SONJA SOHN: I think the one thing that I had to zero in on or hone in on was the fact that there - that this was a Black man who appeared to be murdered, whose murder was unsolved and quite possibly could have been at the hands of law enforcement. 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. 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. English, Russia 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. Jenkins duly tested his colleagues willingness to put personal loyalty to him above their oaths to uphold the law. The cast includes Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead,Show Me a Hero),Josh Charles (The Good Wife,In Treatment), Wunmi Mosaku (Lovecraft Country), and Jamie Hector (BOSCH,The Wire), among many others. English, Italy Sgt Wayne Jenkins was the ringleader and is the central protagonist of the book and TV series. 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. 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. French At the center of The Slow Hustle is Baltimore Police Department detective Sean Suiter. 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. Rather than just railing against the GTTF, Watkins spends time discussing the numerous similarities he shares with one of the convicted officers in order to highlight how Baltimores problems are less about individuals than about the environment in which theyre raised and operate. 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. As Nicole Steele, a civil-rights-division attorney, Wunmi Mosaku does all she can to create a character who feels her mission deeply and who chafes at her departments resistance to real change. Washingtonian spoke with Sohn last week about her new joint. He also learns a sense of entitlement; the seriess title comes from a speech in which he tells his cronies that as long as we put those numbers up by making arrests, they can do what they want. I want to just give the team credit; theyve been making documentaries for 30 years. Whatever Happened to Permanent Daylight Saving Time? The city had also recorded 714 robberies, an increase of almost 25%. FLORIDO: Your film really does document the Baltimore Police Department's long history of corruption. English, Australia United States How is this going to be investigated? Jenkins name appears in the opening shot of We Own This City, an HBO drama that chronicles the rise and fall of the Baltimore police departments gun trace taskforce (GTTF), described in an independent report as the most shocking corruption scandal in Baltimores history. And I used the investigative journalists and their journalistic ethics and expertise first and foremost as, I guess, the first sort of filter and sieve through the facts. 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. 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. But except for flashbacks, the story is set in the latter 2010s. The presence of a local filmmaking community can have a positive impact on citizens and neighborhoods. Funding social structures that support the people is just a given. The more I looked into it, the stranger it seemed. 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. We Own This City: Created by George Pelecanos, David Simon. D. is what I would call a true son of Baltimore and a voice of Baltimore. Actor Darrell Britt-Gibson (Jemell Rayam) and technical adviser Detective Andres Severino sit down together to talk about the friendship they formed while making We Own This City, and how working together opened their eyes to new perspectives. Jenkins then asked Kostoplis what he thought about investigating a high-level drug dealer, determining where he kept his money and stealing it. The Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS) is the largest companion animal shelter in Maryland. But it brought back the visceral sensation of being in Baltimore for the uprising that followed the death of Gray. Baltimore Police. We Own This City tends to choose telling over showing, however, especially on the investigation side of the story. Copyright 2021 NPR. 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. As of late March, 76 people had been murdered so far this year, up from 65 over the same period in 2021. And that case right there has a connection to many other cases that were in the public eye at the time. Her first feature documentary Baltimore Rising portrayed the city in the aftermath of Freddie Grays death and THE SLOW HUSTLE continues her work focusing on Baltimore and its inherent racial and socio-economic problems. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This malaise, Sohn points out, goes beyond Baltimore and policing in general. Im not sure the police have proven that.. 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. Underpinning it all is a Wire-style critique of institutions, in particular a police department so hollowed out by corruption that even the attempt to solve the death of one of its own is met with insurmountable doubts. Was his death a calculated effort to keep him silent, or was Suiter himself a cop under scrutiny with a past he couldnt face? Watch these additional moments featuring Sean Suiter's family attorney, Jeremy Eldridge. However, in this particular instance, the dynamics at play arent quite as clear-cut as that description makes them sound. Baltimore Police officers found guilty in Gun Trace Task Force corruption case. It begins with dramatic real-life body-cam footage filmed just after a shooting in the Harlem Park neighborhood of Baltimore. 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. English, Singapore In the case of [the detective] Maurice Ward, he said it was an accident: he didnt turn in drugs and he realised that nobody asked him about it and then he sees other people around him skimming money and its like, Wow, we can do this and nothings going to happen. And it just escalates from there.. Last. Its her second documentary since 2017sBaltimore Rising, which chronicled the uprising in Charm City that followed Freddie Grays death. Will members of the community reach out to us? Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Why isnt his death solved by now? I was sitting up at CBGBs [music club], the only Black girl with shaved hair, screaming, and I had a zine. The Bachelor Has Two Maryland Contestants. And I think that's quite a journey that we're all on here, you know, in this country. Wood Jr. woke up to find his phone full of thousands of new Twitter notifications. Whats Their Deal? HBOs We Own This City Production team is proud to be working with many local Baltimore non-profits to create positive change in the communities where we filmed. Theres been so much rightful attention on police brutality and so we know when an officer shoots somebody theres an injury, theres a death. They told us not just what they did but how and that was very eye-opening testimony. There was no specific training for supervisors. 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. It opens as Jenkins gives a speech to his unit in which he seems to say the right things that beating on people gets in the way of doing the job and that, in the task force, were not about that kind of brutality. Through his early years on the force, Jenkins goes from learning how to scam the overtime rules to outright larceny. But they also have a brash, cocky face: Sgt. See production, box office & company info, Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall, Bad tidings in the Baltimore Police Department. Former members of the GTTF. His death set off a massive manhunt for the killer, and Suiter gets a hero's funeral. Sohn is also sceptical. So the federal investigation that eventually brought Jenkins and some of his cronies to justice is no spoiler. 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. Start from the beginning and watch the first episode ofWe Own This Cityfor free. FLORIDO: The officer shot that day in 2017 was Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter. At the center of it all lies a fallen officer and the complexities of life in one of the most investigated police departments in the country, where impropriety appears to penetrate a broken system at every level. The unsolved case also sparked far-reaching implications for a city already grappling with the complexities of policing in contemporary, urban America. English, Sweden So rumors and speculation ran rampant about what really happened to Officer Suiter, not just among residents, but also among politicians, among journalists. English, Turkey 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. "The Slow Hustle" is the title of a new HBO documentary out now. At this point, its a more nuanced game. Here we have a case in which a cop has fallen and ultimately one of the major obstacles to solving this death, this mystery, this crime is the fact that the police cant be trusted. He was born in 1980 which, Fenton notes, means that Baltimore has been shrinking and struggling for most of his life. And there was all of this corruption that he was around. 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. And I have about as much hope that his death will be solved as I do the rest of them. EN. 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. Director Sonja Sohn Stars Umar Burley Jill Carter Kevin Davis 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. Sohn was born to an African American father and Korean mother who met after the Korean war. English, Vietnam Here, WWD looks at 11 new documentaries and docuseries to watch in December 2021. It is not a good look.. Four of them agreed to cooperate with the justice department and testified against the remaining two officers, both of whom were convicted by a jury in February 2018. 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. For every inept, violent Roland Pryzbylewski, there was a Lester Freamon, practicing the patient craft of building a case. When institutions cant solve their own problems, the people suffer. The conflicting theories on his death speak to stark divisions between the involved parties an independent review board ruled his death a suicide, a theory that the Suiter family strongly resists. In a war, civilians get hurt and nobody does anything. 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. 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. Its like someone describing how they first stole money. But at the same time, this was a police officer. But day after day, the revelations keep coming. / In 2017, Baltimore was rocked by the federal indictment of Wayne Jenkins, a highly decorated super-cop and leader of. This emphasis on numbers and quantity over quality really had a corrosive effect on the police department and influenced the conduct of officers. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. In a war, you count the bodies and then you call them victories., Its a strong editorial, but that does not make for a great show. I think of Baltimore as my soul home, Sohn, 57, says by phone from North Carolinas Outer Banks. Filmmaker and actress Sonja Sohn of "The Wire" returns with the follow-up to her 2017 documentary"Baltimore Rising." The new film, titled "The Slow Hustle," looks to be an equally powerful look. Tells the story of the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force and the corruption surrounding it. Six of the eight arrested pleaded guilty to the charges. 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.. I think Baltimore does what it did to me and its a divine mirror. Baltimore's largest police corruption scandal is in the national spotlight with a new HBO drama. African-American police officer Sean Suiter is pronounced dead soon thereafter. Along the way, though, you got a lot of rich personal stories to invest in, which is how dramas with a broad social scope manage to succeed as both art and argument. 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. A still from "The Slow Hustle" courtesy HBO. David Simon returns to a familiar beat for HBO, updating if not improving on an old critique. English, The Netherlands For HBO: senior producer, Sara Rodriguez; executive producers, Nancy Abraham and Lisa Heller. English, United States That should be happening anyway. 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. And so it's clear to me this is another way to look at the question of how we're going to restructure a - how we're going to create another structure for protection and safety because right now, I'm not convinced that "defunding the police," quote, unquote, is really the thing because that's supporting social structures that support the people. The crime drama series is based on Justin Fenton's 2021 nonfiction book of the same name and stars . Richard Gonzales. English, New Zealand There are poignant moments at the fallen officers graveside and at an anniversary vigil. HBO documentary about Baltimore Police and Detective Sean Suiter's death set to debut in December By Alex Mann Baltimore Sun Nov 12, 2021 at 11:03 am A documentary film profiling. Exploring crime-related stories and the issues surrounding them, the anthology includes: 2023 Warner Bros. Kostoplis was transferred out of the GTTF soon after. Includes: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo - Brazzaville, Congo - Kinshasa, Cte d'Ivoire, Djibouti . Documentary Crime 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. Except, as The Slow Hustle soon reveals, things werent as cut and dried as they initially appeared. Wayne Jenkins (Jon Bernthal), who as the real-life head of Baltimores Gun Trace Task Force turned that elite plainclothes unit into a state-run gang, skimming cash and drugs from raid targets and using his status in the department to cover up abuse, corruption and deadly procedural violations. Sharp Dressed Man is the only program of its kind in the greater Baltimore area. English, Malaysia Fenton commented: Every officials talking about reform, reform, reform and you think that all eyes are on the police department and everybodys behaving their best and yet this is going on. Its arguments are bold and impossible to miss. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I got one officer down. 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. We'll help you live your best #DCLIFE every day, A Bigger Field Awaits Us: The Scottish Soccer Team That Fought the Great War. Sonja Sohn, who played Baltimore cop Kima Greggs onThe Wire and who founded a Baltimore-based nonprofit, directs the film. 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