Meldrick Lewis
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Meldrick Lewis is a fictional character on the television series Homicide: Life on the Street played by Clark Johnson. The character was in the series for its full run. It is indicated he was raised Baptist, but his wedding was performed by a member of the Universal Life Church.
His first partner in the series was Steve Crosetti, who occasionally irritated him with his arcane historical interests and demeanor. The two usually got along well, however, and so Crosetti's later suicide deeply unnerved Lewis. At first he refused to even believe it could be a suicide, reasoning that Crosetti, a devout Catholic and devoted father, would never violate his faith and abandon his child. In time he accepted Crosetti's suicide, but still felt a certain dismay that he had never known Crosetti was "in that kind of pain" and apparently felt he could not tell Lewis about his problems.
He remained without a partner for a time until partnering with Mike Kellerman formerly of arson. This partnership initially worked reasonably well, but also had its strain as Kellerman slid toward alcoholism and humiliation. As Kellerman kept his problems less secret than Crosetti, Lewis was able to stop a potential suicide attempt, but in the end the partnership collapsed.
Lewis had a mentally ill brother who had to be institutionalized as he was a danger to himself and others. Lewis confessed to Kellerman that he did not intervene on one of his brother's suicide attempts, and even briefly hoped it might succeed as it would end their suffering. In the fourth season, he married a woman named Barbara Shivers on extremely short notice. The couple eventually split up. Those who knew Lewis were unsurprised at the breakup; in fact, up to the moment of the wedding many of his co-workers (particularly Munch) assumed the engangement was a hoax.
