Ghettoside

Skaggs entered the force in 1987, at 22 years old, just before Tennelle’s “journeyman years” (44). Whereas Tennelle cleaned up as a gang officer after the first great wave, Skaggs cleaned up after the second great wave, in the early 1990s. Though not formally a detective, Skaggs was brought on to fill in, a common occurrence in times of need, as the detective exams emphasize procedure rather than ability. Although he initially resisted the change, he soon dedicated himself to homicide. However, Leovy notes that, curiously, even years later, his reasoning wasn’t that he fell in love with the work, but rather that he could do it—which meant, for Skaggs, that he should do it (45).

Though only an acting detective, due to the high caseload, Skaggs often ended up working alone, learning on the job as he went. One of his early cases was a “cold case”: the murder of Leo Massey, who was shot by a panhandler after refusing to give him money. Massey’s wife, Glory, assumed that Skaggs was just another apathetic white cop who didn’t care about Leo’s death. Skaggs listened to Glory, then put his time into the case and closed it. They grew to like each other, and “[h]e was so unperturbed by her initial rage that he didn’t remember it afterward,” having grown used to being initially denounced: “They always thought he didn’t care” (46).