Law enforcement characters of The Wire
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Law enforcement is an integral part of the fictional HBO drama series The Wire. The show has numerous characters in this field and their roles range from those enforcing the law at street level up to those setting laws city wide. The Baltimore City Police Department has been explored in detail from street level characters to the upper echelons of command. The show has also examined those setting laws in city politics and touched upon the the FBI, the correctional system and the family of police officers.
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[edit] Police
The police department includes several of the shows starring characters and a wealth of supporting characters. It has been featured in all 4 seasons of the show to date.
[edit] FBI
[edit] Terrence "Fitz" Fitzhugh
- Played by: Doug Olear
- Appears in
- Season one: "The Target"; "The Buys" and "Sentencing".
- Season two: "Stray Rounds"; "Storm Warnings"; "Bad Dreams" and "Port in a Storm".
- Season three: "Moral Midgetry"; "Slapstick"; and "Middle Ground".
Fitz is a special agent with the FBI and a friend of Jimmy McNulty. Fitz inspires McNulty to use modern electronic surveillance against the Barksdale organization by showing how they to set up video surveillance on a drug production ring. He tells McNulty it would be the last major bureau drug investigation in Baltimore because they are shifting resources to counter-terrorism. Fitz helps McNulty again by giving him some of the FBI's less bulky recording devices. He also warns McNulty that his commander Cedric Daniels was investigated for corruption by the FBI and they had found an excess of liquid assets. After they handed the case over to Deputy Commissioner Ervin Burrell, nothing further came of it.
Fitz also becomes involved with McNulty's teams case against Frank Sobotka. Major Valchek calls in the FBI when he feels that the case had strayed too far from Sobotka. The FBI has a particular interest in corrupt unions, and quickly go after the Dockworkers' Local. When a leak within the FBI seriously damages the case, Fitz realizes who it was and broke the news to Lieutenant Daniels.
In the third season, Fitz supplies the major case unit with photo-enhancing technology that they use to check number plates on Barksdale organization vehicles.
Fitz is based on a real FBI agent named Jake Fitzsimmons who collaborated on cases with writer and ex-detective Ed Burns.[1]
[edit] Amanda Reese
- Played by: Benay Berger
- Appears in
- Season one: "Sentencing".
- Season two: "Storm Warnings"; "Bad Dreams" and "Port in a Storm".
- Season three: "Slapstick".
Reese is a Baltimore division FBI supervisor and the superior of Fitz. She often works with Lieutenant Daniels, supplying him with resources and running joint cases. She is approached with the Barksdale case to discuss pursuing a corruption angle, but Daniels decided that is not the direction he wanted. Her team also work alongside Daniels' detail investigating union corruption in the Baltimore ports.
[edit] Ernst Koutris
- Played by: Tom Mardirosian
- Appears in season two: "Stray Rounds"; "Storm Warnings" and "Bad Dreams".
Koutris is a corrupt FBI agent who feeds information on the bureau’s activity to The Greek. He is responsible for telling the Greek about an investigation by Baltimore police and the local FBI, and gives The Greek warning enough to temporarily shut down his smuggling operation. He is rewarded with information on a large shipment of drugs that he seizes on the FBI’s behalf. Koutris is also responsible for telling The Greek that his contact in the Baltimore port, Frank Sobotka, has agreed to give evidence against him. This information leads to Sobotka’s death. FBI Agent Fitz realizes Koutris is a leak, but is unable to do anything because Koutris is well-regarded because of the drug arrest.
[edit] Court house
[edit] Rupert Bond
- Played by: Dion Graham
- Appears in:
- Season four: "Unto Others","Know Your Place","That's Got His Own".
Bond is an African American Maryland State's Attorney candidate running for election in Baltimore City against Steven Demper, Mayor Royce's choice candidate. He maintains a lead against Demper throughout the primary and is initially viewed with skepticism from Rhonda Pearlman (She claims that if Demper loses, the new front office will "bump the white girl" to a demoted position due to Bond's race in majority African American Baltimore). Royce and Demper both lose, and Bond is elected the new State's Attorney for Baltimore City. Bond appears to be more interested in pursuing quality prosecutions than Demper, promoting both Ilene Nathan and Rhonda Pearlman whom he admires as good prosecutors. In a meeting with newly elected Mayor Tommy Carcetti, Bond is opposed to legalizing gambling in Baltimore due to the crime increase that comes with casinos.
[edit] Steven Demper
- Played by: Doug Roberts
- Appears in:
- Season one: "Cleaning Up".
- Season three: "Dead Soldiers".
- Season four: "Home Rooms".
Demper is a Maryland State's Attorney, serving the district that includes Baltimore. He is the boss of Assistant State's Attorneys Rhonda Pearlman and Ilene Nathan. Demper is widely regarded as being more interested in preserving his elected position than pursuing justice. Pearlman falls out of his favor when a detail she is working with begins to investigate campaign donations made by drug dealers. He is later criticized by Ervin Burrell for refusing to chance a "whodunit" case as a means of helping the police department make convictions that stick. Delegate Odell Watkins is dissatisfied with Demper but Mayor Clarence Royce won't replace him due to his loyalty. In season four, Royce threatens to drop him from the party ticket if Demper does not go along with Royce's plans to interfere with the Carcetti campaign. Dempner loses his bid for re-election to African American candidate Rupert Bond.
[edit] Ilene Nathan
- Played by: Susan Rome
- Appears in:
- Season one: "The Hunt" and Sentencing".
- Season two: "Undertow" and All Prologue".
- Season four: "Unto Others".
Nathan is an Assistant State's Attorney in Baltimore and colleague of Rhonda Pearlman. Initially, she was the head of the violent crimes unit, tasked with prosecuting homicides in the city. As such, she convinced Wee-Bey Brice to plead guilty to multiple murders to avoid the death penalty, and is also present when Savino Bratten confessed to a police-involved shooting.
In Season two, Nathan conducted the prosecution against "Bird" Hilton, reluctantly using Omar Little as a witness. Once Bird was found guilty, she promises Omar a free pass on any single minor charge in the future for his assistance. When Omar is framed for a murder and arrested in Season four, he convinces Detective Bunk Moreland that he is innocent and Bunk convinces Nathan to have him transferred to a safer prison. Nathan tells Bunk that she now considers her debt to Omar repayed.
Later in season four, Nathan helped Detectives Greggs and Norris investigate the Braddock murder case. She also attends the wake of CID and homicide unit commander Raymond Foerster. When Rupert Bond is elected State's attorney he promotes Nathan to second deputy State's Attorney and Pearlman takes over her role in the violent crimes unit.
[edit] Rhonda Pearlman
Assistant Maryland State's Attourney Pearlman has been the legal system liaison for all the major investigations on the show.
[edit] Daniel Phelan
- Played by: Peter Gerety
- Appears in:
- Season one: "The Target"; "The Detail"; "Old Cases"; "The Pager"; "One Arrest"; "Lessons"; "The Cost"; "The Hunt"; "Sentencing".
- Season two: "All Prologue".
- Season three: "Reformation" and "Middle Ground".
Judge Phelan is a friend of Detective Jimmy McNulty's who presided over the D'Angelo Barksdale murder trial, watching the jury gave a not guilty verdict when a witness changed her statement. After he learned the witness was paid off (and possibly intimidated), and that D'Angelo was part of a much larger drug dealing operation, Phelan insisted that Police Deputy Commissioner Ervin Burrell set up a detail to investigate. When Phelan speaks to the press about the murder of another witness from the trial, McNulty felt that Phelan had gone behind his back and their relationship was soured for a time.
Over the course of the investigation, he was always willing to sign court documents authorizing wiretaps. When Phelan realized his actions had cost him political capital, his passion for the case waned. Assistant States Attorney Rhonda Pearlman used Phelan's obvious attraction to her to keep him interested on the case.
In Season two, Phelan presided over the trial of Marquis "Bird" Hilton for the murder of Gant, during which he was amused by Omar Little's testimony, and pleased to give Bird a strict sentence.
Phelan reconciled with McNulty in Season three when the judge authorized a wiretap on Russell "Stringer" Bell's cell phone.
[edit] Politics
[edit] Prison staff
[edit] Dwight Tilghman
- Played by: Antonio D. Charity
- Appears in season two: "Collateral Damage" (uncredited); "Hot Shots" and "Hard Cases".
Tilghman was a corrections officer at Maryland Correctional Institute who was secretly involved in the prison drug trade. He harassed prisoner Wee-Bey Brice after Wee-Bey confessed to the murder of one of his relatives. Fellow prisoner Avon Barksdale tried to negotiate a truce but Tilghman refused, so Avon had Stringer Bell locate his drug supplier. Bell paid the supplier, Butchie, to give Tilghman tainted heroin, leading to the deaths of several inmates. An investigation was launched and Avon informed on Tilghman in exchange for an early parole hearing. When prison staff searched Tilghman's car, they found evidence which Shamrock had subtly planted to corroborate Avon's story, and Tilghman was arrested.
[edit] References
- ^ David Simon. (2005). 'The Wire "The Target" commentary track [DVD]. HBO.
