William Rawls
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| William A. Rawls | |
|---|---|
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| First appearance | The Target (episode 1.01) |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | Late 50s or early 60s |
| Occupation | Deputy Commissioner of Operations in the Baltimore Police department |
| Title | Deputy Commissioner of Operations |
| Portrayed by | John Doman |
| Created by | David Simon |
William Rawls is a fictional police officer in the Baltimore Police Department played by John Doman on the HBO drama The Wire. Over the course of the series he has ascended to the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Operations. Only brief glimpses have been seen of his personal life, and he is apparently married with children but it has been strongly implied that he is a closet homosexual.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Character History
Rawls began on the show as a ranking commander who gradually moved up to deputy police commissioner. By his age and rank, it can be assumed he joined the BPD in the 1960s or 1970s. He is one of the most feared officers in the Baltimore Police Department as he is described and shown as both demanding and ruthless. Rawls in Season 3 is given the deputy commissioner of operations position, the position that is responsible for the supervision of individual operations commanders (Unit and District commanders amongst others) at the orders of the commissioner. He is thus a perfect choice for the deputy ops position as due to its role in the department, it is amongst the most hated and feared position by various lower ranking commanders. Rawls hatred and wrath is best displayed towards officer Jimmy McNulty due to McNulty's disregard for the chain-of-command approach to doing police work. Rawls is shown in demand of competence and loyalty among other things from his subordinates and is unscathingly hostile when either of those two traits are not displayed. Understanding the chain of command, Rawls remains a loyal subordinate to those who rank above him regardless of the mutual agreement he has with those in charge of the department. As Baltimore is majority African American, Rawls is blocked from becoming the department's commissioner due to his race, among other things, and is in the highest position he can hope to occupy within the department. It is mentioned early in the series that he is married with children, however he is shown off-duty in season 3 in a gay bar. Despite this, no other events have followed from, suggested, or explained why Rawls was seen in that bar.
[edit] Season 1
Rawls was a Major and commanding officer of homicide in Season 1. He is a careerist, concerned only with maintaining the case clearance record of his unit, and is extremely demanding of his detectives. He was enraged when Detective Jimmy McNulty went around him to Judge Phelan to encourage further investigation of the Barksdale organization. He confronted McNulty about his insubordination and told him he had his attention. At the request for manpower and instruction of Deputy Burrell, Rawls sent Daniels McNulty and Santangelo to the Barksdale detail as they were two detectives he no longer wanted (Burrell did not want to see good police work in the case, so he told the unit commanders to dump their squads of detectives that were either useless or unwanted). Santangelo was apparently not meeting his clearance quotas and was then used as an inside man in Lieutenant Daniels' Barksdale detail. McNulty though was a capable detective but deemed insubordinate and unloyal due to his meeting with Judge Phelan. Rawls relied upon Sergeant Jay Landsman to handle much of his communication with the men under his command in homicide.
McNulty attempted to placate Rawls by working several old murder cases, most notably the Deidre Kresson case, linking them all to the same gun, and to D'Angelo Barksdale. Rawls was delighted, and wanted to immediately issue a warrant for D'Angelo. When McNulty learned of this, he was dismayed, since arresting D'Angelo was premature and would tip off Avon to their investigation. The detail persuaded Daniels to fight Rawls' push for arrests. Eventually Daniels went over Rawls' head and met with Burrell, convincing him to put the warrants on hold for the time being. This further infuriated Rawls, and he began hounding Santangelo to bring him something he could use against McNulty. Rawls demanded that "Sanny" clear a "whodunit" case by days end, inform on McNulty, or leave the unit altogether due to his low clearance rate. An old case was cleared courtesy of Bunk Moreland and Jimmy McNulty credited to Santangelo as a means of keeping Rawls off of his back.
Following the shooting of Detective Kima Greggs in a buy bust gone wrong Rawls became personally involved in the investigation. His first action was to insist that all non-essential personnel, including Greggs' friends in her detail, leave the crime scene. He later spoke to a distraught McNulty and reassured him that he was not ultimately responsible for the shooting but again expressed his hatred for his subordinate. When McNulty convinced Daniels to go around his superiors and try to involve the FBI in the Barksdale case Rawls' got a chance for revenge - he reassigned McNulty to the marine unit at the suggestion of Landsman after falsely telling him he would like to see him land on his feet and asking where he didn't want to go. Rawls also transferred out detective Santangelo to the Western District as a beat officer. Rawls transferred in Lester Freamon as a replacement detective noticing his talent for detail in the Barksdale investigation.
[edit] Season 2
Rawls was promoted to colonel, partly on the basis of McNulty's work on the Barksdale case, but his former detective remained a thorn in his side. When McNulty came across a body on marine patrol, Rawls managed to convince another department that the case belonged to them. McNulty used wind and tide charts to prove that the death occurred in Rawls' jurisdiction. When thirteen dead women were found in a cargo container at the ports, Rawls again tried to avoid responsibility for the investigation, and McNulty again found proof that the deaths fell under Rawls' jurisdiction, earning McNulty a permanent spot on his list of enemies. Rawls had Landsman assign the case to detectives Lester Freamon and Bunk Moreland because he believed they were the best investigators in his squad. He demanded personal reports from his detectives.
When Daniels' detail was re-formed to investigate Frank Sobotka, Rawls signed off on every officer Daniels wanted with the exception of McNulty whom Rawls demanded would either drown or quit the force before leaving the hated marine unit. Rawls eagerly pressured Daniels to take on the responsibility for investigating the fourteen murders which Daniels initially refused to keep the case simple, but later accepted due to persuasion from Freamon. In exchange, he extracted a promise from Rawls to give him whatever he needed to solve the murders. When Daniels demanded McNulty, Rawls was ultimately forced to pull McNulty out of marine patrol and return him to Daniels' unit. Rawls thus allowed McNulty to be Daniels responsibility but would not let him any further back into C.I.D..[1]
The fourteen murder cases proved to be a boon for Rawls, as all of them were solved by Daniels' team at the end of season two.
[edit] Season 3
Rawls was promoted to Deputy Commissioner of Operations when Burrell became Commissioner. They preside over weekly COMSTAT meetings with their district commanders. Rawls is completely ruthless in his pursuit of complete accountability and awareness from his subordinates. As Commissioner, Burrell would write the orders from the Mayor's office that Rawls as a Deputy Ops would then ensure the enforcement of. Rawls' responsibility in the COMSTAT meetings was to demand performance from the individual commanders while Burrell would then make a decision as to what that commander had to do to keep their posting. While Rawls berated several Shift Commanders over the season, Rawls commended Lieutenant Daniels on numerous occasions as the type of commander he saw as both a dedicated and good police officer. When Daniels was reassigned to target Stringer Bell, Rawls claimed that it was "Cedric Daniels to the rescue."
Nothing has been shown of Rawls's personal life, with one exception: he appeared, out of uniform, in the background in a scene which took place in a gay bar.[2]
[edit] Season 4
Rawls was Burrell's first port of call when subpoenas issued by the major crimes unit upset Senator Clay Davis and Mayor Clarence Royce. Rawls suggested that Lester Freamon was the most likely source of the problem and recommended that the unit get proper supervision.[3] Rawls assigned a lieutenant loyal to him named Charlie Marimow aka the "unit killer" to head the unit. Marimow's caustic leadership resulted in an immediate shutdown of the unit's drug-money tracing activities and a return to street level investigations. Rawls preempted a rebellion from Freamon and subdued it by threatening his colleagues and offering him a transfer back to homicide. Rawls also facilitated the move of Greggs from the unit into homicide as a favor to Daniels.
Rawls showed great political acumen when Burrell made the mistake of assigning Greggs a politically significant murder case to slow the investigation down on the Mayor's behalf. He allowed Burrell's plan to go ahead and when it was leaked to the press Burrell fell out of Royce's favor. Rawls told Royce that he did not act differently as he is a loyal subordinate who always follows his bosses orders. Looking to replace Burrell, Royce asked if he was ready to take command in the wake of Burrell's mistake through telling Rawls that if he fixed this situation, Royce would not forget what he had done.
Rawls also endeared himself to Tommy Carcetti's campaign. He received word from Lieutenant Hoskins, his insider in the Mayor's office as commander of the mayoral security detail, that Royce had fallen out with State Delegate Odell Watkins. Rawls fed this information to Carcetti so that he could recruit Watkins's support and asked Carcetti to remember him if he was elected. Rawls then assures the election goes smoothly by interfering with the Braddock case involving a dead state's witness. He reassigns Detectives Norris and Greggs who are working the investigation to election duty for the day as the department is 20 officers short of duty.
Carcetti gets elected and then begins trying to make the department more productive. He sees an unmotivated investigation unit and petty drug arrests and then comes to Rawls. When Carcetti asks Rawls about the problems in the department, Rawls claims that affirmative action and pressure from the mayor's office has made policing a numbers' game. He states to appease the voters and have a department that is demographically a match to that of the city, a 20% hike in the number of African American officers has been needed in the department. He says this hike has occurred up the chain of command as well as in the academy and the early promotions have hence put officers who are more trained to handle statistical values than they are to set out good policing strategies in charge of the department. Rawls claims that if it were up to him, he would focus on high end drug enforcement, a claim that Major Cedric Daniels (An African American commander who Rawls does view as "good police.") does not believe.
Despite being a loyal subordinate, Rawls developed a power struggle with Burrell over who controls the activity in the Department. Rawls was commanded to control day to day activity by Carcetti. Carcetti had no faith in Burrell's capacity to change the department's problems. Burrell was threatened by Rawls allowing the promotion of Cedric Daniels from Major to Colonel at the Mayor's request. Daniels was the most apparent threat within the department to dethroning Burrell as Commissioner. Rawls did not realize that Daniels could be promoted ahead of him until Deputy Commissioner Valchek pointed out the hindrance of Rawls' race, specifically due to Baltimore's African American majority. The political irony of Season 4 is that Rawls helped Royce lose the election with the Watkins information when Royce was the only politician who could have successfully named him Commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department.
[edit] Origins
Rawls lack of a sense of humour and distinctive technique for intimidating others is based on real Baltimore CID commander Joe Cooke, although Rawls is far more banal. Simon has also commented that Rawls attitude to the murder rate and his units clearance record is a product of the extreme pressure he is under.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Dan Kois (2004). Everything you were afraid to ask about "The Wire". Salon.com. Retrieved on July 12, 2006.
- ^ Org Chart - The Law. HBO (2004). Retrieved on July 22, 2006.
- ^ Character profile - Deputy Commissioner William Rawls. HBO (2004). Retrieved on July 22, 2006.
- ^ David Simon. (2005). 'The Wire "The Target" commentary track [DVD]. HBO.
