Police Discretion Changed the Fate of my Murder Mystery Novel
I’m finally letting a few friends read my manuscript of a mystery/thriller about a beauty pageant where the contestants are murdered in a brutal, ceremonial fashion. The story is a commentary about female stereotypes and how they survive the modern wave of Feminism. (I have my own pageant crown and sash sitting on my desk next to a notebook paper with the scribbled names of every man that has grabbed at me in public without my consent as inspiration).
It’s only my third draft and I expected a lot of critique regarding the plot and style of writing, but one particular friend made comments that were really out of left field for me.
“Why aren’t the police more involved? Why aren’t the investigations and how it impacts the contestants a bigger part of the story?”
In my story, there are actually two main characters that are FBI agents, but they are mostly desk clerks for non-emergent issues. Their involvement in the plot has little to do with their status as LEO and they have basically no police resources that they use in investigating the murders. Basically, their investigations are no different than that of civilians. The murder investigations are referenced only in passing, I left most of the legal process out of my story.
Before my friend asked, I had never thought about why I did that. . .
But I realize now I deliberately have avoided including the police in my story as much as possible.
Writers need to evolve how they write about police in fiction.
In most media, police are actually portrayed as very one-dimensional. In Netflix’s Stranger Things, they are portrayed as either useless or corrupt. Federal officers are covering up the government’s involvement with Hawkin’s Lab, or there is local Officer Phil Callahan who is lazy and incompetent and couldn’t care less about anyone’s safety, or there is Hopper who doesn’t really save the day until he takes off his badge and has to take matters as a civilian into his own hands. In just one Netflix show, it includes all the cliche ways police have been written about for decades.
There are shows like Criminal Minds where the police are heroes that put their life on the line every day, always do the right thing, and follow the law to a tee. There are shows like Pretty Little Liars where most cops are either involved in the crime or they are so obsessed with wrongfully accusing the main characters that they are blind to the evidence that points to the actual “bad guy.”
You get the picture. Cops are basically caricatures in most media.
Meanwhile, the issue of police officers’ power, discretion, and funding has become the source of a lot of political discourse in recent years.
Writers have a responsibility to write police in a believable way that, also, addresses modern controversies.
In the wake of police brutality on one extreme and the heroism of the police responding to the Nashville Covenant School shooter on the other, police’s roles in stories should be nuanced to reflect the varying types of people that are given a badge and a gun.
At the end of the day, police officers are human beings that are flawed and can have ulterior motives just like everyone else. But, even so, police officers are still given tremendous power and discretion, so much so, that they have the power to handcuff a person and take away their freedom. Whatever the police officer testifies they observed at the scene of a crime or at the moment of arrest will be a determining factor into the legal outcome of the alleged crime.
I’ll give an example:
I once went on a ride-along with a Corporal. We saw a car flying down a residential street at least 30 miles per hour over the speed limit. The Corporal turned on his patrol lights and pulled him over. The cool part is that I got to watch from the car what happened on the bodycam that was recorded on the laptop in the car. The driver and his buddy in the passenger seat were total charmers. They chitchatted with the Corporal, apologized, and then the Corporal decided they were cool guys and let them off with a warning.
Me and my youthful ignorance held on to that memory for a while, thinking how cool the Corporal was for not being too hard on those guys.
I mean haven’t we all been pulled over for speeding and wished for a lenient cop who would let it go? But then again, how many times have we gotten a ticket by a cranky cop that didn’t want to let it go?
This morning I saw a headline “Man Arrested for Drag Racing. . .” in my local community. Along with the headline was the man’s mugshot. I read the article and lo and behold the facts were almost the same as the time I went on the ride along. Someone was driving more than 30 miles per hour down a residential street. I guess the driver wasn’t charming, or maybe the arresting officer wasn’t chill; whatever it was the driver was cuffed, sent to jail, and slapped with criminal charges that he now must spend the next year and a half of his life fighting or spend the rest of his life dealing with if convicted.
Police officers are judges, juries, and executioners.
If the officer decided to let the man who was arrested off with a warning, there would be no criminal proceedings. Had the Corporal decided to arrest the men that he left off with a warning, their mugshots would have been plastered in our newspapers.
The legal fate for each circumstance was completely up to the discretion of the arresting officer. It’s not fair. And guess what? That discretion reigns every time regarding every criminal investigation whether it be over a minimal misdemeanor or first-degree murder.
The criminal justice system is extremely flawed in part because of police discretion.
Check out this piece I wrote that touches on police abuse of power and the weight their testimony (whether true or not) holds in court:
Alvin Bragg Just Killed Criminal Justice Reform | by KcGamBooks | Mar, 2023 | Medium
Beyond my political opinion. . .
I have a duty to at least be aware of current events and public sentiment when I write my murder mystery.
If I don’t, my story will follow a very generic and tired path that fails to acknowledge how criminal justice really works. Innocent people take plea deals, criminals get away with crimes. . .
I refused to write a book that was so naive . . .
as to imply if someone was the “bad guy” they would get busted or if someone was innocent they would be triumphant. That’s not how the world works, the best books will address that.
I love entertainment. I love comfort reads where the finale ties up everything with a perfect bow and the good guys stay good and the bad guys get placed behind bars. But, I admit, even those entertaining stories get boring.
I realized that the murderer in my book would probably get away with it.
The characters involved in the murders of the beauty pageant contestants were very capable of bribing police officers, prosecutors, and politicians. It became obvious to me that even if my main character figured out who the murderer was, there would be limited evidence against them for an actual conviction and there were enough corrupt powerful people around to ensure there was no charge in the first place.
The finale of my story, where the murderer was found and everyone was safe, was ruined. If I was being honest about how law enforcement works, my main character probably might end up dead.
I had to rewrite my entire book.
Either I had to rewrite the influence that the “bad guy” had over law enforcement, DA’s, and politicians, rewrite the crime scenes to make sure it was clear an officer (influenced or not) would have to actually charge and collect evidence of their guilt, or I had to rewrite the ending and the overall moral of the story.
I had to rewrite so that even after my main character discovered who the murderer was, they were never really safe, and the murderer could be free on the streets again soon.
I wrote the truth.
I didn’t have the heart to change the whole story. It may suck, but it was a story I dedicated myself to for years. I had to give my main characters some justice. But I will change the end of the story to reflect the way real life works.
My main character catches the bad guy. The bad guy is cuffed and charged as a scapegoat. Other bad guys are a threat, but my main character doesn’t even know about them. That’s unfortunately realistic.
Even when a conviction happens, there are likely many coconspirators that are laying low. There is, also, a possibility that the villain won’t get convicted. What is certain is that there isn’t technically enough evidence to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for every bad acting character attached to the murders. A biased jury could either decide a guilty or not guilty verdict with or without evidence.
The happy ending or unfair ending in real life is determined by unpredictable factors.
In my book, I am writing a happy ending, but I am hinting that nothing will ever be that simple.
I think that conclusion is necessary in today’s political climate.
Books should provide entertainment, but they should, also, make the reader think about the powers law enforcement and District Attorneys hold over day-to-day life. Our awareness and emotions could maybe even play a role in voter turnout, making a change in these political controversies.
Writers have a duty to make people think.
With the power of the pen, we writers should fairly portray the truths and realities of police power. Maybe our writing could make a change. Or, maybe our writing will just be far more entertaining than the hundreds of murder mystery novels that get churned out annually with a predictable beginning, middle, and end.
You tell me.
