We Own This City - General Discussion

[Danny Franks]

I just watched the first episode of this, and I'm hooked. 

The reveal of the second police tracker on Anderson's Jeep was great. This case seems to be similar to the one I saw a Netflix documentary on - New York narcotics cops in the 70s who started shaking down drug dealers for cash and drugs, and made themselves rich.

Jon Bernthal is such a compelling actor to watch. The barely contained belligerence, the anger simmering behind his eyes, but a level of charm that can fool people when he wants to. He's perfect for a role like this. 

Josh Charles is really good too, as the thuggish, openly brutal cop. His entire outlook so far reminds me of that "Killology" bullshit that's taught to police, conditioning them to see members of the public as the enemy, as threats that have to be dealt with. He turned two encounters that didn't even need to occur into confrontations, and one of them ended up with a guy in hospital.

We're already seeing lots of signs of cops covering for their own. But, by the end of this episode, it seems there are limits.

[Milburn Stone]

18 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

Josh Charles is really good too, as the thuggish, openly brutal cop. His entire outlook so far reminds me of that "Killology" bullshit that's taught to police, conditioning them to see members of the public as the enemy, as threats that have to be dealt with. He turned two encounters that didn't even need to occur into confrontations, and one of them ended up with a guy in hospital.

I share your admiration for Charles and Bernthal. 

I never thought of Hersl's method as a result of training/conditioning, though. I just thought he was a racist who enjoyed ruining lives. (Should make it clear I'm speaking of "the character known as Hersl," not the real Hersl, about whom I know nothing.)

[Danny Franks]

51 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

I share your admiration for Charles and Bernthal. 

I never thought of Hersl's method as a result of training/conditioning, though. I just thought he was a racist who enjoyed ruining lives. (Should make it clear I'm speaking of "the character known as Hersl," not the real Hersl, about whom I know nothing.)

Oh yeah, Behind the Bastards podcast did a great episode on Killology. It's a training course that's available to a lot of American police forces as a 'voluntary' course, devised by an ex-army colonel. It uses examples of cops killed on duty because they were too hesitant to use their guns. Essentially, it completely foregoes the idea of a cop as the protector of the public and instead frames them as an enforcer of laws who always has to put their own safety first (wait... where has this been an issue, recently?) and not take any risks that can be avoided:

https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2020/06/05/killology-is-not-a-satirical-field-police-training-methods-and-lethal-shootings/

Quote

‘Marching around the stage in a theatre in Lakeport, California, Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman tells his audience that they shouldn’t go out looking for people to kill, because those who need killing—the “gangbangers,” terrorists, and mass murderers—will come to them. All they need to do is be ready. “Are you prepared to kill somebody?” he asks me and the small group of “armed citizens” who’ve paid $90 or more to see him. “If you cannot answer that question, you should not be carrying a gun.”’

Cops are conditioned to see anyone who isn't a cop as a potential threat, so you end up with behaviours like Hersl's first traffic stop, where he's clearly on edge and confrontational, and you're genuinely scared he's going to pull his weapon. Killology has been pointed at as a significant contributing factor to a lot of routine police interactions that turn violent. There's still all the racism, of course, which surely contributes to the cop seeing certain things as threatening (like a black man reaching into his glovebox, or raising his arms in anger), so he reacts as his training tells him and ends up killing someone.

Obviously, I don't know if Hersl ever went on a course like that, but his attitude and body language, particularly in that first stop, struck me as being rooted in this kind of 'us vs them' mentality.

Edited June 15, 2022 by Danny Franks

[Milburn Stone]

3 minutes ago, Danny Franks said:

Essentially, it completely foregoes the idea of a cop as the protector of the public and instead frames them as an enforcer of laws who always has to put their own safety first (wait... where has this been an issue, recently?)...

If it turns out the Uvalde cops took this Colonel's course, I'm going to be somehow more enraged than I already am, which actually isn't possible under the known laws of the universe.

[Zella]

From what I have read about Hersl, I think he was someone who got a real power trip out of the authority he wielded as a cop. There are some pretty good articles from people who had encounters with him, and between those and the two books I've read, my impression is that even in a city with as dysfunctional of a police force as Baltimore, he stood out as a really malignant character from the beginning. I seriously doubt the training helped, but I think Hersl entered the profession with his attitudes already entrenched. 

The police footage of the real Hersl during the Freddie Gray unrest is eye opening. He seems to be enjoying toying with the protesters, and Charles nails his posture. And the protesters are singling him out as being especially provocative. 

Edited June 15, 2022 by Zella

[Danny Franks]

So episode two gives us a chance to see Wayne Jenkins in various degrees of his fall, from an idealistic young rookie to an outright gangster saying, "don't say shit, there won't be shit." But the guy got a rotten mentor, his first day on the job. How many cops go the same way, for that reason?

Bernthal's swagger as Jenkins is so deliberately performative. This guy wanted everyone to know he was the alpha, all the time.

Suiter at that murder scene was oddly unsettling. I guess that usually, when you see murder scenes on TV and in movies, there are loads of police around, securing the scene and gathering evidence. Here, there was one other cop and a forensics investigator. It spoke to a lack of any real interest in these murders. Because they're so frequent and because the victims are assumed to be gang members.

The cop in the park was a nice example of why policing in America is so messed up. Anyone with the morals and courage enough to stand up and say anything is ostracised, given dead end duties and they probably end up quitting to do something else, while guys like Jenkins and Hersl become the figureheads of the department.

[Danny Franks]

Just finished the show. A tour de force performance from Jon Bernthal, who deserves every award going for this. His Wayne Jenkins is so colossally arrogant and cocksure, completely lost in his own hubris and self-image. The scary thing is that this is a real person, and a lot of the interrogation room dialogue is word for word what Jenkins actually said. The one laugh out loud moment of the episode was when Jenkins said "when I make a mistake, I say I'm sorry." He's repellent and incredibly captivating.

The show was very dry, deliberately so, and very minimalistic in its approach to most of the other characters. The FBI investigators are thinly drawn, but I get the feeling that David Simon and George Pelecanos didn't want viewers to think, 'oh, the feds are the heroes, we can rely on them' they wanted all of the focus to be on the corrupt cops.

The interesting thread through this whole thing is how corrupt policing undermines everything about the legal process - can't believe cops, can't empanel juries, can't change the culture because corrupt cops have too much influence on their subordinates and in the police union. The cops who were able to justify 'oh, it's only drug dealers' money, no big deal' were contributing to an institutional rot that the Baltimore PD will struggle to ever recover from. Of course, this goes back to the stuff that Treat Williams' character was saying - when you declare war against your own civilians, there can't be any winners.

The police union acting as a de facto protection racket, saying 'we'll stop doing our jobs if you try to monitor how we do them' is disgraceful, and complete abuse of the union movement and what it originally stood for.

The Suiter storyline played out in a depressing way. I guess he's the one example of a cop who felt truly guilty about what he did or, at the very least, what he let other cops get away with.

I liked seeing Justin Fenton, the journalist who wrote the book on this, get a little cameo as himself at the end.

[Milburn Stone]

7 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

The Suiter storyline played out in a depressing way. I guess he's the one example of a cop who felt truly guilty about what he did or, at the very least, what he let other cops get away with.

Loved your whole post. Re this, they also made the audience pull for Suiter because (at least in the show) he never wanted to be a dirty cop in the first place. He was coerced into it. Maybe he stood in for a lot of cops who got pulled in that way. I bet that's true.

7 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

The FBI investigators are thinly drawn...

Well, we know one played the flute.😄

[candle96]

On 6/21/2022 at 10:13 AM, Danny Franks said:

The Suiter storyline played out in a depressing way. I guess he's the one example of a cop who felt truly guilty about what he did or, at the very least, what he let other cops get away with.

I knew something bad was coming when he woke up in the middle of the night. Of course, I don't know how the real life Suiter was, but the actor did a magnificent job of portraying a mostly sympathetic character, such that I really felt for him. 

I thought it was interesting that he believed himself to be above some of the more problematic aspects of the department becuase he worked homicide. I wonder how much of that was influenced by Simon's original work, "Homicide," where they are largely portrayed as thinkers, not thugs.  More than anything, it just reminded me of how much I loved that show. How Suiter was portrayed would fit very well into the "Homicide" universe.

It is pretty much impossible to find (come on, NBC/Peacock!) but if you haven't watched it and like this, I highly recommend. 

I applaud this show on sparing no punches about the level of corruption and dysfucntion throughout the system. I live in Chicago and it's probably just as bad here. 

Edited June 25, 2022 by candle96

[Lathund]

Finished a The Wire rewatch before I started on this. I expected a lot ot The Wire alumni, but just in the first episode we have Marlo Stanfield and Poot who have switched to the other side and became cops. Slim Charles getting pulled up for nothing, Eileen Nathan going from the DA office into the Mayors staff it seemed, Jay Landsman of all people climbing all the way to the Commissioners Office. And one of the guys on the Gun Trace TF who robbed Andersons place was muscle for Marlo with a fondness for drive-bys. 

Despite being a lot of setup, I enjoyed the first episode. Expect it to just get better. 

[Kel Varnsen]

I am way behind but I just watched this series this past week and it was amazing. Super hard to watch but amazing. I mean I figured that I was going to see stuff like cops beating on people, racial profiling and stealing from suspects. But I never even thought that arresting huge numbers of people and then making them sign a document that they won't sue in exchange for charges being dropped (without a lawyer present) was even a thing. Or the fact that so many people were affected by shitty police that they can't even put a jury together.

Bernthal was pretty awesome. It was amazing how delusional he was the whole time about how he was untouchable because his work was so important. Even when he knew he was under federal investigation he didn't slow down because he thought he was protected.

The Suiter stuff was interesting. I have the book requested from my local library and I am looking forward to reading it. Curious to see how many times he was actually shit since if you commit suicide how do you shoot yourself more than once in the head?

The only thing that didn't work was when the Civil Rights lawyer met with the academy instructor guy. Like I agreed with what he was saying but it sounded like a super basic blog post it was so obvious.

[Zella]

35 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Curious to see how many times he was actually shit since if you commit suicide how do you shoot yourself more than once in the head?

He was only shot once, though the gun was fired three times. Hence the speculation he fired two shots as a distraction before then shooting himself. 

The official report makes for some interesting reading: https://www.baltimorepolice.org/sites/default/files/General Website PDFs/Suiter Report Public.pdf

After reading the report and watching a documentary that pushed the idea he was murdered pretty hard, I came to the conclusion it was likely a suicide but definitely a very weird and sad story all around. 

35 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I have the book requested from my local library

I enjoyed the book too. There's also a good one on the case by the federal prosecutor Leo Wise. It's a touch dry comparatively speaking but very thorough. 

Edited Sunday at 02:36 AM by Zella