Wired Again

 “We Own This City,” 6 episode limited series produced by David Simon, 2022

This series is a follow-up to “The Wire,” an earlier ground-breaking streaming series about crime and corruption in Baltimore by ‘semi-Marxist’ David Simon.  This mini-series is based on a non-fiction book about a rouge unit of the Baltimore police, the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF).  The unit had high arrest and conviction ‘numbers’ so it was encouraged and protected by the brass.  Their cowboy style depended on informant info and also wild guesses.  They went after dealers, non-dealers, bystanders and suspects with high-speed aggression, hoping to corral cash, drugs and guns in a wide-ranging net.  A ‘catch’ is that some of the drugs and money also ended up in their pockets, especially in the pockets of Wayne Jenkins, the lead cowboy and ‘legend.’

The GTTF on the Hunt

Some of this is in the wake of the 2015 Freddie Gray killing by police and riots that followed. After that police numbers went down, arrests went down and morale went down.  Murders are now high in Baltimore.

We see Jenkins learn the ‘trade’ from the first GTTF head, who tells him to blow off what he learned in the police academy.  Flash-backs of Jenkins’ many raids follow. Jenkins worked with a bail-bondsmen who sold his stolen drugs.  The GTTF members shared the cash, though Jenkins took the most.  A shot of the crew pocketing bricks of cash is common.  They engage in illegal high-speed chases, one of which kills an innocent driver. They plant weapons and drugs when they catch someone innocent or fuck-up, to cover themselves.  They lie in court.  Jenkins pretends he’s a Fed.  They release innocent suspects on a regular basis after those suspects are hauled downtown because they never had a case.  They file bogus overtime hours.  Street corners are cleared of anyone to ‘reduce violence.’  It’s an ineffectual dragnet in mostly black neighborhoods.    

One of the funniest scenes is at a murder trial in which voir dire for a jury is being carried out.  Out of a huge pool of jurors, they can only find 7 who don’t believe the police will lie on the stand.  One young man says the police illegally arrested and hurt him during a BLM protest, then lied about it, so he’s thrown off the panel, followed by many more.  In New York its called 'testilying.'  

Another drug gang

CAUSE?

To deal with this festering criminal element within the police, there is a new police commissioner; an investigation by the FBI and local federal district attorney; and the involvement of the Department of Justice, which is looking to implement a Consent Decree regarding police problems.  This investigation is taking place before and after Trump assumes office in 2017.  Trump will appoint Jeff Sessions to head the DOJ, who is against Consent Decrees period, so they need to get it signed.  The new mayor of Baltimore and her aides resist the decree, though someone finally signed it.  She and one aide are later found to be corrupt.   

A key character, the DOJ investigator Nicole Steele, talks to an upright and experienced police trainer.  He says everything went to hell when the ‘War on Drugs” was declared, as it became a racist war on the people.  Steele finally quits the DOJ because she sees that even a Consent Decree will not solve this problem, as the DOJ is not against that ‘war.’  This is the political point Simon is trying to make again.  What he does not mention is that people deal drugs – or take them – mostly because of poverty.  It is a lucrative money-maker.  Poverty is built into capitalism as part of its class system.  You’d think a ‘semi-Marxist’ like Simon would finally suss this out.  No luck.

Bad boy Jenkins, played by Jon Bernthal, carries the show as the lead punk, visiting strip bars, drinking bad booze, lying to his wife, even robbing a midget stripper at one point, all because he claims he needs money.  He can’t figure out why a loud, brash ‘legend’ like himself, with high arrest numbers, is so put upon.  An image of self-centered blindness is harder to come by.  A good, short series, based on reality, which makes its point well.

Prior blog reviews on this topic, use blog search bar, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using these terms:  “City on a Hill,” “The Wire” (Simon); “Rise of the Warrior Cop,” “Bad Cops, Bad Cops,” “Defund, Disband or Abolish the Police?” “Detroit,” “Fear of a Black Rebellion,” “Minneapolis Votes,” “Notes From Minneapolis,” “It Was Only a Matter of Time,” “Summer on Fire,” “Line of Duty,” “Trapped and Detective Series in General,” “Ferguson Facts.”

The Cultural Marxist

October 8, 2022