Hacker Cinema
We Own This City
2022 · TV series · 1 season
Created by George Pelecanos, David Simon
The story of the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force — and the corruption and moral collapse that befell an American city in which the policies of drug prohibition and mass arrest were championed at the expense of actual police work.
4 positivefrom 4 commenters
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4 comments on Hacker News
I have very little sympathy for “You couldn’t write X today” arguments. Here, X is The Wire.
There is a spiritual successor to The Wire: 2022’s miniseries We Own This City. Same complicated representation of Baltimore. Same complicated representation of American policing. Good critical reception, but less widely-known than a legendary show that ran for six years and sixty episodes.
The substantive difference between the two is that 2020’s-era HBO doesn’t make long-running serials like The Wire and The Sopranos anymore (Hacks is the notable exception).
That’s not a political change forced on them by unnamed leftists. That’s a change in business model.
The assertion regarding felonies came from police without much (if any) scrutiny. According to the police report, George Floyd died because of a drug overdose, not because his airway was cut off by a knee to the neck for almost ten minutes. Had there been no video, I wager most white folks would have believed the police report over the testimony of eyewitnesses, assuming it even went to court.
If you have HBO, I highly recommend watching the series "We Own This City", which is about the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force.
https://www.hbo.com/we-own-this-city
Is this indicative of all cops in all departments? Of course not. But the falsification of the police report is quite common and even if discovered almost never results in disciplinary action despite itself being a felony.
And EVEN IF they were all likely guilty of felonies, that doesn't automatically mean that lethal force is warranted. And EVEN IF lethal force is warranted, that doesn't mean aid should not be rendered to try to save their life.
How often have you seen video where the suspect is already on the ground and cuffed behind their back when an officer knees the subject repeatedly in the side or strikes them on the head? When multiple officers do so?
Yes, crime is an issue. That should include excessive force on an already subdued subject. That's where qualified immunity comes in. In a sane world, once the person is on the ground, immobile, and in cuffs, the blows should have already ended.
Warning: if you haven't watched David Simon's new HBO miniseries, "We Own This City", this 15,000+ word blog post of his spoils one of the major dramatic turns. If you're a fan of The Wire, you'll probably have some liking for WOTC just for its modern day depiction of Baltimore politics and policing, though being bound by accuracy to real events makes it a much different show.
Sean Suiter is one of the main characters in WOTC. Apparently what happened to him and his detective career has been a topic of much ongoing controversy.
For David Simon fans, there's a new mini-series called "We Own This City" that also covers a similar situation in Baltimore.
Highly recommended, albeit a short spiritual successor to "The Wire."
https://www.hbo.com/we-own-this-city