A one-hour drama inspired by David Simon's acclaimed non-fiction book "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets." It is at once a mundane yet compelling look in and around a Homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department, a group of determined individuals who are committed to their grim job at hand.

In 1988 a Baltimore Sun reporter named David Simon joined the Baltimore Police Homicide Unit as a civilian assistant in order to chronicle a year in the life of a big city homicide squad. His extensive notes, interviews, and observations were eventually published as the book, "Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets." This book served as the inspiration for the TV series "Homicide: Life on the Street" (1993) and much of the first and second seasons of the show are taken from actual events recounted in the book.

[Pembleton needs the clothes of a brain-dead child for evidence]


Det. Frank Pembleton:
I need you to give me these clothes.


Joan Garbarek:
I can't.


Det. Frank Pembleton:
You have to!


Joan Garbarek:
I *have* to? Let me tell you what I *have* to do today, okay? I have to go in there and I have to watch the doctors pinch Patrick's legs. I have to watch them stick pins at the bottoms of his feet. I have to watch them pour cold water, first in his right ear, then in his left, to see if his eyes moved today. And I have to hear them tell me that they don't. His eyes don't. I hear them say this. Nothing else can be done. And this is just a little *boy*! And they have to say this about him? *You* have to have his clothes? *You* have to know what we saw yesterday? I have to remember... Patrick standing there, he *has* to see the dinosaurs! He *has* to go to that window! It's always "one more minute!" He *always* has to do what he wants! And then he falls down and I think he's just teasing and he's going to get up in a minute and I'm going to yell at him to just get up and not get dirty! I *want* to see him get up... from his *own* bed. Do I have to think that he can lay there like this for another 50 or 60 years? Do I have to think that this is what he wants? Why do I have to? Why do I think that it can't be Patrick in there?