
James Ellroy
Suicide Hill
You're alone and you know a few things. The stars are pinholes; slits in the hangman's mask Them, rats, snakes; the chased and chasers-
Psychiatric Evaluation Memorandum
From: Alan D. Kurland, M.D., Psychiatrist, Personnel Division To: Deputy Chief T. R. Braverton, Commander, Detective Division; Captain John A. McManus, Robbery/Homicide Division Subject: Hopkins, Lloyd W., Sergeant, Robbery/Homicide Division
Gentlemen:
As requested, I evaluated Sergeant Hopkins at my private office, in a series of five one-hour counseling sessions, conducted from 6 November to 10 November 1984. I found him to be a physically healthy and mentally alert man of genius-level intelligence. He was a willing, almost eager, participant in these sessions, belying your initial fears about his cooperation. His response to intimate questions and "attack" queries was unwaveringly honest and candid.
Evaluation: Sergeant Hopkins is a violence-prone obsessive-compulsive personality, this personality disorder chiefly manifesting itself in acts of excessive physical force throughout his nineteen-year career as a policeman. Following secondarily but directly in this overall behavior pattern is a strong sexual drive, which he rationalizes as a "counterbalancing effort" aimed at allaying his violent impulses. Intellectually, both of these drives have been justified by the exigencies of "the Job" and by his desire to uphold his reputation as a uniquely brilliant and celebrated homicide detective; in reality both derive from a strident pragmatism of the type seen in emotionally arrested sociopathic personalities-quite simply, a preadolescent selfishness.
Symptomatically, Sergeant Hopkins, a self-described "hot-dog cop" and admitted sybarite, has followed both his violent impulses and his sexual desires with the heedless fervor of a true sociopath.
