And so being able to make that connection, I think, to those other cases was in the back of my mind. Itexamines 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. He became a police cadet in 2003, married and bought a house. For years its plainclothes officers went on a a crime spree that included robbing people they stopped on the streets, planting drugs and guns on innocent people, invading peoples homes and stealing from them as well as fraudulently charging the city for working overtime. It spans dozens if not hundreds of incidents under our noses and theres reasons for that which I try to explain in the book. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I got one officer down. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. United States And that case right there has a connection to many other cases that were in the public eye at the time. 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. Was Suiter an unwitting participant in a scheme carried out by rogue cops? I want to just give the team credit; theyve been making documentaries for 30 years. Created by David Simon, this seminal series explores the world of crime in Baltimore through the lenses of both civilians and law enforcement. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Oh, my god. They told us not just what they did but how and that was very eye-opening testimony. Jenkins followed in his fathers footsteps by joining the Marines but happened to leave with an honourable discharge just a month before the September 11 terrorist attacks. A unit of the Baltimore Police Department, the Gun Trace Task Force, was supposed to target guns and drugs on the city's streets. 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. The film follows Suiters family as it tries to get answers about his death. Tells the story of the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force and the corruption surrounding it. Executive produced byGeorge Pelecanos (The Deuce) and David Simon (The Wire) -- and based on the book by Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton --We Own This Cityis a six-hour, limited series chronicling the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force. English, Turkey English, Sweden We are seeing multilayered corruption with new eyes as a culture. Ex-po. The documentary We Own This City draws attention to the corruption within the Baltimore Police Department. We glimpse Steeles motives when she recalls her brothers being racially profiled by police. Baltimore Police officers found guilty in Gun Trace Task Force corruption case. It has nothing to do with my level of desire. English, Argentina Nobody knew. So there was something different. 1 Season | 6 Episodes | TV-MA WATCH NOW Executive produced by George Pelecanos ( The Deuce) and David Simon ( The Wire) -- and based on the book by Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton -- We Own This City is a six-hour, limited series chronicling the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force. The official podcast of the HBO Original Limited Series. Whatever Happened to Permanent Daylight Saving Time? 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. To return to our unfair comparison, The Wire believed that systemic forces mattered more than individual failure or triumph. He lives in Del Ray. e was praised as a positive role model. Suiter is assigned to a new murder case. Watch these additional moments featuring Sean Suiter's family attorney, Jeremy Eldridge. English, Norway On Wednesday morning, former Baltimore police Sgt. [11/16/21 - 11:00 AM] HBO Documentary "The Slow Hustle," A Searing Look at Corruption Within the Baltimore Police Department After a Detective's Fatal Shooting, Debuts December 7 Detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor. I need a unit medic right now. Jenkins then asked Kostoplis what he thought about investigating a high-level drug dealer, determining where he kept his money and stealing it. That is D.s perspective within the film. All rights reserved. So that's sort of like the sieve through which the rumors come through. Whatever happened to the cast? And we're all not feeling protected nor served. The Seven Five, also known as Seven Five Precinct, is a 2014 documentary directed by Tiller Russell, and produced by Eli Holzman, Aaron Saidman, and Sheldon Yellen.The film looks at police corruption in the 75th precinct of the New York Police Department during the 1980s. 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. French, French Speaking Africa The actor-turned-directors new film The Slow Hustle tells the story of a detective who was killed just before he was set to testify in a corruption case. The GTTF officers provide additional damning evidence. But its indictments lack the character shading that animated Simons adaptations of the housing-policy story Show Me a Hero and his own book The Corner.. David Simon returns to a familiar beat for HBO, updating if not improving on an old critique. Dominic West went on to play Prince Charles in The Crown; Wendell Pierce took on Willy Loman in a London stage production of Death of a Salesman; Idris Elba starred in Luther, Thor and Cats; Michael K Williams burned brightly in Boardwalk Empire and others before his jarring death in September. English, Australia FLORIDO: Your film really does document the Baltimore Police Department's long history of corruption. Through his early years on the force, Jenkins goes from learning how to scam the overtime rules to outright larceny. While an Independent Review Board was ultimately created to get to the bottom of this, its conclusionthat Suiter had taken his own lifedidnt convince skeptics, especially considering that its final report featured at least one glaring factual error that undercut its reliability. And there was all of this corruption that he was around. English, Indonesia The Slow Hustle, which debuts Tuesday night on HBO and HBOMax, looks at the death of Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter, who lived in Prince Georges County and who was shot in the head in late 2017, the day before he was due to testify in a federal probe of police corruption. Michael Bromwich, a former US justice department inspector general, and his team conducted a two-year investigation that included more than 160 interviews and examined hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. Spanish, Brazil English, Malaysia I got one officer down. He and members of the GTTF framed the two men that Jenkins had been pursuing by planting drug evidence. 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. The creators, cast, and crew discuss the rigorous research and attention to detail that went into bringing this true story to life in Baltimore. It's been three years since Baltimore erupted in a series of protests over police violence, exposing deep divisions between the city's police department and the community.The protests captured national attention - prompting a federal investigation - and several high-profile efforts at reform.Now a new scandal is threatening to undermine those efforts, raising questions about the depth of police corruption in Baltimore, and the institutional forces that allow corrupt officers to remain on the street.Fault Lines returns to Baltimore as new details emerge about an elite plain-clothes police unit that, for years, doubled as a criminal gang - robbing residents, planting evidence, and sending countless innocent people to jail.The unit operated with impunity in part because of the way police complaints are investigated.In Baltimore - like many other cities - if a police officer is accused of wrongdoing, the complaint is investigated behind closed doors by the police department's own Internal Affairs Division.Fault Lines investigates how this latest police scandal once again places Baltimore at the centre of a national debate over how and whether police departments can be held accountable to the communities they police.- Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/#AlJazeeraEnglish #BaltimorePolice #Fautlines Scenes for the HBO show based on Justin Fenton's book about the corruption in the Baltimore Police Department Gun Trace Task Force are being filmed outside the vacant Bengies Groceries in the 4000 . Premiering Dec. 7 on HBO and its streaming service, HBOMax, "The Slow Hustle" is said to provide an inside look at the Baltimore Police Department by exploring Suiter's "mysterious" death and . In January, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh fired her police commissioner and replaced him with former Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa, who promised sweeping reforms to the department. In practice, theyre all about that brutality and then some. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Naturally, Suiters wife Nicole didnt take kindly to the notion that her husband had offed himself in a supposed plan to avoid testifying, and the medical examiner failed to shed conclusive light on the situation. Suspicions were aroused that a hit had been ordered to silence him. And Josh Charles (The Good Wife) plays impressively against type as Daniel Hersl, a bullet-headed task-force thug who makes Jenkins look like a diplomat. All rights reserved. How do we measure that, how do we quantify that, especially given the deep-seated bad feelings about this department?. 5 Takeaways From ESPNs (Newest) Bombshell Dan Snyder Report, The Bidens Went to Dinner and Ordered the Same Dish, Dividing the Internet, PHOTOS: 2023 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize Honoree Dinner Celebrating Joni Mitchell, Cherry Blossom Peak Bloom Is Predicted for March 22-25. Jenkins brings Suiter along on a raid. And so I really hope we're talking about not recreating, you know, revamping the system, but I think it's really about creating a new structure for public safety and in a time where Americans across the board are - to some degree, are triggered by law enforcement. With Jon Bernthal, Wunmi Mosaku, Jamie Hector, Josh Charles. 2023 Home Box Office, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Sohn was at home in North Carolina when George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis last year. opens, it's "November 15, 2017" and we hear a frantic 911 call about a Baltimore police officer having been shot, and we then get the body cam footage as cops arrive on the scene. By Samuel Sasu April 26, 2022. I felt alone and I was happy. 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. EN. The city had also recorded 714 robberies, an increase of almost 25%. That is the rumour that sweeps like a wildfire through the city and the fact thats the first theory that erupts says something on a larger scale about what could happen if the police dont get their act together and regain the trust of the people., Sohn adds: To me, what Nicole [Suiters widow] and the family are going through is the microcosmic example of what is happening to all of us, that when public institutions and structures dont get their act together, the people suffer and, in this instance, the family suffers.. Portuguese, Brazil, Chile English, Portugal Its that systemic rot which proves to be The Slow Hustles fundamental subject. Fenton, who reported on the trial, recalls: Through the people cooperating and telling the truth, we gained a new level of understanding of how these things work that I dont think weve had previously. Fenton, 38, who worked for the Baltimore Sun newspaper for 17 years and is now at the Baltimore Banner, a new non-profit newsroom, says: I do definitely wonder if it happens again, if its happening right now, will I know? THE SLOW HUSTLE is included in a collection of four gripping documentary titles that debut on Tuesdays, beginning November 23. But then things get messy when it's reported that Suiter was killed just a day before he was supposed to testify in a case against several fellow officers accused of corruption. Start from the beginning and watch the first episode ofWe Own This Cityfor free. Or was he an accomplice, on the take just like his boys-in-blue brethren? This prompted an FBI wiretap somewhat evocative of The Wire. The leader of a rogue Baltimore police unit sobbed as he was sentenced to 25 years in prison in a corruption scandal prosecutors called "breathtaking". Sgt Wayne Jenkins was the ringleader and is the central protagonist of the book and TV series. We Own This City seems to question not whether good policing exists but whether the current system makes it impossible. 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. Do we extend that to law enforcement as well? What you might miss is the vivid human tapestry that brings this kind of institutional analysis to life on the screen and keeps it alive in your memory. Many residents in the city, especially in Black communities, just don't trust the. 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. English, Israel The editor, Donna Marino, she had something to do with that. But the character functions mostly to deliver exposition and make, or receive, the shows arguments. Was his death a calculated effort to keep him silent, or was Suiter himself a cop under scrutiny with a past he couldnt face? What really got me with the Baltimore Rising cast is I saw them speak at a museum and I was like, Oh my god! I cried. Actor, filmmaker and activist Sonja Sohn is the founder and CEO of the Baltimore-based reWIRED for Change, an outreach program for at-risk youth inspired by her six seasons appearing on HBOs The Wire. Thats a terrible fucking idea. At this point, its a more nuanced game. He enjoyed the admiration and respect of his superiors and was given special privileges. The documentary focuses on Michael Dowd, a former police officer of 10 years, who was arrested in 1992, leading to one of . After Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter is killed in the line of duty, the tragedy soon becomes enmeshed in a widening corruption scandal that threatens to unravel the public's already After Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter is killed in the line of duty, the tragedy soon becomes enmeshed in a widening corruption scandal that threatens to unravel the public's already strained relationship with law enforcement. The Bachelor Has Two Maryland Contestants. And thats also once I found the journalists that were already working on the case, and they were interested in allowing me to follow them. 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. Bromwich, a senior counsel at the law firm Steptoe, says by phone: People were promoted without any sense of whether they would be capable of managing people. And I felt that the rumors, you know, also have some validity because there is a history of corruption, though rumors, you know, can't always be proven. They were veritable gangsters, and the fact that Suiter died in this puzzling manner a mere day before he was speaking to the feds about his shady colleagues raised immediate suspicions that he was actually the victim of an orchestrated hit. Spanish, Mexico Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. English, United States Im sure those who are involved in policy making are in the midst of looking at how to develop a more nuanced strategy on some other levels because the folks who are in opposition are playing serious chess right now. WJZ has covered the real-life Gun Trace Task Force investiga. Maybe this is intentional. Another 156 people had been injured in shootings, up from 115 in the corresponding period. English, France English, Korea Right now were dealing on a mass level with this lack of trust of law enforcement because of the way they have treated Black folks. Wood Jr. woke up to find his phone full of thousands of new Twitter notifications. (And even Pryzbylewski eventually redeemed himself.). THE SLOW HUSTLE, a feature documentary directed by Sonja Sohn (HBOs Baltimore Rising, The Wire), chronicles the still unsolved death of Baltimore police detective Sean Suiter, fatally shot in the head in 2017 while in the line of duty, and explores the ongoing speculation about what really happened that day. "Adrienne". Theres a whole philosophical debate around human beings, and, you know, are they inherently good or evil? Ive been waiting for you all my life and now youre here and Im an old lady. But lets see what I can do. With a mission to improve Baltimore through green space and education, Parks & Peoplebelieves that everyone deserves a park as a place to learn, play, grow and enjoy. It begins with dramatic real-life body-cam footage filmed just after a shooting in the Harlem Park neighborhood of Baltimore. Jenkins duly tested his colleagues willingness to put personal loyalty to him above their oaths to uphold the law. Sonja Sohn, who played Baltimore cop Kima Greggs onThe Wire and who founded a Baltimore-based nonprofit, directs the film. The latter, in the seriess view, allowed crime to spike and in turn motivated the police brass to ignore Jenkinss crimes until a federal investigation exposed them. English, Belgium That should be happening anyway. Theyre a very private family. 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. The results of this quest were predictably meager, and it wasnt long before pressure began to mount on Commissioner Kevin Davisfrom both the public and the mayorto find the assailant who killed this heroic cop in the line of duty. You know, you cant have a badge on your chest and do things like that.. Will it be reported? You know, it took a minute to gain their trust. So rumors and speculation ran rampant about what really happened to Officer Suiter, not just among residents, but also among politicians, among journalists. But theres a lot of pushback of course. The Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS) is the largest companion animal shelter in Maryland. With police reform stalled in Congress, and Republicans stoking fear of rising crime in major cities, does she believe the momentum of the Black Lives Matter protests can be sustained? The unsolved case also sparked far-reaching implications for a city already grappling with the complexities of policing in contemporary, urban America. Ultimately, the journey reveals how theculture of corruption within the ranks of the Baltimore police forcecontributed to the destruction of the publics trust and impacted the police departments ability to solve a shooting deathof one of its own. Sohn cofounded ReWired for Change, a local outreach programme for at-risk youth, and made her directorial debut in 2017 with Baltimore Rising, which depicted the Black-majority city in the aftermath of the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in police custody. 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. The crime drama series is based on Justin Fenton's 2021 nonfiction book of the same name and stars . 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