George Barnfather

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George Barnfather is a fictional police colonel of the Baltimore Police Department on Homicide: Life on the Street, he was played by Clayton LeBouef.

Barnfather first appeared in the series as a captain whose command was over the various homicide units. He was then promoted to colonel and was often the mediator between the Homicide Unit Shift Commander and the Deputy Commissioner of Operations. A career oriented college educated officer and bureaucrat, he often disagreed with Homicide Lieutenant Al Giardello ("Gee") whom the Deputy Commissioner James C. Harris saw as a renegade in terms of valuing the department's objectives and chain of command. Because of this, Barnfather advances in the department much more quickly than Giardello, despite Gee's greater experience, age, and time in the department (Barnfather is at least 10 years younger than Gee). His concerns were primarily political in nature, which was a cause of constant friction between him and Gee, whose top priority was always supporting the detectives under his command.

Barnfather was responsible for Megan Russert's double demotion after he strongly and wrongly disagreed with her handling of the Hangman Sniper case. Throughout the series, Barnfather comes to disagree with actions undertaken by Harris, and he says he can no longer look away from the truth about Harris after the siege on, and mass suicide of, a black militant group led by Harris' one time partner Burundi Robinson. His relationship with Gee then improves as Harris' days as Deputy Ops become numbered, and he was generally more supportive of Gee and the Homicide Unit in Seasons 6 and 7, though he still pressured Gee to bring results on unreasonable time frames (such as his pushing for an immediate arrest of Georgia Rae Mahoney after the office shootout near the end of Season 6).