The Wire: Cases of police brutality and abuse of power

Policing the Streets of Baltimore is not an easy task for the underfunded Baltimore Police Department. Understandably police had to be strict in order to control unruly corner boys and young hoppers. Even so, there are incidents in The Wire where the police had arguably abused their power.

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The Franklin Terrace towers incident

While drinking under an overpass, detective Thomas “Herc” Hauk (played by Domenick Lombardozzi) had a bright idea to visit the towers and let the people know who they are. Detective Roland “Prez” Pryzbylewski (played by Jim True-Frost) and detective Ellis Carver (played by Seth Gilliam) agreed to go with him. They approached the Franklin Terrace, 2 AM in the morning and started to harass people just because they could. People tolerated the harassment up until Prez decided to hit a kid with the butt of his pistol. Then all hell broke loose and residents of the towers started to retaliate by throwing junks at the three cops. Amidst that, someone started to shoot at the cops. Aftermath was pretty severe, the kid lost the sight of his damaged eye, Herc sustained some minor injuries, and police patrol car got burned down along with 2 radios and 2 Kevlar vests and a shotgun. Before IID (Independent Investigations Division) could get to Herc, Prez and Carver their lieutenant, Cedric Daniels (played by the late Lance Reddick) taught them to how to spin the story in order to save their necks.

Preston “Bodie” Broadus vs police

As per Burrell’s orders, Major Crimes Unit raided the Pit. During the operation, Bodie (Played by J. D. Williams) hit and knocked down Detective Patrick Mahon (Played by Thomas Michael Quinn). Immediately Carver hit Bodie with a police baton and dropped him to the ground.  Shakima “Kima” Greggs (Sonja Sohn) saw the incident and ran through the courtyard from one corner to another to join in on the beating of Bodie. What Bodie did was wrong. His punch put Mahon in the hospital and cost him an early retirement, which was ultimately a blessing for Mahon, but still police used excessive force on a minor. Keep in mind, Bodie was 16 at the time, he and Wallace were same age. So how Kima acted was appalling.

After the beat down, Bodie woke up on a bed in the Cheltenham Boy’s Village. He escaped from the facility and came back to the Pit. Herc and Carver caught Bodie and took him to the police station for questioning. Carver and Herc planned to go good cop and bad cop on Bodie. Bodie was too smart for them and he managed to infuriate Herc and Carver. So Herc and Carver beat down helpless Bodie.

Stringer Bell saw the potential in Bodie and sent Levy to get him out. Levy, with help from few bogus documents and some lies, managed to get Bodie out under home monitoring. Herc and Carver saw Bodie in the Pit and assumed he had escaped again. They went back to arrest Bodie who was chilling on a railing. Herc hit him with a right hook to the face, grabbed him and pull down from the railing, and put him face down on the street. Only then Bodie had a chance to explain himself, and accused Herc and Carver for hitting him before asking questions.

Arrest and the interrogation of Marquis ‘Bird’ Hilton

Bird (Played by Fredro Starr) was a ruthless killer for the Barksdale organization. Omar tipped off police how to find Bird and warn them to be careful because Bird would not hesitate to throw down. Because of Bird’s reputation as a trigger happy hothead, police were extra careful. Major Crimes Unit used Bubbles and his red hat method to identify Bird, Lester Freamon and Leander Sydnor were on disguises as couple of drunks to apprehend Bird. When unsuspecting Bird came towards Lester and Sydnor, Lester took down Bird by smacking a liquor bottle across Bird’s face. That was an unnecessary violence from sweet old Lester Freamon.

Police took Bird into an interrogation room and Sergeant Jay Landsman (Played by Delaney Williams) took a Polaroid photo of Bird as a proof that police did not harm him during the questioning. Bird being Bird, started to throw insults at anyone who entered the room. Bird clearly asked for a lawyer, despite his request, Kima and McNulty tried to make him talk. He clearly wasn’t ready to talk and asking for a lawyer. Police could not do anything except leaving him alone until a lawyer turns up. Instead of doing that Kima, Daniels and Landsman took Bird’s insults personally, so they ripped the Polaroid photo evidence and took a beating on Bird.

Vernon Holley beat down Bubbles over a misunderstanding

Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins (Played by Andre Royo), Kima’s C.I. (Confidential Informant) tried to get clean. He asked for monetary help from Kima to find a place, so he could stay away from the streets. Kima promised to help him. Before she could come back with money, she got shot and fatally wounded in an failed undercover operation. Detectives and top brass were trying hard to find who shot them. Meanwhile clueless Bubbles was trying to contact Kima via her pager number. Police thought that whoever trying to contact Kima had something to do with her shooting, so they picked Bubbles up, cuffed him and threw him inside an interrogation room. Vernon Holley (Played by Brian Anthony Wilson) came in to interrogate Bubbles and asked Bubbles who he is. Confused Bubbles did not replied. So Holley started to beat Bubbles. Jay Landsman heard the commotion and went in to stop it, by that time Bubbles was on the floor, still cuffed to an overturned table and Holley was pounding away at Bubbles. Holley did not even try to clear things up with Bubbles to get information, instead he gave Bubbles 3 seconds to talk and then started the beat down.

Stan Valchek vs Frank Sobotka

Rawls put the beef between Stan Valchek and Frank Sobotka as two Polacks pissing on each other’s legs. It started over a stained glass window. See, Stanislaus “Stan” Valchek (Played by the late Al Brown) wanted to surprise his church by installing a stained glass window, instead he got surprised by finding out that a local union of stevedores has already installed a window. That’s how Francis “Frank” Sobotka (played by Chris Bauer) got Valchek’s attention.

First Valchek put his men to catch any minor offences from stevedores. Carver who was working under Valchek’s command revealed to Frank that they got instructions from the Shift Lieutenant to ride pass IBS (The International Brotherhood of Stevedores) office, twice a day to find out anything on members to write up tickets. Police also used DWI checkpoints to catch driving under the influence which many stevedores used to do since they normally drink during breakfast.

While his subordinates were focusing on stevedores, Valcheck was trying to find some dirt on Frank Sobotka. He used his police powers and political influence to start a taskforce to investigate Sobotka which later became the Major Crimes Unit. When the Major Crimes Unit under Lieutenant Daniels, started to deviate from Frank, Major Valchek handed over the case to the FBI. All in all, It was a petty move which ultimately snowballed into a bigger revelations. But still, Valcheck initially misused his powers and police resources to frame a person over a personal disagreement.

Major Bunny Colvin permitted his subordinates to use excessive force

Howard “Bunny” Colvin (played by Robert Wisdom) established 3 free zones for drug related activities. His next move was to force all drug dealers into that free zones and clear the rest of the corners. He gathered around police officers and gave his blessings to use excessive force. He said, as long as a dealer could walk out of an emergency room, he was ok with it. He had also sent away IID (Independent Investigations Division) representative for a week and appointed his right hand man, Lieutenant Dennis Mello to handle citizen complains.

Policemen used many methods including manhandling to discourage corner boys from hanging out in the streets. Some methods were really creative. They threw shoes of young hoppers into the gutter, towed away a car (Baby Cakes) from a mid-level dealer (Played by Shaun Woodland), put some people into a caged police wagon and pepper sprayed them. But the most concerning one for me was when they took a bunch of kids to the middle of the woods and stranded them, and advised them to find their way back by using stars in the sky. Most of those kids don’t know much about the outside world, few blocks away from their homes, so they could have easily got lost in the woods.

Officer Walker, the worst police officer in the series

Officer Eddie Walker (played by Jonnie Brown) really loves to abuse his power and prey on the weak. He is a robber; he robbed 200 dollars from Randy Wagstaff (played by Maestro Harrell), robbed Bubbles when Bubbles asked his help and took some items from Bubbles cart, and he took the Ring of Old Face Andre from Omar and when Omar objected to it, Walker smashed Omar into a wall and dropped him to the ground causing injuries to Omar’s face.

Officer Walker saw joyriding Donut (played by Nathan Corbett) and started to chase him. During the chase Walker ramed into a civilian car, instead of apologizing for causing damage he yelled at the women who drove the other car. So when he finally caught Donut, he took his frustration out on Donut by breaking fingers of the poor little boy. In a later day, Walker saw Donut eating food with other boys and asked heartlessly “How you feeling little man? Need a hand with that food?”

Officer Walker is an evil thug with a police badge. It was so satisfying to see that kids finally got back at him and dumped a paint bucket on him.

“And they whooped my ass.”

One of the inseparable duos in the Wire, Herc and Carver left the Major Crimes Units out of frustration because how they got treated in the unit, and joined the DEU (Drug Enforcement Unit) under Major Colvin. They abandoned anything they learnt under Kima and Major Crimes Unit and went back to busting heads, the Western District Way.

In the beginning of the season 03, DEU team busted in to a corner and saw a kid took off running. Carver thought the kid was just a designated runner, but the kid grabbed a bag on his way which looked like the stash. So officers realized their mistake and everyone started to chase the kid through alleyways. Meanwhile we see some other kid pocketed something and walked away.

Kid was hard to catch, so DEU Sergeant Carver requested for backup which brought in police patrol cars, helicopters and even K-9 (police dog) units. All of them surrounded a block where the kid went in to hide. Carver climbed up on to a car and delivered a threatening speech, requesting the kid to come out or else they would beat him up.

In the police station Major Colvin saw that his officers had found the kid and in the process of charging him. But since they could not find any drugs on the kid, they were only charging him with fleeing and eluding and loitering. Major asked his officers where’s the drugs. Officers replied they couldn’t find any. And the kid complained “And they whooped my ass.” Kid clearly had visible wounds on his face.

Major Colvin was disappointed in his DEU officers for wasting resources on arresting a 14 years old kid, failing to recover any drugs, but looking so proud about their Western District Way.

Officer Colicchio and the Western District Way

Anthony “Tony” Colicchio (played by Benjamin Busch) was an officer under the DEU Sergeant Carver. He wholeheartedly believed in the Western District Way, and it wasn’t helping he had bad influence from Carver and Herc who also believed in that aggressive policing methods could keep the crime rate down. In Herc’s own words “We tune them up, We beat them down, We lock them up. It’s the Western District Way.”

So whenever Colicchio had a chance to exert power over someone, he really liked it. When Herc brought him to confront Marlo about the missing camera, they harassed Marlo and his people and threw away their food and smashed their stereo. While leaving Colicchio said “Ah, that felt good. The old western DEU rides again.”

Tony Colicchio also believed that people should respect them because they are the police. So Colicchio lost it when a school teacher started to honk while he was dealing with Kennard and other kids. Colicchio was already angry before the teacher started to annoy him, because Kennard had pulled a prank on him and everyone were laughing at him. Colicchio attacked the teacher, grabbed him and dragged him out of his car before other officers could stop Colicchio. As Colicchio’s sergeant, Sergeant Carver tried to help him against oncoming IID investigation by advising him to be smart and write a report to defend himself. But Colicchio refused to do that and blamed the teacher and suggested that they should lock the teacher up for his ignorance. Sergeant Carver who was now matured enough to understand that every little thing matters, decided to charge Tony Colicchio for use of excessive force.