TV One True Crime Monday hit series, ATL Homicide gives an insider view of crime on the streets of Atlanta. The one-hour show returned for its third season in January. The addictive series features interviews with former real life Atlanta Detectives David Quinn and Vince Velazquez, footage from their cases, along with dramatized segments with actors Angelo Diaz and Christopher Diaz portraying Quinn and Velazquez respectively.
Monday nights at 9p.m. ET/8 CT, the two friends and former partners who worked side by side in the homicide division of the Atlanta police department take viewers on a journey recreating how they solved some of their real-life gruesome crime cases. They recount their experiences with the aid of footage from the crime.
Tonight’s episode tells the story of the case involving of two out of town college students who became victims of a deadly robbery within 24 hours of arriving in Atlanta. The case takes Detectives Quinn and Velazquez across state lines and involves murder, rape, and drug gang Black Mafia Family.
You would think that during a pandemic that crime shows, especially those one with brutal crimes like rape and murder might not be what people want to see. However, ATL Homicide is a hit for TV One on True Crime Monday. And it is resonating with women.
I talked with ATL Homicide star Detective David Quinn started out as your friendly neighborhood cop in the projects of Atlanta. He says it’s no surprise to him that African American women love the show and that they have always supported the safe keeping of their neighborhoods.
“It’s so interesting, I go over the years…go over the leads or how cases were broken, how leads got put together… it was the sisters …the sisters kept the neighborhood safe. They were our eyes and ears out there…be it a prostitute walking the street at night…be it a housewife or a home maker or a woman leaving for work every day, sisters were always stepping up, said Quinn.
Quinn took the time to build trust within the community he worked, beginning with 15 years walking the streets as a patrolman from the mid-1980s through the 90s to his later years as a homicide detective.
“They’ve got all that crazy equipment on like they’re going literally to war..”
“We maintained relationships with those families for years. We were sitting at the empty place at the table at Thanksgiving subliminally because we had those relationships with those families (who lost loved ones to homicide). We always put them first….and they gave great return,” states Quinn.
Vince Velazquez and David Quinn, stars of ATL Homicide on TV One in an interview segment from the True Crime Monday series.
It’s those relationships and trust that led to Quinn and Velazquez to solving their cases, something that he feels Is lacking between police and the people of black and brown neighborhoods today. “I was in law enforcement for 30 years. And each neighborhood had a neighborhood cop. I was the neighborhood cop as a beat patrolman…in uniform in the big old police car. What I’m seeing is a more (militarized) more tactical presentation of police departments. I mean they’re coming in…they’ve got all of this crazy equipment on like they’re going literally to war…I think we’ve got to disrobe some of that tactical military look, because…I mean it’ scary…I don’t even know how they get anything done looking like that.When I came on, I had a six-shooter revolver – that’s what I was issued in 1985… and I had what they call a night stick. And I was out in them streets…All those weapons don’t save you from getting killed…The greatest weapon you have is your mind, your brain and the way you curb yourself verbally. That’s got me out of more skirmishes than the gun. It is my gift of gab…And people sniff out who’s not real once they step out of the police car. It’s incumbent among cops to win one street, one neighborhood at a time, “ admonishes Quinn.
He added, “And right now, these uprisings had to happen because its two different forms of justice…one for the black and brown and one for the white folks…it’s just how it is. We’ve got to confront that and we’ve got to hold the feet to the fire to these local governments…the black and the brown…our community is suffering in epic numbers…the disparity is crazy…the way we’re getting killed out here by the cops…we’ve got to change the way we deal….so one street, one neighborhood at a time has always been my motto.”
If you love true crime dramas, tune in to ATL Homicide, on TV One on True Crime Monday, 9 ET/8 CT. You can also join the live tweets during the show with stars David Quinn and Vince Velazquez.
#ATLHOMICIDE #Represent
Twitter: @linwoods, @davidquinn19 , @TVONE