Homicide: Life on the Street quotes

Bayliss

You have got the absolute right to remain silent!

Pembleton

Of course you do. You're a criminal. Criminals always have the right to remain silent.

Lewis

We're talking about sacred freedoms here, notably your Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. Hey, if it was good enough for Ollie North and Mark Fuhrman, who the hell are you to incriminate yourself at the first opportunity?

Munch

Get it straight, a police detective paid government money to put you in prison is explaining your absolute right to shut up before you say anything stupid.

Brodie

What are you focusing on when you first sit down with a suspect?

Pembleton

The detective has informed you of your rights. He wants you to be protected, he says. Because, he says, there's nothing that concerns him more than giving you every possible assistance in this very confusing and stressful moment in your life.

Howard

The detective wants you to know, and we've been doing this a lot longer than you have, so you can take our word for it. Your rights to counsel aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Pembleton

Once you actually up and call for that lawyer, son, there ain't a damn thing we can do for you. No, sir, your good friends in the Homicide Unit are gonna have to lock you all alone in this room. And the next authority figure to scan your case will be a no-nonsense prosecutor from the Violent Crimes Unit, with the official title "Assistant State's Attorney for the City of Baltimore."

Munch

And God help you then, because a ruthless blood-sucker like that'll have an O'Donnell Heights motorhead like yourself halfway to the gas chamber before you get three words out.

Kellerman

Your best bet is to speak up. Speak up now.

Pembleton

You're history. And if I wasn't so busy writing up your statement, I'd probably tell you so. I'd say, "Son, you are ignorance personified, and you just put yourself in for the murder of a human being." I might even admit to you that after all my years working murders, I'm still a little amazed that anyone utters a word in this room. Think about it, son. When you came through those doors, what did the sign say? Homicide Unit, that's right. Who lives in a homicide unit? And what do homicide detectives do for a living? You got it, bunk. And tonight you took somebody's life. So when you opened your mouth, what in God's name were you thinking?

Giardello

You and Detective Stivers.

Lewis

Gee, Detective Stivers and I were having a meeting. We were trying to figure out a way to get Luther Mahoney off the streets once and for all.

Pembleton

It doesn't look like a business meeting.

Lewis

There are business meetings and then there's -- there's business meetings.

Munch

Word to the wise, Meldrick? Nix the horizontal rumba with a fellow detective. Don't dip your wick in the company ink.

Lewis

I wasn't. [to Brodie] Why you want to film that?

Pembleton

[to Bayliss] We really could have used her statement. Are you going to yell at everybody today?

Giardello

I don't know if Bayliss should be the primary on this case.

Howard

You can't take the case away from him, Gee.

Giardello

He's had a bad history with murdered children and I don't want that interfering with his ability to do his job.

Pembleton

It won't interfere.

Giardello

How do you know that?

Pembleton

I trust my partner. We'll put this case down.

Giardello

He trusts his partner? The forgiving Frank Pembleton?

Bayliss

It wouldn't kill you to show some enthusiasm. Smile every once in a while.

Pembleton

Well, I'm not a smiler, I'm not a hugger, I'm not a sensitive guy. That's you, not me.

Bayliss

You and me, Frank. We've got all the luck. A dead child. Murdered little girl. Call Pembleton or Bayliss, they've got lots of experience.

Pembleton

What, you're feeling sorry for yourself cause you lost a case?

Bayliss

I've spent my life trying not to feel sorry for myself. See, Adena Watson, Janelle Parsons, Tonya Thompson. Every murdered child, every abused child, I understand. Cause all those children are me. Yeah, I know what that's all about. You see, my uncle, my father's brother, I was 5 years old, and he would follow me into the bathroom and he would close the door and he would take my hand in his and he would.... After he was done, he would smile and he would say what a good boy I was and oh, yeah, shhh....And this went on for years, years. My, my parents, they couldn't understand why I cried at every holiday, every family get together. So when I was 8 years old, I told my father, what had been going on, and I remember it was a struggle to get those words out and my father just stared at me and he asked me why I was lying. And he was my father and he was supposed to protect me Frank, but he didn't. See, for him, whatever was happening, it was like an inconvenience. See, to him, I wasn't a real person, and he never saw me, he never really looked at me. Ever.

Pembleton

Tim, I'm sorry.

Bayliss

I don't want your comfort Frank. That's not why I told you.

Pembleton

Alright.

Bayliss

By the way, I don't wanna be partners with you anymore.

Lewis

Luther, Luther, look both ways before crossing the street, my brother.

You do the same.

Howard

I'll go have a conversation with the illustrious Luther Mahoney.

Lewis

I'm goin' to put a bullet in his brain.

Howard

Hey, that's a thought.

Kellerman

We do this job. A job that nobody gives a piss about and what are we? We're garbagemen. There isn't any consideration anymore, they just keep killing each other. They should have to go out and roll a body and see what we see.

Kellerman

He stands up for us and where are we for him? Have a beer, right? So we can raise a toast to the son of a bitch because he was an idiot, thinking he could make a difference in the world.

Lewis

He wasn't an idiot.

Kellerman

No? All he had to do was go along with the program; just let them sell drugs off the corner, just accept things as they are and he'd still be alive. Your old partner Crosetti - he was an idiot too.

Lewis

What?

Kellerman

He let it all get to him.

Lewis

Why you wanna go there, man? Why you wanna drag Crosetti into this?

Kellerman

I see certificates of merit hanging in the squadroom. For what? So we can remember what a great guy he was, what a great detective? Does him a lot of good that he's remembered. Just a stupid, pathetic moron is what he was.

Lewis

Why you wanna talk about Crosetti like that? Why you wanna talk about someone you didn't even know?

Kellerman

There's the door. You don't wanna hear it, get out.

Lewis

He was a good man and he was a good detective. You don't know the first thing about him so what gives you the right to talk about someone you don't even know?

Kellerman

What, he's a mystery?! He kills himself. He tossed his drunk, pill-popping ass in the water and he comes up a floater. He should have eaten his gun.

Lewis

Mike-

Kellerman

No! No "Mike"! No more partner, no more friend, none of it! This is done between us!

Lewis

You letting them tell you that you don't matter, but we do matter, Mike. We do. I miss Crosetti. Sometimes I wake up and I think I'm gonna see his big head in the squadroom. But I don't; I just see you. You a better cop than he was. I ain't taking nothing away from him, but you are and I ain't just saying that. This is the job, Mike. This is what we do. I just wanna be a good cop. And if I walk outta here and I let you smoke yourself, am I still a good cop?

Munch

Ah, provolone and onion. Bland and zing. Soft and crunch. The Yin and Yang of sandwich filling.

Brodie

Only a man with no woman in his life eats extra onion for lunch.