Joseph Wambaugh

Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr is a best selling American author famous for both fictional and non-fictional work on the police in the United States. He was born on January 22, 1937 in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the age of 17 in 1954, he joined the U.S. Marines and served for three years. He married at the age of 18. Joseph Wambaugh obtained an associate degree from Chaffey College and also attended California State University, Los Angeles where he received Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees. He joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in 1960. He served as a policeman for 14 years, rising through the ranks from patrolman to the rank of detective sergeant He was still a police officer when two of his novels, The New Centurions and the Blue Knight were published. He is famous for his work on The Onion Field, 1979, Echoes in the Darkness, 1987 and The Black Marble in 1980. Several of his early novels were set in Los Angeles, California and its environs and featured LA police officers as protagonists. In 2000s, Joseph Wambaugh began teaching screenwriting courses at the theatre department of the University of California, San Diego, as a guest lecturer.