Ervin Burrell
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| Ervin Burrell | |
|---|---|
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| First appearance | The Target (episode 1.01) |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | 50s |
| Occupation | Commissioner of Baltimore Police department |
| Title | Commissioner |
| Portrayed by | Frankie Faison |
| Created by | David Simon |
Ervin Burrell is a fictional officer in the Baltimore Police Department played by Frankie Faison on the HBO drama The Wire. Burrell is a careerist and has ascended from Deputy Commissioner of Operations to Commissioner over the course of the show.
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[edit] Biography
Burrell is a careerist who believes in the Chain Of Command in the department and has knowledge of corrupt activities of its officers and commanders. By his age and rank, it can be assumed he joined the BPD in the 1960s or 1970s.
As commissioner of a struggling department in a violent city, Burrell is a statistical bureaucrat who cares more about reducing crime on paper in a statistical manner than through a strategical investigative manner. Additionally, Burrell is conscientious of the media coverage of his department and is very sensitive to the newspaper headlines concerning its progress. This is exemplified most by his relationship with fellow officer Cedric Daniels and the City's mayoral administration. Throughout the series, he struggles to direct the department to make an adequate impact on crime reduction and is constantly engaged in conflict with the city's politicians, most of whom blame him directly for the department's problems.
Because of his knowledge of corruption, Burrell has often used blackmail as a means of maintaining a powerful position in the department. He blackmailed Daniels earlier in the series and with the help of Clay Davis intends to blackmail him again. Amongst other commanders, he blackmailed Bunny Colvin into retiring at a lower rank from the department. He also blackmailed Mayor Royce during the "Hamsterdam" fallout and Mayor Carcetti whom he stated could only force him to leave the department by firing him in effect creating a headline that would make Carcetti look bad.
[edit] Season 1
Burrell was Deputy Commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department in season one. His main aim as Deputy Commissioner was to ascend to Police Commissioner. He consistently showed more interest in making good headlines rather than good cases.
Burrel hastily assembled a task force under Lieutenant Cedric Daniels' command in order to placate Judge Phelan, who was furious that Avon Barksdale's men had been able to beat a murder charge in his courtroom by buying off a witness. From the beginning, Burrell was unsupportive of the unit, hoping to make a few quick arrests to satisfy the judge and then bury the case. He ordered premature seizure raids that tipped the Barksdale organization to the detail's efforts and prompted them to change their operating structure to hinder further investigation. To ensure nothing more than quick arrests, Burrell also gave the detail lieutenant Cedric Daniels "humps", the worst officers in the Baltimore Police Department who were nothing more than dead weight in their respective units.
When Daniels' team began investigating donations from Barksdale's organization to local politicians, Burrell realised the political implications. He grew increasingly hostile towards them, threatening to expose Daniels' shady past if he didn't close down the investigation. When the task force seized Barksdale money being carried by a state senator's driver, Burrell ordered Daniels to return it in order to avoid embarrassing the senator. Burrell was responsible for ordering a failed sting operation which resulted in the shooting of Detective Kima Greggs. Burrell was deputy to commissioner Warren Frazier throughout the first season. Burrell usually acted independently maintaining Frazier's orders throughout the department. When Detective Kima Greggs was shot, Frazier became more involved. Frazier and Burrell's main concern was sending a message to the community that the police department remained strong by seizing a large amount of narcotics. In retaliation for the shooting, Burrell insisted that Daniels' detail raid the Barksdales' main stash house, an act which caused Avon's people to stop using pay phones altogether - effectively nullifying the detail's wiretaps. Burrell also bribed Detective Ellis Carver with a sergeant promotion to feed him information from inside the detail. To force Daniels to meet his demands, Burrell threatened to revisit previous allegations towards Daniels which showed him in possession of an excessive income from his days in the Eastern District's D.E.U.. Daniels then stated that he would continue the case until the court ordered wire taps were down and was ready to take charges from previous investigations to make a bad headline as a threat to Burrell. When the Barksdale case ended, Burrell reassigned Daniels to evidence control as punishment for defying and threatening him.
[edit] Season 2
He later went on to become Acting Commissioner in season 2, when he was forced to bring Daniels out of evidence control and place him in command of his former team, in order to secure the support of Major Stan Valchek in his campaign to become commissioner.[1]
Burrell gave Valchek "humps" to conduct a case against Frank Sobotka, an IBS union leader whom Valchek suspected of thievery at the docks. Valchek demanded better officers namely Daniels to lead the investigation threatening to derail Burrell's quest for commissioner for noncompliance. Burrell then convinced Daniels to stay in the department even though Daniels realized he was doing so at Valchek's request. Daniels demanded a promotion, a specialized unit, and a selection of his own detectives to conduct the case and Burrell agreed in order to appease Valchek.
[edit] Season 3
In season three Burrell promoted William Rawls to his old position of Deputy Commissioner of Operations. The two presided over harrowing weekly comstat meetings where they pressured their district commanders to return the favorable crime rate figures the mayor was hoping for. As deputy, Rawls is the more verbose commander in criticizing the district commanders while Burrell gave them their final warning or relief from their command post. Burrell first relieved Major Marvin Taylor as the Eastern District Commander and then threatened Western District Commander Major Howard Colvin when felonies rose 2% in his district. Burrell was also short to Lieutenant Daniels in his promotion to major due to city hall conflicts. Daniels' wife had conflict with the Mayor as a councilwoman and was supposedly preventing Burrell from Cedric's promotion.
During the season Burrell worked with councilman Tommy Carcetti to obtain more resources for the police department as Mayor Royce provided little support to Burrell and expected him to take all the blame for the departmental problems. Burrell's requests were met courtesy of Carcetti who with city hall worked around Royce.
When Major Colvin reduced the crime in his district by ignoring the drug traffic, the felony dropped much to the suspicion of Burrell, Rawls, and Major Reed. Upon learning the truth of his strategy, Burrell forced him to take his vacation time immediately. He then informed the Mayor of the drug sanctioned zones and the Mayor looked to blame Burrell directly. With the help of Carcetti, Burrell claimed he would go public stating the reduction was all due to pressure given to his force from the Mayor's office that encouraged the drug sanctioned areas. This put fear into Royce who was seeking re-election. Burrell then prevented negative publicity and secured his term as Commissioner by bargaining with Mayor Clarence Royce over the handling of Major Colvin's Hamsterdam zone. He offered Colvin as a scapegoat and with Reed and Rawls was ruthless in forcing him out of the department. Colvin complied as refusal to "bend over backwards" for the department would result in unnecessary harshness towards the rest of his men in his district whom he fought hard on behalf of. Burrell then had Hamsterdam shut down and Colvin dismissed at the demotion to a Lieutenant where he received a lower pension grade and lost the retirement job he had been promised courtesy of Burrell. Following the arrest of Avon Barksdale, Burrell delivered his promise to promote Cedric Daniels to major giving him the immediate opening as Western District commander that Colvin left vacant.
[edit] Season 4
Burrell continued as police Commissioner and remained a key member of Royce's inner circle. When the major crimes unit served subpoenas against key political figures Mayor Royce became angered. After berating Burrell, Ervin promised to prevent any more surprises from his department. Burrell then asked Deputy Rawls if Jimmy McNulty was responsible for this given his previous acts of insubordination, but Rawls suggested Lester Freamon was behind the subpoenas. Rawls recommended controlling the subpoenas by "proper supervision" of the unit which involved removing the lenient Lieutenant Jimmy Asher and replacing him with a hostile and caustic commander named Lieutenant Charles Marimow.
When Burrell failed to bring a murdered witness to the Mayor's attention before it became a campaign issue Royce ordered Burrell to downplay the story to the press and take the political fallout on himself. Royce also asked Burrell to slow the investigation down to suppress information about the motive for the murder until after the election to prevent it being proved that the killing was carried out because of the victim's witness status. Burrell ordered Colonel Raymond Foerster to reassign the vetern primary investigator, Ed Norris, and replace him with Greggs, now a rookie homicide detective. This proved to be a serious mistake as the change of investigators was leaked to the press. Mayor Royce then summoned Burrell and Deputy Commissioner Rawls criticizing Ervin for the department's problems that led up to the press leaking. Royce angrily dismissed Burrell only to keep Deputy Rawls after the discussion. Royce admired Rawls' loyal subordinance to the chain of command and claimed that he would "not forget" Rawls clearing these incidents up. From this it was seen that Burrell would lose his commissioner's post following the election. Royce however lost to Carcetti in the primary election and Burrell managed to keep his commissioner's post.
Once Tommy Carcetti was elected he wanted Burrell to resign as commissioner, as they talked over lunch, Burrell said that Carcetti will have to fire him and that if he retires, he will not go quietly. Carcetti at the same time could not fire Burrell without having ready an African American replacement due to political reasons. Making a replacement harder for Carcetti, there were few ranking African American officers in the department besides Burrell. There was only one African American assistant Deputy Commissioner named Hawthorne who was 70 years old and no African American officers over the rank of Colonel. The next highest ranking African Americans in the department were Majors and Shift Lieutenants most of whom such as Major Bobby Reed were loyal to Burrell and his method of policing. Carcetti decided to strip Burrell of his power as commissioner and give all decision making up to Deputy Commissioner Rawls while leaving Burrell as a puppet for the press and ministers. Burrell was in the meantime more angered at Cedric Daniels backdoor promotion to Colonel. Burrell viewed Daniels as being nothing more than Mayor Carcetti's "Boy," his African American servant. With Daniels' short promotion from Major to Colonel, Burrell's future in the department appeared to be less and less certain.[2][3]
Burrell however proved himself as a political aide to the Mayor in the handling of Officer Thomas "Herc" Hauk who had been accused of racial profiling and police brutality against an African American minister. Burrell recommended the I.I.D. look deep into Herc's file as "in Narcotics, there are no virgins" according to his past experiences with BPD detectives. Burrell with the aide of State Senator Clay Davis also intends to prevent Daniels from advancing in the department as Burrell is well aware of FBI information proving Daniels to have collected dirty money when conducting a drug task force in his days in the Eastern District. As the season closed, Burrell warned Rawls to never cross him again and remained close to Clay Davis who wished to see Daniels move up no further than C.I.D. colonel, his current position in the department.
[edit] References
- ^ Dan Kois (2004). Everything you were afraid to ask about "The Wire". Salon.com. Retrieved on 2006-07-12.
- ^ Character profile - Acting Police Commissioner Ervin Burrel. HBO (2004). Retrieved on 2006-07-22.
- ^ Org Chart - The Law. HBO (2004). Retrieved on 2006-07-22.
