"Police are reluctant to label a murder as a possible serial homicide"
About this Quote
The phrasing matters. Brown doesn’t accuse police of denial; she frames it as reluctance, a word that suggests internal conflict. That ambiguity widens the target: she’s talking about departments protecting reputations, investigators guarding cases from public panic, and officials avoiding the resource-heavy commitments that a serial designation can demand. It also hints at the grim reality that “possible” is the operative word. Early in an investigation, patterns are messy, evidence is partial, and declaring a serial threat can contaminate witness testimony and tip off an offender.
As an entertainer, Brown’s subtext is calibrated for an audience raised on true crime structures: the trope where authorities miss the pattern until it’s too late. She’s tapping into that cultural suspicion that systems prefer tidy explanations. The line works because it forces a question with no comforting answer: are police cautious because it’s responsible, or because the truth is politically expensive?
Quote Details
| Topic | Police & Firefighter |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Brown, Pat. (2026, January 15). Police are reluctant to label a murder as a possible serial homicide. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/police-are-reluctant-to-label-a-murder-as-a-152588/
Chicago Style
Brown, Pat. "Police are reluctant to label a murder as a possible serial homicide." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/police-are-reluctant-to-label-a-murder-as-a-152588/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Police are reluctant to label a murder as a possible serial homicide." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/police-are-reluctant-to-label-a-murder-as-a-152588/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2026.

