None, it seems, let Baltimore get under their skin as much as Sonja Sohn, who played police detective Kima Greggs the first major portrayal of a Black lesbian on American television on the trail of drug lords in the five-season drama. Many residents in the city, especially in Black communities, just don't trust the. Jenkins duly tested his colleagues willingness to put personal loyalty to him above their oaths to uphold the law. We Own This City is based on the true story of the Baltimore police department's Gun Trace Task Force division and the corruption that . English, Poland THE SLOW HUSTLE follows Detective Suitors widow and local investigative reporters as they work to get answers in the Suiter case and hold the Baltimore Police Department and City Hall accountable. Podcast episodes are available each week right after the latest episode. We Own This City is based on a book by the Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton. United States Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. This malaise, Sohn points out, goes beyond Baltimore and policing in general. She was, perhaps, a counterculture rebel and social justice activist before her time. Who did this? In 2017, Baltimore was rocked by the federal indictment of Wayne Jenkins, a highly decorated super-cop and leader of. ReBUILD Metro is a community change organization that revitalizes historically redlined neighborhoods of East Baltimore without displacing their legacy residents. A few days earlier, the 35-year-old Marine corps veteran had begun tweeting about his 11 years in the Baltimore Police Department and all the things he had seen that he now felt needed to be shared. The cops once reportedly found a gun and a pound and a half of marijuana in an illegal warrantless search. The film is about one of the nation's biggest police corruption scandals. On Nov. 15, 2017, Suiter was accompanying his rookie partner David Bomenka on an assignment when he allegedly spotted a suspicious figure in an alleyway in the citys Harlem Park neighborhood. Through his early years on the force, Jenkins goes from learning how to scam the overtime rules to outright larceny. The presence of a local filmmaking community can have a positive impact on citizens and neighborhoods. David Simon returns to a familiar beat for HBO, updating if not improving on an old critique. Fenton writes that the police commissioner Frederick Bealefield insisted that police were not going after everyone in Baltimore any more, just bad guys with guns. We Own This City is still a very good show, with granular realism, a sly sense of humor and fine acting top to bottom. The Wire's Sonja Sohn on her Baltimore documentary: 'We are seeing multilayered corruption' The series was shot in Baltimore and brings together several alumni of the The Wire, both on. Former members of the Baltimore Police Department, from internal affairs to the former commissioner, attempt to shed light on that fateful afternoon and the atmosphere within the department. Once they realized that the rules that supposedly exist didnt really exist, its a slippery slope into saying, Well, Im dealing with bad guys and theyve made a lot of money through dealing drugs or whatever. And that's where D. Watkins comes in to play - someone who's lived on sort of both sides of the track and having, you know, been, you know, a critical, you know, just a social critic and delving into those topics and bringing that perspective. We dont always like what we see but we need to see whats in that mirror if were going to actually present truthfully in the world.. But this type of casual everyday lying, stealing, misrepresenting information, in some cases framing people its hard to prove and for that reason it often went unaddressed., The misconduct continued despite the outcry over Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American man who died of neck injuries suffered in police custody in April 2015. Debuting on Dec. 7 on HBO, The Wire actress Sonja Sohns sophomore directorial effort is, like 2017s Baltimore Rising, a story about racial unrest and institutional misconduct in Baltimore, all of it once again revolving around dirty cops and a dead Black man. A still from "Adrienne.". The revelation that Suiter was granted limited immunity for testifying didnt clear anything up either; the fact remains that its conceivable he was executed for planning to rat out his friends, shot in a random skirmish gone wrong, or killed by his own hand in order to avoid facing future legal prosecution. It tells how a shift in policing strategy in 2007 led to the creation of the GTTF amid concern that police had spent too long pursuing drugs rather than guns. With Bomenka around the corner, Suiter approached this figure, shots rang out, and Bomenka raced to the scene, whereas frantic bodycam footage illustrateshe found Suiter lying dead from a gunshot wound to the head. Stream on HBO Max on Dec. 1. Rayam opens up about the GTTF. I didnt know how much I had been impacted by it physically until 2020 came and I saw the correlation, she says. SOHN: Well, you know, that's a really good question because, yes, there was a lot floating through the air. With candid interviews from members of the Baltimore P.D., Suiters widow and children, journalists committed to uncovering the truth, lawyers and political leaders, THE SLOW HUSTLE examinesthe continuing mystery surrounding Suiters deathand the multiple theories that emerge in the investigation of the case, including that Suiters death was a calculated murder hit or a suicide. And with little apparent will to transform police departments (and their cultures of silence and coercion) or the political institutions that support them, it comes across as a deeply rooted malady for which theres no easy cure. Fenton has spoken to many people in Jenkins orbit and made multiple attempts to contact Jenkins in prison but without success. HBO doc "The Slow Hustle" examines the mysterious death of Baltimore cop Sean Suiter, who was set to testify against police corruption and then was found with a bullet in the head. While the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray, after a rough ride in a police van, is not depicted, it hangs over everything here, from Black Baltimoreans mistrust of the police to the post-Gray work slowdown by officers. So to me, that was a microcosm of the macrocosm. You know, you cant have a badge on your chest and do things like that.. Long history of neglect: why are missing Black people still less likely to be found? All rights reserved. Officers tell me that its a new day over there and everybodys wearing body cameras all the time, which wasnt the case until pretty late in the investigation of the gun trace taskforce. But theres a lot of pushback of course. That should be happening anyway. This prompted an FBI wiretap somewhat evocative of The Wire. Nobody knew. It found an extended institutional failure of the police departments internal affairs along with broad supervisory breakdowns. Its arguments are bold and impossible to miss. Next June it will be 20 years since The Wire began its sprawling Dickensian portrait of Baltimore, Maryland, as a proxy for the decline and fall of the American empire. We Own This City seems to question not whether good policing exists but whether the current system makes it impossible. An independent review board ruled that the 43-year-old detective had in fact shot himself a finding that his family and others vehemently reject. Instead, its members were convicted on corruption charges. Focusing on the 1980s, the documentary tells the story of Michael Dowd, a former. Suiter died just a day before he was due to testify before a federal grand jury investigating an elite Baltimore police unit, part of one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in recent US history. Watkins is the most outspoken of The Slow Hustles many talking heads, but even he confesses that anythings possible when it comes to Suiter, given that its difficult to ascertain the nature and degree of his involvement with the GTTF. D. is what I would call a true son of Baltimore and a voice of Baltimore. She is the director of the new HBO documentary called "The Slow Hustle." Pelecanos and Simon also serve as writers. In March 2017, eight members of the GTTF were indicted and arrested on federal charges of robbery, extortion, overtime fraud and selling drugs seized during police operations. The streets, the drug houses, the cops pursuing petty busts to drive up their stats you can almost hear the voice telling you to keep the devil way down in the hole. The police department is now under federal oversight but the decades-old spectre of corruption lingers. But the character functions mostly to deliver exposition and make, or receive, the shows arguments. The Slow Hustle, an HBO original documentary from director Sonja Sohn (HBOs Baltimore Risingand The Wire), chronicles the still unsolved death of Baltimore police detective Sean Suiter, fatally shotin 2017 while in the line of duty, and explores the ongoing speculation about what really happened that day. I think Baltimore does what it did to me and its a divine mirror. Wayne Jenkins, who as the real-life head of an elite Baltimore plainclothes unit turned it into a state-run gang. One thing that we all knew is that there were way too many details in this case that were conflicting. How is this going to be investigated? Bringing Jenkins and his ilk to justice does not mean Baltimores problems are resolved. African-American police officer Sean Suiter is pronounced dead soon thereafter. Former Baltimore Police Gun Trace Task Force detective sentenced to 10 years in prison. (And even Pryzbylewski eventually redeemed himself.). Coming to the city was was kind of a reckoning with my own self. This low profile helped insulate the GTTF from public scrutiny and allowed it go rogue. The editor, Donna Marino, she had something to do with that. Police stuffing their pockets and rationalizing it as their just dues was the subject of The Shield (itself inspired by a Los Angeles police scandal), which celebrates its own 20-year anniversary this spring. English, The Netherlands I had my moment of doing all of that. In workplaces across the country, the culture is changing quite a bit. But it is a pointed reminder that after all this time to quote a series that remains quotable for a reason the game is the game. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. The film will debut on HBO and be available to stream on HBO Max. It is revealed that Suiter had been summoned to testify in the now infamous Gun Trace Task Force trial, an elite police unit that proved to be one of the dirtiest in Baltimores recent history. As new evidence emerges, the mystery deepens. By Samuel Sasu April 26, 2022. Looking for more? The documentary focuses on Michael Dowd, a former police officer of 10 years, who was arrested in 1992, leading to one of . Another 156 people had been injured in shootings, up from 115 in the corresponding period. They told us not just what they did but how and that was very eye-opening testimony. English, Norway Maryland State Senator Jill P. Carter helps contextualize some of the social and political misdeeds that have led to an environment that so easily breeds institutional misconduct. You get a guy on a wiretap talking to drug dealers about drugs and then you just keep pulling that string.. I Got A Monster (2023) Documentary Official Trailer In March of 2017, America's deadliest city was rocked by one of the nation's biggest Police corruption scandals. It spans dozens if not hundreds of incidents under our noses and theres reasons for that which I try to explain in the book. Supervisors had no incentive to report misconduct by their underlings because, given the culture of the police department, that would put them in a bad odour in the rest of the department.. It wasnt that we heard about them all the time. It has nothing to do with my level of desire. EN. Over six episodes, host D. Watkins will share his experiences in and out of the writers room and speak to the people who brought this story to the screen. That twist alone makes The Slow Hustle a fascinating whodunit, and complicating matters further, it eventually came out that Suiter may not have been as clean as people thought. 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