baltimore police corruption documentary

Ex-po. How do we measure that, how do we quantify that, especially given the deep-seated bad feelings about this department?. Pelecanos and Simon also serve as writers. The crime drama series is based on Justin Fenton's 2021 nonfiction book of the same name and stars . It's been three years since Baltimore erupted in a series of protests over police violence, exposing deep divisions between the city's police department and the community.The protests captured national attention - prompting a federal investigation - and several high-profile efforts at reform.Now a new scandal is threatening to undermine those efforts, raising questions about the depth of police corruption in Baltimore, and the institutional forces that allow corrupt officers to remain on the street.Fault Lines returns to Baltimore as new details emerge about an elite plain-clothes police unit that, for years, doubled as a criminal gang - robbing residents, planting evidence, and sending countless innocent people to jail.The unit operated with impunity in part because of the way police complaints are investigated.In Baltimore - like many other cities - if a police officer is accused of wrongdoing, the complaint is investigated behind closed doors by the police department's own Internal Affairs Division.Fault Lines investigates how this latest police scandal once again places Baltimore at the centre of a national debate over how and whether police departments can be held accountable to the communities they police.- Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/#AlJazeeraEnglish #BaltimorePolice #Fautlines It opens as Jenkins gives a speech to his unit in which he seems to say the right things that beating on people gets in the way of doing the job and that, in the task force, were not about that kind of brutality. The Feds prepare charges. I think Baltimore does what it did to me and its a divine mirror. Includes: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo - Brazzaville, Congo - Kinshasa, Cte d'Ivoire, Djibouti . The unsolved case also sparked far-reaching implications for a city already grappling with the complexities of policing in contemporary, urban America. HBO doc "The Slow Hustle" examines the mysterious death of Baltimore cop Sean Suiter, who was set to testify against police corruption and then was found with a bullet in the head. It wasnt that we heard about them all the time. Read on for more. Reports showed that Suiter had been presentand involved in some waywith a 2010 incident in which GTTF members, using unmarked cars, attempted to rob two Black men who subsequently fled the scene, resulting in a car chase and auto accident that killed an innocent motorist. A 2016 Department of. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Oh, my god. Police stuffing their pockets and rationalizing it as their just dues was the subject of The Shield (itself inspired by a Los Angeles police scandal), which celebrates its own 20-year anniversary this spring. e was praised as a positive role model. And with little apparent will to transform police departments (and their cultures of silence and coercion) or the political institutions that support them, it comes across as a deeply rooted malady for which theres no easy cure. English, Thailand His book A Bigger Field Awaits Us: The Scottish Soccer Team That Fought the Great War was published in 2018. English Copyright 2021 NPR. Theyre a very private family. Maryland State Senator Jill P. Carter helps contextualize some of the social and political misdeeds that have led to an environment that so easily breeds institutional misconduct. And there was all of this corruption that he was around. Sohn is also sceptical. Sonja Sohn directed "The Slow Hustle." In HBOs We Own This City, Jon Bernthal plays Sgt. Fenton, who reported on the trial, recalls: Through the people cooperating and telling the truth, we gained a new level of understanding of how these things work that I dont think weve had previously. She comments: Everybody walks away from the film seeing that the suicide implication is pretty serious and, if youre going to imply that, then youd better have really stiff, unshakeable evidence. The Slow Hustle contains interviews with Suiters widow and children, lawyers, politicians and investigative journalists, and Baltimore police including former commissioner Kevin Davis. And I used the investigative journalists and their journalistic ethics and expertise first and foremost as, I guess, the first sort of filter and sieve through the facts. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I got one officer down. Wood Jr. woke up to find his phone full of thousands of new Twitter notifications. Richard Gonzales. Whats the mission?, Exactly. In workplaces across the country, the culture is changing quite a bit. I was like a serious punk in the 80s, she laughs. English, Norway All rights reserved. I felt alone and I was happy. I consider Baltimore to be as much of a home to me as the place where I grew up in Virginia. Over six episodes, host D. Watkins will share his experiences in and out of the writers room and speak to the people who brought this story to the screen. FLORIDO: D. Watkins - that's one of the journalists who covers this case as it's playing out and who you feature in the film. So rumors and speculation ran rampant about what really happened to Officer Suiter, not just among residents, but also among politicians, among journalists. Five years after the Gun Trace Task Force corruption scandal broke, a new report is giving the first comprehensive account of how the Baltimore Police Department repeatedly failed to address . Will it be reported? All those season-ending montages seemed to say: No matter how you feel about the end of this or that particular story, the beat goes on. The Wire had built into it the distinction between good police work (painstaking, intensive, focused on real harm) and bad (petty busts and harassment to drive up arrest numbers and make politicians look good). He enjoyed the admiration and respect of his superiors and was given special privileges. The presence of a local filmmaking community can have a positive impact on citizens and neighborhoods. To return to our unfair comparison, The Wire believed that systemic forces mattered more than individual failure or triumph. Local hero and cage-fighting super-cop Wayne Jenkins was federally indicted on racketeering charges, along with six other members of Baltimore's elite Gun Trace Task Force. HBO doc The Slow Hustle examines the mysterious death of Baltimore cop Sean Suiter, who was set to testify against police corruption and then was found with a bullet in the head. But day after day, the revelations keep coming. Im not sure the police have proven that.. He also learns a sense of entitlement; the seriess title comes from a speech in which he tells his cronies that as long as we put those numbers up by making arrests, they can do what they want. But after meeting [Suiters wife] Nicole, and beginning to see that there were pieces missing in the investigation of Seans Suiters death, likethis is a cop. The unsolved case also sparked far-reaching implications for a city already grappling with the complexities of policing in contemporary, urban America. And that's where D. Watkins comes in to play - someone who's lived on sort of both sides of the track and having, you know, been, you know, a critical, you know, just a social critic and delving into those topics and bringing that perspective. At this point we are less than 10 min into the documentary. "The Slow Hustle" is the title of a new HBO documentary out now. Detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor. None, it seems, let Baltimore get under their skin as much as Sonja Sohn, who played police detective Kima Greggs the first major portrayal of a Black lesbian on American television on the trail of drug lords in the five-season drama. English, Spain EN. Its that systemic rot which proves to be The Slow Hustles fundamental subject. So there was something different. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The cast and crew explore Baltimore as a character, touching on the real people and locations portrayed in the series. He became a police cadet in 2003, married and bought a house. Their solution: They sold the drugs and firearm back onto the street. I didnt know how much I had been impacted by it physically until 2020 came and I saw the correlation, she says. Its like someone describing how they first stole money. As Nicole Steele, a civil-rights-division attorney, Wunmi Mosaku does all she can to create a character who feels her mission deeply and who chafes at her departments resistance to real change. With candid interviews from members of the Baltimore P.D., Suiters widow and children, journalists, lawyers and political leaders, The Slow Hustle examinesthe continuing mystery surrounding Suiters deathand the multiple theories that emerge in the investigation of the case, including that Suiters death was a calculated murder hit or a suicide. You may know her for her role as a Baltimore police detective in the hit series "The Wire." Michael Bromwich, a former US justice department inspector general, and his team conducted a two-year investigation that included more than 160 interviews and examined hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. Two former Baltimore Police officers sentenced to a combined 454 years in federal prison for shaking down citizens in the early 2000s had their prison terms reduced to 20 years each by a. Suiter is assigned to a new murder case. Sohn cofounded ReWired for Change, a local outreach programme for at-risk youth, and made her directorial debut in 2017 with Baltimore Rising, which depicted the Black-majority city in the aftermath of the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in police custody. You were filming as this was all playing out in real time. They told us not just what they did but how and that was very eye-opening testimony. But the GTTFs reign of impunity was cut short when a suburban drug investigation happened to reveal one officers contacts with a drug organisation. United States SONJA SOHN: I think the one thing that I had to zero in on or hone in on was the fact that there - that this was a Black man who appeared to be murdered, whose murder was unsolved and quite possibly could have been at the hands of law enforcement. Youre asking me about the word hope at a very particular time in my life, where Im engaging in a deeper sort of debate around the purpose of the word itself. Fenton explains in a phone interview from Baltimore: It started as a way to try to do more sophisticated gun trafficking cases. 1 Season | 6 Episodes | TV-MA WATCH NOW Executive produced by George Pelecanos ( The Deuce) and David Simon ( The Wire) -- and based on the book by Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton -- We Own This City is a six-hour, limited series chronicling the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force. English, Korea French, French Speaking Africa Fenton, who worked as a consultant on the six-episode TV drama, says: It really is just absolutely staggering. For years its plainclothes officers went on a a crime spree that included robbing people they stopped on the streets, planting drugs and guns on innocent people, invading peoples homes and stealing from them as well as fraudulently charging the city for working overtime. The two men were sent to prison for crimes they did not commit. Instead, its members were convicted on corruption charges. Ultimately, the journey reveals how theculture of corruption within the ranks of the Baltimore police forcecontributed to the destruction of the publics trust and impacted the police departments ability to solve a shooting deathof one of its own. Will members of the community reach out to us? But the spirit of those protests also seems reflected in this new story. I got one officer down. It is revealed that Suiter had been summoned to testify in the now infamous Gun Trace Task Force trial, an elite police unit that proved to be one of the dirtiest in Baltimores recent history. I was asked by an HBO executive if I was interested in pursuing this topic, if maybe there was a certain kind of perspective or access that I had to offer. See the full list of We Own This Citycast and charactershere. Visitors come to BARCS every day for reasons as diverse as reuniting with lost pets, adopting new furry family members, joining our foster and volunteer programs, and receiving free and low-cost resources to help them keep their pets at home. Former members of the GTTF. In an act of radical transparency, the Baltimore police department hired an outside investigator to conduct a review. Filmmaker and actress Sonja Sohn of "The Wire" returns with the follow-up to her 2017 documentary"Baltimore Rising." The new film, titled "The Slow Hustle," looks to be an equally powerful look. They are joined by longtime collaborators Nina K. Noble as executive producer, and Ed Burns as writer/executive producer. Baltimore Police officers found guilty in Gun Trace Task Force corruption case. I dont think were losing momentum. In a war, you count the bodies and then you call them victories., Its a strong editorial, but that does not make for a great show. He was praised as a positive role model. Bromwich, a senior counsel at the law firm Steptoe, says by phone: People were promoted without any sense of whether they would be capable of managing people. THE SLOW HUSTLE follows Detective Suitors widow and local investigative reporters as they work to get answers in the Suiter case and hold the Baltimore Police Department and City Hall accountable. Many residents in the city, especially in Black communities, just don't trust the. The Wires Sonja Sohn on her Baltimore documentary: We are seeing multilayered corruption, Director Sonja Sohn interviewing D Watkins for The Slow Hustle. And so it's clear to me this is another way to look at the question of how we're going to restructure a - how we're going to create another structure for protection and safety because right now, I'm not convinced that "defunding the police," quote, unquote, is really the thing because that's supporting social structures that support the people. Fenton writes that the police commissioner Frederick Bealefield insisted that police were not going after everyone in Baltimore any more, just bad guys with guns. It begins with dramatic real-life body-cam footage filmed just after a shooting in the Harlem Park neighborhood of Baltimore. The Baltimore police department, recognising that the problem was perhaps guns more than drugs, wanted to have a smarter approach. Looking for more? Naturally, Suiters wife Nicole didnt take kindly to the notion that her husband had offed himself in a supposed plan to avoid testifying, and the medical examiner failed to shed conclusive light on the situation. Whatever Happened to Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Let us stipulate that it is unfair to compare any series to The Wire, even if it is about policing, even if it is set in Baltimore, even if it happens to be made by two of the figures behind that HBO all-time great, which marks its two-decade anniversary this year. THE SLOW HUSTLE, a feature documentary directed by Sonja Sohn (HBOs Baltimore Rising, The Wire), chronicles the still unsolved death of Baltimore police detective Sean Suiter, fatally shot in the head in 2017 while in the line of duty, and explores the ongoing speculation about what really happened that day. In 2017, Baltimore was rocked by the federal indictment of Wayne Jenkins, a highly decorated super-cop and leader of. Rayam opens up about the GTTF. For me this case, and the familys position in this case, represent the microcosm of the macrocosm, she says. Fenton, 38, who worked for the Baltimore Sun newspaper for 17 years and is now at the Baltimore Banner, a new non-profit newsroom, says: I do definitely wonder if it happens again, if its happening right now, will I know? The more I looked into it, the stranger it seemed. The documentary We Own This City draws attention to the corruption within the Baltimore Police Department. Late in the series, she meets with Brian Grabler (Treat Williams), a retired detective turned critic of the department, who makes a Socratic case that the war on drugs has failed. SOHN: First and foremost, it speaks to the lack of trust that the people of the city have in law enforcement not only in Baltimore, but across the country. The GTTF further damaged the already troubled relationship between police and residents of Baltimore, especially communities of colour. The corruption and civic woes the show details, as in much of Simons work (Treme, The Deuce), are systemic. They drove a short distance to a side street where Jenkins told Kostoplis to leave his phone and equipment in the van and get out. You know, I think we're already, across the country, not trusting our law enforcement. The Slow Hustle doesnt deliver a definitive resolution to its central question. THE SLOW HUSTLE debuts TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7 (8:00-9:30 p.m. ET/PT). Then I thought, okay, heres the possibility of actually solving the case. Spanish, Mexico Her first feature documentary Baltimore Rising portrayed the city in the aftermath of Freddie Grays death and THE SLOW HUSTLE continues her work focusing on Baltimore and its inherent racial and socio-economic problems. Of Baltimore Harlem Park neighborhood of Baltimore 10 gift articles to give each month keep..: it started as a way to try to do more sophisticated gun trafficking cases for me this case and... 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