if at first you don't suceed, try try again

Persistence is really the most important skill in my job. When it comes to getting what you want, trying again and again is the best way to reach your goal. My partner Patrick and I must have gone to the same crime scene ten times this week so that we can try and talk with witnesses. It is very common for us to not reach someone when we go by their residence the first time, so we simply go back a different day or a different time of day. What we are not used to is going to the same building half a dozen times. We have canvasses, taken pictures day and night, taken statements, diagrammed, staked out and just driven around the same area for days now. Part of the reason for this is that most of the people associated with this case all live within a couple of miles of each other. Never on the job have I felt threatened, despite the fact that I have spoken with drug users, sellers, violent criminals, and perhaps murderers. Overall I feel that many of them are just curious as to what two young white students are doing in their neighborhoods. Perhaps this is naivety on my part, but I have never gotten used to frequent crime anywhere I have lived. The people I talk to daily tell me gunshots are only noteworthy if there are screams and many people have had relatives shot or killed. This is something I deal with on a daily basis but I feel that I don't entirely understand the circumstances of their daily lives, and I probably never will. Maybe that is why they look at me as such an outsider, because they know that no matter how genuine my sympathy, I cannot possibly comprehend the experience of their lives.
When friends and family members ask me about how it is to work with criminals, I feel offended. The people I meet on a day to day basis do not seem to be criminal, nor do they embody the connotation that is associated with that word CRIMINAL. Almost everyone I’ve meet has treated me with respect and kindness and been genuinely willing to help. Now it may have taken some persuasion, however no one thus far has disrespected me in any way.