He Looked Like a Detective in the Movies

The door opened. Two men in suits walked in. The man in front was a broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, thin-waisted, thick-haired fellow with deep-set, dark eyes and an icy glare. The precinct detective knew this man. He’d seen him around the precinct. It was hard to miss him. He looked, colleagues often said, how a detective in a movie looks. And he played the part well. His suits were tailored. He always seemed to be chomping his trademark cigar, whether at the station, on the streets, or at the bar after hours. He had a booming voice thick with a Brooklyn accent. He had a hearty laugh and a respectable handshake. He loved to buy others drinks and trade stories. He was the friendliest and warmest man many of his peers had ever met, and he was quick to cut himself down with abundant doses of self-deprecation. It was hard not to love Detective Louis Scarcella.

Behind Scarcella stood his partner, Detective Steve Chmil, a stout man with a trim mustache, a brown comb-over, and skeptical, probing eyes. Where Scarcella seemed to seek the spotlight, Chmil was fine working in the shadows. The Robin to Scarcella’s Batman, cops around the borough joked. Scarcella and Chmil had come to assist on the precinct detective’s homicide case. He was expecting the company. Scarcella and Chmil were members of the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad, a roving, 40-man task force formed to relieve the borough’s murder epidemic. Precinct detectives faced dozens of robberies, burglaries, rapes, assaults, and shootings each month. The heavy caseloads made it tough to stay on top of a murder investigation for more than a few weeks. So homicide-squad detectives worked with the precinct detectives to help investigate murders. And perhaps no detective in New York City was better known for solving murder cases than Louis Scarcella.

—Albert Samaha, writing for the Village Voice about the embattled career of Brooklyn detective Louis Scarcella. In recent years, many of Scarcella’s tactics have been questioned, and convictions made with his help have come under scrutiny.

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