dietary supplements over the forecast period.
Fish Oil Market - Global fish oil market size was USD 2.25 billion in 2014 and is expected to witness substantial growth over the forecast period owing to increasing aquaculture activities. Rising consumer awareness regarding health benefits of omega 3 is expected to propel fish oil demand over the forecast period.
Brain Health Supplements Market Segmentation
Grand View Research has segmented the brain health supplements market based on product, application, and region:
Brain Health Supplements Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2030)
Natural Molecules
Herbal Extract
Brain Health Supplements Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2030)
Memory Enhancement
Attention And Focus
Depression And Mood
Sleep And Recovery
Anti-aging And Longevity
Stress Anxiety
Brain Health Supplements Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2030)
Market Share Insights
June 2021: Motiva Supplements launched - 'Neuro Booster', which offers higher absorption of six key functional foods, and is the first-ever clinically proven product to help improve Alzheimer's patients and improve brain health.
June 2020: Elysium Health, Inc. in collaboration with the University of Oxford launched Longevity supplement for brain health. The product - 'Matter; contains a formulation of specific B vitamins that is clinically proven to slow brain atrophy associated with age-related memory loss.
Key Companies profiled:
Some prominent players in the global brain health supplements market include
HVMN Inc.
Purelife Bioscience Co., Ltd.
Peak Nootropics
Natural Factors Nutritional Products Ltd.
Reckitt Benckiser Group plc.
Onnit Labs, Inc.
Intelligent Labs
Order a free sample PDF of the Brain Health Supplements Market Intelligence Study, published by Grand View Research.
About Grand View Research
Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research Helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead.
Sherry James
Corporate Sales Specialist, USA
Grand View Research, Inc.
Email: sales@grandviewresearch.com
Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com
Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter
Brain Health Supplements Market Brain Health Supplements Market Size Brain Health Supplements Market Share Brain Health Supplements Market Growth Brain Health Supplements Market Analysis Brain Health Supplements Market Forecast Brain Health Supplements Consumer F&B 144 Views
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© 2023 Ekcochat | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 8,060 |
//
// XHRefreshViewController.h
// XHRefreshViewControllerExample
//
// Created by zhuxiaohui on 2017/9/4.
// Copyright © 2017年 FORWARD. All rights reserved.
// https://github.com/CoderZhuXH/XHRefreshViewController
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import "UIView+XHRefreshExtension.h"
/**
数据请求成功回调
@param responseArray 请求到的数组
@param object 其它参数(没有传nil)
*/
typedef void (^ XHRefreshViewControllerRequestSuccess)(NSArray * responseArray,id object);
/**
数据请求失败回调
*/
typedef void (^ XHRefreshViewControllerRequestFailure)();
typedef NS_ENUM(NSInteger, TableState)
{
TableStateRefreshing, //刷新
TableStateIdle, //空闲
TableStateLoading //加载
};
@interface XHRefreshViewController : UIViewController
@property (nonatomic, strong) UITableView *refreshTableView;
@property (nonatomic, assign,readonly) TableState tableState;//tableView状态
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSMutableArray *dataSourceArray;//数据源数组
@property (nonatomic, assign) BOOL hideHeaderRefresh;//YES:不需要下拉刷新,默认NO(请在子类init方法中设置)
@property (nonatomic, assign) BOOL hideFooterRefresh;//YES:不需要上拉加载,默认NO(请在子类init方法中设置)
@property (nonatomic, copy) XHRefreshViewControllerRequestSuccess requestSuccess;//请求成功参数回调
@property (nonatomic, copy) XHRefreshViewControllerRequestFailure requestFailure;//请求失败回调
#pragma mark - 以下方法交给子类来调用
/**
设置请求参数
@param url 请求地址
@param parameters 请求参数
@param pageKey 传给服务器页码key
@param firstPage 第一页的页码
@param pageCountKey 传给服务器每页数据条数key(没有传nil)
@param pageCount 每页数据条数(没有传nil)
*/
-(void)setRequestUrl:(NSString *)url parameters:(NSDictionary *)parameters pageKey:(NSString *)pageKey firstPage:(NSNumber *)firstPage pageCountKey:(NSString *)pageCountKey pageCount:(NSNumber *)pageCount;
/**
手动调用刷新页面(一般很少用到)
*/
-(void)refreshStart;
/**
手动调用加载更多(一般不会用到)
*/
-(void)loadMoreStart;
#pragma mark - 以下方法交给子类来实现
#pragma mark - 必须实现
/**
发送数据请求
@param url 数据请求url
@param parameters 数据请求参数
@param isRefresh YES:表示刷新,NO:加载更多
*/
-(void)handleRequestWithUrl:(NSString *)url parameters:(NSDictionary *)parameters isRefresh:(BOOL)isRefresh;
/**
处理数据
@param array 数据数组
@param object 附带参数
@param isRefresh YES:表示刷新,NO:加载更多
*/
-(void)handleArray:(NSArray *)array object:(id)object isRefresh:(BOOL)isRefresh;
#pragma mark - 可选
/**
设置tableView样式-不实现此方法默认UITableViewStylePlain
*/
-(UITableViewStyle)refreshTableViewStyle;
/**
数据为空时占位视图(frame:相对于refreshTableView)-不实现此方法将使用默认占位视图
*/
-(UIView *)emptyView;
/**
加载失败时占位视图(frame:相对于refreshTableView)-不实现此方法将使用默认占位视图
*/
-(UIView *)errorView;
@end
| {
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Up close but impersonal with a large aggressive crab in Dubai
RAY BROWN, SUPERBASS (1926-2002): A talent beyond words
Graham Reid | May 3, 2010 | 4 min read
Brown, Alexander, Malone: One for Hamp (2002)
Ray Brown great practical joker. Once, in Japan, Brown --- bassist in pianist Oscar Peterson's famous drummerless group, the most highly paid trio in the jazz world in the 1950s -- went to a pachinko hall, one of those gambling parlours where you are blinded by blazing neon and deafened by the incessant roll of small steel balls. He won and, instead of cashing in his ballbearings, filled his pockets with them.
Before the concert he slipped a few of the marble-sized silver balls onto the strings of Peterson's piano. When Peterson, then the most famous jazz pianist in the world alongside Dave Brubeck, started to play the sensitive ballad But Beautiful, "every note sounded like a whorehouse piano"
according to guitarist Herb Ellis.
That was Ray Brown the Joker for you. But he also played with so many great musicians that he seems almost promiscuous: Sinatra, Armstrong, Lester Young, Sonny Stitt, Anita O'Day, Quincy Jones (whom he managed) . . .
Brown was a founding member of Dizzy Gillespie's groundbreaking bebop band and later became musical director and husband to Ella Fitzgerald. He is on over 2000 recordings and someone on whom praise has descended with almost embarrassing frequency.
In Gene Lees' 1988 The Will to Swing biography of Peterson, an unnamed bassist says Brown was so far ahead of everybody musically there was no comparison: "He's a tall man in a crowd of medium to small men. That's how he stands out."
That's the stature Brown enjoyed, right up until his death in July 2002. His passing didn't go unnoticed, but let's be honest. Jazz bassist dies, the world moves on in the blink of an eye.
Brown was born in Pittsburg in October 1925. He took piano lessons a kid and - unlike classically trained Peterson with whom his name is most often linked - his dad encouraged him to listen to and play like jazz musicians such as Fats Waller and Art Tatum.
Maybe because of those high expectations, the young Brown gave up the ivories and took up trombone. Dad couldn't afford to buy his boy a trombone but a bass was available at school so . . .
He gigged on weekends, got his own instrument when the school repossessed theirs, and toured with a local band as far off as Miami.
Then he lit out for New York and – this is a great story -- the night he arrived went down to 52nd Street and saw Errol Garner, Art Tatum, Billie Holiday and Coleman Hawkins. He met pianist Hank Jones who introduced him to Gillespie.
Brown picks up the story.
"Dizzy said, 'Do you want a gig?' I almost had a heart attack. Dizzy said, 'Be at my house for rehearsal at seven o'clock tomorrow'.
"I went there the next night and got the fright of my life. The band consisted of Dizzy, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Charlie Parker and me. Two weeks later we picked up Milt Jackson who was my roommate for two years."
Quite an introduction to the jazz life, during which the musically inquisitive Brown learned bebop inside out and practiced relentlessly, a habit he took with him when he joined pianist Peterson in 1950 for an affiliation which lasted 15 years.
When the Peterson Trio travelled, Brown would hang out with other bassists from the jazz and classical world, or he and Ellis would rehearse endlessly, anticipating musical possibilities so they could extend them on the bandstand.
When drummer Ed Thigpen came in as Ellis' replacement, Brown did the same with him for many years. Then he quit. 'Mr Brown Goes to Hollywood' was the headline in the New York Post in November 1955.
Critics hailed his years with Peterson ("the most effective music collaboration of the 50s," said Leonard Feather) but for Brown it was time to kick back.
"It wasn't just the 15 years with Oscar, it was 20 years on the road counting Dizzy Gillespie and other bands I was with, and all those tours with Jazz at the Philharmonic.
"So it's time to reconsider."
But within 48 hours of arriving in California Brown was working again. And he never stopped. He formed his own trio, opened a club, played with singer Ernestine Anderson and, most profitably, teamed up with Jamaican-born, Oscar-influenced pianist, Monty Alexander, who has most recently come to wider attention for his reggae-jazz albums with guitarist Ernest Ranglin.
It was with Alexander and guitarist Russell Malone that Brown made his final recordings.
The album appeared simply under their own names, the album is an almost unadventurous affair – but on close inspection unwittingly favours much of Brown's history. There are tunes by Fats Waller, Dexter Gordon and John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet alongside his own tunes, one of which is dedicated to Lionel Hampton. There's also Fly Me to the Moon.
The album came with a limited edition bonus CD drawn from the Telarc label's files. Okay, it's a narrow sliver of a long career but here is Brown alongside those he influenced and inspired (Christian McBride, a bassist of the Marsalis Generation) and recorded live. He shines.
Oscar Peterson, the musician who knew Brown best, mused in 1987 of their 37 year association that Brown's gift was difficult to describe: "His talent had a kind of depth... it's not just intuitive. His talent is almost ethereal."
In those years Brown and Ellis were with Peterson and practicing every day, rehearsing possibilities and alternatives, Brown had a saying: "See if you can hear this."
Maybe that's what Peterson was saying too. And it's never too late to see if we can.
john coltranemiles davischarlie parkerwynton marsalischarles mingusthelonious monkbranford marsalisjazz in elsewhereray brown
BRANFORD MARSALIS INTERVIEWED (2009): Putting the past to bed
Branford Marsalis, who played in bands with Sting and helmed his own Buckshot LeFonque -- which had a stab at the hip-hop-to-bebop territory -- is these days dismissive of his brief skirmishes with... > Read more
JOE LA BARBERA PROFILED: Counting the beats
For some reason - perhaps because they work in a loud profession - you expect drummers to shout. Few do, and while Joe La Barbera may have started his career in the appropriately named... > Read more
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Chucho Valdes: Jazz Bata 2 (Mack Avenue/Southbound)
This great Cuban pianist turned 77 last year and could reflect on a remarkable career in which he was acclaimed internationally, has won Grammys and founded the enormously successful Irakere band.... > Read more
Colin Vallon, Patrice Moret, Julian Sartorius: Danse (ECM/Ode)
On the second album by this trio --- pianist Vallon and bassist Moret also having recorded in the quartet lead by singer Elina Duni, and together with drummer Samuel Rohrer – the... > Read more
GOODFELLAS, a film by MARTIN SCORSESE: Making a killing in crime
Within the ever-expanding genre of gangster flicks - from 1931 and James Cagney's Irish hood in Little Caesar to the quiet menace of Tony Soprano - there could never be consensus about the best... > Read more
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION, a film by BILL GUTTENTAG and DAN STURMAN, 2009 (Hopscotch DVD)
Anyone who gets depressed and thinks little social progress has been made need only to look at this ultimately uplifting if sometimes horrifying film to see how far America has come in the past 50... > Read more | {
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«Суп с капу́стой» (или «Суп из капусты» , ) — французская кинокомедия 1981 года режиссёра Жана Жиро по одноимённому роману Рене Фалле с Луи де Фюнесом и Жаном Карме в главных ролях.
Луи де Фюнес также является одним из соавторов сценария фильма.
Сюжет
Во французском хуторе Гурдифло, вдали от цивилизации, живут два старых друга — горбун Франсис Шерас (Жан Карме) по прозвищу Бомбе, «что значит выпуклый, так как был он настоящим горбуном» и Клод Ратинье (Луи де Фюнес) — "Глод, как принято говорить здесь именно через «Г», пьют красное вино, колодезную воду и выращивают на огороде капусту для своего фирменного супа. Как-то ночью, после того как старики с вечера здорово "попортили воздух", перед их двором приземляется летающая тарелка, и гуманоид направляется к дому Клода, где его угощают супом с капустой.
Суп настолько понравился пришельцу, что он начинает навещать Клода время от времени и каждый раз увозит бидон супа на свою планету. В благодарность он воскрешает покойную жену Клода, Франсин, но молодой, такой же как на фотографии, которую он увидел в доме Клода. Двадцатилетняя Франсин начинает ругать мужа за пьянство с другом, требует денег, заводит молодых друзей… Клод уже и сам не рад такому подарку от инопланетянина. Но вскоре Франсин уезжает с другом в Париж, и в деревне опять воцаряется спокойствие. Но ненадолго. Вскоре пришелец сообщает Клоду, что его суп был признан на его планете источником удовольствия, и предлагает ему переселиться на его планету. Клод наотрез отказывается. Однако через некоторое время он вынужден серьёзно обдумать это предложение, поскольку мэрия соседнего города приготовила друзьям неприятный сюрприз.
Дело в том, что правительство подписало разрешение на строительство в пригороде частных коттеджей и парка отдыха, а на месте старых домов Клода и Франсиса решено построить обезьянник. Этот проект сулит экономический рост городу, и протесты двух стариков никого не интересуют. Их двор просто обносят решёткой, возле которой толпятся посетители парка отдыха, чтобы посмотреть на чудаковатых стариков и бросить в них солёные орешки. Идиллии пришёл конец. Вот тут-то Клод и вспоминает предложение пришельца и рассказывает об этом Франсису…
В ролях
Луи де Фюнес — башмачник Клод Ратинье
Жан Карме — землекоп Франсис Шерас
Жак Вильре — инопланетянин с планеты Оксо
Кристин Дежу — Франсин, умершая жена Клода Ратинье
Клод Жанзак — мадам Амели Пуланжар, сумасшедшая
Анри Жене — старший капрал жандармерии
Марко Перрен — мэр
Гаэль Легран — Катрин Ламуэтт
Филипп Руджери — Робер, новый друг Франсин
Макс Монтавон — брат Амели Пуланжар
Тьерри Лиагр — доктор
Перретт Супле — Эми, управляющая Hôtel de France
Филипп Бризар — Гийом, почтальон
Жан-Пьер Рамбаль — рассказчик
Интересные факты
Фильм также известен своей заглавной музыкальной темой, сочинённой композитором Раймоном Лефевром в стиле овернской народной мелодии и исполненной им на синтезаторах.
См. также
Жандарм и инопланетяне — кинокомедия с Луи де Фюнесом в главной роли
Фильмы на похожую тему:
Небеса обетованные
Шанс
Примечания
Ссылки
Инфо и фотогалерея на web-yan.com Доп. фотогалерея
www.la-soupe-aux-choux.fr — Сайт, посвящённый фильму «Суп с капустой»
Французский сайт о фильме «Суп с капустой»
Кинокомедии 1981 года
Кинокомедии Франции
Фильмы Франции 1981 года | {
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Global Power
Pompeo's Iran sanctions vow deserves a 'punch,' Revolutionary Guard commander says
The U.S. is demanding that Tehran essentially overhaul its regional and military policies by meeting a list of 12 demands.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards march during a parade in Tehran, Iran.Kaveh Kazemi / Getty Images file
May 22, 2018, 10:02 AM UTC / Updated May 22, 2018, 10:13 AM UTC
By F. Brinley Bruton
America's top diplomat deserves a "punch to the mouth" over his vow to impose "the strongest sanctions in history" on Iran, according to a senior Iranian military commander.
On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that the U.S. would take such action against Tehran unless the Islamic Republic changed course by meeting a list of 12 demands aimed at the heart of Iran's foreign policy agenda.
Ismail Kowsari, a senior officer with Iran's Revolutionary Guard who is deputy commander of the base responsible for security throughout Tehran, later responded.
"The people of Iran should stand united in the face of this and they will deliver a strong punch to the mouth of the American secretary of state and anyone who backs them," said Kowsari, according to the Iranian Labour News Agency.
storylineWhat is the Iran nuclear deal?
The Revolutionary Guard was created after the Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the ruling clerical establishment and is answerable to the country's most powerful man, the supreme leader.
During his first major foreign policy address, Pompeo on Monday outlined a plan that included a reprieve from sanctions and restoration of full diplomatic and economic relations should Iran meet a list of 12 demands. The U.S. is demanding that Tehran essentially overhaul its regional and military policies, and the country's missile program is one of the administration's top concerns.
Pompeo's speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation came after President Donald Trump ended U.S. participation in the Iran nuclear deal, which also includes Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.
Pompeo threatens 'strongest sanctions in history' against Iran
May 21, 201800:51
According to Pompeo, the U.S. is pursuing a bigger Iran deal and asking for the support of U.S. allies beyond Europe, such as Australia, Japan, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
International affairs analyst Bobby Ghosh, a foreign affairs columnist and former editor-in-chief of India's Hindustan Times, predicted that reaching a new pact would prove difficult.
"The trouble with this is that you have no partners going into the negotiation," he told NBC News' Kasie Hunt on MSNBC on Monday. "People with whom you were previously partners are now very, very upset ... and the other side it is not clear that they have any real incentive."
newsIranians fret about the future after Trump exits nuclear deal
Other U.S. demands include that Iran pull out of Syria, where it has been fighting on the side of President Bashar al-Assad, end all military aspects of its nuclear program, stop uranium enrichment, and halt support for terrorist groups. Pompeo also demanded the release all U.S. citizens and those of U.S. partners and allies "detained on spurious charges or missing in Iran."
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson also said he believed the U.S. approach would be a tough sell.
"The idea of a jumbo Iran treaty [is] very difficult," he told reporters during a trip to Argentina.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed. | {
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Q: Connotations of "pertinacity" Does the word pertinacity have positive or negative connotations?
A: Yes. It could mean both "resolute, firm in purpose", or it could mean "stubborn, unyielding".
It depends on the context, to determine what it really means.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pertinacity
| {
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{"url":"https:\/\/www.ncatlab.org\/nlab\/show\/FinSet","text":"Contents\n\ncategory theory\n\n# Contents\n\n## Definition\n\n$\\Fin\\Set$ is the category of finite sets and all functions between them: the full subcategory of Set on finite sets.\n\n(For constructive purposes, take the strictest sense of \u2018finite\u2019.)\n\nIt is easy (and thus common) to make $\\Fin\\Set$ skeletal; there is one object for each natural number $n$ (including $n = 0$), and a morphism from $m$ to $n$ is an $m$-tuple $(f_0, \\ldots, f_{m-1})$ of numbers satisfying $0 \\leq f_i \\lt n$. This amounts to identifying $n$ with the set $\\{0, \\ldots, n - 1\\}$. (Sometimes $\\{1, \\ldots, n\\}$ is used instead.)\n\n## Properties\n\n### Opposite category\n\n###### Proposition\n\nThe opposite category of $FinSet$ is equivalent to that of finite Boolean algebras\n\n$FinSet^{op} \\simeq FinBool \\,.$\n\nThis equivalence is induced by the power set-functor\n\n$\\mathcal{P} \\;\\colon\\; FinSet^{op} \\stackrel{\\simeq}{\\to} FinBool \\,.$\n\nThis is discussed for instance as (Awodey, prop. 7.31). For the generalization to all sets see at Set \u2013 Properties \u2013 Opposite category and Boolean algebras. See at Stone duality for more on this.\n\n###### Remark\n\nIn constructive mathematics, for any flavor of finite, $\\mathcal{P}$ defines an equivalence of $FinSet$ with the opposite category of that of those complete atomic Heyting algebras whose set of atomic elements is finite (in the same sense as in the definition of $FinSet$).\n\n### Universal properties\n\n$FinSet$ is the free category with finite coproducts on one object: that is, for any category $C$ with finite coproducts and any object $c \\in C$ there is a functor $F : FinSet \\to C$ preserving finite coproducts with $F(1) = c$, and $F$ is unique up to natural isomorphism.\n\nThe first fact is closely connected to the fact that $FinSet$ is the vertical categorification of the set of natural numbers $\\mathbb{N}$, and $\\mathbb{N}$ is the free monoid on one generator.\n\n$FinSet$ is also the free category with finite colimits on one object: that is, for any category $C$ with finite colimits and any object $c \\in C$ there is a functor $F : FinSet \\to C$ preserving finite colimits with $F(1) = c$, and $F$ is unique up to natural isomorphism.\n\n$FinSet$ is also the free symmetric monoidal category on a commutative monoid object: that is, for any symmetric monoidal category $(C, \\otimes)$ and any commutative monoid object $c \\in C$ there is a symmetric monoidal functor $F : (FinSet,+) \\to (C, \\otimes)$ with $F(1) = c$, and $F$ is unique up to monoidal natural isomorphism.\n\nThe last fact is closely connected to this: $FinSet$, made symmetric monoidal using $+$, is equivalent to the PROP for commutative monoids. A proof is given in Lafont\u2019s paper below. Moreover, the sub-prop generated by the unit of the monoid consists of the monics, while the free prop generated by the multiplication of the monoid are the epics.\n\nAll these universal properties have useful duals. $FinSet^{op}$ is the free category with finite products on one object and also the free category with finite limits on one object; the symmetric monoidal category $(FinSet, +)^{op}$ is equivalent to the PROP for cococommutative comonoids.\n\n### In Grpd\n\n$FinSet$ is a natural numbers object in the (2,1)-topos Grpd of groupoids and functors, as it is an initial algebra of the 2-endofunctor $F(X) \\cong 1 + X$. It is also a free monoid object on one generator in Grpd, an initial rig object? in Grpd, and a category. This all follows from the fact that the category $FinSet$ is a vertical categorification of the poset $\\mathbb{N}$ of natural numbers.\n\nAs a groupoid itself, the core of $Fin Set$ is (with the operation of disjoint union) the free symmetric monoidal category on one object. (There is no way to generate non-invertible morphisms from this data.)\n\n### In topos theory\n\nThe category $FinSet$ is an elementary topos and the inclusion $FinSet \\hookrightarrow Set$ is a logical morphism of toposes. (Elephant, example 2.1.2).\n\nMathematics done within or about $FinSet$ is finite mathematics.\n\nA presheaf of sets on $\\Fin\\Set$ is a symmetric set; one generally uses the skeletal version of $\\Fin\\Set$ for this.\n\nThe copresheaf category $[FinSet,Set]$ is the classifying topos for the theory of objects (the empty theory over the signature with one sort and no primitive symbols except equality). (Elephant, D3.2).\n\n### Subcategories of $FinSet$\n\nThe simplex category $\\Delta$ embeds into $\\Fin\\Set$ as a category with the same objects but fewer morphisms. The category of cyclic sets introduced by Connes lies in between. All the three are special cases of extensions of $\\Delta$ by a group in a particularly nice way. Full classification of allowed skew-simplicial sets has been given by Krasauskas and independently by Loday and Fiedorowicz.\n\n### As a Lawvere theory\n\nThe cartesian monoidal category $FinSet_+$ of nonempty finite sets is the multi-sorted Lawvere theory of unbiased boolean algebras. As a Lawvere theory, $FinSet$ has one more sort, corresponding to $\\emptyset$, and one more model, in which every sort has exactly one element (in all the other models, the sort corresponding to $\\emptyset$ is empty).\n\n## References\n\n\u2022 Yves Lafont, Towards an algebraic theory of Boolean circuits, February 12, 2013. (pdf)\ncategory: category\n\nLast revised on July 26, 2021 at 08:51:22. 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Q: Error detection and reporting using Maybe I am writing a propositional logic parser in Haskell. I am doing the parsing by hand for now as a learning exercise. Eventually I will tackle Parsec. In the mean time, I am trying to wrap my head around Monads. In particular, I am using Maybe to report errors from my parse function. My current trouble is with part of a helper function:
parse' :: String -> (Maybe Wff, String)
parse' ('[':rest) = (x, if null rest''
then ""
else tail rest'')
where (a, rest') = parse' rest
(b, rest'') = parse' (if null rest'
then ""
else tail rest')
x = if null rest'
|| null rest''
|| head rest' /= '|'
|| head rest'' /= ']'
then Nothing
else Or <$> a <*> b
(For reference, the full parse function can be found here.)
This code parses a proposition of the form [ A | B ] where A and B are any arbitrary propositions. As you can see, I am using applicative style on the last line to propagate the Nothing result if a previous recursive call results in a Nothing. This allowed me to take out a == Nothing and b == Nothing from the if condition. How can I use the Applicative or Monad instance of Maybe to colapse the rest of this if?
A: I will actually do the problem backwards: I will begin from the monadic solution and work backwards from it to the hand-rolled solution. This will produce the same code that you would get if you arrived at the correct solution by hand.
The typical type signature of a monadic parser is of the form:
type Parser a = String -> Maybe (a, String)
Notice the slight difference with your form, where you have the final String on the outside of the Maybe. Both are valid, but I prefer this form more because I consider the leftovers String invalid if the parse failed.
This type is actually a special case of StateT, which is defined as:
newtype StateT s m a = StateT { runStateT :: s -> m (a, s) }
Notice that if we choose:
s = String
m = Maybe
... we get back the Parser type:
type Parser a = StateT String Maybe a
-- or: type Parser = StateT String Maybe
What's cool about this is that we only need to define one parser by hand, which is the parser that retrieves a single character:
anyChar :: Parser Char
anyChar = StateT $ \str -> case str of
[] -> Nothing
c:cs -> Just (c, cs)
Notice that if we removed the StateT wrapper, the type of anyChar would be:
anyChar :: String -> Maybe (Char, String)
When we wrap it in StateT it becomes:
anyChar :: StateT String Maybe Char
... which is just Parser Char.
Once we have that primitive parser, we can define all the other parsers using StateT's Monad interface. For example, let's define a parser that matches a single character:
import Control.Monad
char :: Char -> Parser ()
char c' = do
c <- anyChar
guard (c == c')
That was easy! guard requires a MonadPlus instance for our monad, but we already have one. The reason why is thanks to the following two MonadPlus instances:
instance (MonadPlus m) => MonadPlus (StateT s m) where ...
instance MonadPlus Maybe where ...
The combination of these two instances means that StateT s Maybe automatically implements MonadPlus, so we can use guard and it will just magically do "the right thing".
With those two parser in hand, your final parser becomes very easy to write:
data Wff = Or Char Char deriving (Show)
parseWff :: Parser Wff
parseWff = do
char '['
a <- anyChar
char '|'
b <- anyChar
char ']'
return (Or a b)
That's much clearer and easier to understand what is going on. It also works:
>>> runStateT parseWff "[A|B]"
Just (Or 'A' 'B',"")
Working Backwards
This brings us to your original question: How do you hand-write the same behavior? We will work backwards from the Monad and MonadPlus instances to deduce what they are doing under the hood for us.
To do this, we must deduce what the Monad and MonadPlus instances for StateT reduce to when its base monad is Maybe. Let's begin from the Monad instance for StateT:
instance (Monad m) => Monad (StateT s m) where
return r = StateT (\s -> return (r, s))
m >>= f = StateT $ \s0 -> do
(a, s1) <- runStateT m s0
runStateT (f a) s1
Notice that it is defined in generically terms of the base monad. This means we also need the Monad instance for Maybe to derive what the above code does:
instance Monad Maybe where
return = Just
m >>= f = case m of
Nothing -> Nothing
Just a -> f a
If we substitute the Maybe monad instance into the StateT monad instance we get:
instance Monad (StateT s Maybe) where
return r = StateT (\s -> Just (r, s))
m >>= f = StateT $ \s0 -> case runStateT m s0 of
Nothing -> Nothing
Just (a, s1) -> runStateT (f a) s1
We can do the same thing to derive the Monad instance for StateT s Maybe. We just have to take the MonadPlus instances for StateT and `Maybe:
instance (MonadPlus m) => MonadPlus (StateT s m) where
mzero = StateT (\_ -> mzero)
mplus (StateT f) (StateT g) = StateT (\s -> mplus (f s) (g s))
instance MonadPlus Maybe where
mzero = Nothing
mplus m1 m2 = case m1 of
Just a -> Just a
Nothing -> case m2 of
Just b -> Just b
Nothing -> Nothing
... and combine them into one:
instance MonadPlus (StateT s Maybe) where
mzero = StateT (\_ -> Nothing)
mplus (StateT f) (StateT g) = StateT $ \s -> case f s of
Just a -> Just a
Nothing -> case g s of
Just b -> Just b
Nothing -> Nothing
Now we can derive what our parsers are doing under the hood. Let's begin with the char parser:
char c' = do
c <- anyChar
guard (c == c')
This desugars to:
char c' = anyChar >>= \c -> guard (c == c')
We just derived what (>>=) does for StateT s Maybe, so lets substitute that in:
char c' = StateT $ \str0 -> case runStateT anyChar str0 of
Nothing -> Nothing
Just (a, str1) -> runStateT ((\c -> guard (c == c')) a) str1
We already know the definition of anyChar, so let's substitute that in:
char c' = StateT $ \str0 -> case runStateT (StateT $ \str -> case str of
[] -> Nothing
c:cs -> Just (c, cs) ) str0 of
Nothing -> Nothing
Just (a, str1) -> runStateT ((\c -> guard (c == c')) a) str1
We also know that runStateT is the inverse of StateT, so:
char c' = StateT $ \str0 -> case (\str -> case str of
[] -> Nothing
c:cs -> Just (c, cs) ) str0 of
Nothing -> Nothing
Just (a, str1) -> runStateT ((\c -> guard (c == c')) a) str1
We can then apply the lambda to str0:
char c' = StateT $ \str0 -> case (case str0 of
[] -> Nothing
c:cs -> Just (c, cs) ) of
Nothing -> Nothing
Just (a, str1) -> runStateT ((\c -> guard (c == c')) a) str1
Now we distribute the outer case statement over the inner case statement:
char c' = StateT $ \str0 -> case str0 of
[] -> case Nothing of
Nothing -> Nothing
Just (a, str1) -> runStateT ((\c -> guard (c == c')) a) str1
c:cs -> case Just (c, cs) of
Nothing -> Nothing
Just (a, str1) -> runStateT ((\c -> guard (c == c')) a) str1
... and evaluate the case statements:
char c' = StateT $ \str0 -> case str0 of
[] -> Nothing
c:cs -> runStateT ((\c -> guard (c == c')) c) cs
Then we can apply the lambda to c:
char c' = StateT $ \str0 -> case str0 of
[] -> Nothing
c:cs -> runStateT (guard (c == c')) cs
To simplify that further, we need to know what guard does. Here is the source code for it:
guard pred = if pred then return () else mzero
We already know what return and mzero for StateT s Maybe are, so let's substitute them in:
guard pred = if pred then StateT (\s -> Just ((), s)) else StateT (\_ -> Nothing)
Now we can inline that into our function:
char c' = StateT $ \str0 -> case str0 of
[] -> Nothing
c:cs -> runStateT (if (c == c')
then StateT (\s -> Just ((), s))
else StateT (\_ -> Nothing) ) cs
If we distribute runStateT over that we get:
char c' = StateT $ \str0 -> case str0 of
[] -> Nothing
c:cs -> (if (c == c')
then (\s -> Just ((), s))
else (\_ -> Nothing) ) cs
Similarly, we can apply both branches to cs:
char c' = StateT $ \str0 -> case str0 of
[] -> Nothing
c:cs -> if (c == c') then Just ((), cs) else Nothing
That's the equivalent code we would have written by hand had we not used the Monad or MonadPlus instances at all.
The Final Parser
I will now repeat this process for the last function, but leave the derivation as an exercise for you:
parseWff = do
char '['
a <- anyChar
char '|'
b <- anyChar
char ']'
return (Or a b)
parseWff = StateT $ \str0 -> case str0 of
[] -> Nothing
c1:str1 -> if (c1 == '[')
then case str1 of
[] -> Nothing
c2:str2 -> case str2 of
[] -> Nothing
c3:str3 -> if (c3 == '|')
then case str3 of
[] -> Nothing
c4:str4 -> case str4 of
[] -> Nothing
c5:str5 -> if (c5 == ']')
then Just (Or c2 c4, str5)
else Nothing
else Nothing
else Nothing
... but we can further simplify that to:
parseWff = StateT $ \str0 -> case str0 of
'[':c2:'|':c4:']':str5 -> Just (Or c2 c4, str5)
_ -> Nothing
Notice that, unlike the function you wrote, this doesn't use any partial functions like tail or incomplete pattern matches. Also, the code you wrote doesn't compile, but even if it did, it would still give the wrong behavior.
A: You can use a function from Control.Monad called guard. This has a slightly odd type:
guard :: MonadPlus m => Bool -> m ()
MonadPlus covers all monads that have some "empty" case. For lists, this is []; for Maybe it is Nothing. guard takes a boolean; if it is False, it evaluates to this empty value; otherwise it evaluates to return (). This behavior is mostly useful in do notation:
x = do guard (not $ null rest' || null rest'' || head rest' /= '|' || head rest'' /= ']')
Or <$> a <*> b
What happens here is simple. If the condition evaluates to True, guard returns Just (), which is then ignored in favor of Or <$> a <*> b (since that's how do notation works). However, if the condition is False, guard returns Nothing, which propagates through the rest of the do notation to give you an end result of Nothing: exactly what you wanted.
To make the code more readable, I would also pull the condition out into its own variable in a where block.
A: Based on the answer by @TikhonJelvis, I revamped my whole parse function. (The parse' function from the OP is in the where clause of parse.) The first revision uses do notation and `guard
parse :: String -> Maybe Wff
parse s = do
(x, rest) <- parse' s
guard $ null rest
Just x
where parse' ('~':rest) = do
guard . not $ null rest
(a, rest') <- parse' rest
Just (Not a, rest')
parse' ('[':rest) = do
guard . not $ null rest
(a, rest') <- parse' rest
guard . not $ null rest'
guard $ head rest' == '|'
(b, rest'') <- parse' $ tail rest'
guard . not $ null rest''
guard $ head rest'' == ']'
Just (a `Or` b, tail rest'')
parse' (c:rest) = do
guard $ isLower c
Just (Var c, rest)
parse' [] = Nothing
Some further experimentation helped me figure out that I can replace all but one of the uses of guard with direct pattern matching:
parse :: String -> Maybe Wff
parse s = do
(x, "") <- parse' s
Just x
where parse' ('~':rest) = do
(a, rest') <- parse' rest
Just (Not a, rest')
parse' ('[':rest) = do
(a, ('|':rest')) <- parse' rest
(b, (']':rest'')) <- parse' rest'
Just (a `Or` b, rest'')
parse' (c:rest) = do
guard $ isLower c
Just (Var c, rest)
parse' [] = Nothing
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Russian Alexander Ivanko appointed as a Special Representative for Sahara and MINURSO
Ivanko will succeed Colin Stewart of Canada, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his dedicated service and effective leadership of MINURSO.
By MT Last updated Aug 28, 2021
Alexander Ivanko new Special Representative for Sahara and Head of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Sahara (MINURSO).
UN Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Russian Federation's Alexander Ivanko as his new Special Representative for Sahara and Head of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Sahara (MINURSO).
Un Secretary-General Spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, stated in a press communiqué that Russian Alexander Ivanko will succeed Colin Stewart of Canada, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his dedicated service and effective leadership of MINURSO.
Dujarric added that "as a Head of MINURSO Staff since 2009, Mr. Ivanko will bring to the position more than 30 years of experience in international affairs, peacekeeping and journalism".
Thus, Mr. Ivanko started his career as a journalist, whereas he worked as a reporter for on of the Russian newspaper in Afghanistan and United States.
He also occupied as a senior advisor to the Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organization for Security and Co‑operation in Europe (1998-2005).
Mr. Ivanko has a master's degree, with honors, in journalism from the Moscow State University, and speaks English and Russian language fluently.
Alexander IvankoAntonio Guterres
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\section{Introduction}
Shell model \cite{1} has been one of the most successful models to have explained evidence for magic numbers, that has emerged from binding energy data. While harmonic oscillator potential along with inclusion of spin-orbit term has been very effective in obtaining shell closures at magic numbers, actual energy level sequencing as seen from experimental data is better deduced by utilizing a rounded square well potential as demonstrated by WS potential \cite{2}. Even though square well and harmonic oscillator potentials are included in both under-graduate(UG) and post-graduate(PG) nuclear physics courses \cite{3}, they are not dealt beyond establishing the fact that magic numbers result due to $\bar{L}.\bar{S}$ splitting that gives rise to levels with higher j-values corresponding to a particular N-oscillator getting clubbed with those of a lower (N-1) oscillator. There is no way to judge the magnitude of splitting due to this spin-orbit coupling and hence different textbooks \cite{4,5,6} present varying energy level sequences which could lead to difficulties while assigning the ground state total angular momentum $J$ and spin-parities $(-1)^\ell$ for different nuclei. Another important lacuna in the pedagogy of topics in this subject is the lack of lab activities that enhance interaction with the content. Our physics education research (PER) group has been focussing on this much needed aspect and have developed various experimental \cite{7,8,9} and simulation \cite{10,11,12,13} activities to supplement the classroom lectures. With regard to single particle energy level structure, we have solved the TISE for WS potential along with spin-orbit term, utilizing matrix methods technique employing sine wave basis in Scilab \cite{10}. In spite of the simplicity of sine basis, the technique still requires determining integrals that appear in the matrix elements numerically. This makes it invariable to use a programming environment such as Scilab. So as to overcome this limitation and keep ease of simulating the problem using simple worksheet environment, matrix methods numerical technique has been replaced with Numerov method rephrased in matrix form \cite{14}.\\
In this paper, we utilise model parameters obtained through optimization, while solving TISE using matrix methods \cite{10}, with respect to available experimental single particle energies \cite{15}. The nuclear shell model with interaction potentials based on these model parameters, which are rephrased in appropriate choice of units, is described in Section II. A brief discussion on numerical Numerov method and its algorithm are given in Section III. The implementation details, for a typical example of $^{40}_{20}Ca$ using Gnumeric worksheet environment have been presented in a step by step approach in Appendix. The algorithm parameters are optimized to obtain convergence of single particle energies with those obtained using matrix methods \cite{10} and final results are discussed in Section IV along with our initial attempts at implementation of a pilot study, by incorporating this tool into guided enquiry strategy (GIS) framework. Finally, we draw our conclusions in Section V.
\section{Nuclear Shell Model using Woods-Saxon potential:}
The modeling methodology \cite{16} has been described in great detail in our previous paper on Shell model simulation \cite{10}. So, only a brief description of the potentials rephrased in MeV and fm units are given here. In shell model, a nucleus of mass number A, consisting of N neutrons and Z protons has been modeled by the assumption that each nucleon experiences a mean field of central potential type due to rest of the nucleons. Woods-Saxon (WS) potential, which has typically a rounded square well shape, is one of the successful mathematical formulations given by
\begin{equation}
V_{WS}(r)= \frac{V_0}{1 + \exp{\big(\frac{r - R}{a}\big)}}
\label{eqn:1}
\end{equation}
where $V_0$ is the depth of the well, given by \cite{18}
\begin{align}
V_{0}=\begin{cases}
-51+33((N-Z)/A) \quad MeV,
\quad \quad \quad \quad \quad \textrm{for neutrons}\\
-51-33((N-Z)/A) \quad MeV ,
\quad \quad \quad \quad \quad \textrm{for protons}
\end{cases}
\label{eqn:2}
\end{align}
Here, R is the radius of the nucleus, empirically obtained as $R_0 A^{1/3}$, with value of $R_0$ being 1.28. \textit{a} is surface diffuseness parameter and is found to be 0.66 \cite{10}. \\
Next, interaction of spin of nucleon with orbital angular momentum of nucleon, as confirmed in experiments \cite{17}, has been modeled by spin-orbit potential, as
\begin{equation}
V_{ls}(r) = V_1 \Big(\frac{r_0}{\hbar}\Big)^2 \frac{1}{r} \frac{d}{dr} \Bigg[\frac{1}{1+\exp{\big(\frac{r-R}{a}\big)}}\Bigg] \textbf{(L.S)}
\label{eqn:3}
\end{equation}
Here, $\textbf{L.S} = [j(j+1) - \ell(\ell+1) - 3/4]\hbar^2$, where $\ell$ is orbital angular momentum quantum number, $j = \ell + s$ is total angular momentum quantum number and $s$ is spin angular momentum quantum number given by $1/2$ for nucleons. The model parameters are $V_1 = -0.44V_0$ \cite{18} and $r_0= 0.90$, a proportionality constant optimised \cite{10} to obtain the right energy level sequence.\\
In case of protons, Coulomb potential also needs to be considered and is given by
\begin{equation}
V_c(r)=
\begin{cases}
\frac{(Z-1)e^2}{4 \pi \epsilon_0 r},\quad \quad
\quad \quad \quad \quad\hspace{0.9cm} \textrm{for}\hspace{0.2cm} {r \ge R_c} \\
\frac{(Z-1)e^2}{4 \pi \epsilon_0 R_c}\Big[\frac{3}{2}-\frac{r^2}{2R_c^2}\Big],
\quad \quad \quad \quad \textrm{for}\hspace{0.2cm} {r \le R_c}
\end{cases}
\label{eqn:4}
\end{equation}
This potential is to be rephrased in MeV units. SO, it is multiplied and divided by electron rest mass energy, \cite{19} $m_{e}c^{2} = 0.511$ MeV
to obtain
\begin{equation}
V_{c}(r)=\begin{cases}
\frac{(Z-1)\ast 2.839\ast 0.511}{r}, \quad \hspace{1.8cm}\textrm{for}\ r \geq R_{c}\\
\frac{(Z-1)\ast 2.839\ast 0.511}{R_{c}}\bigg[ \frac{3}{2}-\frac{r^{2}}{2R_{c}^{2}}\bigg], \quad \textrm{for}\ r \leq R_{c}
\end{cases}
\label{eqn:5}
\end{equation}
The radial TISE for central potentials is given by
\begin{equation}
\frac{d^{2}u(r)}{dr^{2}} + \frac{2\mu}{\hbar^{2}}\left(V(r) + \frac{\ell(\ell+1)\hbar^{2}}{2\mu r^{2}}\right)u(r) = E u(r)
\label{eqn:6}
\end{equation}
where V(r) is net interaction potential experienced by a neutron or a proton and second term inside bracket, resulting from solution of $\theta$-equation, is called as centrifugal potential, $V_{cf}(r)$. This is rephrased in MeV units, by multiplying and dividing it by $c^2$, so that
\begin{equation}
V_{cf}(r) = \frac{\ell(\ell+1)\hbar^2c^2}{2\mu c^2 r^{2}}
\label{eqn:7}
\end{equation}
The value of $\hbar c = 197.329$ MeV-fm and the reduced mass $\mu$ is given by:
\begin{align}
\mu = \begin{cases}
\frac{m_n*(Z*m_p+(N-1)*m_n)}{(Z*m_p+N*m_n)},\quad \textrm{for neutron}\\
\frac{m_p*((Z-1)*m_p+N*m_n)}{(Z*m_p+N*m_n)},
\quad \textrm{for proton}
\end{cases}
\label{eqn:8}
\end{align}
Here, $m_{p}=938.272$ and $m_{n}=939.565$ are masses of proton and neutron respectively, in units of MeV/c$^2$.
\section{Numerical Solution}
\subsection{Numerov technique in matrix form:}
Consider TISE for a general potential V(r), given by
\begin{equation}
\frac{d^{2}u(r)}{dr^{2}}+k^{2}(r)u(r)=0
\label{eqn:9}
\end{equation}
where
\begin{equation}
k^{2}(r)=\frac{2\mu}{\hbar^{2}}[E-V(r)-V_{cf}(r)]
\label{eqn:10}
\end{equation}
The advantage of this Eq. (\ref{eqn:9}) is that it is linear in 'u' having no first order derivative involved and is hence ideally suited for solving using Numerov method. The wave-function u(r) is expanded in Taylor series by explicitly retaining terms up-to $O(h^4)$ and is obtained to an accuracy of $O(h^6)$, \citep{14}
\begin{equation}
u(r+h) = \frac{2(1-\frac{5}{12}h^{2}[k(r)]^2)u(r)-(1 + \frac{1}{12}h^{2}[k(r-h)]^2)u(r-h)}{1 + \frac{1}{12}h^{2}[k(r+h)]^2} + O(h^{6})
\label{eq:19}
\end{equation}
Discretizing x in steps of h as:\\ ${r_1, r_2, \ldots, r_{n-1}, r_n, r_{n+1}, \ldots, r_N}$.\\
Here, $r_{n} = r_{1} + n*h$ \\
Now expressing $u(r_n + h)$ as $u_{n+1}$, so on and similarly, $k(r_{n})$ as $k_{n}$, Eq. (\ref{eq:19}) can be written as
\begin{equation}
u_{n+1} = \frac{2(1-\frac{5}{12}h^{2}k_{n}^{2})u_{n} - (1 + \frac{1}{12}h^{2}k_{n-1}^{2})u_{n-1}}{1 + \frac{1}{12}h^{2}k_{n+1}^{2}} + O(h^{6})
\label{eq:20}
\end{equation}
Substituting from Eq. (\ref{eqn:10}), $k_n^2 = \frac{2\mu}{\hbar^2}(E - V_n)$ into the above, clubbing the terms containing $V_n$ and $E$, it can be recast into the following form:
\begin{equation}\nonumber
-\frac{\hbar^{2}}{2\mu}\frac{(u_{n-1}-2u_{n} + u_{n+1})}{h^{2}} + \frac{(V_{n-1}u_{n-1}+10V_{n}u_{n} + V_{n+1}u_{n+1})}{12} = E\frac{(u_{n-1}+10u_{n}+u_{n+1})}{12}
\label{eq:21}
\end{equation}
One has to keep in mind that whatever may be the potential, if wave-function were to be normalised, it should tend to 0 as x tends to $\pm\infty$. This implies, one has to choose the region of interest (RoI) large enough to ensure that the wave-function dies down to zero in either direction. That is, x values are limited to an interval such as $[L_1,L_2]$, such that $u$ goes to 0 at both ends of the interval. More specifically,
\begin{equation}
u_1 = u(r_1 = L_1) = 0
\label{eq:22}
\end{equation}
and
\begin{equation}
u(r_N = L_2) = 0
\label{eq:23}
\end{equation}
Expanding the above equation for all intermediate points ($j = 2,3,\ldots,N-1$), as in case of CDD formulation of TISE, one will get a matrix equation as
\begin{equation}
\left(\frac{-\hbar^{2}}{2\mu} A + BV \right)u = E Bu
\label{eq:24}
\end{equation}
where in, $u$ is a column vector
$(u_2, \ldots, u_{n-1}, u_{n}, u_{n+1},\ldots, u_{N-1})$,\\ Similarly, V is a column vector
$(V_2, \ldots, V_{n-1}, V_{n}, V_{n+1},\ldots, V_{N-1})$, but is converted into a diagonal matrix with these values along its central diagonal. Matrices A and B are given by
\begin{equation}
A = \frac{I_{-1} - 2I_{0} + I_{1}}{h^{2}}
\label{eq:25}
\end{equation}
and
\begin{equation}
B=\frac{I_{-1} + 10 I_{0} + I_{1}}{12}
\label{eq:26}
\end{equation}
where $I_{p}$ is the matrix of $1$'s along $pth$ diagonal and zeros elsewhere. Both A and B are tridiagonal matrices.
Multiplying Eq. (\ref{eq:24}) by B$^{-1}$ on both sides, gives TISE as a matrix equation, utilising Numerov method,
\begin{equation}
\boxed{\left(\frac{-\hbar^{2}c^2}{2\mu c^2}B^{-1}A + V\right)u = Eu}
\label{eq:27}
\end{equation}
with an error of $O(h^{6})$.\\
Notice that a factor of $c^2$ is introduced in both numerator and denominator to ensure the units are in MeV and fm as required in nuclear physics.\\
This is the final equation that needs to be solved numerically to get energy eigen-values and eigen-functions of a particle interacting with a given potential V(r). The imposition of boundary conditions as $u_{1} = u_{N} = 0$ is equivalent to embedding the potential of interest, inside an infinite square well potential. Finally, $ (N-2) \times (N-2) $ sub-matrices of A and B are utilised to solve for the energy eigen-values and their corresponding eigen-vectors.
\subsection{Algorithm for implementation in Gnumeric:}
A step by step approach to determining the single particle energies for protons of $^{40}_{20}Ca$ is presented.
\begin{enumerate}
\item \textbf{Initialisation of parameters:}
There are two sets of parameters:\\
(i) \textit{Physical system parameters}:\\ Object and interaction variables constituting as inputs and state variables which need to be determined, are outputs.\\
Figure (\ref{Figure 1}) shows object variables, interaction variables, algorithm variables, input variables and other variables required for the calculations.\\
\begin{figure*}[h!]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=16 cm, height=5.2 cm]{initialization.png}
\caption{Initializing the parameters for the system}
\label{Figure 1}
\end{figure*}
(ii) \textit{Algorithm parameters} that arise from discretization of continuous variables and limiting the infinitely large quantities to finite values such as region of interest. The step size is chosen as $h = 0.1$.
\item \textbf{Potential Definition:}\\
First values of 'r' are generated from $0.1$ to ($3R$) with step-size $h=0.1$ and total interaction potential $V(r)=V_{cf}(r)+V_{WS}(r)+V_{ls}(r)+V_c(r)$ for proton is obtained in Gnumeric worksheet. Figure \ref{Figure2} shows the plot of Woods-Saxon potential of $1s_{1/2}$, $1p_{1/2}$ and $1p_{3/2}$ states for proton, showing that inclusion of angular momentum on L.S coupling affects the Woods-Saxon potential. While centrifugal term pushes $\ell = 1$ levels above those of $\ell =0$, of $1s_{1/2}$ term, as it reduces the depth of potential, the spin-orbit term tends to act on width of potential. One can observe in Figure \ref{Figure2} that it decreases width of potential corresponding to $1p_{1/2}$ and increases it for $1p_{3/2}$. This would lead to raising the energy level corresponding to former to move upward while the later goes downward thus resulting in spin-orbit energy splitting.
\begin{figure*}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[height=6cm, width=8cm]
{Border1.png}
\caption{Plots of $1s_{1/2}$, $1p_{1/2}$ and $1p_{3/2}$ states for proton, showing the effect of Spin-orbit interaction in Woods-Saxon potential.}
\label{Figure2}
\end{figure*}
\item \textbf{Determination of single particle energies:}\\
This step consists of generating the following matrices in successive sheets in Gnumeric. The size of the matrix will depend on :\\
(\textit{a}) B-matrix is generated in Sheet 1 with values 10/12 along its main diagonal and 1/12 along the first off diagonals on either side using an if statement. This is constant for all problems\\
(\textit{b}) The inverse of B, is obtained using minverse() command in sheet 2\\
(\textit{c}) A-matrix is generated similar to B-matrix
in sheet 3, by using if statement with appropriate formulae for factors f an g along the main and off diagonals respectively.
(\textit{d}) $B^{-1}*A$ is generated in sheet 4 \\
(\textit{e}) V-matrix is generated in sheet 5, such that only diagonal elements get populated with those of net potential values \\
(\textit{f}) Generating Eigen values and eigen vectors:\\ The main feature of Gnumeric which makes it different from other worksheet environments such as MS-Excel or open Office Calc. is that, it has an eigen-value solver. Now, the eigen-values and corresponding eigen-vectors are obtained using eigen() command in sheet 6.
\item \textbf{Generating the energies for different $\ell$ and $j$ values:} Now, the bound state energies, those for which eigen values are negative, are tabulated for different values of $\ell$ and $j$.
The simulation is run for $\ell = 0$, s-states, in which case $j = 0.5$ alone exists. Then for $\ell = 1$, p-states, there are two values of j: 0.5 and 1.5. Similarly for $\ell = 2$, d-states, $j$ takes values $1.5$ and $2.5$ and so on. This is continued till no bound states are obtained for particular $\ell$ and $j$ values.
\end{enumerate}
\section{Results and Discussions:}
In this section, we will first validate our approach to obtain energy eigen-values and eigen-functions using Woods-Saxon potential with $\bar{L}.\bar{S}$ coupling for both neutron and proton for doubly magic nucleus $^{40}_{20}Ca$. This is done by comparing our results with available experimental results and those obtained numerically by using matrix method with Fourier basis \cite{10} for different angular momentum values $\ell$ and j. The results are tabulated in Table \ref{Table 1}.
\begin{table}[H]
\begin{ruledtabular}
\caption{Single particle shell model energy values for \textbf{Neutron states} and \textbf{Proton states} of doubly magic nucleus $^{40}_{20}Ca$ obtained by current work (\textit{using Matrix Numerov method} \cite{14}) with available experimental values \cite{15} and numerical values previously obtained by our group \cite{10}, (\textit{using Matrix method with Fourier basis}) for the highest occupied levels.}
\label{Table 1}
\begin{tabular}{llllllll}
{States} &\multicolumn{3}{c}{Proton states (MeV)}& {States} &\multicolumn{3}{c}{Neutron states (MeV)}\\
&{Exp.}&\multicolumn{2}{c}{Numerical values}&&{Exp.}&\multicolumn{2}{c}{Numerical values}\\
&{Ref\cite{15}}&{Ref\cite{10}}&{Current}&&{Ref\cite{15}}&{Ref\cite{10}}&{Current}\\
\hline
$1s1/2$&$\ldots$&$-30.49$&$-30.49$&$1s1/2$&$\ldots$&$-38.90$&$-38.90$\\
$1p3/2$&$\ldots$&$-21.68$&$-21.68$&$1p3/2$&$\ldots$&$-29.55$&$-29.55$\\
$1p1/2$&$\ldots$&$-19.04$&$-19.04$&$1p1/2$&$\ldots$&$-26.99$&$-26.99$\\
$1d5/2$&$-15.07$&$-12.19$&$-12.19$&$1d5/2$&$-22.39$&$-19.54$&$-19.54$\\
$2s1/2$&$-10.92$&$-8.14$&$-8.14$&$2s1/2$&$-18.19$&$-15.54$&$-15.54$\\
$1d3/2$&$-8.33$&$-6.85$&$-6.85$&$1d3/2$&$-15.64$&$-14.28$&$-14.28$\\
$1f7/2$&$-1.09$&$-2.33$&$-2.33$&$1f7/2$&$-8.36$&$-9.15$&$-9.15$\\
$2p3/2$&$0.69$&$1.00$&$1.00$&$2p3/2$&$-5.84$&$-5.42$&$-5.42$\\
$2p1/2$&$2.38$&$2.94$&$2.94$&$2p1/2$&$-4.20$&$-3.10$&$-3.10$\\
$1f5/2$&$4.96$&$5.37$&$5.37$&$1f5/2$&$-1.56$&$-1.19$&$-1.20$\\
\end{tabular}
\end{ruledtabular}
\end{table}
It is observed that the obtained energy eigen values are in good agreement with experimental energy values of different neutron and proton single particle states for step size of h=0.1 thus validating our approach.
The distance parameter 'r' is discretized as per step size 'h' and its values are varied from $r = 0.1$ to $r = 3R$, where $R = R_{0}A^{(1/3)}$. Therefore, it is necessary to vary the size of matrix `N' for different A values for a chosen step size `h'.
This simulation activity can be utilised as a tool to apply GIS\cite{20} of constructivist approach to learning and has been done as follows:
\subsection{GIS Implementation:}
The students have been taken through following six step process of GIS. All steps were implemented on online Moodle platform \cite{21} due to COVID-19 lockdown of university.
\begin{itemize}
\item \textbf{Initiation:} The matrix Numerov technique was already introduced before, for solving the harmonic oscillator potential. Next, it has been applied to solve for single particle energies of both neutrons and protons, as dealt with in this paper, for Woods-Saxon potential with spin-orbit potential. This has been explained and also demonstrated in two successive lab sessions.
\item \textbf{Selection:} The students were made to explore the binding energy and separation energies curves that they have plotted in previous sessions, to identify various double magic nuclei suitable for study. The doubly magic nuclei $^{16}_{8}O$, $^{48}_{20}Ca$, $^{56}_{28}Ni$, $^{100}_{50}Sn$, $^{132}_{50}Sn$ and $^{208}_{82}Pb$ were selected. The determination of single particle proton and neutron energy level sequences for each of these six double magic nuclei, are assigned to students by dividing them into $12$ groups. Each group is expected to obtain the energy level sequence of either neutrons or protons for the assigned nuclei by carefully following the simulation procedure.
\item \textbf{Presentation:} The students in each group could be asked to present their findings to the rest of the class so that everyone gets to know each other's experience.
Even though all the groups could get to expected level sequence by following the steps correctly, some of the students have not ensured reduction of step-size systematically. Hence, they have come up with lower accuracy for energies even though they obtained correct level sequence. They have been guided accordingly.
\item \textbf{Exploration:} The collective findings were shared with entire class and they were asked to explore nuclei adjacent to the magic numbers with one neutron or proton more and find out ground state $J^\pi$ configuration for each of them.
\item \textbf{Formulation:} They were expected to formulate their findings based on right choice of level sequence and also figure out what they would get if they followed the level sequence given in their prescribed textbook \cite{4}.
\item \textbf{Collection:} To understand variation of energy level structure with mass number, students were asked to plot the compiled energy data for protons and neutrons as a function of mass number A. They were able to obtain plots similar to what have been presented in \cite{10}.
\item \textbf{Assessment:} They have assessed their formulated ground state angular momentum and spin configurations based on the experimental findings and thus validated their outcomes. They could be further asked to obtain the ground state configurations of nuclei slightly away from magic nuclei till the results obtained are in variance with those from experiments as an excercise.
\end{itemize}
\subsection{Outcomes from GIS:}
The results matching with experimentally available values \cite{15} were obtained for step-size '$h = 0.1$' for doubly magic nuclei $^{16}_{8}O$, $^{40}_{20}Ca$, $^{48}_{20}Ca$, $^{56}_{28}Ni$, $^{100}_{50}Sn$, $^{132}_{50}Sn$ and $^{208}_{82}Pb$. The value of N (to solve N $\times$ N matrix) for each of these nuclei are obtained as $96, 131, 138$, $145$, $177$, $194$ and $229$ respectively.
The obtained energy level sequences for neutrons and protons of these nuclei are given separately in tabular form in Tables \ref{Table 2} and \ref{Table 3}. The first four levels, $1s_{1/2},1p_{3/2}, 1p_{1/2}$ ad $1d_{5/2}$ are not shown, as there are no discrepancies found in the ordering of these levels across the periodic table due to our simulation. The numerically obtained energy values are found to match to two decimal places with those obtained using the matrix method approach \cite{10}. The $\chi^2$-value defined as relative mean-squared error\\
\begin{equation}
\chi^2 = \frac{1}{N}\sum_{i=1}^N \frac{(E_i^{expt}-E_i^{sim})^2}{|E_i^{expt}|}
\end{equation}
These are determined w.r.t experimental \cite{15} and are shown in Tables. In Tables \ref{Table 2} and \ref{Table 3}, energy level sequence obtained for lighter nuclei $^{16}O$ to $^{56}Ni$ are shown in first column and that for $^{100}Sn$ to $^{208}_{82}Pb$ in last column. It can be observed that the energy level sequence for lighter nuclei is different than that for heavier ones. The observed discrepancies in energy sequence are highlighted in red colour. \\
The discrepancy in level sequence for lighter nuclei w.r.t heavy nuclei is highlighted in blue colour in both tables; i.e for neutron and proton states. Further, it is found that in most of the textbooks at UG and PG level \cite{4,5,6,18,22,23}, energy level sequence given is different. Also, there is only single energy level sequence given for both neutrons and protons, and that too common for all mass ranges. But according to our calculations as well as Bohr and Mottelson book, there should be different energy level sequences for nuclei across the periodic table. \\
\begin{table}[H]
\begin{ruledtabular}
\caption{ Single particle shell model energy states for \textbf{Neutron} of doubly magic nuclei $^{16}_{8}O$, $^{48}_{20}Ca$, $^{56}_{28}Ni$, $^{100}_{50}Sn$, $^{132}_{50}Sn$ and $^{208}_{82}Pb$ obtained by using Matrix Numerov method}
\label{Table 2}
\begin{tabular}{llllllll}
{States}&\multicolumn{6}{c}{Numerical energy values(MeV)}&{States}\\
&{$^{16}_{8}O$}&{$^{48}_{20}Ca$}&{$^{56}_{28}Ni$}&{$^{100}_{50}Sn$}&{$^{132}_{50}Sn$}&{$^{208}_{82}Pb$}&\\
\hline
$\textcolor{blue}{2s1/2}$&$-3.03$&${-14.19}$&${-20.51}$&$-29.27$&$-25.57$&$-30.90$&$\textcolor{blue}{1d3/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1d3/2}$&${2.11}$&$-13.58$&${-20.35}$&$-28.34$&$-24.46$&$-29.67$&$\textcolor{blue}{2s1/2}$\\
$1f7/2$&$\ldots$&$-8.33$&$-14.96$&$-24.04$&$-20.78$&$-26.74$&$1f7/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2p3/2}$&$\ldots$&$-4.90 $&$-10.56$&$-20.08$&$-18.07$&$-25.07$&$\textcolor{blue}{1f5/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1f5/2}$&$\ldots$&$\textcolor{red}{-1.87}$&$-8.41$&$-19.75$&$-17.15$&$-23.59$&$\textcolor{blue}{2p3/2}$\\
$2p1/2$&$\ldots$&$\textcolor{red}{-3.00} $&$-8.32$&$-18.19$&$-16.06$&$-22.87$&$2p1/2$\\
$1g9/2$&$\ldots$&$1.16 $&$-5.25$&$-16.07$&$-14.01$&$-21.20$&$1g9/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-1.70$&$\textcolor{red}{-10.01}$&$-9.79$&$-18.50$&$\textcolor{blue}{1g7/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{3s1/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-0.94$&$\textcolor{red}{-11.17}$&$-9.76$&$-17.20$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1g7/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$3.52$&$\textcolor{red}{-8.36}$&$-7.99$&$-15.76$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d3/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2d3/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\textcolor{red}{-9.05}$&$-7.74$&$-15.44$&$\textcolor{blue}{3s1/2}$\\
$1h11/2$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-7.69$&$-6.83$&$-15.24$&$1h11/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-2.95$&$\textcolor{red}{-0.94}$&$-11.28$&$\textcolor{blue}{1h9/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{3p3/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-1.53$&$\textcolor{red}{-2.61}$&$-10.64$&$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{3p1/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-0.53$&$\textcolor{red}{-0.57}$&$-8.90$&$\textcolor{blue}{1i13/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1h9/2}$&$\ldots $&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$0.59$&$\textcolor{red}{-1.34}$&$-8.45$&$\textcolor{blue}{3p3/2}$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$0.03$&$-8.36$&$2f5/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-7.55$&$3p1/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-4.04$&$2g9/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-3.49$&$1i11/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-2.24$&$1j15/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-2.07$&$3d5/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-1.41$&$4s1/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-1.01$&$2g7/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-0.82$&$3d3/2$\\
\hline
$\chi^2$&$0.24$&$1.18$&$0.09$&$0.06$&$0.03$&$0.06$&$\ldots$\\
\end{tabular}
\end{ruledtabular}
\end{table}
\begin{table}[H]
\begin{ruledtabular}
\caption{ Single particle shell model energy states for \textbf{Proton} of doubly magic nuclei $^{16}_{8}O$, $^{48}_{20}Ca$, $^{56}_{28}Ni$, $^{100}_{50}Sn$, $^{132}_{50}Sn$ and $^{208}_{82}Pb$ obtained by our calculations using Matrix Numerov method}
\label{Table 3}
\begin{tabular}{p{1.2cm}p{1.5cm}p{1.5cm}p{1.5cm}p{1.5cm}p{1.5cm}p{1.2cm}p{1.2cm}}
{States}&\multicolumn{6}{c}{Numerical energy values(MeV)}&{States}\\
&{$^{16}_{8}O$}&{$^{48}_{20}Ca$}&{$^{56}_{28}Ni$}&{$^{100}_{50}Sn$}&{$^{132}_{50}Sn$}&{$^{208}_{82}Pb$}&\\
\hline
$\textcolor{blue}{2s1/2}$&$-0.21$&$ -15.18 $&$-10.71$&$-14.25$&$-26.11$&$-24.16$&$\textcolor{blue}{1d3/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1d3/2}$&${4.82}$&$-14.55 $&$-10.60$&$-13.05$&$-24.61$&$-22.26$&$\textcolor{blue}{2s1/2}$\\
$1f7/2$&$\ldots$&$ -9.75 $&$-5.89$&$-9.83$&$-21.70$&$-20.56$&$1f7/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2p3/2}$&$\ldots$&$-4.98$&$-1.56$&$-5.58$&$-18.24$&$-18.37$&$\textcolor{blue}{1f5/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2p1/2}$&$\ldots$&$-2.38 $&${0.54}$&$-5.14$&$-16.97$&$-16.25$&$\textcolor{blue}{2p3/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1f5/2}$&$\ldots$&$-1.71 $&$\ldots$&$-3.56$&$-15.58$&$-15.36$&$\textcolor{blue}{2p1/2}$\\
$1g9/2$&$\ldots$&$0.40$&$\ldots$&$-2.43$&$-14.77$&$-15.18$&$1g9/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\textcolor{red}{3.92}$&$-9.37$&$-11.71$&$\textcolor{blue}{1g7/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1g7/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\textcolor{red}{2.55}$&$-9.10$&$-9.89$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$\\
$1h11/2$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-7.32$&$-9.29$&$1h11/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{3s1/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-6.56$&$-8.09$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d3/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2d3/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-6.43$&$-7.57$&$\textcolor{blue}{3s1/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-1.18$&$-4.26$&$\textcolor{blue}{1h9/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1h9/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$0.330$&$-3.26$&$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-2.95$&$1i13/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-0.37$&$2f5/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-0.28$&$3p3/2$\\
\hline
$\chi^2$&$1.53$&$0.31$&$0.48$&$0.25$&$0.03$&$0.11$&$\ldots$\\
\end{tabular}
\end{ruledtabular}
\end{table}
Next, $J^\pi$ assignments for nuclei near to doubly magic nuclei in mass range equal to and less than $^{208}_{82}Pb$ based on our simulation, which match with experimentally\cite{15} available energy sequence, are tabulated. These assignments if we consider only the energy level sequence of lighter nuclei only, are compared with those calculated using energy level sequence given in usually referred textbook \textit{Introductory Nuclear Physics} by Kenneth Krane\cite{4} and are shown in Table \ref{Table 4}, showing that we cannot consider same energy level sequence for lighter and heavier nuclei. The discrepancies in spin assignments are highlighted in blue colour. These discrepancies are also observed in other textbooks \cite {5,6,17,22,23} as well.
\begin{table}[H]
\begin{ruledtabular}
\caption{ Nuclear single particle shell model states for \textbf{Neutron} and \textbf{Proton} of nuclei near to closed shell nuclei, according to Ref.$\cite{4}$ and Current work.}
\label{Table 4}
\begin{tabular}{p{1.9cm}r p{1.9cm}r p{1.9cm}r p{1.9cm}r p{1.7cm}r p{1.7cm}r}
{Nuclei}&\multicolumn{2}{c}{Neutron states}&{Nuclei}&\multicolumn{2}{c}{Proton states}\\
&{Ref.\cite{4}}&{Current work}&&{Ref.\cite{4}}&{Current work}\\
\hline
$^{17}_{8}O$&$1d5/2$&$1d5/2$&$^{16}_{9}F$&$1d5/2$&$1d5/2$\\
$^{41}_{20}Ca$&$1f7/2$&$1f7/2$&$^{40}_{21}Sc$&$1d3/2$&$1d3/2$\\
$^{49}_{20}Ca$&$2p3/2$&$2p3/2$&$^{48}_{21}Sc$&$1f7/2$&$1f7/2$\\
$^{57}_{28}Ni$&$2p3/2$&$2p3/2$&$^{56}_{29}Cu$&$1f7/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2p3/2}$\\
$^{101}_{50}Sn$&$1g7/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$&$^{100}_{51}Sb$&$1g9/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$\\
$^{133}_{50}Sn$&$1h9/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$&$^{132}_{51}Sb$&$1h11/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d3/2}$\\
$^{209}_{82}Pb$&$2g9/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{1i11/2}$&$^{208}_{83}Bi$&$1h9/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$\\
\end{tabular}
\end{ruledtabular}
\end{table}
Hence, from our observations, the level sequence for lighter mass range and heavy mass range nuclei can be modified accordingly so as to provide students with data consistent with experiments.
\section{Conclusion:}
The time-independent Schr{\"o}dinger equation (TISE) for a nucleus modeled using Woods-Saxon potential along with spin-orbit coupling term has been solved numerically by choosing Matrix Numerov method. The main advantage of matrix Numerov method is that it can be easily extended to any arbitrary potential of interest. It is implemented in Gnumeric worksheet environment to obtain numerical solutions of single-particle neutron and proton states for doubly magic nuclei $^{40}_{20}Ca$. Then, using guided enquiry strategy, a Constructivist approach, students were grouped and encouraged to obtain energy level sequences for other doubly magic nuclei up-to $Z = 82$, i.e $^{16}_{8}O$, $^{48}_{20}Ca$, $^{56}_{28}Ni$, $^{100}_{50}Sn$, $^{132}_{50}Sn$ and $^{208}_{82}Pb$. Based on these obtained level structures, students obtained ground state total angular momentum and spin assignment for various nuclei close to doubly magic nuclei successfully and it could easily be extended to test the limits of validity.
\newpage
\section{References}
\section{Introduction}
Shell model \cite{1} has been one of the most successful models to have explained evidence for magic numbers, that has emerged from binding energy data. While harmonic oscillator potential along with inclusion of spin-orbit term has been very effective in obtaining shell closures at magic numbers, actual energy level sequencing as seen from experimental data is better deduced by utilizing a rounded square well potential as demonstrated by WS potential \cite{2}. Even though square well and harmonic oscillator potentials are included in both under-graduate(UG) and post-graduate(PG) nuclear physics courses \cite{3}, they are not dealt beyond establishing the fact that magic numbers result due to $\bar{L}.\bar{S}$ splitting that gives rise to levels with higher j-values corresponding to a particular N-oscillator getting clubbed with those of a lower (N-1) oscillator. There is no way to judge the magnitude of splitting due to this spin-orbit coupling and hence different textbooks \cite{4,5,6} present varying energy level sequences which could lead to difficulties while assigning the ground state total angular momentum $J$ and spin-parities $(-1)^\ell$ for different nuclei. Another important lacuna in the pedagogy of topics in this subject is the lack of lab activities that enhance interaction with the content. Our physics education research (PER) group has been focussing on this much needed aspect and have developed various experimental \cite{7,8,9} and simulation \cite{10,11,12,13} activities to supplement the classroom lectures. With regard to single particle energy level structure, we have solved the TISE for WS potential along with spin-orbit term, utilizing matrix methods technique employing sine wave basis in Scilab \cite{10}. In spite of the simplicity of sine basis, the technique still requires determining integrals that appear in the matrix elements numerically. This makes it invariable to use a programming environment such as Scilab. So as to overcome this limitation and keep ease of simulating the problem using simple worksheet environment, matrix methods numerical technique has been replaced with Numerov method rephrased in matrix form \cite{14}.\\
In this paper, we utilise model parameters obtained through optimization, while solving TISE using matrix methods \cite{10}, with respect to available experimental single particle energies \cite{15}. The nuclear shell model with interaction potentials based on these model parameters, which are rephrased in appropriate choice of units, is described in Section II. A brief discussion on numerical Numerov method and its algorithm are given in Section III. The implementation details, for a typical example of $^{40}_{20}Ca$ using Gnumeric worksheet environment have been presented in a step by step approach in Appendix. The algorithm parameters are optimized to obtain convergence of single particle energies with those obtained using matrix methods \cite{10} and final results are discussed in Section IV along with our initial attempts at implementation of a pilot study, by incorporating this tool into guided enquiry strategy (GIS) framework. Finally, we draw our conclusions in Section V.
\section{Nuclear Shell Model using Woods-Saxon potential:}
The modeling methodology \cite{16} has been described in great detail in our previous paper on Shell model simulation \cite{10}. So, only a brief description of the potentials rephrased in MeV and fm units are given here. In shell model, a nucleus of mass number A, consisting of N neutrons and Z protons has been modeled by the assumption that each nucleon experiences a mean field of central potential type due to rest of the nucleons. Woods-Saxon (WS) potential, which has typically a rounded square well shape, is one of the successful mathematical formulations given by
\begin{equation}
V_{WS}(r)= \frac{V_0}{1 + \exp{\big(\frac{r - R}{a}\big)}}
\label{eqn:1}
\end{equation}
where $V_0$ is the depth of the well, given by \cite{18}
\begin{align}
V_{0}=\begin{cases}
-51+33((N-Z)/A) \quad MeV,
\quad \quad \quad \quad \quad \textrm{for neutrons}\\
-51-33((N-Z)/A) \quad MeV ,
\quad \quad \quad \quad \quad \textrm{for protons}
\end{cases}
\label{eqn:2}
\end{align}
Here, R is the radius of the nucleus, empirically obtained as $R_0 A^{1/3}$, with value of $R_0$ being 1.28. \textit{a} is surface diffuseness parameter and is found to be 0.66 \cite{10}. \\
Next, interaction of spin of nucleon with orbital angular momentum of nucleon, as confirmed in experiments \cite{17}, has been modeled by spin-orbit potential, as
\begin{equation}
V_{ls}(r) = V_1 \Big(\frac{r_0}{\hbar}\Big)^2 \frac{1}{r} \frac{d}{dr} \Bigg[\frac{1}{1+\exp{\big(\frac{r-R}{a}\big)}}\Bigg] \textbf{(L.S)}
\label{eqn:3}
\end{equation}
Here, $\textbf{L.S} = [j(j+1) - \ell(\ell+1) - 3/4]\hbar^2$, where $\ell$ is orbital angular momentum quantum number, $j = \ell + s$ is total angular momentum quantum number and $s$ is spin angular momentum quantum number given by $1/2$ for nucleons. The model parameters are $V_1 = -0.44V_0$ \cite{18} and $r_0= 0.90$, a proportionality constant optimised \cite{10} to obtain the right energy level sequence.\\
In case of protons, Coulomb potential also needs to be considered and is given by
\begin{equation}
V_c(r)=
\begin{cases}
\frac{(Z-1)e^2}{4 \pi \epsilon_0 r},\quad \quad
\quad \quad \quad \quad\hspace{0.9cm} \textrm{for}\hspace{0.2cm} {r \ge R_c} \\
\frac{(Z-1)e^2}{4 \pi \epsilon_0 R_c}\Big[\frac{3}{2}-\frac{r^2}{2R_c^2}\Big],
\quad \quad \quad \quad \textrm{for}\hspace{0.2cm} {r \le R_c}
\end{cases}
\label{eqn:4}
\end{equation}
This potential is to be rephrased in MeV units. SO, it is multiplied and divided by electron rest mass energy, \cite{19} $m_{e}c^{2} = 0.511$ MeV
to obtain
\begin{equation}
V_{c}(r)=\begin{cases}
\frac{(Z-1)\ast 2.839\ast 0.511}{r}, \quad \hspace{1.8cm}\textrm{for}\ r \geq R_{c}\\
\frac{(Z-1)\ast 2.839\ast 0.511}{R_{c}}\bigg[ \frac{3}{2}-\frac{r^{2}}{2R_{c}^{2}}\bigg], \quad \textrm{for}\ r \leq R_{c}
\end{cases}
\label{eqn:5}
\end{equation}
The radial TISE for central potentials is given by
\begin{equation}
\frac{d^{2}u(r)}{dr^{2}} + \frac{2\mu}{\hbar^{2}}\left(V(r) + \frac{\ell(\ell+1)\hbar^{2}}{2\mu r^{2}}\right)u(r) = E u(r)
\label{eqn:6}
\end{equation}
where V(r) is net interaction potential experienced by a neutron or a proton and second term inside bracket, resulting from solution of $\theta$-equation, is called as centrifugal potential, $V_{cf}(r)$. This is rephrased in MeV units, by multiplying and dividing it by $c^2$, so that
\begin{equation}
V_{cf}(r) = \frac{\ell(\ell+1)\hbar^2c^2}{2\mu c^2 r^{2}}
\label{eqn:7}
\end{equation}
The value of $\hbar c = 197.329$ MeV-fm and the reduced mass $\mu$ is given by:
\begin{align}
\mu = \begin{cases}
\frac{m_n*(Z*m_p+(N-1)*m_n)}{(Z*m_p+N*m_n)},\quad \textrm{for neutron}\\
\frac{m_p*((Z-1)*m_p+N*m_n)}{(Z*m_p+N*m_n)},
\quad \textrm{for proton}
\end{cases}
\label{eqn:8}
\end{align}
Here, $m_{p}=938.272$ and $m_{n}=939.565$ are masses of proton and neutron respectively, in units of MeV/c$^2$.
\section{Numerical Solution}
\subsection{Numerov technique in matrix form:}
Consider TISE for a general potential V(r), given by
\begin{equation}
\frac{d^{2}u(r)}{dr^{2}}+k^{2}(r)u(r)=0
\label{eqn:9}
\end{equation}
where
\begin{equation}
k^{2}(r)=\frac{2\mu}{\hbar^{2}}[E-V(r)-V_{cf}(r)]
\label{eqn:10}
\end{equation}
The advantage of this Eq. (\ref{eqn:9}) is that it is linear in 'u' having no first order derivative involved and is hence ideally suited for solving using Numerov method. The wave-function u(r) is expanded in Taylor series by explicitly retaining terms up-to $O(h^4)$ and is obtained to an accuracy of $O(h^6)$, \citep{14}
\begin{equation}
u(r+h) = \frac{2(1-\frac{5}{12}h^{2}[k(r)]^2)u(r)-(1 + \frac{1}{12}h^{2}[k(r-h)]^2)u(r-h)}{1 + \frac{1}{12}h^{2}[k(r+h)]^2} + O(h^{6})
\label{eq:19}
\end{equation}
Discretizing x in steps of h as:\\ ${r_1, r_2, \ldots, r_{n-1}, r_n, r_{n+1}, \ldots, r_N}$.\\
Here, $r_{n} = r_{1} + n*h$ \\
Now expressing $u(r_n + h)$ as $u_{n+1}$, so on and similarly, $k(r_{n})$ as $k_{n}$, Eq. (\ref{eq:19}) can be written as
\begin{equation}
u_{n+1} = \frac{2(1-\frac{5}{12}h^{2}k_{n}^{2})u_{n} - (1 + \frac{1}{12}h^{2}k_{n-1}^{2})u_{n-1}}{1 + \frac{1}{12}h^{2}k_{n+1}^{2}} + O(h^{6})
\label{eq:20}
\end{equation}
Substituting from Eq. (\ref{eqn:10}), $k_n^2 = \frac{2\mu}{\hbar^2}(E - V_n)$ into the above, clubbing the terms containing $V_n$ and $E$, it can be recast into the following form:
\begin{equation}\nonumber
-\frac{\hbar^{2}}{2\mu}\frac{(u_{n-1}-2u_{n} + u_{n+1})}{h^{2}} + \frac{(V_{n-1}u_{n-1}+10V_{n}u_{n} + V_{n+1}u_{n+1})}{12} = E\frac{(u_{n-1}+10u_{n}+u_{n+1})}{12}
\label{eq:21}
\end{equation}
One has to keep in mind that whatever may be the potential, if wave-function were to be normalised, it should tend to 0 as x tends to $\pm\infty$. This implies, one has to choose the region of interest (RoI) large enough to ensure that the wave-function dies down to zero in either direction. That is, x values are limited to an interval such as $[L_1,L_2]$, such that $u$ goes to 0 at both ends of the interval. More specifically,
\begin{equation}
u_1 = u(r_1 = L_1) = 0
\label{eq:22}
\end{equation}
and
\begin{equation}
u(r_N = L_2) = 0
\label{eq:23}
\end{equation}
Expanding the above equation for all intermediate points ($j = 2,3,\ldots,N-1$), as in case of CDD formulation of TISE, one will get a matrix equation as
\begin{equation}
\left(\frac{-\hbar^{2}}{2\mu} A + BV \right)u = E Bu
\label{eq:24}
\end{equation}
where in, $u$ is a column vector
$(u_2, \ldots, u_{n-1}, u_{n}, u_{n+1},\ldots, u_{N-1})$,\\ Similarly, V is a column vector
$(V_2, \ldots, V_{n-1}, V_{n}, V_{n+1},\ldots, V_{N-1})$, but is converted into a diagonal matrix with these values along its central diagonal. Matrices A and B are given by
\begin{equation}
A = \frac{I_{-1} - 2I_{0} + I_{1}}{h^{2}}
\label{eq:25}
\end{equation}
and
\begin{equation}
B=\frac{I_{-1} + 10 I_{0} + I_{1}}{12}
\label{eq:26}
\end{equation}
where $I_{p}$ is the matrix of $1$'s along $pth$ diagonal and zeros elsewhere. Both A and B are tridiagonal matrices.
Multiplying Eq. (\ref{eq:24}) by B$^{-1}$ on both sides, gives TISE as a matrix equation, utilising Numerov method,
\begin{equation}
\boxed{\left(\frac{-\hbar^{2}c^2}{2\mu c^2}B^{-1}A + V\right)u = Eu}
\label{eq:27}
\end{equation}
with an error of $O(h^{6})$.\\
Notice that a factor of $c^2$ is introduced in both numerator and denominator to ensure the units are in MeV and fm as required in nuclear physics.\\
This is the final equation that needs to be solved numerically to get energy eigen-values and eigen-functions of a particle interacting with a given potential V(r). The imposition of boundary conditions as $u_{1} = u_{N} = 0$ is equivalent to embedding the potential of interest, inside an infinite square well potential. Finally, $ (N-2) \times (N-2) $ sub-matrices of A and B are utilised to solve for the energy eigen-values and their corresponding eigen-vectors.
\subsection{Algorithm for implementation in Gnumeric:}
A step by step approach to determining the single particle energies for protons of $^{40}_{20}Ca$ is presented.
\begin{enumerate}
\item \textbf{Initialisation of parameters:}
There are two sets of parameters:\\
(i) \textit{Physical system parameters}:\\ Object and interaction variables constituting as inputs and state variables which need to be determined, are outputs.\\
Figure (\ref{Figure 1}) shows object variables, interaction variables, algorithm variables, input variables and other variables required for the calculations.\\
\begin{figure*}[h!]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=16 cm, height=5.2 cm]{initialization.png}
\caption{Initializing the parameters for the system}
\label{Figure 1}
\end{figure*}
(ii) \textit{Algorithm parameters} that arise from discretization of continuous variables and limiting the infinitely large quantities to finite values such as region of interest. The step size is chosen as $h = 0.1$.
\item \textbf{Potential Definition:}\\
First values of 'r' are generated from $0.1$ to ($3R$) with step-size $h=0.1$ and total interaction potential $V(r)=V_{cf}(r)+V_{WS}(r)+V_{ls}(r)+V_c(r)$ for proton is obtained in Gnumeric worksheet. Figure \ref{Figure2} shows the plot of Woods-Saxon potential of $1s_{1/2}$, $1p_{1/2}$ and $1p_{3/2}$ states for proton, showing that inclusion of angular momentum on L.S coupling affects the Woods-Saxon potential. While centrifugal term pushes $\ell = 1$ levels above those of $\ell =0$, of $1s_{1/2}$ term, as it reduces the depth of potential, the spin-orbit term tends to act on width of potential. One can observe in Figure \ref{Figure2} that it decreases width of potential corresponding to $1p_{1/2}$ and increases it for $1p_{3/2}$. This would lead to raising the energy level corresponding to former to move upward while the later goes downward thus resulting in spin-orbit energy splitting.
\begin{figure*}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[height=6cm, width=8cm]
{Border1.png}
\caption{Plots of $1s_{1/2}$, $1p_{1/2}$ and $1p_{3/2}$ states for proton, showing the effect of Spin-orbit interaction in Woods-Saxon potential.}
\label{Figure2}
\end{figure*}
\item \textbf{Determination of single particle energies:}\\
This step consists of generating the following matrices in successive sheets in Gnumeric. The size of the matrix will depend on :\\
(\textit{a}) B-matrix is generated in Sheet 1 with values 10/12 along its main diagonal and 1/12 along the first off diagonals on either side using an if statement. This is constant for all problems\\
(\textit{b}) The inverse of B, is obtained using minverse() command in sheet 2\\
(\textit{c}) A-matrix is generated similar to B-matrix
in sheet 3, by using if statement with appropriate formulae for factors f an g along the main and off diagonals respectively.
(\textit{d}) $B^{-1}*A$ is generated in sheet 4 \\
(\textit{e}) V-matrix is generated in sheet 5, such that only diagonal elements get populated with those of net potential values \\
(\textit{f}) Generating Eigen values and eigen vectors:\\ The main feature of Gnumeric which makes it different from other worksheet environments such as MS-Excel or open Office Calc. is that, it has an eigen-value solver. Now, the eigen-values and corresponding eigen-vectors are obtained using eigen() command in sheet 6.
\item \textbf{Generating the energies for different $\ell$ and $j$ values:} Now, the bound state energies, those for which eigen values are negative, are tabulated for different values of $\ell$ and $j$.
The simulation is run for $\ell = 0$, s-states, in which case $j = 0.5$ alone exists. Then for $\ell = 1$, p-states, there are two values of j: 0.5 and 1.5. Similarly for $\ell = 2$, d-states, $j$ takes values $1.5$ and $2.5$ and so on. This is continued till no bound states are obtained for particular $\ell$ and $j$ values.
\end{enumerate}
\section{Results and Discussions:}
In this section, we will first validate our approach to obtain energy eigen-values and eigen-functions using Woods-Saxon potential with $\bar{L}.\bar{S}$ coupling for both neutron and proton for doubly magic nucleus $^{40}_{20}Ca$. This is done by comparing our results with available experimental results and those obtained numerically by using matrix method with Fourier basis \cite{10} for different angular momentum values $\ell$ and j. The results are tabulated in Table \ref{Table 1}.
\begin{table}[H]
\begin{ruledtabular}
\caption{Single particle shell model energy values for \textbf{Neutron states} and \textbf{Proton states} of doubly magic nucleus $^{40}_{20}Ca$ obtained by current work (\textit{using Matrix Numerov method} \cite{14}) with available experimental values \cite{15} and numerical values previously obtained by our group \cite{10}, (\textit{using Matrix method with Fourier basis}) for the highest occupied levels.}
\label{Table 1}
\begin{tabular}{llllllll}
{States} &\multicolumn{3}{c}{Proton states (MeV)}& {States} &\multicolumn{3}{c}{Neutron states (MeV)}\\
&{Exp.}&\multicolumn{2}{c}{Numerical values}&&{Exp.}&\multicolumn{2}{c}{Numerical values}\\
&{Ref\cite{15}}&{Ref\cite{10}}&{Current}&&{Ref\cite{15}}&{Ref\cite{10}}&{Current}\\
\hline
$1s1/2$&$\ldots$&$-30.49$&$-30.49$&$1s1/2$&$\ldots$&$-38.90$&$-38.90$\\
$1p3/2$&$\ldots$&$-21.68$&$-21.68$&$1p3/2$&$\ldots$&$-29.55$&$-29.55$\\
$1p1/2$&$\ldots$&$-19.04$&$-19.04$&$1p1/2$&$\ldots$&$-26.99$&$-26.99$\\
$1d5/2$&$-15.07$&$-12.19$&$-12.19$&$1d5/2$&$-22.39$&$-19.54$&$-19.54$\\
$2s1/2$&$-10.92$&$-8.14$&$-8.14$&$2s1/2$&$-18.19$&$-15.54$&$-15.54$\\
$1d3/2$&$-8.33$&$-6.85$&$-6.85$&$1d3/2$&$-15.64$&$-14.28$&$-14.28$\\
$1f7/2$&$-1.09$&$-2.33$&$-2.33$&$1f7/2$&$-8.36$&$-9.15$&$-9.15$\\
$2p3/2$&$0.69$&$1.00$&$1.00$&$2p3/2$&$-5.84$&$-5.42$&$-5.42$\\
$2p1/2$&$2.38$&$2.94$&$2.94$&$2p1/2$&$-4.20$&$-3.10$&$-3.10$\\
$1f5/2$&$4.96$&$5.37$&$5.37$&$1f5/2$&$-1.56$&$-1.19$&$-1.20$\\
\end{tabular}
\end{ruledtabular}
\end{table}
It is observed that the obtained energy eigen values are in good agreement with experimental energy values of different neutron and proton single particle states for step size of h=0.1 thus validating our approach.
The distance parameter 'r' is discretized as per step size 'h' and its values are varied from $r = 0.1$ to $r = 3R$, where $R = R_{0}A^{(1/3)}$. Therefore, it is necessary to vary the size of matrix `N' for different A values for a chosen step size `h'.
This simulation activity can be utilised as a tool to apply GIS\cite{20} of constructivist approach to learning and has been done as follows:
\subsection{GIS Implementation:}
The students have been taken through following six step process of GIS. All steps were implemented on online Moodle platform \cite{21} due to COVID-19 lockdown of university.
\begin{itemize}
\item \textbf{Initiation:} The matrix Numerov technique was already introduced before, for solving the harmonic oscillator potential. Next, it has been applied to solve for single particle energies of both neutrons and protons, as dealt with in this paper, for Woods-Saxon potential with spin-orbit potential. This has been explained and also demonstrated in two successive lab sessions.
\item \textbf{Selection:} The students were made to explore the binding energy and separation energies curves that they have plotted in previous sessions, to identify various double magic nuclei suitable for study. The doubly magic nuclei $^{16}_{8}O$, $^{48}_{20}Ca$, $^{56}_{28}Ni$, $^{100}_{50}Sn$, $^{132}_{50}Sn$ and $^{208}_{82}Pb$ were selected. The determination of single particle proton and neutron energy level sequences for each of these six double magic nuclei, are assigned to students by dividing them into $12$ groups. Each group is expected to obtain the energy level sequence of either neutrons or protons for the assigned nuclei by carefully following the simulation procedure.
\item \textbf{Presentation:} The students in each group could be asked to present their findings to the rest of the class so that everyone gets to know each other's experience.
Even though all the groups could get to expected level sequence by following the steps correctly, some of the students have not ensured reduction of step-size systematically. Hence, they have come up with lower accuracy for energies even though they obtained correct level sequence. They have been guided accordingly.
\item \textbf{Exploration:} The collective findings were shared with entire class and they were asked to explore nuclei adjacent to the magic numbers with one neutron or proton more and find out ground state $J^\pi$ configuration for each of them.
\item \textbf{Formulation:} They were expected to formulate their findings based on right choice of level sequence and also figure out what they would get if they followed the level sequence given in their prescribed textbook \cite{4}.
\item \textbf{Collection:} To understand variation of energy level structure with mass number, students were asked to plot the compiled energy data for protons and neutrons as a function of mass number A. They were able to obtain plots similar to what have been presented in \cite{10}.
\item \textbf{Assessment:} They have assessed their formulated ground state angular momentum and spin configurations based on the experimental findings and thus validated their outcomes. They could be further asked to obtain the ground state configurations of nuclei slightly away from magic nuclei till the results obtained are in variance with those from experiments as an excercise.
\end{itemize}
\subsection{Outcomes from GIS:}
The results matching with experimentally available values \cite{15} were obtained for step-size '$h = 0.1$' for doubly magic nuclei $^{16}_{8}O$, $^{40}_{20}Ca$, $^{48}_{20}Ca$, $^{56}_{28}Ni$, $^{100}_{50}Sn$, $^{132}_{50}Sn$ and $^{208}_{82}Pb$. The value of N (to solve N $\times$ N matrix) for each of these nuclei are obtained as $96, 131, 138$, $145$, $177$, $194$ and $229$ respectively.
The obtained energy level sequences for neutrons and protons of these nuclei are given separately in tabular form in Tables \ref{Table 2} and \ref{Table 3}. The first four levels, $1s_{1/2},1p_{3/2}, 1p_{1/2}$ ad $1d_{5/2}$ are not shown, as there are no discrepancies found in the ordering of these levels across the periodic table due to our simulation. The numerically obtained energy values are found to match to two decimal places with those obtained using the matrix method approach \cite{10}. The $\chi^2$-value defined as relative mean-squared error\\
\begin{equation}
\chi^2 = \frac{1}{N}\sum_{i=1}^N \frac{(E_i^{expt}-E_i^{sim})^2}{|E_i^{expt}|}
\end{equation}
These are determined w.r.t experimental \cite{15} and are shown in Tables. In Tables \ref{Table 2} and \ref{Table 3}, energy level sequence obtained for lighter nuclei $^{16}O$ to $^{56}Ni$ are shown in first column and that for $^{100}Sn$ to $^{208}_{82}Pb$ in last column. It can be observed that the energy level sequence for lighter nuclei is different than that for heavier ones. The observed discrepancies in energy sequence are highlighted in red colour. \\
The discrepancy in level sequence for lighter nuclei w.r.t heavy nuclei is highlighted in blue colour in both tables; i.e for neutron and proton states. Further, it is found that in most of the textbooks at UG and PG level \cite{4,5,6,18,22,23}, energy level sequence given is different. Also, there is only single energy level sequence given for both neutrons and protons, and that too common for all mass ranges. But according to our calculations as well as Bohr and Mottelson book, there should be different energy level sequences for nuclei across the periodic table. \\
\begin{table}[H]
\begin{ruledtabular}
\caption{ Single particle shell model energy states for \textbf{Neutron} of doubly magic nuclei $^{16}_{8}O$, $^{48}_{20}Ca$, $^{56}_{28}Ni$, $^{100}_{50}Sn$, $^{132}_{50}Sn$ and $^{208}_{82}Pb$ obtained by using Matrix Numerov method}
\label{Table 2}
\begin{tabular}{llllllll}
{States}&\multicolumn{6}{c}{Numerical energy values(MeV)}&{States}\\
&{$^{16}_{8}O$}&{$^{48}_{20}Ca$}&{$^{56}_{28}Ni$}&{$^{100}_{50}Sn$}&{$^{132}_{50}Sn$}&{$^{208}_{82}Pb$}&\\
\hline
$\textcolor{blue}{2s1/2}$&$-3.03$&${-14.19}$&${-20.51}$&$-29.27$&$-25.57$&$-30.90$&$\textcolor{blue}{1d3/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1d3/2}$&${2.11}$&$-13.58$&${-20.35}$&$-28.34$&$-24.46$&$-29.67$&$\textcolor{blue}{2s1/2}$\\
$1f7/2$&$\ldots$&$-8.33$&$-14.96$&$-24.04$&$-20.78$&$-26.74$&$1f7/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2p3/2}$&$\ldots$&$-4.90 $&$-10.56$&$-20.08$&$-18.07$&$-25.07$&$\textcolor{blue}{1f5/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1f5/2}$&$\ldots$&$\textcolor{red}{-1.87}$&$-8.41$&$-19.75$&$-17.15$&$-23.59$&$\textcolor{blue}{2p3/2}$\\
$2p1/2$&$\ldots$&$\textcolor{red}{-3.00} $&$-8.32$&$-18.19$&$-16.06$&$-22.87$&$2p1/2$\\
$1g9/2$&$\ldots$&$1.16 $&$-5.25$&$-16.07$&$-14.01$&$-21.20$&$1g9/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-1.70$&$\textcolor{red}{-10.01}$&$-9.79$&$-18.50$&$\textcolor{blue}{1g7/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{3s1/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-0.94$&$\textcolor{red}{-11.17}$&$-9.76$&$-17.20$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1g7/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$3.52$&$\textcolor{red}{-8.36}$&$-7.99$&$-15.76$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d3/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2d3/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\textcolor{red}{-9.05}$&$-7.74$&$-15.44$&$\textcolor{blue}{3s1/2}$\\
$1h11/2$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-7.69$&$-6.83$&$-15.24$&$1h11/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-2.95$&$\textcolor{red}{-0.94}$&$-11.28$&$\textcolor{blue}{1h9/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{3p3/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-1.53$&$\textcolor{red}{-2.61}$&$-10.64$&$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{3p1/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-0.53$&$\textcolor{red}{-0.57}$&$-8.90$&$\textcolor{blue}{1i13/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1h9/2}$&$\ldots $&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$0.59$&$\textcolor{red}{-1.34}$&$-8.45$&$\textcolor{blue}{3p3/2}$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$0.03$&$-8.36$&$2f5/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-7.55$&$3p1/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-4.04$&$2g9/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-3.49$&$1i11/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-2.24$&$1j15/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-2.07$&$3d5/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-1.41$&$4s1/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-1.01$&$2g7/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-0.82$&$3d3/2$\\
\hline
$\chi^2$&$0.24$&$1.18$&$0.09$&$0.06$&$0.03$&$0.06$&$\ldots$\\
\end{tabular}
\end{ruledtabular}
\end{table}
\begin{table}[H]
\begin{ruledtabular}
\caption{ Single particle shell model energy states for \textbf{Proton} of doubly magic nuclei $^{16}_{8}O$, $^{48}_{20}Ca$, $^{56}_{28}Ni$, $^{100}_{50}Sn$, $^{132}_{50}Sn$ and $^{208}_{82}Pb$ obtained by our calculations using Matrix Numerov method}
\label{Table 3}
\begin{tabular}{p{1.2cm}p{1.5cm}p{1.5cm}p{1.5cm}p{1.5cm}p{1.5cm}p{1.2cm}p{1.2cm}}
{States}&\multicolumn{6}{c}{Numerical energy values(MeV)}&{States}\\
&{$^{16}_{8}O$}&{$^{48}_{20}Ca$}&{$^{56}_{28}Ni$}&{$^{100}_{50}Sn$}&{$^{132}_{50}Sn$}&{$^{208}_{82}Pb$}&\\
\hline
$\textcolor{blue}{2s1/2}$&$-0.21$&$ -15.18 $&$-10.71$&$-14.25$&$-26.11$&$-24.16$&$\textcolor{blue}{1d3/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1d3/2}$&${4.82}$&$-14.55 $&$-10.60$&$-13.05$&$-24.61$&$-22.26$&$\textcolor{blue}{2s1/2}$\\
$1f7/2$&$\ldots$&$ -9.75 $&$-5.89$&$-9.83$&$-21.70$&$-20.56$&$1f7/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2p3/2}$&$\ldots$&$-4.98$&$-1.56$&$-5.58$&$-18.24$&$-18.37$&$\textcolor{blue}{1f5/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2p1/2}$&$\ldots$&$-2.38 $&${0.54}$&$-5.14$&$-16.97$&$-16.25$&$\textcolor{blue}{2p3/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1f5/2}$&$\ldots$&$-1.71 $&$\ldots$&$-3.56$&$-15.58$&$-15.36$&$\textcolor{blue}{2p1/2}$\\
$1g9/2$&$\ldots$&$0.40$&$\ldots$&$-2.43$&$-14.77$&$-15.18$&$1g9/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\textcolor{red}{3.92}$&$-9.37$&$-11.71$&$\textcolor{blue}{1g7/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1g7/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\textcolor{red}{2.55}$&$-9.10$&$-9.89$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$\\
$1h11/2$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-7.32$&$-9.29$&$1h11/2$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{3s1/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-6.56$&$-8.09$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d3/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2d3/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-6.43$&$-7.57$&$\textcolor{blue}{3s1/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-1.18$&$-4.26$&$\textcolor{blue}{1h9/2}$\\
$\textcolor{blue}{1h9/2}$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$0.330$&$-3.26$&$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-2.95$&$1i13/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-0.37$&$2f5/2$\\
$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$\ldots$&$-0.28$&$3p3/2$\\
\hline
$\chi^2$&$1.53$&$0.31$&$0.48$&$0.25$&$0.03$&$0.11$&$\ldots$\\
\end{tabular}
\end{ruledtabular}
\end{table}
Next, $J^\pi$ assignments for nuclei near to doubly magic nuclei in mass range equal to and less than $^{208}_{82}Pb$ based on our simulation, which match with experimentally\cite{15} available energy sequence, are tabulated. These assignments if we consider only the energy level sequence of lighter nuclei only, are compared with those calculated using energy level sequence given in usually referred textbook \textit{Introductory Nuclear Physics} by Kenneth Krane\cite{4} and are shown in Table \ref{Table 4}, showing that we cannot consider same energy level sequence for lighter and heavier nuclei. The discrepancies in spin assignments are highlighted in blue colour. These discrepancies are also observed in other textbooks \cite {5,6,17,22,23} as well.
\begin{table}[H]
\begin{ruledtabular}
\caption{ Nuclear single particle shell model states for \textbf{Neutron} and \textbf{Proton} of nuclei near to closed shell nuclei, according to Ref.$\cite{4}$ and Current work.}
\label{Table 4}
\begin{tabular}{p{1.9cm}r p{1.9cm}r p{1.9cm}r p{1.9cm}r p{1.7cm}r p{1.7cm}r}
{Nuclei}&\multicolumn{2}{c}{Neutron states}&{Nuclei}&\multicolumn{2}{c}{Proton states}\\
&{Ref.\cite{4}}&{Current work}&&{Ref.\cite{4}}&{Current work}\\
\hline
$^{17}_{8}O$&$1d5/2$&$1d5/2$&$^{16}_{9}F$&$1d5/2$&$1d5/2$\\
$^{41}_{20}Ca$&$1f7/2$&$1f7/2$&$^{40}_{21}Sc$&$1d3/2$&$1d3/2$\\
$^{49}_{20}Ca$&$2p3/2$&$2p3/2$&$^{48}_{21}Sc$&$1f7/2$&$1f7/2$\\
$^{57}_{28}Ni$&$2p3/2$&$2p3/2$&$^{56}_{29}Cu$&$1f7/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2p3/2}$\\
$^{101}_{50}Sn$&$1g7/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$&$^{100}_{51}Sb$&$1g9/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d5/2}$\\
$^{133}_{50}Sn$&$1h9/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$&$^{132}_{51}Sb$&$1h11/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2d3/2}$\\
$^{209}_{82}Pb$&$2g9/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{1i11/2}$&$^{208}_{83}Bi$&$1h9/2$&$\textcolor{blue}{2f7/2}$\\
\end{tabular}
\end{ruledtabular}
\end{table}
Hence, from our observations, the level sequence for lighter mass range and heavy mass range nuclei can be modified accordingly so as to provide students with data consistent with experiments.
\section{Conclusion:}
The time-independent Schr{\"o}dinger equation (TISE) for a nucleus modeled using Woods-Saxon potential along with spin-orbit coupling term has been solved numerically by choosing Matrix Numerov method. The main advantage of matrix Numerov method is that it can be easily extended to any arbitrary potential of interest. It is implemented in Gnumeric worksheet environment to obtain numerical solutions of single-particle neutron and proton states for doubly magic nuclei $^{40}_{20}Ca$. Then, using guided enquiry strategy, a Constructivist approach, students were grouped and encouraged to obtain energy level sequences for other doubly magic nuclei up-to $Z = 82$, i.e $^{16}_{8}O$, $^{48}_{20}Ca$, $^{56}_{28}Ni$, $^{100}_{50}Sn$, $^{132}_{50}Sn$ and $^{208}_{82}Pb$. Based on these obtained level structures, students obtained ground state total angular momentum and spin assignment for various nuclei close to doubly magic nuclei successfully and it could easily be extended to test the limits of validity.
\newpage
\section{References}
| {
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// Licensed to the .NET Foundation under one or more agreements.
// The .NET Foundation licenses this file to you under the MIT license.
using Xunit.Abstractions;
namespace Microsoft.Extensions.Tools.Internal;
public class TestReporter : IReporter
{
private readonly ITestOutputHelper _output;
public TestReporter(ITestOutputHelper output)
{
_output = output;
}
public void Verbose(string message)
{
_output.WriteLine("verbose: " + message);
}
public void Output(string message)
{
_output.WriteLine("output: " + message);
}
public void Warn(string message)
{
_output.WriteLine("warn: " + message);
}
public void Error(string message)
{
_output.WriteLine("error: " + message);
}
}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaGithub"
} | 2,319 |
{"url":"https:\/\/tug.org\/pipermail\/tex-eplain\/2005-September\/000345.html","text":"# [tex-eplain] Many TOC's in one document, help.\n\nArctic Fidelity spam at sacrificumdeo.net\nFri Sep 23 20:43:12 CEST 2005\n\nHello everyone,\n\nUp until now, for this project, I have been able to keep you all from\nhaving to deal with my questions, because I have found them in the\nmanuals. But this one, which I have been reading about in the eplain\nmanual, does not seem to work for me in the way I would expect it.\n\nWhat I have is a document that has a main TOC, List of Figures, and\nList of Tables, which all seem to work just fine, for right now. But\nwhat I also have certain appendices that have a bunch of smaller\nsections in them. I want these sections to each have their own custom\nTOC so that I can list the subsections in each of these sections at\nthe start of the sections without having to list them manually.\n\nHere is what I have so far:\n% PROCEDURE CONTROLS MACROS\n%\n% These macros are designed to make the creation of procedures easier.\n\n% \\beginprocset{OSid}{Code}{subject}{objective}\n%\n% Starts a procedure set.\n\\long\\def\\beginprocset#1#2#3#4{%\n\\begingroup\n\\gdef\\cos{#1}\n\\gdef\\pcd{#2}\n{\\bf Test Subject:} #3 (\\uppercase\\expandafter{\\pcd})\\hfil\\break\n{\\bf Test Objective:} #4\\par\n\\edef\\tmpname{\\jobname\\cos\\pcd}\n\\gdef\\tocfilebasename{\\tmpname}\n\\def\\tocprocedureentry#1#2{%\n\\uppercase\\expandafter{\\cos}-\\uppercase\\expandafter{\\pcd}-#1\n\\dotfill{} #2\\break}\n\\readtocfile\n\\jobname\\cos\\pcd\n{\\bf Procedures\/Expected Results\/Results:}\\par}\n\n% \\insproc{code}{long Description}\n%\n% Inserts a Procedure\n\\long\\def\\insproc#1#2{%\n\\gdef\\pid{#1}\n\\writetocentry{procedure}{\\pid :#2}\n{\\prcf \\uppercase\\expandafter{\\cos{}}-\\uppercase\\expandafter{\\pcd{}}-#1}\\par}\n\nThese are meant to be used as follows:\n\n\\beginprocset{Linux}{XYZ}{Something}{My Objective}\n\\insproc{001}{Title text for Linux-XYZ-001}\n\n[Some sort of text follows.]\n\n\\endproc (defined elsewhere)\n\nThe idea was that I would use tocfilebasename to change the name that\nthe toc file would write to, to the \\jobname\\cos\\pcd. So in this case\nI was thinking that all the entries for this \"procedure\" would be\nsaved to filenameLinuxXYZ.toc, and then be read from that file as\nwell, without messing with the main TOC.\n\nThe only problem with this is that the \\writetocentry's are still\ngoing to the main TOC file, rather than to the special one, and I\nthink this is where my problem is. I have not been able to get past\nthis to actually test the rest of my macros in this case, so I don't\nknow what's going on there, but I would greatly appreciate if someone\nwould point out what I am missing here.\n\nThanks!\n\n- Arctic Fidelity\n\n--\n\"Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love\nyou knowing nothing?\"\n-- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions\n\n\n\nMore information about the tex-eplain mailing list","date":"2019-07-20 18:38:42","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 1, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.8263535499572754, \"perplexity\": 1851.3825392836327}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": false}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2019-30\/segments\/1563195526560.40\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20190720173623-20190720195623-00218.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
Impacts of transition from agro-pastoral to sedentary livestock systems on ecosystem services and resilience to climate change in India, at watershed level
PhD project by Bhavana Rao. Drylands have limited scope for crop production - making livestock production a vital livelihood activity. The various ecosystem services of a watershed such as fresh water, genetic resources, non-material benefits such as social relations, are critical elements to keep the communities and their dryland farming systems resilient to climate change.
Drylands cover about 40% of Earth's land surface and are inhabited by more than two billion people, of which 90% live in developing countries. These regions are characterized by low rainfall and high evaporation, and hence have limited scope for crop production - making livestock production a vital livelihood activity. Livestock production systems in dryland regions have evolved based on the opportunities afforded by the natural resource base and are predominantly pastoral. Pastoral livestock systems function with limited natural resources, where mobility is the key strategy adopted by livestock keepers to survive and cope with constraints.
However, worldwide the demand for food, including animal source food, is increasing, driving policies in developing countries, to opt for transition of pastoral to sedentary systems. More than 80% of India consists of dryland regions, which host about 60% of Indian livestock. While livestock production is still to a large extent pastoral in these regions, India has witnessed widespread intensification of livestock production among others via introduction of imported breeds, during the past two decades. Although introduction of imported breeds in sedentary systems has improved livelihood security, standard of living, and food output, it might also lead to a reduction of ecosystem services of a specific region due to overuse of scarce water resources for water-intensive production. Climate change may aggravate the vulnerability arising out of this situation further. Since high input use is a key element of sedentary livestock systems, they are likely to get affected more by the negative impacts of climate change predicted in dryland regions by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change {IPCC) than pastoral systems.
All ecosystems are embedded in watersheds, a geo-hydrological unit comprising of all land and water resources confined within a natural drainage divide. A watershed is not only a hydrological unit but also a social, political and ecological entity, which plays a crucial role in providing life support services to people living in it. Watershed development (WSD) is India's largest development intervention to improve productivity in the drylands. The various ecosystem services of a watershed such as fresh water, genetic resources, benefits from managing ecosystem processes, non-material benefits such as traditional knowledge/practices, social relations and services necessary for the production of food, including animal-source food, are critical elements to keep the communities and their dryland farming systems resilient. In view of this, the current PhD study proposes to test the hypothesis that "the transition of livestock production from agro-pastoral to sedentary systems has short-term advantages for a watershed but the long term benefits are limited through high resource needs impacting not only the watershed's ecosystem services but also the watershed's resilience to climate change." Hence the current PhD research will study the impacts of transition of livestock production from agro-pastoral to sedentary systems on both the ecosystem services of a watershed, and its resilience to climate change.
In view of the above the research objectives are:
1: Identify and describe livestock farming systems within a watershed and identify and explain the transitions across these systems in time.
2: Assess the impact of agro-pastoral and sedentary livestock production systems on ecosystem services provided by the watershed, i.e. food production, farm economy and knowledge systems.
3: Assessing the impacts of transition from agro-pastoral to sedentary livestock production systems on the watershed's resilience to climate change.
4: Develop recommendations for sustainable livestock production in a watershed context in dryland regions.
Supervisor prof.dr.ir. SJ (Simon) Oosting
Contact form + Show more (1)
Supervisor R (Raimon) Ripoll Bosch PhD
Impacts of transition from agro-pastoral to sedentary livestock systems on ecosystem services and resilience to climate change in India - an analysis at watershed level
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), India | {
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homepage "https://www.navicat.com/products/navicat-for-sqlserver"
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strategy :sparkle
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app "Navicat For SQL Server.app"
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{"url":"https:\/\/msp.org\/iig\/2022\/19-4\/iig-v19-n4-p02-p.pdf","text":"Recent Issues Volume 18 Volume 16 Volume 15 Volume 14 Volume 13 Volume 12 Volume 11 Volume 10 Volume 9 Volume 8 Volume 6+7 Volume 5 Volume 4 Volume 3 Volume 2 Volume 1\n The Journal About the Journal Editorial Board Subscriptions Submission Guidelines Submission Form Policies for Authors Ethics Statement ISSN (electronic): 2640-7345 ISSN (print): 2640-7337 Author Index To Appear Other MSP Journals\nOn the rank $5$ polytopes of the Higman\u2013Sims simple group\n\nVeronica Kelsey, Robert Nicolaides and Peter Rowley\n\nVol. 19 (2022), No. 4, 153\u2013164\nAbstract\n\nThe maximal rank of an abstract regular polytope for the Higman\u2013Sims simple group is $5$. There are four such polytopes of rank $5$ and in this note we describe them using the Higman\u2013Sims graph and the decomposition of this graph into five double covers of the Petersen graph.\n\nWe have not been able to recognize your IP address 3.236.24.215 as that of a subscriber to this journal.\nOnline access to the content of recent issues is by subscription, or purchase of single articles.\n\nor by using our contact form.","date":"2023-03-21 17:21:00","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 2, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 1, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 0, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.20559968054294586, \"perplexity\": 1994.463053565622}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": false, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2023-14\/segments\/1679296943704.21\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20230321162614-20230321192614-00413.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Proper 6), Year B
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 † Psalm 20 † 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17 † Mark 4:26-34
You can view a video recording of this sermon here.
Do you know this plant? In Britain this weed is called Rosebay Willowherb. Perhaps you know it as Fireweed. This plant was packed full of meaning for me as a child. Still is. I wasn't able to put words around what it meant to me until I was much older, but when I saw it, I knew unconsciously what it meant, and I involuntarily, quietly reacted to it.
Isn't that the case with so much of what we experience? We take something in, and we react, sometimes quietly, sometimes less so, but so often out of these hard-earned unspoken assumptions that have this silent power to affect our lives and the lives of others.
Rosebay Willowherb, for me, used to be a sign of something bad and only something bad. It grew in my family's yard starting in the late spring and early summer each year. Those stubborn stems with their long, thin, rough, dark green leaves that seemed to me to spiral like a screwdriver or a drill making its way through the low growth. And then as summer moved on those loud pink flowers, one atop the other, clamoring for the sky. And bees, lots of bees, would hang out in that slanting swath of pink and then the flowers would turn to these long thin seed capsules that would split open seemingly overnight to reveal this tangled mess of tiny, almost invisible brown seeds hidden in a mass of silk hairs that would carry them off in clouds.
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Epiphany 5), Year B
Isaiah 40:21-31 † Psalm 147 † 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 † Mark 1:29-39
A video version can be found here.
I need this word today. I need a reminder that this life, this faith, this God is so much bigger than I can imagine and even hope for.
Over the years as I monitor the ebb and flow of my own faith, I've noted that moments in which it feels—to me, at least—that we are coming out of crisis into something that seems heavier with possibility, my own emotional well-being seems to move in the opposite direction. I struggle more. Doubt more.
I wonder how it works for you.
So I need this good word today. I need Isaiah's rhetorical flourish:
21Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
Isaiah just piles it on, inundates us with reminders of what should be obvious to any of us who have paid much attention, who have taken the time to stop and pray as Jesus does in the midst of the swirl of activity and demand.
Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year B
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 † Luke 1:46b-55 † Romans 16:25-27 † Luke 1:26-38
A video version of this sermon can be found here.
Would it surprise you to know that this story from Second Samuel, this story of the victorious King David, now settled in his reign, now looking to build a permanent temple for God did not actually come together at a time when "the king was settled in his house and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him"? Would it surprise you to know that it came about much later, during captivity in Babylon, when the temple that David's son Solomon ultimately built for the LORD lay in ruins along with much of the civilization Israel had known at its peak, when the best and the brightest and the most privileged of Israel's citizens had been forced to resettle as refugees in a foreign land? Would it surprise you to know that it came about when there was no rest, no house, and no king?[i]
Perhaps it doesn't surprise you. Perhaps it surprises you no more than knowing the story of Mary and the angel Gabriel was written down a full generation or two later, at a time when this one whose birth is foretold, this Jesus the Messiah had been executed as an enemy of the state and the church, and this miraculous child John, of the eighty-something year-old Elizabeth, had been beheaded, and when the very structure of Jewish life that serves as the backdrop to this story had been undercut, when there was once again no rest, no house, and no king.
What is it about this hope of ours, that it seems to thrive when things are unfinished, that it seems to flourish most in trouble, in suffering, and in need? What is it about this mysterious faith of ours, that it is strongest, according to Romans, when revealed after long ages of being kept secret? What is it about this love of ours, that it is made perfect in weakness?
Third Sunday of Advent, Year B
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 † Psalm 126 † 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 † John 1:6-8, 19-28
Just about every Christmas season I return to W. H. Auden's Christmas long poem "For the Time Being." I'm not entirely sure why. It isn't a particularly efficient or even rewarding exercise even as I am drawn to sputtering along in my reading. I do suspect it holds a certain inspiration for me, or at least the promise of it that I am at any moment apt to tap into a reserve of insight and understanding.
Perhaps my motivation is wrapped up in some faulty psychology that supposes because it is thick, because it is hard work to understand that it must be worth it. I do get that possibility, so you armchair psychologists can just sit on your hands for the moment.
In fact, I think it is the other side of that psychological coin that has something more to do with this strange Advent season in this extraordinary "coronatide" time.
It's the audacity of this time that captures me. It's the foolishness of this faith that imagines we can mobilize the machinery of the hope required to cut a path through mountains and valleys to make the way straight and wide, when it all seems so, well, not that, so anything, but passable.
Foolish indeed. Faith, like love, is never easy.
First Sunday of Advent, Year B
Isaiah 64:1-9 † Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 † 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 † Mark 13:24-37
A video version of this sermon can be found here.
There is no less light in the world. I understand this may be difficult for us to imagine on these days in our Pacific Northwest when light seems to be such a scarce commodity. The comments began soon after we said goodbye to Daylight Saving Time and gave ourselves that extra hour of sleep—a brief reward for the inundation of darkness that now affords us only 8 hours and change of this dripping, gray miasma we now call daylight. If you're among the small group who still commute farther than from your bedroom to your, I don't know, bedroom, you probably go to work and come home in this blanket of darkness. It can be overwhelming. Especially so this year.
But, unless you believe in a flat earth, and the heavens as some kind of a literal canopy above it, we know this is simply a matter of perspective. There is no less light in the world. We are simply spending more time in the shadows these days as our earth has begun that part of its travels around the sun that radiates more energy and light on the southern hemisphere than the northern.
It's a matter of perspective. The sun shines just as bright. The light is there, along with the dark. It always is. It's just that we don't get the same angle on it that we do in those July days when the light lasts for 16 hours and the darkness is almost non-existent to those of us who go to bed by 10 or wake up after 5.
Maundy Thursday, Year A
Exodus 12:1-14 † Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19 † 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 † John 13:1-17, 31b-35
The Three Days are a time of memory.
We remember the stories that are important to us as the people of God. The same stories that have been important to the church for centuries. Yet they still speak to us today. In new ways.
Part of the Three Days is about making all things new. Hope, Trust, Love. All things will be well. In this time of Lent, when we gave up far more than we thought we would….I have a new thing.
I have learned a new dance. I have known it for, like, forever. Since I was a child. You have known it too. But know, it feels totally new. It is the hand washing dance. I bet you thought I would have a handwashing song. But no. It's a dance.
Ordinary 22, Year C
Jeremiah 2:4-13 † Psalm 81:1, 1—16 † Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 † Luke 14:1, 7-14
There's a lot of things I love about doing this work I get to do with you. But one that always tends to bubble to the top for me is the privilege you sometimes give me to hold your stories—especially the most vulnerable and fragile ones. I wonder if you feel the same way about the life you share with one another? I wonder if you experience as well the mutual gift that it is to hold something fragile for someone else.
I suspect those stories that feel most delicate for us feel that way because they scrape close to some of the deeper truths of our lives—those things we just can't let go of, nor get past, the scars of our lives, the injuries that become something more. Their memories linger. They stay with us. Hold us and haunt us, and indelibly shape us.
To share in those with you is, for me, to get close to bedrock, something deep and true and stable. Although it is also, and in the same breathless moment, to brush against something wild and feather-light. Maybe it's something like this Hebrew notion of entertaining those angels unaware—our best nature and deepest truths—without knowing it, until the moment is past and all we have is the hindsight of resurrection and righteousness. | {
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\section{}
Vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field are a direct manifestation of quantum effects. The dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) is the generation of photons from the quantum vacuum due to a time-dependent boundary condition of the electromagnetic field. Unlike the classical situation, the quantum vacuum contains fluctuations, and the interaction between them and the time-dependent boundary conditions can create photons. The production of photons from a quantum field confined in a cavity with time-dependent boundary conditions was first analyzed by Moore \cite{Moore1970}. A clear way to accomplish this is by changing the cavity length \cite{Moore1970,Fulling1976}, as for instance when one of the mirrors undergoes harmonic oscillations (see Fig. \ref{fig1}). The experimental demonstration of DCE at microwave frequencies was reported in \cite{WilsonDCE2011} and more recently in \cite{Lahteenmaki2013}. However, no optical frequency photons produced by DCE have been seen yet. A fundamental limitation is that the periodic modulation of the cavity imposes a definite ratio of photon-to-mechanical frequencies as a resonance condition for photon generation \cite{Dodonov1989,Dodonov1993,DCE_gen_res_97}: When the mechanical frequency $\Omega$ of the moving mirror is roughly twice the fundamental frequency $\omega_{1}$ of the unperturbed cavity, the effect of parametric resonance is the largest and the number of photons in a perfect cavity grows exponentially with time \cite{Meplan1996}; this has been the traditional resonance condition in the study of DCE. Obviously, it is hard to produce optical photons when this means that the mechanical frequencies (phonon frequencies) have to be near-UV.
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=85mm]{setup1}
\caption{\label{fig1}Schematic representation of a cavity with a moving mirror. Equilibrium length and photon frequency are $L_{0}$ and $\omega_{1}(t)$, respectively. Both are periodically modified by small oscillations $q(t)$ of one of the mirrors.}
\end{figure}
The simplest description of DCE in the optical domain can be pictured as a Fabry-P\'{e}rot cavity with one mirror fixed and the other allowed to oscillate (Fig. \ref{fig1}). The coupling between the two modes takes place via the parametric modulation of the cavity by the mechanical amplitude of the mirror's motion; the photon frequency depends on the length of the resonator and therefore the photon frequency depends on time as the length of the resonator changes. The usual perturbative treatment is to assume that the maximum displacement of the mirror $x_{m}$ with respect to the unperturbed cavity length $L_{0}$ is a small parameter ($\epsilon \equiv x_{m}/L_{0} \ll 1$), and expand the photon frequency to lowest order in $\epsilon$ \cite{LawPRL1994,LawPRA1995}. For small oscillation amplitudes the linear order is sufficient while quadratic orders of $\epsilon$ are necessary for the "membrane-in-the-middle" optomechanical set up \cite{Harris2008} (in this case when the moving membrane is at an extremum of $\omega_{1}$, the linear term in $\epsilon$ vanishes and the coupling is dominantly quadratic). Higher orders of $\epsilon$ are typically neglected; nevertheless such higher orders are important as they give rise to resonance conditions in DCE that have not been explored before and that would lead to the production of optical photons.
In this paper we propose to go beyond the linear and quadratic approximations treated previously, and study the effect of higher orders of $\epsilon$ in the resonance condition necessary for DCE. We are, in particular, interested in the regime where the mechanical frequency is smaller than the optical frequency ($\Omega < \omega_{1}$). Such a condition would help to create experimentally feasible conditions for the demonstration of DCE in the optical domain.
Our model consists of a light field in a one-dimensional empty cavity formed by one fixed mirror and the other moving in a time-dependent trajectory $q(t)$ prescribed externally. The maximum amplitude $x_{m}$ of the mirror's motion is small compared to the unperturbed cavity length $L_{0}$. The mirror's mechanical oscillation is treated classically and we choose its trajectory as nearly harmonic \cite{LawPRA1994}, therefore a suitable choice is \footnote{According to Moore's description of quantum field with time-dependent boundary conditions, the only possible trajectories are those that satisfy both the one-dimensional wave equation for the vector potential $\Box A(x,t) = 0$, and the boundary conditions $A(0,t) = A(x=q(t),t) =0$.}
\begin{equation}
\label{motion}
q(t) = L_{0} \exp \left[ \epsilon \sin \Omega t \right].
\end{equation}
The cavity modes are coupled to the mechanical modes of the mirror, hence the usual opto-mechanical description of this system is based on the Hamiltonian \cite{Walls1993,*Walls1994} $H \approx \hbar \omega_{cav}(x) a^{\dagger} a + \hbar \Omega b^{\dagger} b$, where $a$ and $b$ are the annihilation operators for the light (photon) and mechanical (phonon) modes, respectively, and $x \propto (b^{\dagger} + b)$ is the displacement operator of the mirror's motion. The coupling between the two degrees of freedom is contained in the position-dependent cavity frequency $\omega_{cav}(x)$, which for small oscillation amplitudes of the mirror's motion, can be expanded around an equilibrium position $L_{0}$. In contrast, we use Law's derivation of a Lagrangian density \cite{LawPRA1994} resulting in the effective Hamiltonian
\begin{equation}
\label{Heff}
H_{\text{eff}} = \sum\limits_{\substack{k}} \omega_{k}(t) a^{\dagger}_{k}a_{k} - \frac{\dot{q}(t)}{q(t)} \, \mathlarger{\mathit{f}} ( a_{k} , a^{\dagger}_{k}, a_{j}, a^{\dagger}_{j} ),
\end{equation}
where
\begin{eqnarray}
\nonumber
&\mathlarger{\mathit{f}}&\!\!(a_{k} , a^{\dagger}_{k}, a_{j}, a^{\dagger}_{j} ) = \frac{i}{4} \sum_{k} \left( a_{k}^{\dagger 2} - a^{2}_{k}\right) -\\
\nonumber
&-& \frac{i}{2} \sum\limits_{\substack{k,j \\ k\neq j}} g_{kj} \sqrt{\frac{\omega_{k}(t)}{\omega_{j}(t)}} \left( a_{k}^{\dagger}a^{\dagger}_{j} + a_{k}^{\dagger}a_{j} - a_{j}a_{k} - a^{\dagger}_{j}a_{k}\right),
\end{eqnarray}
and
\begin{eqnarray}
\nonumber
g_{kj} = \begin{cases}
(-1)^{k + j} \frac{2 k j}{j^{2} - k^2}, & k\neq j \\
0, & k = j.
\end{cases}
\end{eqnarray}
The difference between the two is that in Eq. (\ref{Heff}) the mirror is not considered a dynamical degree of freedom, i.e., the mirror's motion is treated classically and it is a prescribed function of time. The mirror's trajectory is chosen such that $\dot{q}(t)/q(t)$ is purely harmonic, thus simplifying the calculation without making a qualitative difference.
The second term on the right hand side of Eq. (\ref{Heff}), arises due to the fact that $\omega_{k}(t)$ is an explicit function of time in the definitions of $a^{\dagger}_{k}$ and $a_{k}$ (see supplementary material), and hence the Hamiltonian that generates the equations of motion contains some additional terms. The effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) describing this system, is a time-dependent multimode Hamiltonian that contains terms associated with two-photon processes $a_{k}^{\dagger}a^{\dagger}_{j}$, and $a_{k}a_{j}$, that change the total number of photons and are responsible for DCE. The terms characterized by $a_{k}^{\dagger}a_{j}$ do not change the total number of photons.
The time-dependent photon frequencies are determined by $\omega_{k}(t) = k \pi/q(t)$, where $c=1$ and $k$ is an integer that labels each mode. Using Eq. (\ref{motion}) in the definition of the time-dependent photon frequency, and performing a Taylor series expansion in the small parameter $\epsilon$, we get
\begin{equation}\label{freqexp}
\omega_{k}(t) \approx \omega_{k0} \left[ 1 - \epsilon \sin \Omega t + \frac{1}{2} \left( \epsilon \sin \Omega t\right)^{2} - \dots \right],
\end{equation}
where $\omega_{k0}$ denotes the photon frequency associated with the unperturbed cavity length $L_{0}$. Since the cavity field operators depend explicitly on time through the time-dependent photon frequency $\omega_{k}(t)$, therefore by expanding the cavity field operators in $\epsilon$ and using (\ref{freqexp}), we obtain a weighted sum in terms of even and odd powers of $\epsilon$, and unperturbed annihilation and creation operators $a_{k0}$ and $a^{\dagger}_{k0}$, respectively. For the time-dependent annihilation operator of mode $k$ we get
\begin{equation}\label{aexpan}
a_{k}(t)\approx\!\!\!\sum\limits_{\substack{l=0, 2,...\\ even}}^{n}\!\!\!\frac{\left(\epsilon \sin \Omega t\right)}{2^{l} l!}^{l} a_{k0} -\!\!\! \sum\limits_{\substack{l=1, 3,\dots \\odd}}^{n} \!\!\!\frac{\left(\epsilon \sin \Omega t\right)}{2^{l} l!}^{l} a^{\dagger}_{k0},
\end{equation}
where $n$ is the maximum order of the expansion. In the rest of the article we will omit the subscript $0$ in the unperturbed photon frequency and field operators for clarity.
To study the influence of higher orders of $\epsilon$ in the resonance conditions necessary for DCE when $\Omega < \omega_{1}$, we start by considering $k$ modes of the cavity field in the effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}), and perform a series expansion in $\epsilon$ of the photon frequency $\omega_{k}(t)$ and field operators using expressions (\ref{freqexp}) and (\ref{aexpan}), respectively. Next we obtain the Heisenberg equations of motion from the series expanded Hamiltonian and choose the resonance condition present in the system that gives the largest photon to mechanical frequency ratio. In general, such a resonance is given by
\begin{equation}\label{genres}
\tilde{\omega}_{1} = \frac{n}{2} \, \Omega,
\end{equation}
where $n$ is the maximum order of the series expansion of Eq.~(\ref{Heff}) in the small parameter $\epsilon$, and is chosen such that $\Omega<\omega_{1}$. Here $\tilde{\omega}_{1} \approx \omega_{1}$ is the shifted photon frequency of the fundamental mode associated with the unperturbed cavity length $L_{0}$ (see supplementary material).
Notice that the effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) is quadratic in the operators involved, therefore the equations of motion for the cavity field operators are linear in nature and constitute a closed form. A trivial steady-sate solution of this system of equations is when no photons are initially present in the cavity, i.e., $\left\langle a^{\dagger}_{i} a_{i} \right\rangle = 0$, for $i = 1,\dots, k$. This steady-state solution is stable, meaning that small perturbations from it decay in time and hence no photons are produced. In the opposite case, when this "zero-solution" is dynamically unstable, any noise (e.g., vacuum fluctuations) drives the system away from steady-state resulting in photon buildup. To determine the region where photon production takes place, we do a linear stability analysis. It is well known that a system is dynamically stable if $\operatorname{Re} \left(\lambda\right) <0$ for all eigenvalues $\lambda$ of the system.
In order to study vacuum fluctuations, a Heisenberg-Langevin formulation should be used. However, here we consider a simplified treatment where quantum fluctuations are simulated by a small deviation from the steady-state values for the initial condition of the system.
A key to our formulation is that the series expansion of Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) now contains higher harmonics that result in resonance conditions that have been unexplored so far, and have the significant experimental advantage that the mechanical frequency $\Omega$ can be smaller than the unperturbed photon frequency $\omega_{1}$. For resonance to occur, notice that each slowly varying field operator in the equations of motion carries a fast oscillatory phase factor that would have to be approximately matched by the amplitude multiplying it in order to considerably contribute to the dynamics of the system. The main step in our analytical treatment is thus to neglect all the strongly non-resonant terms, i.e., the generalization of the so-called "counter-rotating" terms. With this approximation, the remaining equations of motion simplify significantly (see supplementary material) and the eigenvalue with the largest real part is given by
\begin{equation}\label{geneigenval}
\lambda_{\rm max}=\frac{1}{2\,n!} \epsilon^{n} \omega_{1} - \frac{1}{2}\kappa_{1},
\end{equation}
where $\kappa_{1}$ is the damping rate of the fundamental mode of cavity field, and we have considered the same damping rate in the rest of the cavity field modes.
\begin{figure}[hbt!]
\includegraphics[width=84mm]{StabilityV1}
\caption{\label{fig2}(Color online) Dimensionless frequency vs small parameter $\epsilon$ displaying stability of the vacuum state. Boundary of $\lambda_{\rm max}$ when expanding up to terms in $\epsilon^{3}$ (orange/lower solid line) and up to terms in $\epsilon^{6}$ (blue/upper solid line). The resonance condition is $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3\,\Omega/2$ and $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3 \, \Omega$, respectively. The number of photons grows faster the deeper one is in the unstable parameter regime.}
\end{figure}
As an example, consider a series expansion of (\ref{Heff}) up to $\epsilon^{3}$ terms and the lowest three modes of the cavity field. The equations of motion for the cavity field operators in the presence of photon damping result in a closed form, and we choose the resonance condition such that $\Omega<\omega_{1}$, in this case with $n = 3$ in (\ref{genres}) the resonance condition is $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3\,\Omega/2$.
In order to determine the region of operation for DCE, notice that $\lambda_{\rm max} = 0$ describes the boundary where the maximum eigenvalue changes sign and therefore the system transitions from stable to unstable. Here the maximum eigenvalue is given according to Eq. (\ref{geneigenval}) with $n$ substituted by 3.
In Fig. \ref{fig2} we plot the ratio of the unperturbed photon frequency to the photon damping rate as a function of $\epsilon$ (orange/lower solid line). For example, when $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1} = 1\times10^{3}$ and $\epsilon = 0.45$, the system operates in the unstable regime (orange region) and production of photons by the parametric modulation of the cavity mirror takes place.
\begin{figure}[h!]
\includegraphics[width=84mm]{mode3logV2}
\caption{\label{fig3}Time evolution of the mean photon number in the lowest mode vs dimensionless time. Numerical solution of the Heisenberg equations of motion when including resonant and nonresonant terms (blue, solid line), and resonant terms only (orange, dashed line). With $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1}=1\times10^{3}$ and $\epsilon=.45$ the system operates in the unstable regime.}
\end{figure}
Having identified the region of operation of our model, now it is interesting to determine how fast photon generation occurs especially if one does not neglect the fast-oscillating terms. Therefore, we solve numerically the Heisenberg equations of motion using the effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) for $k$ modes of the field and expanding up to terms in $\epsilon^{n}$. By looking at the equations of motion and using the resonant condition (\ref{genres}), we note that the contribution of the terms for higher order than $n$ in $\epsilon$ is negligibly small, therefore we cut off any higher order.
In Fig. \ref{fig3} we plot the full time evolution of the mean number of photons produced in the lowest cavity mode $\left\langle n_{1}\right\rangle$ when expanding the effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) up to terms in $\epsilon^{3}$ and considering the lowest three modes of the cavity field. From Eq. (\ref{genres}) the resonance condition with $n=3$ is $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3\,\Omega/2$, we take $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1}=1\times10^{3}$ and $\epsilon=.45$ such that the system operates in the unstable regime, and resonant production of photons from vacuum fluctuations occurs. Notice that the solution for the number of photons grows faster when including resonant and nonresonant terms in the equations of motion (blue, solid line), than when including resonant terms only (orange, dashed line). Qualitatively the dynamics -- in particular, the onset of photon production -- is well described by the simplified analytical treatment. Quantitatively this is not exact and the behavior needs the full quantum description. The simplified treatment gives an idea of the region of DCE at optical frequencies when $\Omega < \omega_{1}$ and can be solved analytically.
The effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) contains terms associated with the scattering of photons from mode $k$ to mode $j$, hence it is relevant to study the photon evolution of other modes than the fundamental one. In Fig. \ref{fig4} we plot the time evolution of the average number of resonant photons in the first three modes of the cavity field when considering terms up to $\epsilon^{3}$ in the expanded Hamiltonian. Starting slightly away from the steady-state, with $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1}=1\times10^{3}$ and $\epsilon=.45$, the system operates in the unstable regime and DCE occurs. Using the resonant condition $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3 \,\Omega/2$, the number of photons in all modes considered is parametrically excited. The number of scattered photons from mode $1$ to $2$ and from mode $1$ to $3$ also grow exponentially in time at a slower rate.
\begin{figure}[h!]
\includegraphics[width=84mm]{energies_full2V}
\caption{\label{fig4} Time evolution of the mean photon number in modes $1$, $2$ and $3$ vs dimensionless time. When the system operates in the unstable regime and considering resonant and nonresonant terms in the equations of motion, the number of photons of the scattered modes $2$ and $3$ also grows exponentially on the average at a slower rate. The parameters are the same as in the previous figure.}
\end{figure}
One of the interesting questions is now how to reach even higher photon frequencies, e.g., optical frequencies. With the same treatment for $n = 6$, $k=6$ the general resonant condition Eq. (\ref{genres}) in this case is $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3 \, \Omega$. In Fig. \ref{fig2} we represent the boundary when $\lambda_{\rm max}$ changes sign (blue/upper solid line). For example, when $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1} = 1 \times 10^{16}$ and $\epsilon = .02$, the system operates in the unstable regime (blue shaded region). Here, however, we did not conclude the calculation of the quantitatively correct full set of resonant and non-resonant terms. The reason is that this is simply numerically very unstable because of the extremely fast oscillations. The qualitative limit, however, shows correctly the order of magnitude of the onset of photon production (see Fig. \ref{fig5}).
\begin{figure}[h!]
\includegraphics[width=84mm]{mode6logV2}
\caption{\label{fig5} Time evolution of the mean photon number in the fundamental mode vs dimensionless time. Numerical solution of the Heisenberg equations of motion when considering resonant terms only and expanding up to $\epsilon^{6}$ terms. With $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1}=1\times10^{16}$ and $\epsilon=.02$ the system operates in the unstable regime and DCE at optical frequencies takes place.}
\end{figure}
To conclude, we have shown that the presence of higher orders of the small parameter $\epsilon$ in the expansions of the photon frequency and field operators, gives rise to resonances in the DCE that have not been explored before. This constitutes a novel regime of operation of the DCE at potentially higher frequencies when the mechanical frequency of the moving mirror is smaller than the photon frequency. Different from the usual resonance condition studied in DCE that involves moving a mirror at higher than light frequencies, our region of operation potentially permits resonances at mechanical frequencies that are experimentally feasible for its demonstration in the optical domain. Another way that is potentially more promising, is the equivalent change of the absorptive or refractive properties of the cavity, e.g., by placing and manipulating radiators into the cavity \cite{Yablo1989,DCE_indexref,MIR_DCE2005}.
The small parameter $\epsilon$ is related to the single-photon coupling strength for optomechanical set-ups allowing a linear coupling (cavity with a moving mirror) as $g^{(1)}_{0}=\epsilon \,\omega_{1}$, and for quadratic coupling as $g^{(2)}_{0}=\epsilon^{2}\, \omega_{1}/2$; experiments exhibiting this type of coupling include: "membrane-in-the-middle" systems \cite{Harris2008,Harris2010,APLHarris2012}, trapped cold atoms \cite{TrapatomsPRL2010}, trapped microspheres \cite{SphereNature2011} or double-disk structures \cite{PainterPRL2009}. The upper limit of the small parameter $\epsilon$ can be determined as follows: $\epsilon = \frac{x_m}{L_0} = \frac{v_m}{\Omega L_0} < \frac{c}{\Omega L_0} \equiv \epsilon_{\rm max}$ if there is no principal limit of the amount of phonons, i.e., the amplitude of the mechanical drive. For example, for THz phonons and a cavity length of $L_{0} = 3$ cm, this would result in a limit of about $\epsilon \approx 0.01$. For experimental parameters, like in \cite{Harris2008}, with a membrane of effective mass $m_{\text{eff}}=43$ ngr, mechanical frequency $\Omega/2 \pi = 354.6$ kHz and for a cavity length of $L_{0} \approx 6$ cm, on the other hand, $\frac{c}{\Omega L_0} \approx 10^4$, that is, for mirror movement at the speed of light the mirror would be displaced way beyond the size of the cavity, and thus there is no relativistic principal limit on epsilon, which is now only limited by the accessible driving intensity.
As an outlook to improve the effective coupling quantity $\epsilon$ further, one could envision ``coupling amplification'' using additional sources, e.g, like in \cite{Clerk2016}, i.e., introducing a strongly detuned parametric drive to the mechanics. Finally, for a situation with much smaller mechanical motion, this motion should be quantized into phonons. In this -- for optomechanical systems typically -- situation, it is particularly interesting to treat the number of phonons also as a dynamical variable. In the strong coupling regime, this poses the question what the nonlinear dynamics of the type investigated in this letter will affect. This will be discussed in an upcoming article.
\begin{acknowledgments}
B.E.O.M acknowledges financial support from CONACYT, Mexico. S.F.Y. wishes to thank the National Science Foundation and the Army Research Office for funding.
\end{acknowledgments}
\bibliographystyle{apsrev4-1}
\section{}
Vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field are a direct manifestation of quantum effects. The dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) is the generation of photons from the quantum vacuum due to a time-dependent boundary condition of the electromagnetic field. Unlike the classical situation, the quantum vacuum contains fluctuations, and the interaction between them and the time-dependent boundary conditions can create photons. The production of photons from a quantum field confined in a cavity with time-dependent boundary conditions was first analyzed by Moore \cite{Moore1970}. A clear way to accomplish this is by changing the cavity length \cite{Moore1970,Fulling1976}, as for instance when one of the mirrors undergoes harmonic oscillations (see Fig. \ref{fig1}). The experimental demonstration of DCE at microwave frequencies was reported in \cite{WilsonDCE2011} and more recently in \cite{Lahteenmaki2013}. However, no optical frequency photons produced by DCE have been seen yet. A fundamental limitation is that the periodic modulation of the cavity imposes a definite ratio of photon-to-mechanical frequencies as a resonance condition for photon generation \cite{Dodonov1989,Dodonov1993,DCE_gen_res_97}: When the mechanical frequency $\Omega$ of the moving mirror is roughly twice the fundamental frequency $\omega_{1}$ of the unperturbed cavity, the effect of parametric resonance is the largest and the number of photons in a perfect cavity grows exponentially with time \cite{Meplan1996}; this has been the traditional resonance condition in the study of DCE. Obviously, it is hard to produce optical photons when this means that the mechanical frequencies (phonon frequencies) have to be near-UV.
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=85mm]{setup1}
\caption{\label{fig1}Schematic representation of a cavity with a moving mirror. Equilibrium length and photon frequency are $L_{0}$ and $\omega_{1}(t)$, respectively. Both are periodically modified by small oscillations $q(t)$ of one of the mirrors.}
\end{figure}
The simplest description of DCE in the optical domain can be pictured as a Fabry-P\'{e}rot cavity with one mirror fixed and the other allowed to oscillate (Fig. \ref{fig1}). The coupling between the two modes takes place via the parametric modulation of the cavity by the mechanical amplitude of the mirror's motion; the photon frequency depends on the length of the resonator and therefore the photon frequency depends on time as the length of the resonator changes. The usual perturbative treatment is to assume that the maximum displacement of the mirror $x_{m}$ with respect to the unperturbed cavity length $L_{0}$ is a small parameter ($\epsilon \equiv x_{m}/L_{0} \ll 1$), and expand the photon frequency to lowest order in $\epsilon$ \cite{LawPRL1994,LawPRA1995}. For small oscillation amplitudes the linear order is sufficient while quadratic orders of $\epsilon$ are necessary for the "membrane-in-the-middle" optomechanical set up \cite{Harris2008} (in this case when the moving membrane is at an extremum of $\omega_{1}$, the linear term in $\epsilon$ vanishes and the coupling is dominantly quadratic). Higher orders of $\epsilon$ are typically neglected; nevertheless such higher orders are important as they give rise to resonance conditions in DCE that have not been explored before and that would lead to the production of optical photons.
In this paper we propose to go beyond the linear and quadratic approximations treated previously, and study the effect of higher orders of $\epsilon$ in the resonance condition necessary for DCE. We are, in particular, interested in the regime where the mechanical frequency is smaller than the optical frequency ($\Omega < \omega_{1}$). Such a condition would help to create experimentally feasible conditions for the demonstration of DCE in the optical domain.
Our model consists of a light field in a one-dimensional empty cavity formed by one fixed mirror and the other moving in a time-dependent trajectory $q(t)$ prescribed externally. The maximum amplitude $x_{m}$ of the mirror's motion is small compared to the unperturbed cavity length $L_{0}$. The mirror's mechanical oscillation is treated classically and we choose its trajectory as nearly harmonic \cite{LawPRA1994}, therefore a suitable choice is \footnote{According to Moore's description of quantum field with time-dependent boundary conditions, the only possible trajectories are those that satisfy both the one-dimensional wave equation for the vector potential $\Box A(x,t) = 0$, and the boundary conditions $A(0,t) = A(x=q(t),t) =0$.}
\begin{equation}
\label{motion}
q(t) = L_{0} \exp \left[ \epsilon \sin \Omega t \right].
\end{equation}
The cavity modes are coupled to the mechanical modes of the mirror, hence the usual opto-mechanical description of this system is based on the Hamiltonian \cite{Walls1993,*Walls1994} $H \approx \hbar \omega_{cav}(x) a^{\dagger} a + \hbar \Omega b^{\dagger} b$, where $a$ and $b$ are the annihilation operators for the light (photon) and mechanical (phonon) modes, respectively, and $x \propto (b^{\dagger} + b)$ is the displacement operator of the mirror's motion. The coupling between the two degrees of freedom is contained in the position-dependent cavity frequency $\omega_{cav}(x)$, which for small oscillation amplitudes of the mirror's motion, can be expanded around an equilibrium position $L_{0}$. In contrast, we use Law's derivation of a Lagrangian density \cite{LawPRA1994} resulting in the effective Hamiltonian
\begin{equation}
\label{Heff}
H_{\text{eff}} = \sum\limits_{\substack{k}} \omega_{k}(t) a^{\dagger}_{k}a_{k} - \frac{\dot{q}(t)}{q(t)} \, \mathlarger{\mathit{f}} ( a_{k} , a^{\dagger}_{k}, a_{j}, a^{\dagger}_{j} ),
\end{equation}
where
\begin{eqnarray}
\nonumber
&\mathlarger{\mathit{f}}&\!\!(a_{k} , a^{\dagger}_{k}, a_{j}, a^{\dagger}_{j} ) = \frac{i}{4} \sum_{k} \left( a_{k}^{\dagger 2} - a^{2}_{k}\right) -\\
\nonumber
&-& \frac{i}{2} \sum\limits_{\substack{k,j \\ k\neq j}} g_{kj} \sqrt{\frac{\omega_{k}(t)}{\omega_{j}(t)}} \left( a_{k}^{\dagger}a^{\dagger}_{j} + a_{k}^{\dagger}a_{j} - a_{j}a_{k} - a^{\dagger}_{j}a_{k}\right),
\end{eqnarray}
and
\begin{eqnarray}
\nonumber
g_{kj} = \begin{cases}
(-1)^{k + j} \frac{2 k j}{j^{2} - k^2}, & k\neq j \\
0, & k = j.
\end{cases}
\end{eqnarray}
The difference between the two is that in Eq. (\ref{Heff}) the mirror is not considered a dynamical degree of freedom, i.e., the mirror's motion is treated classically and it is a prescribed function of time. The mirror's trajectory is chosen such that $\dot{q}(t)/q(t)$ is purely harmonic, thus simplifying the calculation without making a qualitative difference.
The second term on the right hand side of Eq. (\ref{Heff}), arises due to the fact that $\omega_{k}(t)$ is an explicit function of time in the definitions of $a^{\dagger}_{k}$ and $a_{k}$ (see supplementary material), and hence the Hamiltonian that generates the equations of motion contains some additional terms. The effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) describing this system, is a time-dependent multimode Hamiltonian that contains terms associated with two-photon processes $a_{k}^{\dagger}a^{\dagger}_{j}$, and $a_{k}a_{j}$, that change the total number of photons and are responsible for DCE. The terms characterized by $a_{k}^{\dagger}a_{j}$ do not change the total number of photons.
The time-dependent photon frequencies are determined by $\omega_{k}(t) = k \pi/q(t)$, where $c=1$ and $k$ is an integer that labels each mode. Using Eq. (\ref{motion}) in the definition of the time-dependent photon frequency, and performing a Taylor series expansion in the small parameter $\epsilon$, we get
\begin{equation}\label{freqexp}
\omega_{k}(t) \approx \omega_{k0} \left[ 1 - \epsilon \sin \Omega t + \frac{1}{2} \left( \epsilon \sin \Omega t\right)^{2} - \dots \right],
\end{equation}
where $\omega_{k0}$ denotes the photon frequency associated with the unperturbed cavity length $L_{0}$. Since the cavity field operators depend explicitly on time through the time-dependent photon frequency $\omega_{k}(t)$, therefore by expanding the cavity field operators in $\epsilon$ and using (\ref{freqexp}), we obtain a weighted sum in terms of even and odd powers of $\epsilon$, and unperturbed annihilation and creation operators $a_{k0}$ and $a^{\dagger}_{k0}$, respectively. For the time-dependent annihilation operator of mode $k$ we get
\begin{equation}\label{aexpan}
a_{k}(t)\approx\!\!\!\sum\limits_{\substack{l=0, 2,...\\ even}}^{n}\!\!\!\frac{\left(\epsilon \sin \Omega t\right)}{2^{l} l!}^{l} a_{k0} -\!\!\! \sum\limits_{\substack{l=1, 3,\dots \\odd}}^{n} \!\!\!\frac{\left(\epsilon \sin \Omega t\right)}{2^{l} l!}^{l} a^{\dagger}_{k0},
\end{equation}
where $n$ is the maximum order of the expansion. In the rest of the article we will omit the subscript $0$ in the unperturbed photon frequency and field operators for clarity.
To study the influence of higher orders of $\epsilon$ in the resonance conditions necessary for DCE when $\Omega < \omega_{1}$, we start by considering $k$ modes of the cavity field in the effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}), and perform a series expansion in $\epsilon$ of the photon frequency $\omega_{k}(t)$ and field operators using expressions (\ref{freqexp}) and (\ref{aexpan}), respectively. Next we obtain the Heisenberg equations of motion from the series expanded Hamiltonian and choose the resonance condition present in the system that gives the largest photon to mechanical frequency ratio. In general, such a resonance is given by
\begin{equation}\label{genres}
\tilde{\omega}_{1} = \frac{n}{2} \, \Omega,
\end{equation}
where $n$ is the maximum order of the series expansion of Eq.~(\ref{Heff}) in the small parameter $\epsilon$, and is chosen such that $\Omega<\omega_{1}$. Here $\tilde{\omega}_{1} \approx \omega_{1}$ is the shifted photon frequency of the fundamental mode associated with the unperturbed cavity length $L_{0}$ (see supplementary material).
Notice that the effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) is quadratic in the operators involved, therefore the equations of motion for the cavity field operators are linear in nature and constitute a closed form. A trivial steady-sate solution of this system of equations is when no photons are initially present in the cavity, i.e., $\left\langle a^{\dagger}_{i} a_{i} \right\rangle = 0$, for $i = 1,\dots, k$. This steady-state solution is stable, meaning that small perturbations from it decay in time and hence no photons are produced. In the opposite case, when this "zero-solution" is dynamically unstable, any noise (e.g., vacuum fluctuations) drives the system away from steady-state resulting in photon buildup. To determine the region where photon production takes place, we do a linear stability analysis. It is well known that a system is dynamically stable if $\operatorname{Re} \left(\lambda\right) <0$ for all eigenvalues $\lambda$ of the system.
In order to study vacuum fluctuations, a Heisenberg-Langevin formulation should be used. However, here we consider a simplified treatment where quantum fluctuations are simulated by a small deviation from the steady-state values for the initial condition of the system.
A key to our formulation is that the series expansion of Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) now contains higher harmonics that result in resonance conditions that have been unexplored so far, and have the significant experimental advantage that the mechanical frequency $\Omega$ can be smaller than the unperturbed photon frequency $\omega_{1}$. For resonance to occur, notice that each slowly varying field operator in the equations of motion carries a fast oscillatory phase factor that would have to be approximately matched by the amplitude multiplying it in order to considerably contribute to the dynamics of the system. The main step in our analytical treatment is thus to neglect all the strongly non-resonant terms, i.e., the generalization of the so-called "counter-rotating" terms. With this approximation, the remaining equations of motion simplify significantly (see supplementary material) and the eigenvalue with the largest real part is given by
\begin{equation}\label{geneigenval}
\lambda_{\rm max}=\frac{1}{2\,n!} \epsilon^{n} \omega_{1} - \frac{1}{2}\kappa_{1},
\end{equation}
where $\kappa_{1}$ is the damping rate of the fundamental mode of cavity field, and we have considered the same damping rate in the rest of the cavity field modes.
\begin{figure}[hbt!]
\includegraphics[width=84mm]{StabilityV1}
\caption{\label{fig2}(Color online) Dimensionless frequency vs small parameter $\epsilon$ displaying stability of the vacuum state. Boundary of $\lambda_{\rm max}$ when expanding up to terms in $\epsilon^{3}$ (orange/lower solid line) and up to terms in $\epsilon^{6}$ (blue/upper solid line). The resonance condition is $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3\,\Omega/2$ and $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3 \, \Omega$, respectively. The number of photons grows faster the deeper one is in the unstable parameter regime.}
\end{figure}
As an example, consider a series expansion of (\ref{Heff}) up to $\epsilon^{3}$ terms and the lowest three modes of the cavity field. The equations of motion for the cavity field operators in the presence of photon damping result in a closed form, and we choose the resonance condition such that $\Omega<\omega_{1}$, in this case with $n = 3$ in (\ref{genres}) the resonance condition is $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3\,\Omega/2$.
In order to determine the region of operation for DCE, notice that $\lambda_{\rm max} = 0$ describes the boundary where the maximum eigenvalue changes sign and therefore the system transitions from stable to unstable. Here the maximum eigenvalue is given according to Eq. (\ref{geneigenval}) with $n$ substituted by 3.
In Fig. \ref{fig2} we plot the ratio of the unperturbed photon frequency to the photon damping rate as a function of $\epsilon$ (orange/lower solid line). For example, when $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1} = 1\times10^{3}$ and $\epsilon = 0.45$, the system operates in the unstable regime (orange region) and production of photons by the parametric modulation of the cavity mirror takes place.
\begin{figure}[h!]
\includegraphics[width=84mm]{mode3logV2}
\caption{\label{fig3}Time evolution of the mean photon number in the lowest mode vs dimensionless time. Numerical solution of the Heisenberg equations of motion when including resonant and nonresonant terms (blue, solid line), and resonant terms only (orange, dashed line). With $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1}=1\times10^{3}$ and $\epsilon=.45$ the system operates in the unstable regime.}
\end{figure}
Having identified the region of operation of our model, now it is interesting to determine how fast photon generation occurs especially if one does not neglect the fast-oscillating terms. Therefore, we solve numerically the Heisenberg equations of motion using the effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) for $k$ modes of the field and expanding up to terms in $\epsilon^{n}$. By looking at the equations of motion and using the resonant condition (\ref{genres}), we note that the contribution of the terms for higher order than $n$ in $\epsilon$ is negligibly small, therefore we cut off any higher order.
In Fig. \ref{fig3} we plot the full time evolution of the mean number of photons produced in the lowest cavity mode $\left\langle n_{1}\right\rangle$ when expanding the effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) up to terms in $\epsilon^{3}$ and considering the lowest three modes of the cavity field. From Eq. (\ref{genres}) the resonance condition with $n=3$ is $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3\,\Omega/2$, we take $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1}=1\times10^{3}$ and $\epsilon=.45$ such that the system operates in the unstable regime, and resonant production of photons from vacuum fluctuations occurs. Notice that the solution for the number of photons grows faster when including resonant and nonresonant terms in the equations of motion (blue, solid line), than when including resonant terms only (orange, dashed line). Qualitatively the dynamics -- in particular, the onset of photon production -- is well described by the simplified analytical treatment. Quantitatively this is not exact and the behavior needs the full quantum description. The simplified treatment gives an idea of the region of DCE at optical frequencies when $\Omega < \omega_{1}$ and can be solved analytically.
The effective Hamiltonian (\ref{Heff}) contains terms associated with the scattering of photons from mode $k$ to mode $j$, hence it is relevant to study the photon evolution of other modes than the fundamental one. In Fig. \ref{fig4} we plot the time evolution of the average number of resonant photons in the first three modes of the cavity field when considering terms up to $\epsilon^{3}$ in the expanded Hamiltonian. Starting slightly away from the steady-state, with $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1}=1\times10^{3}$ and $\epsilon=.45$, the system operates in the unstable regime and DCE occurs. Using the resonant condition $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3 \,\Omega/2$, the number of photons in all modes considered is parametrically excited. The number of scattered photons from mode $1$ to $2$ and from mode $1$ to $3$ also grow exponentially in time at a slower rate.
\begin{figure}[h!]
\includegraphics[width=84mm]{energies_full2V}
\caption{\label{fig4} Time evolution of the mean photon number in modes $1$, $2$ and $3$ vs dimensionless time. When the system operates in the unstable regime and considering resonant and nonresonant terms in the equations of motion, the number of photons of the scattered modes $2$ and $3$ also grows exponentially on the average at a slower rate. The parameters are the same as in the previous figure.}
\end{figure}
One of the interesting questions is now how to reach even higher photon frequencies, e.g., optical frequencies. With the same treatment for $n = 6$, $k=6$ the general resonant condition Eq. (\ref{genres}) in this case is $\tilde{\omega}_{1} = 3 \, \Omega$. In Fig. \ref{fig2} we represent the boundary when $\lambda_{\rm max}$ changes sign (blue/upper solid line). For example, when $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1} = 1 \times 10^{16}$ and $\epsilon = .02$, the system operates in the unstable regime (blue shaded region). Here, however, we did not conclude the calculation of the quantitatively correct full set of resonant and non-resonant terms. The reason is that this is simply numerically very unstable because of the extremely fast oscillations. The qualitative limit, however, shows correctly the order of magnitude of the onset of photon production (see Fig. \ref{fig5}).
\begin{figure}[h!]
\includegraphics[width=84mm]{mode6logV2}
\caption{\label{fig5} Time evolution of the mean photon number in the fundamental mode vs dimensionless time. Numerical solution of the Heisenberg equations of motion when considering resonant terms only and expanding up to $\epsilon^{6}$ terms. With $\omega_{1}/\kappa_{1}=1\times10^{16}$ and $\epsilon=.02$ the system operates in the unstable regime and DCE at optical frequencies takes place.}
\end{figure}
To conclude, we have shown that the presence of higher orders of the small parameter $\epsilon$ in the expansions of the photon frequency and field operators, gives rise to resonances in the DCE that have not been explored before. This constitutes a novel regime of operation of the DCE at potentially higher frequencies when the mechanical frequency of the moving mirror is smaller than the photon frequency. Different from the usual resonance condition studied in DCE that involves moving a mirror at higher than light frequencies, our region of operation potentially permits resonances at mechanical frequencies that are experimentally feasible for its demonstration in the optical domain. Another way that is potentially more promising, is the equivalent change of the absorptive or refractive properties of the cavity, e.g., by placing and manipulating radiators into the cavity \cite{Yablo1989,DCE_indexref,MIR_DCE2005}.
The small parameter $\epsilon$ is related to the single-photon coupling strength for optomechanical set-ups allowing a linear coupling (cavity with a moving mirror) as $g^{(1)}_{0}=\epsilon \,\omega_{1}$, and for quadratic coupling as $g^{(2)}_{0}=\epsilon^{2}\, \omega_{1}/2$; experiments exhibiting this type of coupling include: "membrane-in-the-middle" systems \cite{Harris2008,Harris2010,APLHarris2012}, trapped cold atoms \cite{TrapatomsPRL2010}, trapped microspheres \cite{SphereNature2011} or double-disk structures \cite{PainterPRL2009}. The upper limit of the small parameter $\epsilon$ can be determined as follows: $\epsilon = \frac{x_m}{L_0} = \frac{v_m}{\Omega L_0} < \frac{c}{\Omega L_0} \equiv \epsilon_{\rm max}$ if there is no principal limit of the amount of phonons, i.e., the amplitude of the mechanical drive. For example, for THz phonons and a cavity length of $L_{0} = 3$ cm, this would result in a limit of about $\epsilon \approx 0.01$. For experimental parameters, like in \cite{Harris2008}, with a membrane of effective mass $m_{\text{eff}}=43$ ngr, mechanical frequency $\Omega/2 \pi = 354.6$ kHz and for a cavity length of $L_{0} \approx 6$ cm, on the other hand, $\frac{c}{\Omega L_0} \approx 10^4$, that is, for mirror movement at the speed of light the mirror would be displaced way beyond the size of the cavity, and thus there is no relativistic principal limit on epsilon, which is now only limited by the accessible driving intensity.
As an outlook to improve the effective coupling quantity $\epsilon$ further, one could envision ``coupling amplification'' using additional sources, e.g, like in \cite{Clerk2016}, i.e., introducing a strongly detuned parametric drive to the mechanics. Finally, for a situation with much smaller mechanical motion, this motion should be quantized into phonons. In this -- for optomechanical systems typically -- situation, it is particularly interesting to treat the number of phonons also as a dynamical variable. In the strong coupling regime, this poses the question what the nonlinear dynamics of the type investigated in this letter will affect. This will be discussed in an upcoming article.
\begin{acknowledgments}
B.E.O.M acknowledges financial support from CONACYT, Mexico. S.F.Y. wishes to thank the National Science Foundation and the Army Research Office for funding.
\end{acknowledgments}
\bibliographystyle{apsrev4-1}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 5,351 |
Матюрен Брюно (; , — ) — самозванец, выдававший себя за дофина Луи-Шарля Бурбона, сумевшего спастись из Тампля во время французской революции. Известен также под прозвищем «принц-башмачник».
До появления в роли Людовика XVII
С достаточной точностью установлено, что этот претендент на трон Франции родился 10 мая 1784 года в семье сапожника Брюно, в Везене, в префектуре Шоле. Оставшись сиротой в очень юном возрасте, перешёл на попечение старшей сестры, бывшей в то время замужем также за сапожником, неким Делоне.
Впрочем, судьба ремесленника явно пришлась не по вкусу будущему претенденту, в возрасте 11 лет он ушёл из дома. Его первая остановка — скромная ферма в 50 милях от родительского дома. На вопрос хозяина о его имени назвался «малым из Везена» (), что тут же было понято как «сын барона Везена», эмигрировавшего во время революции. Как это обычно происходит в истории самозванства, Брюно с готовностью воспользовался чужим легковерием.
Ему повезло ещё раз — семья, в которой он оказался, тайно поддерживала вандейцев. Слух, что сын барона де Везена прячется в крестьянском доме, дошёл до ушей виконтессы Тюрпен де Кресси, и она с готовностью приняла мнимого беглеца в своём замке Ангри. Брюно, быстро смекнув, что легковерие аристократки сулит ему сытую и беспечную жизнь, охотно поддерживает её версию. Стараясь не распространяться (чтобы ненароком не выдать себя) о раннем детстве, он уверял, что последние годы воспитывался в приёмной семье и горько жаловался на лишения. Виконтесса верила каждому его слову, отмахиваясь от предостережений друзей, настроенных более скептически.
Идиллия закончилась в один день, когда история о «сыне барона де Везена» дошла до ушей его мнимого отца. Тот незамедлительно написал виконтессе, и та, чувствуя себя обманутой, немедленно отправила Матюрена Брюно назад на родину.
Однако Жанна Делоне (старшая сестра) не горела желанием заниматься воспитанием беглеца. Она умоляет виконтессу дать ему какую-нибудь работу, и бывший виконт де Везен становится подручным на псарне. Видимо, падение с высоты оказалось слишком болезненным, работать Матюрен не желал: несколько месяцев спустя виконтесса Тюрпен окончательно отослала его назад.
Делоне пытался научить будущего «дофина» тачать сапоги, но и это занятие не пришлось по вкусу претенденту. Через два года он вновь ушёл из дому, и следы его скрыты вплоть до 1803 года.
Арест и бегство
По свидетельству документов, в 1803 году претендент был арестован в Сен-Дени за бродяжничество, и приказом префекта полиции Дюбуа определён на 10 лет канониром в 4-й полк морской артиллерии (по странной иронии судьбы он попал на фрегат «Cybèle», который через три года увёз в ссылку Эрваго).
Конечно же из армии Матюрен Брюно пытался бежать. В Норфолке он дезертировал с корабля, за что был приговорён заочно к 7 годам исправительных работ и штрафу в 1500 франков. Далее он подвизался в Америке в роли булочника при сьере Одюке, французе, живущем в Филадельфии, затем Нью-Йорке поступил в услужение в богатую семью.
Он решил вернуться во Францию в 1815 году и здесь вновь продолжил карьеру самозванца. Некий моряк в Мен-на-Луаре принял его за Шарля Филиппо, пропавшего без вести в 1807 года. Узнав, что вдова Филиппо не бедна, Брюно охотно включился в игру. Его приняли, хотя и не без сомнений.
Явление «дофина»
В декабре того же года Матюрен был арестован в Сен-Крепене «за появление пьяным в общественном месте». На допросе он назвал себя «Шарлем Наваррским», однако же полиция, проверив его американский паспорт, и убедившись, что немного денег у арестанта есть (то есть его нельзя обвинить в бродяжничестве), ограничилась предупреждением.
Второй раз был арестован — снова за пьянство — несколько дней спустя в Сен-Мало. На сей раз паспорта у него не было, а совершенно невероятные рассказы о себе вызвали у полицейских сомнения в нормальности арестованного. Для выяснения его личности полиция начала расследование.
Достаточно быстро удалось разыскать вдову Филиппо, которая назвала арестованного своим сыном. Однако тот, решившись окончательно, объявил себя «сыном Людовика XVI» и тут же в тюрьме начал диктовать (по причине собственной неграмотности) письмо на имя правящего монарха, с требованием аудиенции, во время которой «он сможет предоставить неопровержимые доказательства», и достаточно прозрачным требованием освободить для него трон.
Его приняли за сумасшедшего и отправили в лечебницу. Однако же врачи не заметили ничего необычного в его поведении, и Матюрен был возвращён в тюрьму четыре дня спустя.
Тем временем, слухи о том, что дофин, сын Людовика, находится в тюрьме, и терпит жестокое обращение, распространились с молниеносной быстротой. Сработал тот же механизм, что и в случае других самозванцев — недовольство своим положением, нестабильность жизненного уровня большинства, ожидание «доброго короля» — неиспорченного короля-юноши. Ему прощали всё — и грубую простонародную речь, и очевидную неграмотность — последнее извиняют «революционным воспитанием» и долгой жизнью в Америке среди отбросов общества. Поклонники Брюно даже написали письмо герцогине Ангулемской с требованием признать в арестанте своего пропавшего брата. Впрочем, о степени образованности претендента можно судить по следующему эпизоду. В стенограмме судебного заседания отмечено, что в ответ на обвинение, что Матюрен выдавал себя за дофина, прокурор немедля получил отповедь:
— Дофин — это рыба, а я — герцог Нормандский!
(Матюрен путает «дофин» и «дельфин» — по-французски это одно и то же слово — dauphin. Заметим, что ту же ошибку повторит Гекльберри Финн.)
Площадную брань, которую он употреблял по адресу прокурора, судьи и присяжных, секретарь не решился воспроизвести в протоколе заседания, ограничиваясь пометкой «подсудимый грязно бранится» и троеточием.
Опасаясь волнений, власти отправили претендента в Ренн, затем по личному распоряжению министра полиции Деказа, его перевели в Руан. Ирония судьбы: именно в Руане претендент получил настоящую известность. Его первые сторонник — тюремщик Либуа — именовал Матюрена «вашим величеством» и с готовностью впускал к нему любого, желающего засвидетельствовать почтение. Тюрьма превратилась в теневой королевский двор, претендента засыпали подарками, жители Руана ссужали его деньгами, самозванец чувствовал себя на гребне славы. Чтобы убить время до суда, Матюрен тачал сапоги, диктовал многочисленные письма «сестре» (герцогине Ангулемской) и наконец взялся за «мемуары» наследника престола.
В качестве секретарей ему были приданы мошенник Ларше, Бранзон (профессиональный вор) и Турли, бывший судебный исполнитель, севший в тюрьму за взятки.
Воспоминания «Шарля-Луи, дофина Франции»
Основой для данной порции «воспоминаний» служили принесённые ему одной из почитательниц — мадам Дюмон — альманах королей Франции, история жизни Людовика XVI и, наконец, — вслед за Эрваго — неизменный роман «Кладбище Мадлен».
Бегство, по версии претендента, произошло в июне 1795 года. Так же как у Эрваго, в воспоминаниях фигурирует некая женщина, присматривающая за дофином в Тампле. Главарь шуанов, Фротте, по этой версии самолично проник в тюрьму, принеся с собой усыплённого опиумом ребенка, спрятанного в полой лошадке «не то деревянной, не то картонной». Так же дофина вывезли в тачке для грязного белья, принадлежащей прачке Клуе, переодели в девочку и отправили в Вандею к Шаретту, где его со всеми полагающимися случаю церемониями, короновали шуаны.
Дальнейшее повествует об отплытии в Америку, но корабль подвергся нападению и обыску, так что «дофину» удалось бежать лишь с помощью верного Филиппо, чьё имя он в дальнейшем принимает. Он гостил в Норфолке, Джорджтауне, Филадельфии. Затем последовало возвращение во Францию, где главарь вандейцев Кадудаль настоятельно советовал ему скрыться в Англии.
Дофин был представлен ко двору Георга III, где одним своим появлением расстроил планы будущего Людовика XVIII, в Бретани принял участие в нескольких битвах. В 1801 году оказался в Риме, где его с почётом принял и торжественно короновал ещё раз папа Пий VI (заметим в скобках, умерший тремя годами ранее). Опять же претендента клеймили знаком «святого Духа» на левую ногу (как видно, легенда о «царских знаках» в своё время оказавшая немалую услугу Пугачёву, во Франции также пользовалась известностью).
Вновь он вернулся во Францию, где был арестован и препровожден в Сен-Дени (эта деталь, одна из немногих, соответствующих истине). При тайной поддержке министра полиции Фуше, и Жозефины Богарне, снова скрылся в Америке, где поступил в республиканскую армию в чине младшего лейтенанта.
Следующий виток его скитаний включил в себя пребывание в Англии, в гостях у Георга III, на Мадейре, его принял губернатор Сан-Сальвадора и королева Португалии. И вот наконец, после падения Наполеона, претендент высадился во Франции, где его приняли за Филиппо, арестовали и препроводили в Сен-Мало.
Разоблачение и суд
Опасения оправдались, слухи о «мемуарах» проникли за стены тюрьмы, и в Руане началось глухое брожение. Чашу терпения властей переполнили пасквили на короля и правительство, расклеенные по стенам в одну из ночей. Брюно был переведён в королевскую тюрьму Консьержери, в одиночную камеру. Сторонники претендента продолжали настраивать общественное мнение в его пользу, но в это время работающая без устали полиция, нашла некоего землемера из Пон-де-Се, который опознал в «дофине» Матюрена Брюно, родом из Везена. Матюрен продолжал запираться, отвечая на все вопросы цитатами из мемуаров, на очной ставке отказывался узнавать сестру, её мужа, виконтессу Тюрпен — но случайно выдал себя, обратившись к Жанне Делоне её детским прозвищем «Матюрина».
Процесс по делу об узурпации королевского имени открылся 9 февраля 1818 года. Подсудимый вёл себя вызвающе и грубо, что породило позднейшую легенду, что обвинитель якобы опоил его вином. 66 свидетелей единодушны — перед ними самозванец. Несмотря на это вера в лже-дофина не желала уходить — в зале то и дело раздавались выкрики «Да здравствует король!».
19 февраля присяжные вынес приговор: 7 лет тюрьмы за мошенничество и узурпацию и 3000 франков штрафа. Остальные проходящие по тому же делу были оправданы. В мае Брюно отправился в тюрьму Гайон, где его «во избежание смут» содержали тайно. И наконец три года спустя был переведён в тюрьму Мон-Сен-Мишель, где и умер в 1825 году (впрочем, существуют сведения, что претендент скончался в 1822 году в тюремной больнице в крыле для буйнопомешанных).
Интересные факты
Матюрену Брюно посвящено одно из произведений Беранже «Наваррский принц, или Матюрен Брюно» . Приводим цитату из него в переводе Вс. Рождественского:
Тебе — французскую корону?
Ты спятил, бедный Матюрен!
Не прикасайся лучше к трону,
Гнезду насилий и измен.
Там лесть чадит свои угары
Безделью в кресле золотом.
Займись-ка лучше, принц Наварры,
Своим сапожным ремеслом!
У жизни есть свои законы,
Несчастье учит мудреца.
Ты б отказался от короны,
Когда б подумал до конца.
Легко ль считать судьбы удары?
Сначала трон — а что потом?
Займись-ка лучше, принц Наварры,
Своим сапожным ремеслом!
Льстецы смеются над тобою…
И ты захочешь, может быть,
Народ считая сиротою,
Себя отцом провозгласить.
Чем угождать (обычай старый!)
Льстецу то лентой, то крестом,
Займись-ка лучше, принц Наварры,
Своим сапожным ремеслом!
Ты к лаврам тянешься по праву,
Но где бы ты ни побеждал,
Из рук твоих всю эту славу
Ближайший вырвет генерал.
Английский полководец ярый
Кичиться будет над орлом.
Займись-ка лучше, принц Наварры,
Своим сапожным ремеслом!
См. также
Эрваго, Жан-Мари
Наундорф, Карл-Вильгельм
Эбер, Анри Этельберт Луи Виктор
Источники
Самозваные дофины
Анализ историй четырёх основных претендентов
Людовик XVII умер в Тампле?
Знаменитые судебные разбирательства XIX века
Manteyer, Georges de. Les faux Louis XVII. Le roman de Naundorff et la vie de Carl Werg. Recueil de sept cents documents tirés des Archives d'Allemagne et de France (1774—1920). — : Librairie Universitaire J. Gamber, 1926.
Garçon M. Louis XVII ou la fausse Énigme. — : Hachette, 1968.
Черняк Е. Б. Пять столетий тайной войны
Примечания
Самозванцы Франции | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 5,288 |
Q: Problem with apache arrow: error C2668: 'arrow::internal::launder': ambiguous call to overloaded function I started to use Apache arrow. I installed it via vcpkg.
Everything was ok until I updated the installed arrow to 6.0.1.
I installed it using following command from powershell console:
vcpkg install arrow:x64-windows-static
It was installed successfully and I saw the success message (somehow):
The package arrow provides CMake targets:
find_package(arrow CONFIG REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(main PRIVATE re2::re2 arrow_static parquet_static arrow_bundled_dependencies)
I have a file named csv_column_test.cpp. Then I commented out all contents of that file, except these two lines:
#define ARROW_STATIC
#include <arrow/api.h>
and tried to compile it. I continuously encounter this error:
error C2668: 'arrow::internal::launder': ambiguous call to overloaded function
What I do miss?
How to make things working again?
Thanks.
Here is the complete error log:
>------ Build All started: Project: StockPredII, Configuration: x64-Debug (default) ------
[1/2] Building CXX object splib\CMakeFiles\splib_test.dir\sparrow\csv_column_test.cpp.obj
FAILED: splib/CMakeFiles/splib_test.dir/sparrow/csv_column_test.cpp.obj
C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~4\2019\PROFES~1\VC\Tools\MSVC\1429~1.301\bin\Hostx64\x64\cl.exe /nologo /TP -DARROW_DEPENDENCY_SOURCE=VCPKG -D_SILENCE_CXX17_RESULT_OF_DEPRECATION_WARNING -I\Catch2\include -I..\..\..\splib -IE:\sandbox\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows-static\include /DWIN32 /D_WINDOWS /W3 /GR /EHsc /MTd /Zi /Ob0 /Od /RTC1 -std:c++17 /showIncludes /Fosplib\CMakeFiles\splib_test.dir\sparrow\csv_column_test.cpp.obj /Fdsplib\CMakeFiles\splib_test.dir\ /FS -c ..\..\..\splib\sparrow\csv_column_test.cpp
E:\sandbox\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows-static\include\arrow\util\aligned_storage.h(36): error C2668: 'arrow::internal::launder': ambiguous call to overloaded function
E:\sandbox\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows-static\include\arrow/util/launder.h(29): note: could be 'T *arrow::internal::launder<T>(T *) noexcept'
with
[
T=std::unique_ptr<arrow::Buffer,std::default_delete<arrow::Buffer>>
]
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.29.30133\include\new(33): note: or '_Ty *std::launder<T>(_Ty *) noexcept' [found using argument-dependent lookup]
with
[
_Ty=std::unique_ptr<arrow::Buffer,std::default_delete<arrow::Buffer>>,
T=std::unique_ptr<arrow::Buffer,std::default_delete<arrow::Buffer>>
]
E:\sandbox\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows-static\include\arrow/util/aligned_storage.h(36): note: while trying to match the argument list '(T *)'
with
[
T=std::unique_ptr<arrow::Buffer,std::default_delete<arrow::Buffer>>
]
E:\sandbox\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows-static\include\arrow/util/aligned_storage.h(36): note: while compiling class template member function 'T *arrow::internal::AlignedStorage<T>::get(void) noexcept'
with
[
T=std::unique_ptr<arrow::Buffer,std::default_delete<arrow::Buffer>>
]
E:\sandbox\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows-static\include\arrow/result.h(431): note: see reference to function template instantiation 'T *arrow::internal::AlignedStorage<T>::get(void) noexcept' being compiled
with
[
T=std::unique_ptr<arrow::Buffer,std::default_delete<arrow::Buffer>>
]
E:\sandbox\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows-static\include\arrow/result.h(435): note: see reference to class template instantiation 'arrow::internal::AlignedStorage<T>' being compiled
with
[
T=std::unique_ptr<arrow::Buffer,std::default_delete<arrow::Buffer>>
]
E:\sandbox\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows-static\include\arrow/buffer_builder.h(156): note: see reference to class template instantiation 'arrow::Result<std::unique_ptr<arrow::Buffer,std::default_delete<arrow::Buffer>>>' being compiled
ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.
Build All failed.
By the way, I use this script in CmakeLists.txt to find arrow:
find_package(arrow CONFIG REQUIRED)
if (${arrow_FOUND})
message(STATUS "Found Apache Arrow: ${arrow_FOUND}")
message(STATUS "Apache Arrow Version: ${ARROW_VERSION}")
message(STATUS "Apache Arrow DLL Version: ${ARROW_FULL_SO_VERSION}")
endif()
And this is the cmake output for this snippet:
1> [CMake] -- Found thrift: E:/sandbox/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows-static
1> [CMake] -- Found Apache Arrow: 1
1> [CMake] -- Apache Arrow Version: 6.0.1
1> [CMake] -- Apache Arrow DLL Version: 600.1.0
A: This is a bug in Apache Arrow fixed in this commit from december 2021.
I would assume that it will be included in the next release.
It is caused by the introduction of std::launder into the standard library in C++17. So if you compile against an older standard version (if possible), you shouldn't run into this.
| {
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} | 2,818 |
Q: How do I maintain session state with a Google Earth client? I'm playing with dynamic updates to Google Earth KML files.
The updates are of the form
<kml...>
<NetworkLinkControl>
<Update>
<targetHref="...">
<Change>
<Placemark targetId="...">
...stuff to update...
</Placemark>
</Change>
</Update>
</NetworkLinkControl>
</kml>
And it all works greatm from my Java Servlet - except that GE doesn't seem to support HTTP Sessions, and I need to provide only the updates that have occurred since the last request from a given client.
Am I doing something wrong? Does GE support sessions and I'm too stupid to work out how? If I need to provide client-specific updates without sessions, how can I do that? (I know I could use the source IP address as a coarse measure but that feels kinda nasty...)
Thanks!
A: It seems that I can use the kml/NetworkLinkControl/cookie element to give the client a parameter to send back to me. Trying to use this to get the client to tell me when it last requested an update and use this instead of sessions...
A: Old question, but you need to encode the session ID as part of the URLs. GE does not maintain cookies.
| {
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} | 4,518 |
Teenagers and Alcohol
There is nothing new or shocking about the link between teenagers and alcohol. By the age of eighteen, many teenagers will already have had some experience of drinking alcohol, whether at a student party, in a bar, club or pub that has a liberal attitude to licensing laws or at home with their parents.
What is shocking though, is the extent to which teenage alcohol consumption has spread and increased within the last fifteen years. The problem of teenagers and alcohol has almost reached epidemic proportions, with teenagers consuming alcohol at earlier ages than ever, and regularly participating in heavy drinking or binge drinking.
There is an innate tendency in teenagers to believe that they are somehow indestructible. The concept of their own mortality does not register and so they are liable to remain indifferent to, or ignorant of, the dangers of consuming too much alcohol.
Teenagers at greater risk from early drinking
It is well known that alcohol can be harmful and addictive in adults, but where teenagers are concerned the dangers posed by alcohol are greater still. The younger a person is when they begin drinking alcohol, the greater the chance that they will have a habitual drinking problem and the associated heath risks in later life.
It is crucial that teenagers are made aware of the short and long-term damage that they may be inflicting on themselves as a result of excessive alcohol consumption. Knowledge and understanding of the ways in which alcohol affects teenagers are the keys to preventing a life beset by alcohol related problems.
Whether you are the parent of a teenager who you suspect of having an alcohol habit that is out of their control, or you are a teenager yourself and recognize that your drinking is becoming a problem, it is easy to find someone that understands and who can help you.
Why do teenagers drink alcohol?
During our transformation from childhood to adolescence and onward towards adulthood, our experiences and interactions with the world around us change rapidly. Our bodies change with the onset of puberty, and our attitudes change as we begin to assert our independence and strive to adopt the characteristics associated with adulthood.
This sense of 'growing up' and wishing to fit in to the adult world, when combined with possible exposure to alcohol during childhood (a small taste of beer or wine as a 'treat' with Sunday lunch, for example), and with influences such as peer pressure and the widespread marketing and availability of alcohol may all contribute to a teenager's desire to drink alcohol.
Social interactions and the need for group inclusion play a major role in teenage drinking. Teenagers are at a stage of development during which they wish to experiment with new experiences and are inclined, if not actively encouraged by the behavior and expectations of their peers, to take risks. Where these experiences involve alcohol, such as the recent upsurge in the trend for social binge drinking, teenagers are unlikely to be aware of or pay heed to the potential damage they are doing to themselves.
Particularly at risk are those teenagers who may already have an inherited disposition towards drinking alcohol, where alcoholism pre-exists in a parent or other members of the family.
Teaching children and teenagers about alcohol
Children are influenced by their experiences of the world around them as they grow up. The manner and degree of their exposure to alcohol will determine their attitude towards it. Therefore, parents have the opportunity during the upbringing and education of children and teenagers to instill a sensible attitude towards alcohol.
Inevitably, sooner or later, teenagers will be exposed to alcohol. If your teenaged son or daughter has started drinking it is important to handle the situation sensibly and cooperatively in order to avoid 'preaching' or alienating them which may lead to increased drinking as a form of rebellion. While it may be difficult to impose control over a teenager, there are ways in which you can encourage them to handle alcohol sensibly and to reduce the effects of alcohol on them:
There is no need to adopt a heavy-handed or confrontational approach if your teenager arrives home drunk or has been drinking without your approval. Instead, discuss the situation with them at an appropriate time, explaining your feelings about the situation and encouraging them to explain theirs.
Agree mutually acceptable ground rules around parties. If the party is at home, remain close by but not intrusive. If the party is elsewhere ensure that your teenager has a means of contact and has a secure way of getting home after the party.
Reduce the risks of temptation to drink at home. Do not keep alcohol on open display. Encourage positive habits such as not drinking on an empty stomach, not mixing drinks, drinking water or juice to maintain hydration, and drinking slowly.
Hangovers and vomiting are negative rein forcers for teenage drinking. Do not be unsympathetic; your teenager will already be feeling bad and probably regretting their actions. Take the opportunity to ask them how they feel about the hangover afterwards and whether it has affected their attitude towards alcohol. Explain your feelings about the situation.
The risks of alcohol for teenagers
As a rule, the earlier an age at which a person starts drinking alcohol the greater the harm they are likely to cause themselves. For example, people who begin drinking regularly at the age of fifteen are four times more likely than others to exhibit the characteristics of alcohol addiction at some time later in their life.
The body is still developing in adolescence, which means that the risk of damaging vital organs such as the heart and liver is far higher for teenagers who drink regularly. In the last decade, deaths from liver-related diseases have risen significantly in people aged between twenty and thirty, with teenage drinking habits attributed as the cause.
Evidence also suggests a link between teenage drinking and impaired development which may lead to learning difficulties in adulthood.
But it is not only the implications for health that are a cause for concern when it comes to teenagers and alcohol:
A survey conducted in 2007 found that one in five teenagers admitted driving whilst under the influence of alcohol.
Averaged out, around four American college students die every day as a result of alcohol related injuries
11% of questioned students admitted to participating in unprotected sex after drinking alcohol
Around 300 American teenagers commit suicide each year as a result of alcohol consumption
The consequences of drinking excessively during teenage years may be long-term physical or mental harm, addiction to alcohol or possibly death. Life is too precious to waste in this way, so if you believe that a teenager's alcohol habits are putting them at risk, please do not hesitate to help them or to seek help for them.
Addictiveness of Alcohol
Alcohol Addiction Cures
Alcohol and Domestic Abuse
Am I An Alcoholic?
Effects of Alcohol
Patterns of Alcohol Abuse
Recovery from Alcohol Addiction
Signs of Alcohol Addiction
Women and Drug Addiction
Young People and Drugs
Signs of Addiction
Crack Cocaine Addiction
Recovery from Addiction
Am I a Drug Addict?
24-Hour Toll Free Helpline
Talk to an Independent
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Copyright © 2012 The Rehab Doctor – All Rights Reserved | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 8,360 |
I need a guy with enough wordpress knowledge and google AdSense knowledge. Here is my website [увійдіть, щоб побачити URL] and please do check why ads are not redirecting. Only professional can bid on this project. if you are a fresh freelancer then please show me your work first.
...load balance: - Grab the necessary repositories for scratch 3.0 from [увійдіть, щоб побачити URL] (At least you need the scratch-gui) - The general direction: - 1) Running it in local - Refer to the [увійдіть, щоб побачити URL] from scratch-gui - npm start - localhost:8601 - 2) Compile and build the GUI items - Using web pack to compile the GUI items. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 9,954 |
Q: Why isn't Ohm's law working for this simple circuit? I have a 70W 12V-500V DC power converter, and something in these pictures is not adding up.
I run the 500V output through a high-voltage 332kΩ resistor.
Now, using the left multimeter I monitor the current through the circuit, and it runs up around 320mA. Using the right multimeter I first check the voltage on the power supply leads: 511V. (So right away we know something's off -- the supply isn't even getting warm after a few minutes of testing.)
Then I use the right multimeter to check the voltage across the resistor: 12V!
I verified the resistor's value with both meters. If all of this is true then Ohm's law suggests that either the voltage across the resistor should be .320mA * 332kΩ = 106kV, or else the current through the circuit should be 511V / 332kΩ = 1.5mA.
(Of course the right multimeter itself is providing a path for current, but its resistance should be very high. Indeed: when I remove the right multimeter from the circuit the current increases only 2-3mA.)
My best guess is that the output of the converter is not very smooth DC, or has some characteristic that is causing these multimeters to produce erroneous values. If so, what characteristic might that be, and how can I adjust for it?
BTW, here's a close-up of the DC converter. Maybe the design will be familiar to someone.
And in case the wiring isn't clear from the photos, here's how it was connected
simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab
And here's some more information. First, to remove all doubt, here's the resistor being measured after all this, so it does not appear to have fried.
And here is the whole shebang. If the ammeter on the DC supply can be trusted, and this power converter doesn't have the ability to produce power out of thin air, then the true circuit current is under 3.6mA. (This is consistent with the fact that I have observed no heat buildup on any component whatsoever.) In which case the question is: Why is the Extech reading ~320mA? If I switch the Extech to µA scale it reads around 3180 (still not right). The other multimeter reads 0A at all scales, which is consistent with the voltage drop seen across the resistor (which implies 36µA true current).
Epilogue: I opened the Extech multimeter to find its 250mA fuse blown. Replacing that made it behave normally. Evidently it just has a very confusing failure mode!
A: Can't see much on your photo. But one thing is certain: Ohm's law is tough, but just. You haven't connected something right.
A: At a guess, your 332k resistor is about a 37 ohm resistor. The power supply has gone into current limit. Your nominal current (500 volts, 70 watts) is about 140 mA, so your real current is about twice this, which seems credible. Start by running your supply with no load and verifying that it will put out 500 volts no load. Then measure the resistance of your resistor. If both of those tests are OK, in the words of Gregory Kornblum,
You haven't connected something right
and looking at your tangle of wires I'm not surprised.
A: Based on your voltage measurement, it looks like your resistor is about 38 ohms, not 332,000 ohms. The current limit on your ExTech multimeter is 200 mA according to the datasheet. The meter is showing about 60% over that limit. My guess is that you either partially blew a fuse or triggered some internal current limiting circuit, so most of the voltage is being dropped across the current meter. Alternately, if the resistor actually was 336k, it might have burned out and failed short after dissipating 0.75W. You'd probably have noticed a smell if that were the case, though.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 1,618 |
Musiqq é um duo da Letónia que se formou em 2009. Em 23 de fevereiro de 2011, o duo ganhou a selecção nacional da Letónia para o Festival Eurovisão da Canção 2011 na Alemanha com a canção "Angel in Disguise".
Musiqq é composto por Marats Ogļezņevs e Emīls Balceris. Ganhou popularidade com os hits "Klimata kontrole", "Abrakadabra" e "Dzimšanas diena". Marats Ogļezņevs era conhecido anteriormente como compositor e cantor de hip-hop.
Discografía
2010: Šī ir tikai mūzika
Bandas da Letônia | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 4,326 |
Canadian commemorative set issued May 16 honors UNESCO sites
May 8, 2014, 10 AM
Canada $2.50 SGang Gwaay and $2.50 Rideau Canal stamps.
Canada $1.20 Old Town Lunenburg, $1.20 Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, and $1.20 Landscape of Grand Pre stamps.
Canada Post honored five Canadian UNESCO World Heritage Sites with five commemorative stamps issued May 16.
Three of the stamps are denominated $1.20 to fulfill the letter rate to the United States. The other two stamps are denominated $2.50 for the worldwide rate.
The five stamps are the $1.20 Old Town Lunenburg, $1.20 Landscape of Grand Pre, $1.20 Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, $2.50 SGang Gwaay, and $2.50 Rideau Canal.
The stamps for the two denominations are offered in two separate booklets of six.
A perforated souvenir sheet of five will include all five stamp designs created with moisture-activated adhesive. Canada Post will also issue five matching international rate picture postal cards.
The stamps were designed by Lara Minja of Lime Design, using stock photographs.
The stamps join five definitive stamps issued in March that featured other sites. Canada has 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites, and the 10 stamps issued so far are part of a multiyear program in both definitive and commemorative formats, according to Canada Post.
The UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Canada stamps were printed by Lowe Martin using five-color offset lithography on Tullis Russell paper, with general tagging on all four sides.
The booklet stamps have serpentine die cuts on all four sides. The souvenir sheet stamps are perforated approximately gauge 13.
The printing quantities for the set are 960,000 booklet stamps of each denomination, and 160,000 souvenir sheets.
The booklet of six $1.20 stamps is Canada Post item 413935111, and the booklet of six $2.50 stamps is item 413936111. The souvenir sheet of five is item 403935145.
The set of five international picture postal cards is item 262399.
Canada Post will service 13,000 each of the souvenir sheet on the official first-day cover. The FDCs will bear a postmark from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and is item 403935144.
Canada Post products are available at www.canadapost.ca/shop. Stamps and FDCs will be available by mail order from the National Philatelic Centre, Canada Post Corp., 75 St. Ninian St., Antigonish, NS B2G 2R8, Canada; or by telephone from the United States and Canada at 800-565-4362, and from other countries at 902-863-6550.
Canada's stamps and stamp products are also available from many new-issue stamp dealers, and from Canada Post's agent in the United States: Interpost, Box 420, Hewlett, NY 11557. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 9,910 |
\section{The relativistic mean field model}
Relativistic mean-field (RMF) models have been successfully applied in
calculations of nuclear matter and properties of finite nuclei throughout
the periodic table. In the self-consistent mean-field
approximation, detailed calculations have been performed for a variety
of nuclear structure phenomena~\cite{Rin.96}. In this
work we present applications of RMF to the
dynamics of collective vibrations in spherical nuclei.
In relativistic quantum hadrodynamics~\cite{SW.97},
the nucleus is described as a system of Dirac nucleons which
interact through the
exchange of virtual mesons and photons. The Lagrangian
density of the model is
\begin{eqnarray}
{\cal L}&=&\bar\psi\left(i\gamma\cdot\partial-m\right)\psi
~+~\frac{1}{2}(\partial\sigma)^2-U(\sigma )
\nonumber\\
&&-~\frac{1}{4}\Omega_{\mu\nu}\Omega^{\mu\nu}
+\frac{1}{2}m^2_\omega\omega^2
~-~\frac{1}{4}{\vec{\rm R}}_{\mu\nu}{\vec{\rm R}}^{\mu\nu}
+\frac{1}{2}m^2_\rho\vec\rho^{\,2}
~-~\frac{1}{4}{\rm F}_{\mu\nu}{\rm F}^{\mu\nu}
\nonumber\\
&&-~g_\sigma\bar\psi\sigma\psi~-~
g_\omega\bar\psi\gamma\cdot\omega\psi~-~
g_\rho\bar\psi\gamma\cdot\vec\rho\vec\tau\psi~-~
e\bar\psi\gamma\cdot A \frac{(1-\tau_3)}{2}\psi\;.
\label{lagrangian}
\end{eqnarray}
The Dirac spinor $\psi$ denotes the nucleon with mass $m$.
$m_\sigma$, $m_\omega$, and $m_\rho$ are the masses of the
$\sigma$-meson, the $\omega$-meson, and the $\rho$-meson,
and $g_\sigma$, $g_\omega$, and $g_\rho$ are the
corresponding coupling constants for the mesons to the
nucleon. $U(\sigma)$ denotes the nonlinear $\sigma$
self-interaction,
and $\Omega^{\mu\nu}$, $\vec R^{\mu\nu}$, and $F^{\mu\nu}$
are field tensors~\cite{Rin.96,SW.97}.
The coupled equations of motion are derived from the Lagrangian
density (\ref{lagrangian}).
The Dirac equation for the nucleons:
\begin{eqnarray}
i\partial_t\psi_i&=&\left[ \bff\alpha
\left(-i\bff\nabla-g_\omega\bff\omega-
g_\rho\vec\tau\vec{\bff\rho}
-e\frac{(1-\tau_3)}{2}{\bff A}\right)
+\beta(m+g_\sigma \sigma)\right.\nonumber\\
&&\left. +g_\omega \omega_0+g_\rho\vec\tau\vec\rho_0
+e\frac{(1-\tau_3)}{2} A_0
\right]\psi_i
\label{dirac}
\end{eqnarray}
and the Klein-Gordon equations for the mesons:
\begin{eqnarray}
\left(\partial_t^2-\Delta+m^2_\sigma\right)\sigma&=&
-g_\sigma\rho_s-g_2 \sigma^2-g_3 \sigma^3\\
\left(\partial_t^2-\Delta+m^2_\omega\right)\omega_\mu&=&
~g_\omega j_\mu\\
\left(\partial_t^2-\Delta+m^2_\rho\right)\vec\rho_\mu&=&
~g_\rho \vec j_\mu\\
\left(\partial_t^2-\Delta\right)A_\mu&=&
~e j_\mu^{\rm em}.
\label{KGeq4}
\end{eqnarray}
In the relativistic mean-field approximation, the nucleons
described by single-particle spinors $\psi_i$ are
assumed to form the A-particle Slater determinant $|\Phi\rangle$,
and to move independently in the classical meson fields.
The sources of the fields, i.e.
densities and currents, are calculated in the {\it no-sea}
approximation~\cite{VBR.95}:\ the scalar density:
$\rho_{\rm s}~=~\sum_{i=1}^A \bar\psi_i\psi_i$,
the isoscalar baryon current:
$j^\mu~=~\sum_{i=1}^A \bar\psi_i\gamma^\mu\psi_i$,
the isovector baryon current:
$\vec j^{\,\mu}~=~\sum_{i=1}^A \bar\psi_i\gamma^\mu \vec \tau\psi_i$,
the electromagnetic current for the photon-field:
$j^\mu_{\rm em}~=~\sum_{i=1}^A
\bar\psi_i\gamma^\mu\frac{1-\tau_3}{2}\psi_i$.
The summation is over all occupied states in the
Slater determinant $|\Phi\rangle$. Negative-energy states
do not contribute to the densities in the {\it no-sea}
approximation of the stationary solutions.
It is assumed that nucleon single-particle
states do not mix isospin.
The ground state of a nucleus is described by
the stationary self-consistent solution of the
coupled system of equations
(\ref{dirac})--(\ref{KGeq4}),
for a given number of nucleons
and a set of coupling constants and masses.
The solution for the ground state specifies part of the initial
conditions for the time-dependent problem.
The dynamics of nuclear collective motion is analyzed in the framework
of time-dependent relativistic mean-field model,
which represents a relativistic generalization of the
time-dependent Hartree-Fock approach.
For a given set of initial conditions, i.e. initial values
for the densities and currents, nuclear dynamics is
described by the simultaneous evolution of $A$ single-
particle Dirac spinors in the time-dependent mean fields.
The equations (\ref{dirac})--(\ref{KGeq4})
are equivalent to the equation of motion for the
one-body density operator $\hat \rho = \hat \rho(t)$
\begin{equation}
i \hbar {\partial \over {\partial t}} \hat \rho =
\left[ h_D, \hat \rho \right] ,
\label{eom}
\end{equation}
with an initial condition for $\hat \rho$
\begin{equation}
\hat \rho(t_{in}) = \hat \rho_{in} .
\end{equation}
$h_D$ is the single-nucleon Dirac hamiltonian defined
in Eq.~(\ref{dirac}). Starting from the self-consistent solution
that describes the ground-state of the nuclear system, initial
conditions are defined to simulate excitations of giant resonances
in experiments with electromagnetic or hadron probes.
Frequencies of eigenmodes are determined from a Fourier
analysis of dynamical quantities. In this microscopic
model, self-consistent time-dependent
mean-field calculations are performed for multipole excitations.
An advantage of the time-dependent approach is that no assumption
about the nature of a particular mode of vibrations has to be made.
Retardation effects for the meson fields are not
included in the model, i.e. the time derivatives
$\partial_t^2$ in the equations of motions for the meson
fields are neglected. This is justified by the large masses in the meson
propagators causing a short range of the corresponding
meson exchange forces.
Negative energy contributions are included implicitly in
the time-dependent calculation, since the Dirac equation is
solved at each step in time for a different basis set~\cite{VBR.95}.
Negative energy components with respect to the original
ground-state basis are taken into account automatically,
even if at each time step the {\it no-sea} approximation is applied.
The description of nuclear
dynamics as a time-dependent initial-value problem is
intrinsically semi-classical, since there is no systematic
procedure to derive the initial conditions that
characterize the motion of a specific mode of the nuclear
system. The theory can be quantized by the
requirement that there exist time-periodic solutions of the
equations of motion, which give integer multiples of
Planck's constant for the classical action along one period
~\cite{RVP.96}. For giant resonances the time-dependence
of collective dynamical quantities is actually not
periodic, since generally giant resonances are not
stationary states of the mean-field Hamiltonian. The
coupling of the mean-field to the particle continuum allows
for the decay of giant resonances by direct escape of
particles. In the limit of small amplitude oscillations,
however, the energy obtained from the frequency of the
oscillation coincides with the excitation energy of the
collective state. In Refs.~\cite{VBR.95,RVP.96,Vre.97}
we have shown that the model reproduces
experimental data on giant resonances in spherical nuclei.
\section{Monopole resonances and nuclear compressibility}
The study of isoscalar monopole resonances in nuclei
provides an important source of information on the nuclear
matter compression modulus $K_{\rm nm}$. This quantity is
crucial in the description of properties of
nuclei, supernovae explosions, neutron stars, and heavy-ion
collisions. In principle the value of $K_{\rm nm}$ can be
extracted from experimental energies of isoscalar
monopole vibrations in nuclei (giant monopole resonances GMR).
However, the complete experimental data set on
isoscalar GMR does not limit
the range of $K_{\rm nm}$ to better than $200 - 350$ MeV.
Microscopic calculations of GMR excitation energies might
provide a more reliable approach to the determination of
the nuclear matter compression modulus.
Modern non-relativistic
Hartree-Fock plus RPA calculations, using both Skyrme and
Gogny effective interactions, indicate that the value of
$K_{\rm nm}$ should be in the range 210-220 MeV.
In relativistic calculations on the other hand, both
time-dependent and constrained RMF results indicate that
empirical GMR energies are best reproduced by an effective
force with $K_{\rm nm}\approx 250 - 270$ MeV.
In Ref.~\cite{Vre.97} we have performed time-dependent
and constrained RMF calculations for monopole giant
resonances for a number of spherical closed shell nuclei,
from $^{16}$O to the heavy nucleus $^{208}$Pb. For the effective
Lagrangian we have used six parameter sets, which differ
mostly by their prediction for $K_{\rm nm}$, but otherwise
reproduce reasonably well experimental data on nuclear properties.
The idea is to restrict the possible
values of the nuclear matter compression modulus, on the
basis of the excitation energies of giant monopole states
calculated with different effective interactions. In
addition to the four non-linear sets NL1, NL3, NL-SH and
NL2, we have also included two older linear parametrizations,
HS and L1.
The sets NL1, NL-SH and NL2 have been extensively
used in the description of properties of finite nuclei
\cite{Rin.96}. In order to bridge the gap between
NL1 ($K_{\rm nm} = 211.7$ MeV), and NL-SH ($K_{\rm nm} =
355.0$ MeV), we have also included a new effective
interaction NL3 ~\cite{LKR.97} ($K_{\rm nm} = 271.8$ MeV).
This new parameter set provides an excellent
description not only for the properties of stable nuclei,
but also for those far from the valley of beta stability.
From the energy spectra and transition densities calculated with
these effective forces, it has been possible to study the
connection between the incompressibility of nuclear matter
and the breathing mode energy of spherical nuclei.
For the isoscalar mode we have found an almost linear
relation between the excitation energy of the monopole
resonance and the nuclear matter compression modulus.
For the determination of $K_{\rm nm}$
especially relevant are microscopic calculations of
GMR excitation energies in heavy nuclei. The results of
TD RMF calculations for $^{208}$Pb are displayed in Fig. 1:
time-dependent monopole moments
$\langle r^2(t)\rangle ~=~\frac {1}{A}\langle \Phi(t) |r^2 |\Phi(t)\rangle$
and the corresponding Fourier power spectra for the nonlinear
effective interactions. As one would expect for a heavy
nucleus, there is very little spectral fragmentation and a
single mode dominates, at least for NL1 and NL3. The
experimental excitation energy $13.7\pm 0.3$ MeV is very
close to the frequency of oscillations obtained with the
NL3 parameter set: 14.1 MeV. The calculated excitation
energy for the NL1 parameter set ($K_{\rm nm} =211.7$ MeV),
is approximately 1 MeV lower than the average experimental
value. For the linear effective forces HS and L1 the
oscillations are more anharmonic, and the monopole strength
is located well above the experimental GMR energy.
The effective interactions NL1 and NL3 seem to produce GMR
excitation energies which are quite close to the
experimental values. For these two parameter sets
we have calculated the isoscalar giant monopole
resonances in a number of closed-shell nuclei:
$^{40}$Ca, $^{56}$Ni, $^{100,114,132}$Sn, $^{90,122}$Zr,
$^{146}$Gd. The results are shown in Fig. 2.
The energies of giant monopole states are determined from
the Fourier spectra of the time-dependent monopole moments,
and are displayed as function of the mass number.
The NL1 excitation energies are systematically lower,
but otherwise the two effective interactions produce
very similar dependence on the mass number. The empirical
curve $E_x \approx 80~A^{-1/3}$ MeV is also included in the
figure, and it follows very closely the excitation energies
calculated with the NL3 parameter set.
Similar results are obtained from constrained RMF calculations.
Both methods indicate that, in the framework of
relativistic mean field theory, the
nuclear matter compression modulus $K_{\rm nm} \approx 250
- 270$ MeV is in reasonable agreement with the available
data on spherical nuclei. This value is approximately 20\%
larger than the values deduced from recent
non-relativistic density dependent Hartree-Fock
calculations with Skyrme or Gogny forces.
It should be also emphasized that the excitation energy of the
isovector monopole resonance in $^{208}$Pb, calculated with the
NL3 effective force, is in excellent agreement with the
experimental value $26 \pm 3$ MeV.
\section{Nonlinear dynamics of giant resonances}
Atomic nuclei provide excellent examples of quantum systems
in which the transition from regular to chaotic dynamics
can be studied. Signatures of chaotic
dynamics have been observed in correlations of nuclear
level distributions, and in the microscopic and collective
motion of the nuclear many-body system.
Especially interesting in this respect are giant resonances:
highly collective nuclear excitations whose properties,
excitation energies and widths, nevertheless reflect the
underlying microscopic dynamics. Theoretical studies have shown
that regular collective modes coexists with chaotic single-nucleon
motion: the adiabatic mean-field created by the nucleons averages
out the random components of their motion. However, it has also
been shown that important differences exists between the
isoscalar and isovector collective modes.
In particular, we have studied isoscalar and isovector
monopole oscillations in spherical nuclei \cite{Vre.97a}, but
analogous considerations apply to higher multipolarities.
In Fig. 3 results are shown of time-dependent
relativistic mean-field calculations for isoscalar
and isovector oscillations in $^{208}$Pb. Calculations have been
performed for the NL1 effective interaction.
In the isoscalar case both proton and
neutron densities are radially expanded, while for the
isovector mode the proton density is initially compressed
by the same amount.
In Fig. 3a we plot the time series of the isoscalar
monopole moment $\langle r^2(t)\rangle$, and in Fig. 3b
the corresponding isovector moment
$< r^2_{\rm p}(t) > - < r^2_{\rm n} (t)>$ is displayed. The
isoscalar mode displays regular undamped oscillations,
while for the isovector mode strongly
damped anharmonic oscillations are observed.
On the right-hand panels we
plot the corresponding Fourier power spectra.
The Fourier spectrum of the isovector mode is strongly fragmented,
but the main peaks are found in the energy region $25 - 30$ MeV,
in agreement with the experimental data.
For the isoscalar mode, the time series of the monopole moment
and the Fourier spectrum show that the oscillations of the collective
coordinate are regular. On the other hand, the appearance of a
broad spectrum of frequencies seems
to indicate that the isovector oscillations are chaotic.
For time-series that result from linear physical processes the
Fourier analysis unfolds the characteristic frequencies which
are invariants of the dynamics, i.e. they classify the dynamics.
For nonlinear systems the corresponding analysis is somewhat
more complicated.
We have performed the analysis of phase spaces
reconstructed from time-series of collective dynamical
variables that characterize the isoscalar and
isovector oscillations.
For the reconstruction of the dynamics two principal
quantities have to be determined: the time delay
and the dimension of the phase space on which the attractor
unfolds. The delays which define the time-lagged variables
have been determined from the first minima of the
average mutual information function:
27 fm/c for the isoscalar, and 13 fm/c for the
isovector mode. For the embedding dimensions
the method of false nearest neighbors has been used:
$d_E=3$ (isoscalar mode), and $d_E=4$ (isovector mode).
The reconstructed phase space can be represented by a
recurrence plot. For the
isoscalar mode the recurrence plot displays a pattern
representative for regular oscillations,
for the isovector mode it indicates non-stationarity \cite{Vre.98}.
If the dynamics of a system is
deterministic, the ensemble of phase space trajectories
converges towards an invariant subset of the phase space -
the attractor. For chaotic dynamics the attractor has fractional
dimension, whereas the dimension is integer for regular dynamics. The
correlation dimension $D_2$ of the attractor can
be numerically evaluated from
the log-log plot of the correlation integral $C_2(r)$ {\it vs}
the distance $r$ in phase space,
for a set of increasing dimensions of the phase space.
As the embedding dimension increases,
$D_2$ should saturate at a value equal to the
attractor's correlation dimension (Fig. 4).
For the isoscalar mode, for $d\geq 3$, the correlation
dimension saturates at $D_2 = 2$; it does not saturate
for the isovector mode, but slowly increases to some
fractional value between 2 and 3. The fractional dimension
of the attractor would imply chaotic or stochastic dynamics.
The identification and quantification of the regular
or chaotic dynamics can be also based on the evaluation of
information-theoretic functionals. For the
time-dependent one-body nucleon densities, we have calculated
the von Neumann information entropy functionals.
The Fourier analysis has shown that the
entropy of the isoscalar mode contains the same information as
the dynamical variable, but the structure is more complicated
for the isovector mode. Giant resonances represent
collective oscillations of densities
with finite spatial extension, and therefore
provide excellent physical examples for the analysis of
systems that have spatial as well as temporal structure.
For a nonlinear system in chaotic regime,
the influence of spatial motion on temporal chaos cab be studied:
what are the spatial correlations in a finite system that
displays chaotic oscillations of a collective dynamical variable?
These correlations have been described with a time-dependent
conditional entropy defined from a two-body nucleon density,
and the result is a high degree of two-body correlations for the
isoscalar mode, and very little spatial correlation
for the isovector oscillations of the nucleon density \cite{Vre.98}.
From the dynamical variables that
characterize the proton and neutron distributions,
we have calculated the average mutual
information for the isoscalar and isovector modes (Fig. 5).
This function quantifies the information that is contained in
the dynamical variable of the neutron distribution,
about the proton subsystem, and vice versa.
The two curves that correspond to isoscalar and isovector
oscillations, are plotted as functions of the size of the box
in the linear embedding of the time-series. The average information
that is contained in the collective dynamical variable
of the proton density, about the neutron density, is more than
a factor three larger for the isoscalar mode.
Time-series, Fourier spectra, phase-space plots,
Poincar\' e sections, autocorrelation functions, and
Lyapunov exponents \cite{Vre.97a} have also shown that
the motion of the collective coordinate is regular
for isoscalar oscillations, and that it becomes chaotic
when initial conditions correspond to the isovector
mode.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 8,191 |
\section*{Introduction}
In this note, we wish to point out certain basic misconceptions and incorrect statements made by G\"{u}rses and Pekcan in their recent paper \cite{1} on the soliton solutions of space reflection symmetric ($S$-symmetric) nonlocal nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger (NNLS) equation . Further, we would like to re-emphasize that the soliton solutions for the reverse space NNLS equation obtained by us in Ref. 2 is correct and more general (both $\cal{PT}$-symmetry preserving/broken cases). The solutions obtained by G\"{u}rses and Pekcan turn out to be special cases of the solutions obtained by us.
In Ref. 2, we have constructed one- and two-soliton solutions for the following $\cal{PT}$-symmetric reverse space NNLS equation introduced in Ref. 3,
\begin{equation}
iq_{t}(x,t)-q_{xx}(x,t)-2q(x,t)q^{*}(-x,t) q(x,t)=0.
\label{1}
\end{equation}
To obtain general soliton solutions of the above equation through a nonstandard bilinearization procedure, we augmented the evolution equation for the nonlocal field $q^{*}(-x,t)$ which results from the AKNS scheme \cite{4} as
\begin{eqnarray}
iq_{t}^{*}(-x,t)+q_{xx}^{*}(-x,t)+2q^{*}(-x,t)q(x,t) q^{*}(-x,t)=0.
\label{2}
\end{eqnarray}
In Eq. (\ref{1}), the nonlocal nonlinearity emphasizes the fact that one of the dependent variables is evaluated at $-x$ while the other variable is evaluated at $+x$ simultaneously. This implies that the functions $q(x,t)$ and $q^*(-x,t)$ need not be dependent and they are two independent fields in Eq. (\ref{1}). Due to the above reasons, we treat the nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger field $q(x,t)$ and the nonlocal field $q^*(-x,t)$ as two independent fields satisfying Eqs. (\ref{1}) and (\ref{2}). Since one is considering the Cauchy initial value problem associated with (1) and (2), it implies that one can specify $q(x,0)$ and $q^*(-x,0)$ independently and consequently they evolve as the coupled system specified by Eqs. (1) and (2).
Ablowitz and Musslimani have shown that in Ref. 5 the above reverse space NNLS Eqs. (\ref{1}) and (\ref{2}) posses the $\cal{PT}$-symmetry property which has been discussed widely in the recent literature \cite{6,7}. The $\cal{PT}$-symmetry property ensures that Eq. (\ref{1}) (and Eq. (\ref{2}) as well) is $\cal{PT}$ invariant under the combined transformation of parity ($\cal{P}$): $x\rightarrow -x$ and time reversal ($\cal{T}$): $t\rightarrow -t$ along with $i\rightarrow -i$. Note that an evolution equation admitting certain symmetry property does not imply that the resultant solution should also exhibit the same symmetry: it may exhibit spontaneously broken symmetry property as well.
In this situation, if Eq. (\ref{1}) admits a solution which obeys the $\cal{PT}$-symmetry property, that is ${\cal{PT}}\big[q(x,t)\big]=q^*(-x,t)\equiv [q(x,t)]^*_{|_{x\rightarrow-x}}$, then such a solution is called a $\cal{PT}$-symmetry preserving solution. For example, the explicit one soliton solution obtained by Ablowitz and Musslimani exhibits $\cal{PT}$-symmetry \cite{3,4}. Consequently, in this case the function $q^*(-x,t)$ is nothing but the one obtained from the function $q(x,t)$ after taking complex conjugation and a space inversion. We call this case as $\cal{PT}$-symmetry preserving solution.
On the other hand, if the solution $q(x,t)$ does not obey the above $\cal{PT}$-symmetry property of Eq. (\ref{1}), ${\cal{PT}}\big[q(x,t)\big]\neq q^*(-x,t)$, then we call such a solution as $\cal{PT}$-symmetry broken solution. In this case, the function $q^*(-x,t)$ need not be parity transformed complex conjugate of $q(x,t)$. It turns out that Eqs. (\ref{1}) and (\ref{2}) admit both the above types of solutions.
The above fact ensures that the solutions need not preserve the symmetry while the original evolution equation (reverse space NNLS Eq. (\ref{1}) and (\ref{2})) does. This is akin to spontaneously symmetry breaking solutions, for example $\cal{P}$-symmetry in $\ddot{x}-\omega_0^2x+\lambda x^3=0$ or $\cal{PT}$-symmetry in $\ddot{x}+kx\dot{x}-\omega_0^2x+\frac{k^2}9{} x^3=0$ or their field versions, see Ref. 8. Note that these equations also admit both symmetry preserving and breaking solutions. In view of the above said reasons, to explore symmetry preserving and non-preserving solutions, it is very much essential to consider the fields $q(x,t)$ and $q^*(-x,t)$ as two independent fields. Once their explicit forms are obtained one can categorize them by imposing or excluding the relation
\begin{equation}
q^*(-x,t)=[q(x,t)]^*_{|_{x\rightarrow-x}}.
\label{3}
\end{equation}
Note that Eq. (\ref{3}) is an extra requirement not demanded by the Cauchy initial value problem of Eqs. (1) and (2), and so it is not required in general. The situation is similar to a simple time delay equation $\frac{dx}{dt}=-bx+af(x(t-\tau))$, where $a$, $b$ and $\tau$ are constants and $f$ is a nonlinear function. Then the solution $x(t-\tau)$ is not merely $x(t)$ evaluated at $t=t-\tau$ but is much more complicated and chaotic \cite {9} and the initial conditions have to be specified on a line $-\tau\le t\le 0$ and each value of $x(t)$ in this interval evolves independently.
Considering all the above facts, we have constructed general soliton solutions of reverse space NNLS Eq. (\ref{1}) by solving the later equation along with Eq. (\ref{2}) simultaneously through a nonstandard bilinearization procedure \cite{2}. We have constructed the one-soliton solution of Eq. (\ref{1}) (and (\ref{2})) in the form,
\begin{eqnarray}
&&q(x,t)=\frac{\alpha_1e^{\bar{\xi}_1}+e^{\xi_1+2\bar{\xi_1}+\delta_{11}}}{1+e^{\xi_1+\bar{\xi_1}+\delta_1}+e^{2(\xi_1+\bar{\xi_1})+R}}\equiv \frac{\alpha_1e^{\bar{\xi}_1}}{1+e^{\xi_1+\bar{\xi_1}+\Delta}},~e^{\Delta}=\frac{-\alpha_1\beta_1}{(k_1+\bar{k}_1)^2}, \nonumber\\
&&q^{*}(-x,t)=\frac{\beta_1e^{\xi_1}+e^{2\xi_1+\bar{\xi_1}+\Delta_{11}}}{1+e^{\xi_1+\bar{\xi_1}+\delta_1}+e^{2(\xi_1+\bar{\xi_1})+R}}\equiv\frac{\beta_1e^{\xi_1}}{1+e^{\xi_1+\bar{\xi_1}+\Delta}},
\label{4}
\end{eqnarray}
and then the two soliton solution. Here, $\xi_1=i k_{1}x-ik_{1}^{2}t+\xi_1^{(0)}$ and $\bar{\xi_1}=i \bar{k_{1}}x+i\bar{k_{1}^{2}}t+\bar{\xi}_1^{(0)}$. In the above solution, all the parameters, namely $\alpha_1$, $\beta_1$, $k_1$, $\bar{k}_1$, $\xi_1^{(0)}$ and $\bar{\xi}_1^{(0)}$ are arbitrary complex constants and in general there exists no relation between them. From the above solution, one can immediately observe that the functions $q(x,t)$ and $q^*(-x,t)$ are independent and they satisfy both the Eqs. (\ref{1}) and (\ref{2}) without any restriction among the parameters. The soliton solution given above in (\ref{4}) is in general a $\cal{PT}$-symmetry broken solution, except for special choices of parameters as indicated below. In the general case, the soliton parameters present in the solution (\ref{4}) are not related to each other and they in general do not obey the constraint equation (109) given in Ref. 1. We have also deduced the $\cal{PT}$-symmetry preserving solution, that is
\begin{subequations}
\begin{eqnarray}
q(x,t)=-\frac{2(\eta_{1}+\bar{\eta_1})e^{i\bar{\theta}_1}e^{-4i\bar{\eta_{1}}^{2}t}e^{-2\bar{\eta_1}x}}{1+e^{i(\theta_1+\bar{\theta}_1)}e^{4i(\eta_{1}^{2}-\bar{\eta_{1}}^{2})t}e^{-2(\eta_{1}+\bar{\eta_1})x}}\label{6a} ,\\
q^*(-x,t)=-\frac{2(\eta_{1}+\bar{\eta_1})e^{i\theta_1}e^{4i\eta_1^{2}t}e^{-2\eta_1x}}{1+e^{i(\theta_1+\bar{\theta}_1)}e^{4i(\eta_{1}^{2}-\bar{\eta_{1}}^{2})t}e^{-2(\eta_{1}+\bar{\eta_1})x}}\label{6b},
\end{eqnarray} \end{subequations}
from our one soliton solution (\ref{4}) for the following parametric choices, namely $k_{1}=i2\eta_1$, $\bar{k}_{1}=i2\bar{\eta}_1$, $\alpha_{1}=-2(\eta_1+\bar{\eta}_1)e^{i\bar{\theta}_{1}}$ and $\beta_{1}=-2(\eta_1+\bar{\eta}_1)e^{i\theta_{1}}$ (where $\eta_1$, $\bar{\eta}_1$, $\theta_1$ and $\bar{\theta}_1$, are all real). The above solution coincides with the one given in Ref. 3.
In Ref. 1, the authors incorrectly claim that the more general soliton solutions obtained by us do not satisfy the $S$-symmetric equation (106) of their paper, which is same as Eq. (\ref{1}) given above. We point out here that our general soliton solution (\ref{4}) indeed satisfies the $S$-symmetric equation (106). We deduce the functions $q(x,t)$ and $q^*(-x,t)$ from (\ref{4}) for the non-singular soliton corresponding to Fig. 1 of our paper in Ref. 2, by fixing the parameters as $k_1=0.4+i$, $\bar{k}_1=-0.4+i$, $\alpha_1=1+i$, $\beta_1=1-i$, $\xi_1^{(0)}=\bar{\xi}_1^{(0)}=0$, that is
\begin{eqnarray}
q(x,t)=\frac{(1+i)e^{-(1+\frac{2i}{5})x+(\frac{4}{5}-\frac{21 i}{25})t}}{1+\frac{1}{2}e^{-2x+\frac{8}{5}t}},~
q^*(-x,t)=\frac{(1-i)e^{(-1+\frac{2i}{5})x+(\frac{4}{5}+\frac{21 i}{25})t}}{1+\frac{1}{2}e^{-2x+\frac{8}{5}t}}.
\label{5}
\end{eqnarray}
One can easily check that the above functions do satisfy the $S$-symmetric equation (106) given in Ref. 1 as well as each of Eqs. (\ref{1}) and (\ref{2}) of the present paper. This ensures that the parameters chosen by us in Ref. 2 for demonstrating the non-singualar one-soliton of reverse space NNLS Eq. (\ref{1}) is valid and correct one.
We also point out that G\"{u}rses and Pekcan in Ref. 1 wrongly calculated the functions $q(x,t)$ and $q^*(-x,t)$ from our general soliton solution (\ref{4}) for the parametric choice $k_1=0.4+i$, $\bar{k}_1=-0.4+i$, $\alpha_1=1+i$, $\beta_1=1-i$, $e^{\xi_1^{(0)}}=-1+i$ and $e^{\bar{\xi}_1^{(0)}}=1+i$ as
\begin{eqnarray}
q(x,t)=\frac{(2i)e^{-(1+\frac{2i}{5})x+(\frac{4}{5}-\frac{21 i}{25})t}}{1-e^{-2x+\frac{8}{5}t}},~~
q^*(-x,t)=\frac{(-2i)e^{(1-\frac{2i}{5})x+(\frac{4}{5}+\frac{21 i}{25})t}}{1-e^{2x+\frac{8}{5}t}}.\label{6}
\end{eqnarray}
However, the correct forms of $q(x,t)$ and $q^*(-x,t)$ deduced from (\ref{4}) for the above parametric choice are
\begin{eqnarray}
q(x,t)=\frac{(2i)e^{-(1+\frac{2i}{5})x+(\frac{4}{5}-\frac{21 i}{25})t}}{1-e^{-2x+\frac{8}{5}t}},~~
q^*(-x,t)=\frac{(2i)e^{(-1+\frac{2i}{5})x+(\frac{4}{5}+\frac{21 i}{25})t}}{1-e^{-2x+\frac{8}{5}t}}.\label{7}
\end{eqnarray}
It is evident that the wrong expressions given for the functions $q(x,t)$ and $q^*(-x,t)$ obviously do not satisfy the $S$-symmetric equation (106) given in Ref. 1, while our correct expressions (\ref{7}) given above do indeed satisfy it as well as Eqs. (1) and (2) of the present paper. These authors also claim that the parameters in our one and two general soliton solutions should obey the constraint equations (109) and (119) given in Ref. 1 which is obtained by imposing the relation (\ref{3}). As pointed out above the $\cal{PT}$-symmetry broken one and two solutions of the reverse space NNLS Eq. (\ref{1}) need not obey the constraint equations (109) and (119) given in Ref. 1.
Finally, if one demands the condition (\ref{3}), for instance for the one soliton solution the parameters have to be constrained as $\alpha_1^*=\beta_1$, $k_1=\bar{k}_1^*$ and $\xi_1^{(0)}=\bar{\xi}_1^{(0)*}$ which corresponds to the $\cal{PT}$-symmetry unbroken case which are satisfied by Eq. (106) of Ref. 2 or Eqs. (1) and (2) given above. For example, we deduce the functions $q(x,t)$ and $q^*(-x,t)$ for $k_1=0.4+i$, $\bar{k}_1=0.4-i$, $\alpha_1=1+i$, $\beta_1=1-i$, $\xi_1^{(0)}=0$ and $\bar{\xi}_1^{(0)}=0$ from (\ref{4}) in which the complex parameters obey the constraint Eq. (109) of Ref. 2 as
\begin{eqnarray}
q(x,t)=\frac{(1+i)e^{(1+\frac{2i}{5})x+(\frac{4}{5}-\frac{21 i}{25})t}}{1-\frac{25}{8}e^{\frac{4i}{5}x+\frac{8}{5}t}},~
q^*(-x,t)=\frac{(1-i)e^{(-1+\frac{2i}{5})x+(\frac{4}{5}+\frac{21 i}{25})t}}{1-\frac{25}{8}e^{\frac{4i}{5}x+\frac{8}{5}t}}. \label{8}
\end{eqnarray}
The above functions also satisfy the $S$-symmetric NNLS equation (106) of Ref. 1 as well as Eqs. (1) and (2) given in the present paper. We also note that the above solution (\ref{8}) becomes singular at $x=\frac{5}{2}n\pi$ and $t=\frac{5}{8}\ln\frac{8}{25}$, $n$ is an integer, which is a generic property of the above type of reverse space NNLS equation, as pointed out by Ablowitz and Musslimani \cite{5}.
Thus, to bring out both $\cal{PT}$-symmetry broken and unbroken soliton solutions of reverse space NNLS equation, one has to consider both Eqs. (\ref{1}) and (\ref{2}) simultaneously. The $\cal{PT}$-symmetry broken solution obtained by us need not satisfy the constraint equation (109) given in the recent paper of G\"{u}rses and Pekcan \cite{2}. Consequently the parameters considered to demonstrate one- and two-soliton solutions in our paper Ref. 2 are valid ones and they need not obey the constraint Eqs.(109) and (119) of Ref. 1 in general.
\section*{Acknowledgements}
The work of MS forms part of a research project sponsored by DST-SERB, Government of India under the Grant No. EMR/2016/001818. The research work of ML is supported by a DST-SERB Distinguished Fellowship (ERB/F/6717/2017-18) and forms part of the DAE-NBHM research project (2/48 (5)/2015/NBHM (R.P.)/R\&D-II/14127).
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 2,149 |
Polimlje est un toponyme qui peut désigner :
Polimlje, un village de Bosnie-Herzégovine situé dans la municipalité de Rudo et dans la République serbe de Bosnie ;
le Polimlje, une région géographique de Serbie. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaWikipedia"
} | 1,190 |
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Transforming Saga – Experience is Everything
In 2021 Saga will celebrate its 70th anniversary. The strategic turnaround plan outlined by the new management team in September 2020 will build on Saga's heritage while responding fully to the challenges faced by the business today.
At our core, we will remain the same - a unique British business focused on providing exceptional, differentiated products and services to our distinct customer group. At the same time, we will refresh our brand, invest in data and digital to improve the customer experience; we will optimise the Insurance business and build greater capability and resilience in the Cruise business and re-set our Tours offer.
Our new strategy will focus on the following five pillars.
1. People and Culture Reset
The transformation required in people, leadership and culture will underpin the success of the strategic reset, so this is our first priority. The new management team have already acted decisively, resizing and reshaping the business in 2020, and creating a culture of accountability by reducing management layers from 17 to 5.
We are launching a new purpose, values and engagement programme this month, as we connect the customer brand revitalisation with the colleague brand to secure a strong foundation for growth in revenue and profit across the business.
2. Data, Digital and Brand Transformation
The new management team are implementing a single group-wide customer digital data platform. This builds on and optimises the investments made in the last five years and will give us a single view of the customer across our businesses. We are efficiently re-purposing existing technology and developing big data solutions over the next two years. From this we are creating an automated personalisation model that provides prompts to make the best offer to each customer at each opportunity, allowing customer interaction in real time and synchronisation across channels and businesses to drive customer multi-product holdings, loyalty and value.
3. Optimising our Businesses
The new management team are focused on making the core Saga businesses the best they can be for customers and colleagues – separately and together. We are clearly focused on this core and will not create distraction by investing in other businesses until we have delivered real improvements. This discipline will be important to drive maximum value creation and efficiency across the Group in the interests of shareholders.
4. Lower Cost Base
During 2020 and before COVID-19 the new management team was focused on delivering the optimum cost base for Saga. Having inherited a high cost, complex business, we have worked hard to reduce cost and complexity and have focused Saga to great effect already. This focus on cost efficiency will remain as a central element for the business in the years ahead.
5. Debt Reduction
The new management team acted quickly with decisive measures to strengthen the balance sheet and reduce debt. Focused in particular on the covenanted short-term debt, we have reduced operating costs, disposed of non-core assets, suspended the dividend and now we are proposing the Placing and Open offer. These measures will significantly strengthen the Saga balance sheet and provide a strong foundation for future success and growth.
A key financial objective for the Group is to reduce total debt leverage to under 3.5x EBITDA. While the pace of recovery from COVID-19 will significantly influence the speed of debt reduction, the Group's modelling suggests that this should be achieved by the end of 2023 even in stress test scenarios. Given this priority the Group is not expecting to pay dividends in the next few years, but the Board will reassess its dividend policy once the leverage goal has been achieved.
Gender Pay Review
© Saga 2017 | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaCommonCrawl"
} | 1,147 |
The requirements for automotive system design and software development are increasing due to the three most important future issues of the automotive industry: autonomous driving, software updates over the air, and drive system electrification.
The current electric/electronic (E/E) architecture in the vehicle integrates one or a few vehicle functions per control unit. This increases both the number of control units and distributed software functions and the complexity of connectivity respectively. In this context, the E/E architecture must perform an increasing number of driver assistance functions. Estimates of software complexity assume that the more than 100 control units in a current premium vehicle contain more than 100 million lines of code.
At present, single or closely related functions are each implemented on a separate control unit. The availability of higher-performance systems on a chip (SoCs) (e.g., Renesas' R-Car H3, NXP BlueBox or NVIDIA DRIVE PX) suitable for automotive applications and the necessity to save weight (for example, by reducing control units or cabling) result in a desire to integrate multiple functions on a domain controller (responsible, for example, for the body, chassis or engine) or even fewer central computers.
This paradigm shift changes the vehicles' E/E architecture considerably. It involves the introduction of service-oriented communication and dynamic operating systems, which, in turn, must meet the requirements for real time, functional safety and security. Moreover, the use of dynamic control units allows adding functions that are not available when the vehicle is launched.
Figure 1 shows the probable future E/E architecture. At the heart are one or few central computers that communicate via a vehicle-internal Ethernet backbone. The key element of the vehicle is the gateway: It separates the user interface domain (infotainment system/smartphone connection) from the drive domain (drive system, brakes, battery management) and connects the vehicle to the OEM's back-end system using a so-called smart antenna. The main task of the smart antenna and the gateway is to implement different security layers such as firewalls and intrusion detection. Furthermore, the architecture will use mechanisms for secure on-board communication between the control units.
The connection to the back-end system enables many new functions. For example, the vehicle can be provided with environmental data such as road conditions, free parking spaces, or the latest offers from the vehicle manufacturer. These online services and the option to enable functions (e.g., driver assistance systems) give vehicle manufacturers the opportunity to generate revenue beyond the car's time of sale, i.e., even when it is in use.
The permanent online connection to the vehicle allows the OEM to collect user data and thus obtain more information about the reliability and wear of the components used. Sources of error in hardware and software and associated environmental data can be detected via the diagnostic interface, the software can be improved at the manufacturer and an update can be promptly downloaded to the car – similar to the smartphone app updates that users have grown used to over the years.
Autonomous or highly automated driving requires that the vehicle be aware of its surroundings. The environmental model is built by the so-called sensor fusion. It combines the camera, radar, light detection and ranging (LiDAR), and ultrasound data into a single model. These different sensor technologies are required as some of the systems have weaknesses that can be compensated for by other technologies. For example, unlike radar, camera systems may not be able to detect bright objects when blinded by the sun.
In the future, these complex calculations will be made by the central computer in the vehicle. The processors used will be heterogeneous multi-core processors, presumably with several cores, GPUs, and Gigabit Ethernet channels. For safety-critical functions such as plausibility checks, monitoring, and result validation, additional safety cores will be integrated onto the chip or a second processor will be integrated onto the board. With ARM Cortex A50/A57, Renesas' R-Car H3, Cortex R7, and Infineon Aurix, such systems already exist.
In contrast to these complex multi-core systems, many control units were 16-bit single-core systems just ten years ago. For the suppliers, this leap in technology means the demanding task of building competence in the field of software. Software used to be only a cost factor that was part of a brake, including a control unit. In the future, the software function will be the real value. This will disrupt the existing supply chain and enable new business models. Who will benefit from this development? Probably manufacturers who early use integrated toolchains for system design, time modeling, code generation, and verification as well as validation to manage the increasing software complexity and therefore the costs.
At present, most control units use statically configured operating systems implemented according to the AUTOSAR or OSEK standard. During configuration time, these systems define scheduling and resource utilization that can only be changed to a limited extent during run-time. The static configuration has the advantage that it is easier to verify that a function is executed within a certain time span. In the case of the side airbag, for example, a decision must be made in just a few milliseconds and the airbag has to be deployed.
In this context, the AUTOSAR consortium introduced Adaptive AUTOSAR (see Figure 2). It includes a POSIX OS, which runs either directly on a multi-core processor or in a hypervisor environment if multiple operating systems are to be integrated in parallel. The Adaptive AUTOSAR working groups of different OEMs and suppliers define the special services for use in automotive applications such as diagnostic services, security services, and SOME/IP. The services and software components (functions) communicate via a shared service broker. The middleware protocol used is called ARA and is inspired by Common API.
Most control units communicate with sensors and actuators via Ethernet. Time Sensitive Networking (TSN), an extension to the Audio Video Bridging (AVB) protocol, is used to implement safety-critical, reliable communication. The TSN standard was especially developed for safety- and real-time-critical systems such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving. In addition, Ethernet is used to connect infotainment systems to the internet and the vehicle manufacturer's back-end system.
FlexRay is the loser of this change in technology. The fieldbus system is now applied by only a few OEMs and should be replaced soon. CAN and CAN with flexible data rate (CAN FD) will still be used to connect sensors and actuators or smaller input/output (IO) control units.
IO devices and the central computers communicate via a service-oriented interface specified in 2011 by the BMW Group – scalable service-oriented middleware over IP, abbreviated as SOME/IP. It is based on Ethernet and the TCP/IP protocol family. The essential aspect is that SOME/IP automatically maps a defined application interface to packets. The advantage of SOME/IP is that it can even be integrated into small devices and enables quick starting of the overall system.
Aside from the infrastructure issues presented above, largely specified by the AUTOSAR consortium and implemented in Elektrobit' s AUTOSAR product line EB tresos, the need for a functional architecture with defined interfaces between the function blocks is becoming increasingly clear. The advantage of common standardized interfaces is that certain blocks can be exchanged and the option to buy or offer them as a product.
Figure 3 illustrates the architecture of the "open robinos" project from Elektrobit. The left-hand side shows the components for vehicle positioning and object fusion that combines objects detected by various sensors to form an overall picture. Trajectory planning, acceleration and steering angle are then determined based on the current driving situation.
The objective of the project is to develop an open reference architecture that defines software components, interfaces and control mechanisms. The specification is freely available on the Elektrobit website and the project is open to OEMs, suppliers and partners. This approach is new to the market; however, its aim is to be integrated into different ADAS platforms. In this context, the platform is a part of different hardware products with different operating systems such as Adaptive AUTOSAR, QNX, or Unix-like OS that are available on the market.
The infrastructure where the vehicle moves is a major technical challenge for self-driving cars. Currently, vehicles are equipped with as many sensors as possible so that they autonomously find their way through endless different traffic situations. This approach is expensive and complex compared to trains and planes moving in a protected zone that is controlled externally. For example, altitude and route are directed by air traffic control services and trains are automatically stopped when they enter areas that are not open.
However, one cannot put a fence around all roads and bar cyclists. But road infrastructure modifications that tell the car, for example on entrance/exit ramps, that it is on a motorway and not on a parallel country road located some meters away would simplify the position detection problem. Another example is a parking structure that controls the vehicle remotely and guides it to an available parking space. This concept is simpler than vehicles that, looking for a free parking space, autonomously roam through the parking structure.
The prerequisites for these use cases are fast, nation-wide mobile data network (5G) rollout for data exchange with the back-end and infrastructure as well as the option to promptly adapt the road infrastructure to autonomous driving.
Which development process is emerging?
How can the requirements for both functional safety and – especially with regard to the increasing connectivity of vehicles – information security be met in these highly complex overall systems? To meet the high quality standards of automotive software development, the Automotive SPICE process model is well established throughout the industry. It forms the basis for safety and security.
The ISO 26262 standard defines how functional safety aspects can be implemented in system development at both the process level and the method level. For software architectures, functional safety is a key factor. Basic integrity mechanisms such as monitoring system integrity, partitioning, time and process monitoring, or safe communication are available and are already being used in series projects.
Security mechanisms have been relevant in automotive development for quite a long time. Systems such as immobilizers, secure electronic keys, or secure storage of the odometer are often already standard features. However, due to the increasing connectivity of vehicles, the industry is facing new challenges. According to the basic rule of information technology, "whatever is connected will be attacked," the system aspects of security and privacy are of growing significance in the automotive industry as well.
The first successful attacks on systems using remote access or the Internet have already been made public and have evoked a wide response. In response, SAE International published a manual for the development of secure systems at the beginning of 2016 (SAE J3061, "Cybersecurity Guidebook for Cyber-Physical Systems"). It describes both processes and methods and follows ISO 26262 with regard to the life cycle. The document is not a standard. However, it summarizes essential efforts such as research programs or existing standards and publications. As such, it is a valuable contribution and can serve as an entry point to the introduction of security processes and methods.
The requirements for architectures for autonomous driving have become significantly more complex. However, by combining aspects such as standard architectures, functional safety, security, multi-core systems and availability, it is possible to design dependable systems and ideally evaluate and combine the individual system aspects depending on the use case.
All those involved in the automotive supply chain need to develop a core competency: systems engineering and therefore the interdisciplinary understanding of physics, electronics and software.
In the future, (software) developers must have a better understanding of systems in order to model the system behavior in the appropriate tools with linked code generators. Classic software development focuses on the development of tooling, code generators, and standard functions that are purchased as reusable products. Integrating the software will still require specialists who understand, analyze and fix errors at all levels from deeply embedded to service-oriented behavior.
In the coming years, new vehicle manufacturers and suppliers will appear on the automotive market. Especially IT companies have been using these technologies for years in other areas and follow the vision to run the car as a smartphone on wheels. The reason for this is that autonomous driving gives vehicle occupants considerably more time. This time can be used, for example, to use social networks, do online shopping, or work. Converting 'driving time' to 'internet use time' gives rise to entirely new business models.
OEMs' business cases, too, will be increasingly determined not only by selling, but also by running the vehicle. Among the ideas being discussed are novel rental and leasing concepts whose subject matter is no longer the car as a product but mobility as a service. In the future, the rental price for the autonomous transport capsule that takes you to work could differ depending on the time of day.
Rudolf Grave studied electrical engineering at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg. He has been working for Elektrobit since 2005 and is responsible for AUTOSAR projects. His focus is on multi-core and functional safety. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 7,348 |
Q: Angular with Universal does not run I am a beginner in angular 4. I need angular app with SEO friendly.It supports Angular Universal (with --universal flag after ung new or ung init),
I've created an angular Universal app.
I tried to this way.
npm install -g universal-cli
ung new PROJECT_NAME
cd PROJECT_NAME
ung serve
I ran the project I got this error
fallbackLoader option has been deprecated - replace with "fallback"
loader option has been deprecated - replace with "use"
** Universal-cli Development Server is running on http://localhost:4200. **
Hash: 34da1f0a10666443edabf3e29a861661ab204818
webpack: bundle is now VALID
module.js:471
throw err;
^
Error: Cannot find module 'F:\anitha\projects\Angular universal\TestProject\"F:\anitha\projects\Angular'
at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:469:15)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:417:25)
at Module.runMain (module.js:604:10)
at run (bootstrap_node.js:390:7)
at startup (bootstrap_node.js:150:9)
at bootstrap_node.js:505:3
I tried to remove node_modules again i install npm.But Still not working.
Here is my package.json
{
"name": "demo",
"version": "0.0.0",
"license": "MIT",
"angular-cli": {},
"scripts": {
"start": "ung serve",
"lint": "tslint \"src/**/*.ts\"",
"test": "ung test",
"pree2e": "webdriver-manager update --standalone false --gecko false",
"e2e": "protractor"
},
"private": true,
"dependencies": {
"@angular/common": "2.2.3",
"@angular/compiler": "2.2.3",
"@angular/core": "2.2.3",
"@angular/forms": "2.2.3",
"@angular/http": "2.2.3",
"@angular/platform-browser": "2.2.3",
"@angular/platform-browser-dynamic": "2.2.3",
"@angular/router": "3.2.3",
"@angular/platform-server": "2.2.3",
"angular2-platform-node": "2.1.0-rc.1",
"angular2-universal": "2.1.0-rc.1",
"angular2-universal-polyfills": "2.1.0-rc.1",
"angular2-express-engine": "2.1.0-rc.1",
"compression": "1.6.2",
"express": "^4.14.0",
"core-js": "^2.4.1",
"rxjs": "5.0.0-beta.12",
"ts-helpers": "^1.1.1",
"zone.js": "^0.6.23"
},
"devDependencies": {
"@angular/compiler-cli": "2.2.3",
"@types/jasmine": "2.5.38",
"@types/node": "^6.0.42",
"@types/body-parser": "0.0.29",
"@types/compression": "0.0.29",
"@types/cookie-parser": "^1.3.29",
"@types/express": "^4.0.29",
"@types/express-serve-static-core": "^4.0.29",
"@types/mime": "0.0.28",
"@types/serve-static": "^1.7.27",
"universal-cli": "1.0.0-alpha.universal.3",
"codelyzer": "~2.0.0-beta.1",
"jasmine-core": "2.5.2",
"jasmine-spec-reporter": "2.5.0",
"karma": "1.2.0",
"karma-chrome-launcher": "^2.0.0",
"karma-cli": "^1.0.1",
"karma-jasmine": "^1.0.2",
"karma-remap-istanbul": "^0.2.1",
"protractor": "~4.0.13",
"ts-node": "1.2.1",
"tslint": "^4.0.2",
"typescript": "~2.0.3"
}
}
How can i fix this issue.
A: The universal-cli is outdated. Notice how the packages use Angular 2. Follow this guide and use angular-cli instead.
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaStackExchange"
} | 7,203 |
Video stream is currently not live.
All live broadcasts from VISIONS '11 have ended. We invite you to enjoy archived videos from the cruise in our Video Gallery here.
If you are having difficulty seeing the video, check our Video Player Issues page. | {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaC4"
} | 1,026 |
\subsection*{Keywords}
Discrete wavelet transform, Image processing, Synchronization, Graphics processors
\vspace*{1.0\baselineskip}
}]
\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:Introduction}
\copyrightspace
The discrete wavelet transform became a very popular image processing tool in last decades.
A widespread use of this transform has resulted in a development of fast algorithms on all sorts of computer systems, including shared-memory parallel architectures.
At present, the GPU is considered as a typical representative of such parallel architectures.
In this regard, several studies have compared the performance of various \mbox{2-D} DWT computational approaches on GPUs.
All of these studies are based on separable schemes, whose operations are oriented either horizontally or vertically.
These schemes comprise the convolution and lifting.
The lifting requires fewer arithmetic operations as compared with the convolution, at the cost of introducing some data dependencies.
The number of operations should be proportional to a transform performance.
However, also the data dependencies may form a bottleneck, especially on shared-memory parallel architectures.
In this paper, we show that the fastest scheme for a given architecture can be obtained by fusing the corresponding parts of the separable schemes into new structures.
Several new non-separable schemes are obtained in this way.
More precisely, the underlying operations of these schemes can be associated with neither horizontal nor vertical axes.
In addition, we present an approach where each scheme can be adapted to a particular platform in order to reduce the number of operations.
This possibility was completely omitted in existing studies.
Our reasoning is supported by extensive experiments on GPUs using OpenCL and pixel shaders (fragment shaders in OpenGL terminology).
The presented schemes are general, and they are not limited to any specific type of DWT.
To clarify the situation, they all compute the same values.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows.
Section~\nameref{sec:background} formally introduces the problem definition.
Section~\nameref{sec:related-work} briefly presents the existing separable approaches.
Section~\nameref{sec:proposed-schemes} presents the proposed non-separable schemes.
Section~\nameref{sec:improvements} discusses the optimization approach that reduces the number of operations.
Section~\nameref{sec:performance} evaluates the performance on GPUs in the pixel shaders and OpenCL framework.
Eventually, Section~\nameref{sec:conclusion} closes the paper.
This section is followed by Section~\nameref{sec:appendix} for readers not familiar with signal-processing notations.
\section{Background}
\label{sec:background}
Since the separable schemes are built on the one-dimensional transform, a widely-used $z$-transform is used for the description of underlying FIR filters.
The transfer function of the filter $\left( g_k \right)$ is the polynomial
\begin{align*}
G(z) = \sum_{k} \, g_k \, z^{-k} \text{,}
\end{align*}
where the $k$ refers to the time axis.
Below in the text, the one-dimensional transforms are used in conjunction with two-dimensional signals.
For this case, the transfer function of the filter $\left( g_{k_m,k_n} \right)$ is defined as the bivariate polynomial
\begin{align*}
G(z_m,z_n) = \sum_{k_m} \sum_{k_n} \, g_{k_m,k_n} \, z_m^{-k_m} z_n^{-k_n} \text{,}
\end{align*}
where the subscript $m$ refers to the horizontal axis and $n$ to the vertical one.
The $ G^*(z_m,z_n) = G(z_n,z_m) $ is a polynomial transposed to a polynomial $ G(z_m,z_n) $.
A shortened notation G is only written in order to keep the notation readable.
A discrete wavelet transform is a signal-processing tool which is suitable for the decomposition of a signal into low-pass and high-pass components.
In detail, the single-scale transform splits the input signal into two components, according to a parity of its samples.
Therefore, the DWT is described by $2 \times 2$ matrices.
As shown by Mallat \cite{Mallat1989}, the transform can be computed by a pair of filters followed by subsampling by a factor of 2.
The filters are referred to as $\mathrm{G}_0, \mathrm{G}_1$.
The transform can also be represented by the polyphase matrix
\begin{align}
\label{eqn:convolution}
\begin{bmatrix}
\w{\odd{\mathrm{G}_1}} & \even{\mathrm{G}_1} \\
\odd{\mathrm{G}_0} & \w{\even{\mathrm{G}_0}}
\end{bmatrix}
\text{,}
\end{align}
where the polynomials $\even{\mathrm{G}}$ and $\odd{\mathrm{G}}$ refer to the even and odd terms of $\mathrm{G}$.
This polyphase matrix defines the convolution scheme.
To avoid misunderstandings, it is necessary to say that, in this paper, column vectors are transformed to become another columns.
For example, $\mathrm{y} = \mathrm{M} \mathrm{x}$ and $\mathrm{y} = \mathrm{M}_2 \mathrm{M}_1 \mathrm{x} $ are transforms represented by one and two matrices, respectively.
Following the algorithm by Sweldens \cite{Sweldens1996,Daubechies1998}, the convolution scheme in (\ref{eqn:convolution}) can be factored into a sequence
\begin{align}
\label{eqn:lifting}
\prod_{k}
\begin{bmatrix}
1 & \U{}^{(k)} \\
0 & 1
\end{bmatrix}
\begin{bmatrix}
1 & 0 \\
\P{}^{(k)} & 1
\end{bmatrix}
\end{align}
of $K$ pairs of short filterings, known as the lifting scheme.
The filters employed in (\ref{eqn:lifting}) are referred to as the lifting steps.
Usually, the first step $\P{}^{(k)}$ in the $k$th pair is referred to as the predict and the second one $\U{}^{(k)}$ as the update.
The lifting scheme reduces the number of operations by up to half.
Since this paper is mostly focused on a single pair of steps, the superscript $(k)$ is omitted in the text below.
Note that the number of operations is calculated as the number of distinct (in a column) terms of all polynomials in all matrices, excluding units on diagonals.
Considering the shared-memory parallel architectures, the processing of single or several samples is mapped to independent processing units.
In order to avoid race conditions during data exchange, the units must use some synchronization method (barrier).
In the lifting scheme, the barriers are required before the lifting steps.
In the convolution scheme, the barrier is only required before starting the calculation.
In this paper, the barriers are indicated by the $|$ symbol.
For example, $\mathrm{M}_2 | \mathrm{M}_1 $ are two adjacent lifting steps separated by the barrier.
For simplicity, the number of barriers is also called the number of steps in the text below.
The \mbox{2-D} transform is defined as a tensor product of \mbox{1-D} transforms.
Consequently, the transform splits the signal into a quadruple of wavelet coefficients.
Therefore, the \mbox{2-D} DWT is described by $4 \times 4$ matrices.
See Section~\nameref{sec:appendix} for details.
Following the pioneering paper of Mallat \cite{Mallat1989}, the \mbox{1-D} transforms are applied in both directions sequentially.
By its nature, this scheme can be referred to as the separable convolution.
The calculations in a single direction are performed in a single step.
This means two steps for the two dimensions.
The scheme can formally be described as
\begin{align*}
\NN[]^V \, \big| \, \NN[]^H \, \big| \text{,}
\end{align*}
where $\NN^H$ and $\NN^V$ are \mbox{1-D} transforms in horizontal and in vertical direction.
For the well-known Cohen-Daubechies-Feauveau (CDF) wavelet with 9/7 samples, such as used in the JPEG 2000 standard, these matrices are graphically illustrated in \Figure{fig:dataflow-Separable-Convolution}.
Here, only the horizontal part is shown.
Particularly, the filters in the figure are of sizes 9 and 7 taps.
The \parbox{\wd0}{\hbox{\includegraphics{r}}}, \parbox{\wd0}{\hbox{\includegraphics{g}}}, \parbox{\wd0}{\hbox{\includegraphics{b}}}, and \parbox{\wd0}{\hbox{\includegraphics{a}}} circles represent the quadruple of wavelet coefficients.
Figures shown are for illustration purpose only.
\begin{figure}[h]
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure{\includegraphics{M_PUPU_H_02}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\\%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure{\includegraphics{M_PUPU_H_13}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\caption{
Horizontal part of the separable convolution scheme for the CDF\,9/7 wavelet.
Two appropriately chosen pairs of matrix rows are depicted in separate subfigures.
The arrows are pointing to the destination operand and denote a multiply--accumulate operation, with multiplication by a real constant.
The arrows in the same row overlap.
}
\label{fig:dataflow-Separable-Convolution}
\end{figure}
\pagebreak
Another scheme used for \mbox{2-D} transform is the separable lifting.
Similarly to the previous case, the predict and update lifting steps can be applied in both directions sequentially.
Moreover, horizontal and vertical steps can be arbitrarily interleaved thanks to the linear nature of the filters.
Therefore, the scheme is defined as
\begin{align*}
\S[\U]^V \, \big| \, \S[\U]^H \, \big| \, \T[\P]^V \, \big| \, \T[\P]^H \, \big| \text{,}
\end{align*}
wherein the predict steps $\T$ always precede the update steps $\S$.
The above mapping corresponds to a single $\P$ and $\U$ pair of lifting steps.
For multiple pairs, the scheme is separately applied to each such pair.
In order to describe \mbox{2-D} matrices, the lifting steps must be extended into two dimensions as
\begin{align*}
\begin{bmatrix}
\+G^{\phantom{*}} \\
\+G^*
\end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix}
G^{\phantom{*}}(z_m,z_n) \\
G^*(z_m,z_n)
\end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix}
G(z_m) \\
G(z_n)
\end{bmatrix} \text{.}
\end{align*}
Then, the individual steps are defined as
\begin{align*}
{\T[\P]^H} & =
\begin{bmatrix}
\w{1} & 0 & 0 & 0 \\
\P & \w{1} & 0 & 0 \\
0 & 0 & \w{1} & 0 \\
0 & 0 & \P & \w{1} \\
\end{bmatrix} \text{,}
\\
{\T[\P]^V} & =
\begin{bmatrix}
\w{1} & 0 & 0 & 0 \\
0 & \w{1} & 0 & 0 \\
\P^* & 0 & \w{1} & 0 \\
0 & \P^* & 0 & \w{1} \\
\end{bmatrix} \text{,}
\\
{\S[\U]^H} & =
\begin{bmatrix}
\w{1} & \U & 0 & 0 \\
0 & \w{1} & 0 & 0 \\
0 & 0 & \w{1} & \U \\
0 & 0 & 0 & \w{1} \\
\end{bmatrix} \text{,}
\\
{\S[\U]^V} & =
\begin{bmatrix}
\w{1} & 0 & \U^* & 0 \\
0 & \w{1} & 0 & \U^* \\
0 & 0 & \w{1} & 0 \\
0 & 0 & 0 & \w{1} \\
\end{bmatrix} \text{.}
\end{align*}
For the CDF wavelets, the matrices are also illustrated in \Figure{fig:dataflow-Separable-Lifting}, again showing the horizontal part only.
\bigskip
\begin{figure}[h]
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure[${\T[\P]^H}$]{\includegraphics{M_P_H-gimp}}%
\hspace*{\fill}
\subfigure[${\S[\U]^H}$]{\includegraphics{M_U_H-gimp}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\caption{
The horizontal part of the separable lifting scheme for the CDF wavelets.
}
\label{fig:dataflow-Separable-Lifting}
\end{figure}
\newpage
\section{Related Work}
\label{sec:related-work}
This section briefly reviews papers that motivated our research.
So far, several papers have compared the performance of the separable lifting and separable convolution schemes on GPUs.
Especially, Tenllado \textit{et al.} \cite{Tenllado2008} compared these schemes on GPUs using pixel shaders.
The authors mapped data to \mbox{2-D} textures, constituted by four floating-point elements.
They concluded that the separable convolution is more efficient than the separable lifting scheme in most cases.
They further noted that fusing several consecutive kernels might significantly speed up the execution, even if the complexity of the resulting fused pixel program is higher.
Kucis \textit{et al.} \cite{Kucis2014} compared the performance of several recently published schedules for computing the \mbox{2-D} DWT using the OpenCL framework.
All of these schedules use separable schemes, either the convolution or lifting.
In more detail, the work compares a convolution-based algorithm proposed in \cite{Galiano2011} against several lifting-based methods \cite{Blazewicz2012,Laan2011} in the horizontal part of the transform.
The authors concluded that the lifting-based algorithm of Blazewicz \textit{et al.} \cite{Blazewicz2012} is the fastest method.
Furthermore, Laan \textit{et al.} \cite{Laan2011} compared the performance of their separable lifting-based method against a convolution-based method.
They concluded that the lifting is the fastest method.
The authors also compared the performance of implementations in CUDA and pixel shaders, based on the work of Tenllado \cite{Tenllado2008}.
The CUDA implementation proved to be the faster choice.
In this regard, the authors noted that a speedup in CUDA occurs because the CUDA effectively makes use of on-chip memory.
This use is not possible in pixel shaders, which exchange the data using off-chip memory.
Other important separable approaches can be found in \cite{Matela2009,Galiano2013,Song2014,Quan2016}.
This paper is based on the previous works in \cite{Barina2016,Kula2016}.
In those works, we introduced several non-separable schemes for calculation of \mbox{2-D} DWT.
However, we have not considered important structures, such as polyconvolutions.
We contribute this consideration with this paper.
Moreover, differences and similarities between the separable schemes and their non-separable counterparts are homogeneously discussed here.
All these schemes are also thoroughly analyzed and evaluated.
Considering the present papers, we see that a possible fusion of separable parts into new non-separable structures is not considered.
Therefore, we investigate on this promising technique in the following sections.
\newpage
\twocolumn[{\csname @twocolumnfalse\endcsname
\begin{minipage}[b]{\textwidth
\hspace*{\fill}%
{\includegraphics{M_PUPU_0}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
{\includegraphics{M_PUPU_1}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\null\\%
\hspace*{\fill}%
{\includegraphics{M_PUPU_2}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
{\includegraphics{M_PUPU_3}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\null%
\captionof{figure}{
Non-separable convolution scheme for the CDF\,9/7 wavelet.
The individual rows of $\N$ are depicted in separate subfigures.
The sizes are from top to bottom and left to right: $9\times9$, $7\times9$, $9\times7$, $7\times7$.
}
\label{fig:dataflow-Non-Separable-Convolution}
\end{minipage}
\vspace*{1.0\baselineskip}
}]
\section{Proposed Schemes}
\label{sec:proposed-schemes}
\smallskip
As stated above, the existing approaches did not study the possibility of a partial fusion of lifting polyphase matrices.
This section presents three alternative non-separable schemes for the calculation of the \mbox{2-D} transform.
The contribution of this paper starts with this section.
To avoid confusion, please note that the proposed schemes compute the same values as the original ones.
\bigskip
The non-separable convolution scheme is a counterpart to the separable convolution.
Unlike the separable scheme, all horizontal and vertical calculations are performed in a single step
\begin{align*}
\NN \, \big|\text{,}
\end{align*}
where $\NN = \NN^V \NN^H$ is a product of \mbox{1-D} transforms in horizonal and vertical directions.
The drawback of this scheme is that it requires the highest number of arithmetic operations.
For the CDF\,9/7 wavelet, the matrix is graphically illustrated in \Figure{fig:dataflow-Non-Separable-Convolution}.
Here, the \mbox{2-D} filters are of sizes $9\times9$, $7\times9$, $9\times7$, and $7\times7$.
These sizes make the calculation computationally demanding.
Aside from the GPUs, this approach was earlier discussed in Hsia \textit{et al.} \cite{Hsia2009}.
\newpage
In order to reduce computational complexity, it would be a good idea to construct some smaller non-separable steps.
Indeed, the non-separable convolution can be broken into smaller units, referred here to as the non-separable polyconvolutions.
For a single pair of lifting steps, the scheme follows from the mapping
\begin{align*}
\N[\P,\U] \, \big| \text{,}
\end{align*}
where
\begin{align*}
{\N[\P,\U]} =
\begin{bmatrix}
\w{\V^*\V} & \V^*\U & \U^*\V & \U^*\U \\
\V^*\P & \w{\V^*} & \U^*\P & \U^* \\
\P^*\V & \P^*\U & \w{\V} & \U \\
\P^*\P & \P^* & \P & \w{1} \\
\end{bmatrix}
\end{align*}
and $\V = \P\U + 1$.
For the CDF wavelets, the scheme is graphically illustrated in \Figure{fig:dataflow-Non-Separable-Polyconvolution}.
In this case, the employed filters are of sizes $5\times5$, $3\times5$, $5\times3$, and $3\times3$.
Note that only half of the operations are required specifically for the CDF\,9/7 wavelet, compared to the {non-separable convolution}.
For the sake of completeness, it should be pointed out that it is also possible to formulate the separable polyconvolution scheme.
In our experiments, this one was however not proven to be useful concerning the performance.
\pagebreak
\begin{figure}[h]
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure{\includegraphics{M_PU_0}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure{\includegraphics{M_PU_1}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\\
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure{\includegraphics{M_PU_2}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure{\includegraphics{M_PU_3}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\null%
\caption{
Non-separable polyconvolution scheme for the CDF wavelets.
The individual rows of $\N$ are depicted in separate subfigures.
}
\label{fig:dataflow-Non-Separable-Polyconvolution}
\end{figure}
By combining the corresponding horizontal and vertical steps of the separable lifting scheme, the non-separable lifting scheme is formed.
The number of operations has slightly been increased.
The scheme consists of a spatial predict and spatial update step, thus two steps in total for each pair of the original lifting steps.
Formally, for each pair of $\P$ and $\U$, the scheme follows from
\begin{align*}
\S[\U] \, \big| \, \T[\P] \, \big| \text{,}
\end{align*}
where
\begin{align*}
{\T[\P]} & =
\begin{bmatrix}
\w{1} & 0 & 0 & 0 \\
\P & \w{1} & 0 & 0 \\
\P^* & 0 & \w{1} & 0 \\
\P\P^* & \P^* & \P & \w{1} \\
\end{bmatrix} \text{,}
\\
{\S[\U]} & =
\begin{bmatrix}
\w{1} & \U & \U^* & \U\U^* \\
0 & \w{1} & 0 & \U^* \\
0 & 0 & \w{1} & \U \\
0 & 0 & 0 & \w{1} \\
\end{bmatrix} \text{.}
\end{align*}
Note that the spatial filters in $\P\P^*$ and $\U\U^*$ may be computationally demanding, depending on their sizes.
However, the situation is always better than in the previous two cases.
For the CDF wavelets, the scheme is graphically illustrated in \Figure{fig:dataflow-Non-Separable-Lifting}.
\begin{figure}[h]
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure[${\T[\P]}$]{\includegraphics{M_P-gimp-L-small}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure[${\T[\P]}$]{\includegraphics{M_P-gimp-H-small}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\\
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure[${\S[\U]}$]{\includegraphics{M_U-gimp-L-small}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure[${\S[\U]}$]{\includegraphics{M_U-gimp-H-small}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\null%
\caption{
{Non-separable lifting} scheme for the CDF wavelets.
}
\label{fig:dataflow-Non-Separable-Lifting}
\end{figure}
\section{Optimization Approach}
\label{sec:improvements}
This section presents an optimization approach that reduces the number of operations, while the number of steps remains unaffected.
Such an approach was not covered in existing studies.
Regardless of the underlying platform, an important observation can be made.
A very special form of the operations guarantees that the processing units never access the results belonging to their neighbors.
These operations comprise only constants.
Since the convolution is a linear operation, the polynomials can be pulled out of the original matrices, and calculated in a different step.
Formally, the original polynomials are split as $\P = \P[0] + \P[1]$ and $\U = \U[0] + \U[1]$.
The $\P[0]$ and $\U[0]$ are constant.
As a next step, the $\P[0]$ and $\U[0]$ are substituted into the separable lifting scheme.
The separable lifting scheme was chosen because it has the lowest number of operations.
This part is illustrated in \Figure{fig:the-trick}.
In contrast, the $\P[1]$ and $\U[1]$ are kept in original schemes.
These two steps are then computed without any barrier.
The observation is further exploited to adapt schemes for a particular platform.
\begin{figure}[h]
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure[${\T[{\P[0]}]^H}$]{\includegraphics{M_P0_H}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure[${\T[{\P[0]}]^V}$]{\includegraphics{M_P0_V}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure[${\S[{\U[0]}]^H}$]{\includegraphics{M_U0_H}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure[${\S[{\U[0]}]^V}$]{\includegraphics{M_U0_V}}%
\hspace*{\fill}%
\null%
\caption{
Separable lifting scheme with the polynomials $\P[0]$ and $\U[0]$.
}
\label{fig:the-trick}
\end{figure}
Now, the improved schemes for the shaders and OpenCL are briefly described.
These schemes exploit the above-described observation with the polynomials $\P[0]$ and $\U[0]$ .
On recent GPUs, OpenCL schemes also omit memory barriers due to the \mbox{SIMD-32} architecture.
Note that the non-separable polyconvolution scheme makes sense only when $K>1$, which is the case of the CDF\,9/7 wavelet.
Implementations in the pixel shaders map input and output data to \mbox{2-D} textures.
There is no possibility to retain some results in registers, and the results are exchanged through textures in off-chip memory.
Considering the OpenCL implementations, a data format is not constrained.
The image is divided into overlapping blocks and on-chip memory shared by all threads in a block is utilized to exchange the results.
Additionally, some results are passed in registers.
This paper explores the performance for three frequently used wavelets, namely, CDF\,5/3, CDF\,9/7 \cite{Cohen1992}, and DD\,13/7 \cite{Sweldens1996}.
Their fundamental properties are listed in \Table{tab:parameters-baseline}: number of steps and arithmetic operations.
Note that the number of operations is commonly proportional to a transform performance.
Additionally, the number of steps correspond to the number of synchronizations on parallel architectures, which also form a performance bottleneck.
\begin{table}[h]
\caption{%
The total number of steps and arithmetic operations for the optimized schemes.
}
\subtable[CDF\,5/3]{%
\begin{tabu} to \linewidth {X[1.5r]X[l]X[c]X[c]X[c]}
\toprule
\multicolumn{2}{c}{\qquad\qquad{}scheme} & steps & \multicolumn{2}{c}{operations} \\
~ & ~ & ~ & \multicolumn{1}{c}{OpenCL} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{shaders} \\
\midrule
separable & convolution & 2 & 20 & 22 \\
separable & lifting & 4 & 16 & 16 \\
\midrule
\small{}non\nobreakdash-separable & convolution & 1 & 23 & 39 \\
\small{}non\nobreakdash-separable & lifting & 2 & 18 & 18 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabu}%
}\\%
\subtable[CDF\,9/7]{%
\begin{tabu} to \linewidth {X[1.5r]X[l]X[c]X[c]X[c]}
\toprule
\multicolumn{2}{c}{\qquad\qquad{}scheme} & steps & \multicolumn{2}{c}{operations} \\
~ & ~ & ~ & \multicolumn{1}{c}{OpenCL} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{shaders} \\
\midrule
separable & convolution & 2 & 56 & 58 \\
separable & polyconv. & 4 & 40 & 56 \\
separable & lifting & 8 & 32 & 32 \\
\midrule
\small{}non\nobreakdash-separable & convolution & 1 & 152 & 200 \\
\small{}non\nobreakdash-separable & polyconv. & 2 & 46 & 62 \\
\small{}non\nobreakdash-separable & lifting & 4 & 36 & 36 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabu}%
}\\%
\subtable[DD\,13/7]{%
\begin{tabu} to \linewidth {X[1.5r]X[l]X[c]X[c]X[c]}
\toprule
\multicolumn{2}{c}{\qquad\qquad{}scheme} & steps & \multicolumn{2}{c}{operations} \\
~ & ~ & ~ & \multicolumn{1}{c}{OpenCL} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{shaders} \\
\midrule
separable & convolution & 2 & 60 & 60 \\
separable & lifting & 4 & 32 & 32 \\
\midrule
\small{}non\nobreakdash-separable & convolution & 1 & 203 & 228 \\
\small{}non\nobreakdash-separable & lifting & 2 & 50 & 50 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabu}%
}\\
\label{tab:parameters-baseline}
\end{table}
\section{Evaluation}
\label{sec:performance}
The experiments in this paper were performed on GPUs of the two biggest vendors NVIDIA and AMD using the OpenCL and pixel shaders.
In these experiments, only a transform performance was measured, usually in gigabytes per second (GB/s).
The host system does not help in the calculation, i.e. with respect to padding or pre/post-processing.
Results for only two GPUs are shown for the sake of brevity: AMD Radeon HD 6970 and NVIDIA Titan X.
Their technical parameters are summarized in \Table{tab:gpus}.
\begin{table}[h]
\bigskip%
\caption{
Specifications of the evaluated GPUs.
}%
\small
\begin{tabu} to \linewidth {l|X[r]X[r]}
\toprule
label & AMD 6970 & NVIDIA Titan~X \\
\midrule
model & Radeon~HD~6970 & Titan X (Pascal) \\
\midrule
multiprocessors & 24 & 28 \\
total processors & 1\,536 & 3\,584 \\
processor clock & 880\,MHz & 1\,417\,MHz \\
performance & 2\,703\,GFLOPS & 10\,157\,GFLOPS \\
\midrule
memory clock & 1\,375\,MHz & 2\,500\,MHz \\
bandwidth & 176\,GB/s & 480\,GB/s \\
on-chip memory & 32\,KiB & 96\,KiB \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabu}
\bigskip%
\label{tab:gpus}
\end{table}
\newpage
The implementations were created using the DirectX HLSL and OpenCL.
The HLSL implementation is used on the NVIDIA Titan X, whereas the OpenCL implementation on the AMD 6970.
The results of the performance comparison are shown in Figures \ref{fig:plots-53}, \ref{fig:plots-97}, and \ref{fig:plots-137}.
The value on the x-axis is the image resolution in kilo/megapixels (kpel or Mpel).
Except for the convolutions for the DD\,13/7 wavelet, the non-separable schemes always outperform their separable counterparts.
For CDF wavelets, having short lifting filters, the non-separable (poly)convolutions have a better performance than the non-separable lifting scheme.
Unfortunately, for the DD\,13/7 wavelet, which is characterized by a high number of operations in lifting filters, the results are not conclusive.
Considering the implementation in pixel shaders, similar results were also achieved on other GPUs, including NVIDIA unified architectures and AMD GPUs based on Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture.
Whereas for the OpenCL implementation, the non-separable schemes are only proved to be useful for very long instruction word (VLIW) architectures.
\bigskip
Looking at the experiments with the pixel-shader implementations, some transients can be seen at the beginning of the plots (in lower $2$\,Mpel region).
We concluded that these transients are caused by a suboptimal use of cache system, or alternatively by some overhead made by the graphics API.
It should be interesting to show some measures provided by an OpenCL profiler.
Our profiling revealed that the implementations exhibit only an occupancy 95.24\,\%.
This occupancy is caused by making use of 256 threads in OpenCL work groups and due to maximal number 1344 of threads in multiprocessors (256 times 5 work groups is 1280 out of 1344).
\newpage
\twocolumn[{\csname @twocolumnfalse\endcsname
\begin{minipage}[b]{\textwidth}
\centering%
{\includegraphics[width=.5\linewidth]{plots/plot-opencl-53}}%
{\includegraphics[width=.5\linewidth]{plots/plot-shaders-53}}\\[10pt]%
\hspace*{\fill}(a) OpenCL\hspace*{\fill}\null\hspace*{\fill}(b) pixel shader\hspace*{\fill}\null\\[10pt]%
\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{plots/key-53-ink}\\[10pt]%
\captionof{figure}{
Performance for the CDF\,5/3 wavelet.
}
\label{fig:plots-53}
\end{minipage}\\%
\vspace*{1.0\baselineskip}\\%
\begin{minipage}[b]{\textwidth}
\centering%
\includegraphics[width=.5\linewidth]{plots/plot-opencl-97}%
\includegraphics[width=.5\linewidth]{plots/plot-shaders-97}\\[10pt]%
\hspace*{\fill}(a) OpenCL\hspace*{\fill}\null\hspace*{\fill}(b) pixel shader\hspace*{\fill}\null\\[10pt]%
\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{plots/key-97-ink}\\[10pt]%
\captionof{figure}{
Performance for the CDF\,9/7 wavelet.
}
\label{fig:plots-97}
\end{minipage}\\%
\vspace*{1.0\baselineskip}\\%
\begin{minipage}[b]{\textwidth}
\centering%
\includegraphics[width=.5\linewidth]{plots/plot-opencl-137}%
\includegraphics[width=.5\linewidth]{plots/plot-shaders-137}\\[10pt]%
\hspace*{\fill}(a) OpenCL\hspace*{\fill}\null\hspace*{\fill}(b) pixel shader\hspace*{\fill}\null\\[10pt]%
\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{plots/key-53-ink}\\[10pt]%
\captionof{figure}{
Performance for the DD\,13/7 wavelet.
}
\label{fig:plots-137}
\end{minipage}
\vspace*{1.0\baselineskip}
}]
\section{Conclusions}
\label{sec:conclusion}
This paper presented and discussed several non-separable schemes for the computation of the \mbox{2-D} discrete wavelet transform on parallel architectures, exemplarily on modern GPUs.
As an option, an optimization approach leading to a reduction in the number of operations was presented.
Using this approach, the schemes were adapted on the OpenCL framework and pixel shaders.
The implementations were then evaluated using GPUs of the two biggest vendors.
Considering OpenCL, the schemes exploit features of recent GPUs, such as warping.
For CDF wavelets, the non-separable schemes exhibit a better performance than their separable counterparts on both the OpenCL and pixel shaders.
\medskip
In the evaluation, we reached the following conclusions.
Fusing several consecutive steps of the schemes might significantly speed up the execution, irrespective of their higher complexity.
The non-separable schemes outperform their separable counterparts on numerous setups, especially considering the pixel shaders.
All of the schemes are general and they can be used on any discrete wavelet transform.
In future work, we plan to focus on general-purpose processors and multi-scale transforms.
\paragraph{Acknowledgements}
This work has been supported by
the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports from the National Programme of Sustainability (NPU II) project IT4Innovations excellence in science (no. LQ1602), and
the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR) Competence Centres project V3C -- Visual Computing Competence Center (no. TE01020415).
\newpage
\section*{Appendix}
\label{sec:appendix}
For readers who are not familiar with signal-processing notations, a relationship between polyphase matrices and data-flow diagrams is explained here.
The \mbox{2-D} discrete wavelet transform divides the image into four polyphase components.
Therefore, the $4\times4$ matrices of Laurent polynomials are used to describe the \mbox{2-D} discrete wavelet transform.
These matrices are commonly referred to as the polyphase matrices.
The Laurent polynomials correspond to \mbox{2-D} FIR filters, that define the transform.
In most cases, the transform is described using a sequence of such matrices.
One particular matrix thus defines a step of calculation in this case.
For example, the matrix
\begin{align*}
{\T[\P]^H} & =
\begin{bmatrix}
\w{1} & 0 & 0 & 0 \\
\P & \w{1} & 0 & 0 \\
0 & 0 & \w{1} & 0 \\
0 & 0 & \P & \w{1} \\
\end{bmatrix}
\end{align*}
maps four polyphase components to another four components, while using two \mbox{2-D} FIR filters represented by the polynomials $\P$.
Moreover, when we substitute a particular polynomial, say $ P(z) = -1/2( 1 + z^{-1} ) $, into the matrix, the mapping gets a specific shape.
Such a substitution illustrated by the data-flow diagram in \Figure{fig:dataflow-appendix}.
The solid arrows correspond to multiplication by $-1/2$ along with subsequent summation.
\begin{figure}[h]
\hspace*{\fill}%
\subfigure[${\T[\P]^H}$]{\includegraphics{M_P_H-gimp}}%
\hspace*{\fill}
\caption{
Visual representation of the polyphase matrix.
The four polyphase components are represented by color circles.
}
\label{fig:dataflow-appendix}
\end{figure}
\newpage
\medskip\medskip
\bibliographystyle{myabbrvnat}
| {
"redpajama_set_name": "RedPajamaArXiv"
} | 799 |
{"url":"https:\/\/2022.help.altair.com\/2022\/hwsolvers\/os\/topics\/solvers\/os\/nafems_test_problem_13r_r.htm","text":"# OS-V: 0360 Simply-Supported Thin Square Plate Harmonic Random Vibration Response\n\nTest 13R OptiStruct is used to investigate the Peak Displacement in z-direction and extreme fiber bending stress at undamped Natural Frequency (at the center of the plate).\n\n## Benchmark Model\n\nThe 2nd order and 1st order quad elements are used to model the square plate of thickness 0.05m. The z-rotation and x, y translations are fixed for all the nodes, z-translation is fixed along all four edges, x-rotation is fixed along the edge x=0 and x=10 and y-rotation is fixed along the edge y=0 and y=10. A steady-state random forcing with uniform power spectral density (of force) PSD= (100 N\/m2)2\/Hz is induced in the z-direction. For modal analysis solution, a damping ratio of 0.02 is applied in all 16 modes and for direct solution, Rayleigh damping factor \u03b11=0.299 and \u03b12=1.339\u00d710-3 are given.\n\nThe material properties are:\nMaterial Properties\nValue\nYoung\u2019s Modulus\n200 \u00d7 109 N\/m2\nPoisson\u2019s Ratio\n0.3\nDensity\n8000 kg\/m3\n\n## Frequency Response Summary\n\nThe frequency of each targeted mode is normalized with the closed form solution.\nf*\nClosed form solution\nPeak Displacement PSD (mm2\/Hz) Peak Stress PSD ((N\/mm2)2\/Hz) Frequency (Hz)\nReference Solution 2063.20 1025.44 2.377\nHOE\nDirect Solutions 2232.98 1411.14 2.322\nNormalized 0.923967075 0.726674887 1.023686477\nModal Solution 2241.33 1416.89 2.324\nNormalized 0.920524867 0.723725907 1.022805508\nLOE\nDirect Solutions 2045.23 951.00 2.349\nNormalized 1.008786298 1.078275499 1.011919966\nModal Solution 2065.73 960.22 2.345\nNormalized 0.998775251 1.067921935 1.013646055\n\n## Model Files\n\nRefer to Access the Model Files to download the required model file(s).\n\nThe model files used in this problem include:\n\u2022 Test13RHOED.fem\n\u2022 Test13RHOEM.fem\n\u2022 Test13RLOED.fem\n\u2022 Test13RLOEM.fem\n\n## Reference\n\nNAFEMS R0016 - Selected Benchmarks for Forced Vibration, J Maguire, D J, Dawswell, L Gould 1989","date":"2022-11-30 18:08:09","metadata":"{\"extraction_info\": {\"found_math\": true, \"script_math_tex\": 0, \"script_math_asciimath\": 0, \"math_annotations\": 0, \"math_alttext\": 0, \"mathml\": 0, \"mathjax_tag\": 0, \"mathjax_inline_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_display_tex\": 0, \"mathjax_asciimath\": 1, \"img_math\": 0, \"codecogs_latex\": 0, \"wp_latex\": 0, \"mimetex.cgi\": 0, \"\/images\/math\/codecogs\": 0, \"mathtex.cgi\": 0, \"katex\": 0, \"math-container\": 0, \"wp-katex-eq\": 0, \"align\": 0, \"equation\": 0, \"x-ck12\": 0, \"texerror\": 0, \"math_score\": 0.713715672492981, \"perplexity\": 10738.08551472398}, \"config\": {\"markdown_headings\": true, \"markdown_code\": true, \"boilerplate_config\": {\"ratio_threshold\": 0.18, \"absolute_threshold\": 10, \"end_threshold\": 15, \"enable\": true}, \"remove_buttons\": true, \"remove_image_figures\": true, \"remove_link_clusters\": true, \"table_config\": {\"min_rows\": 2, \"min_cols\": 3, \"format\": \"plain\"}, \"remove_chinese\": true, \"remove_edit_buttons\": true, \"extract_latex\": true}, \"warc_path\": \"s3:\/\/commoncrawl\/crawl-data\/CC-MAIN-2022-49\/segments\/1669446710765.76\/warc\/CC-MAIN-20221130160457-20221130190457-00837.warc.gz\"}"} | null | null |
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