We Own This City

David Simon, George Pelecanos, Jamie Hector and Darrell Britt-Gibson spoke to Newsweek about reuniting almost 20 years after making "The Wire" for "We Own ...

He added: "That, to me, was the power of the piece... Baltimore is still hurting from what this group of men did, and they are going to be hurting for a long time." Britt-Gibson, meanwhile, shared that he didn't want to approach the real-life Rayam, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence, because he "could care less" about what the officer thought. "Even our consultant on set Andres [Severino, a detective in the Baltimore police department], he also worked with Sean. It's destroyed everything it's touched." "He's a very spiritual soulful guy, and, and we thought he'd be really good in that role. Why? Because that's the kind of work that they are dedicated to doing." Of bringing the two actors back for the new show, Pelecanos said: "I know Jamie outside of work, you know, we're friends. But, knowing who was there, to me, [made it] a little bit more [comfortable] than maybe something else, by different people who wouldn't have got that." It was months, maybe a year later, that George had the idea for us [to adapt it]." We'd like to collaborate with that. In We Own This City, Hector and Britt-Gibson play police officers Sean Suiter and Jemell Rayam, respectively.

Who's involved? David Simon and his longtime collaborator George Pelacanos adapted the story from the nonfiction account by Justin Fenton, who reported on the ...

Some may watch We Own This City like it’s a new season of The Wire, and they may not care that it’s too long or didactic. He's an enforcer with a long list of complaints against him and as the earnest lawyer/plot explainer played by Wunmi Mosaku soon learns, every judge and higher-up in Baltimore City knows that Hersl is a problem. Returning to the ZIP codes where The Wire took place, we’re introduced to a new set of cops, detectives, supervisors, and pols.

Actor Jon Bernthal channels former Baltimore Police Sgt. Wayne Jenkins in "We Own This City," which premieres Monday on HBO.

It begins Monday and dramatizes the book of the same name which chronicles abuses by Baltimore's police department. Executive producers George Pelecanos and ...

The Wire” creator David Simon returns to the mean streets of Baltimore to explore a corrupt police task force in this gritty new six-part HBO miniseries, ...

Along with Pelecanos, Burns, Zorzi and Watkins, he exhibits an awe-inspiring familiarity with different aspects of Baltimore life—as a cop, a lawyer and an investigator—and consequently derives tremendous suspense from the nuts and bolts of the city’s daily operation. For the most part, however, We Own This City is a stinging multi-perspective exposé about how small- and large-scale corruption parasitically feed off each other, and one that comprehends the motivations of its many players while nonetheless doling out sympathy and scorn to those who most deserve it. From the minutia of BPD protocol and the strategic tactics of Jenkins and his criminal minions, to the competing priorities of different government factions, Simon energizes every incident, argument and skirmish with a depth of knowledge about how, from top to bottom, the system works. It also imparts a lesson that, given their trade, Jenkins and his mates should have known well: badge or no badge, there’s no honor among thieves. It’s a lesson the latter both takes to heart and updates by proving that the real key to power is running a plain-clothes unit like the GTTF, whose mission was to take firearms and drugs off the street and to simultaneously round up those who were trading in them. “There is no dictatorship in America more solid than a beat cop on his post,” says a veteran officer to Wayne Jenkins ( Jon Bernthal) midway through Simon’s latest.