The series was shot in Baltimore and brings together several alumni of the The Wire, both on screen and behind the camera, including David Simon and George Pelecanos. But unlike that venerated saga, We Own This City is based on the true story told in the journalist Justin Fentons nonfiction book of the same name. (And even Pryzbylewski eventually redeemed himself.). Momodu Gondo finds himself in an interrogation. See the full cast here. 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. Im not sure the police have proven that.. He was law enforcement. 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. I think you identified it perfectly. 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. Local hero and cage-fighting super-cop Wayne Jenkins was federally indicted on racketeering charges, along with six other members of Baltimore's elite Gun Trace Task Force. Another 156 people had been injured in shootings, up from 115 in the corresponding period. And I think that's quite a journey that we're all on here, you know, in this country. He lives in Del Ray. Jenkins learns his fellow officers are cooperating with the investigation as the full extent of his crimes come to light. 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. Fenton has spoken to many people in Jenkins orbit and made multiple attempts to contact Jenkins in prison but without success. We Own This City does not do much to explain Jenkins or complicate his villainy, but it is insightful about how a bad cop learns to be bad more effectively (and how he makes his colleagues worse). Sonja Sohn, who played Baltimore cop Kima Greggs onThe Wire and who founded a Baltimore-based nonprofit, directs the film. Ex-po. I dont think were losing momentum. Nick. 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 George's 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. info_outline, Hungary 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. English, Hong Kong Read on for more. He says: He was regarded well within the police department as someone who was good at his job, who had this eye for driving down the street and seeing somebody make a movement and it turns out that person has a gun. The Wires Sonja Sohn on her Baltimore documentary: We are seeing multilayered corruption, Director Sonja Sohn interviewing D Watkins for The Slow Hustle. 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. April 24, 2022 Let us stipulate that it is unfair to compare any series to "The Wire," even if it is about policing, even if it is set in Baltimore, even if it happens to be made by two of the. 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. 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. Whatever Happened to Permanent Daylight Saving Time? 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 . Its that systemic rot which proves to be The Slow Hustles fundamental subject. How, why and by whom has never been solved. Maybe this is intentional. 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. 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. 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. 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. He noted that the location of the lethal gunshot indicated that it could have been a self-inflicted wound, but later remarked that if Suiter was trying to cover up a suicide, he wouldnt have shot himself in the head; instead, he would have fired at his chest, which would have made it resemble a murder. February 12, 20188:02 PM ET. 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.. A still from "The Slow Hustle" courtesy HBO. Long history of neglect: why are missing Black people still less likely to be found? United States In total, the task . 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. And I think that its a very valid perspective, which is why I made sure it was included in the film. Former members of the GTTF. Reinaldo Marcus Green directs and serves as executive producer. 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. 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. 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. At this point we are less than 10 min into the documentary. The film follows Suiters family as it tries to get answers about his death. So that's sort of like the sieve through which the rumors come through. Five years after the Gun Trace Task Force corruption scandal broke, a new report is giving the first comprehensive account of how the Baltimore Police Department repeatedly failed to address . That should be happening anyway. Im not victimising real people if I steal some of their ill-gotten gains, so if I go into their homes and I find $100,000, Ill take $20,000 of it and nobody will be the wiser because these are people who are compromised and theyre not going to complain and, if they do complain, nobodys going to believe them because theyve got criminal records., You take that and you multiply it by a large number of officers who get captured by that culture and what you get is the gun trace task force., We Own This City airs on Mondays on HBO in the US, on Binge and Foxtel Now in Australia, and in the UK at a later date, The Wires Sonja Sohn on her Baltimore documentary: We are seeing multilayered corruption, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Det James Kostoplis testified that, soon after joining the GTTF, he was asked by Jenkins to go for a ride. English, Belgium Michael A. One thing that we all knew is that there were way too many details in this case that were conflicting. Stream on HBO Max on Dec. 1. Baltimore prosecutors want greater flexibility to undo convictions after Gun Trace Task Force scandal. Nobody knew. SOHN: First and foremost, it speaks to the lack of trust that the people of the city have in law enforcement not only in Baltimore, but across the country. Like, even if youre a police officer, they really dont.. You get a guy on a wiretap talking to drug dealers about drugs and then you just keep pulling that string.. The film will debut on HBO and be available to stream on HBO Max. Engaging the journalists was, I think, one of the better decisions that I made. English, Spain All those season-ending montages seemed to say: No matter how you feel about the end of this or that particular story, the beat goes on. They told us not just what they did but how and that was very eye-opening testimony. The editor, Donna Marino, she had something to do with that. D Watkins, a local journalist and author who shares the view that Suiters death could have been an inside job, says in the film: What developed for me out of the whole story is this whole idea of Black lives really dont matter. Let us stipulate that it is unfair to compare any series to The Wire, even if it is about policing, even if it is set in Baltimore, even if it happens to be made by two of the figures behind that HBO all-time great, which marks its two-decade anniversary this year. HBO Documentary Films presents A Blowback Production THE SLOW HUSTLE director and producer, Sonja Sohn; executive producers, Marc Levin, Kary Antholis, Sonja Sohn; supervising producer, Daphne Pinkerson; producer, Mahrya MacIntire. German 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. Sohn was born to an African American father and Korean mother who met after the Korean war. The Baltimore police department, recognising that the problem was perhaps guns more than drugs, wanted to have a smarter approach. So to me, that was a microcosm of the macrocosm. Bringing Jenkins and his ilk to justice does not mean Baltimores problems are resolved. 2023 Home Box Office, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Sharp Dressed Man is the only program of its kind in the greater Baltimore area. Canada Tells the story of the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force and the corruption surrounding it. Visitors come to BARCS every day for reasons as diverse as reuniting with lost pets, adopting new furry family members, joining our foster and volunteer programs, and receiving free and low-cost resources to help them keep their pets at home. You know, I think we're already, across the country, not trusting our law enforcement. Whatever happened to the cast? Why isnt his death solved by now? 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.. 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. This emphasis on numbers and quantity over quality really had a corrosive effect on the police department and influenced the conduct of officers. Two former Baltimore Police officers sentenced to a combined 454 years in federal prison for shaking down citizens in the early 2000s had their prison terms reduced to 20 years each by a. info_outline, Includes: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo - Brazzaville, Congo - Kinshasa, Cte dIvoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guadeloupe, Guinea, Guyana, Madagascar, Mali, Martinique, Mauritius, Monaco, Niger, Runion, Senegal, Togo, Germany, Austria, Switzerland You know, it took a minute to gain their trust. 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. For me this case, and the familys position in this case, represent the microcosm of the macrocosm, she says. English, Australia Suiter is assigned to a new murder case. 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. Suspicions were aroused that a hit had been ordered to silence him. At the center of The Slow Hustle is Baltimore Police Department detective Sean Suiter. French, French Speaking Africa English, Poland Jenkins brings Suiter along on a raid. English, New Zealand I felt alone and I was happy. A unit of the Baltimore Police Department, the Gun Trace Task Force, was supposed to target guns and drugs on the city's streets. English, Norway 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. Jenkins Waynes. We glimpse Steeles motives when she recalls her brothers being racially profiled by police. I need a unit medic right now. Its remarkable.. Suiter, it turned out, wasnt just some nondescript detective; he was scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury about his fellow officers corruption the following day. 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. He became a police cadet in 2003, married and bought a house. Spanish, Brazil 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. Im still worth something., The Slow Hustle is now available on HBO with a UK date to be announced. A protest of Sean Suiters death in The Slow Hustle. Accuracy and availability may vary. And the rumors start to tear Baltimore apart. Whats the mission?, Exactly. 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.