While the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray, after a rough ride in a police van, is not depicted, it hangs over everything here, from Black Baltimoreans mistrust of the police to the post-Gray work slowdown by officers. The conflicting theories on his death speak to stark divisions between the involved parties an independent review board ruled his death a suicide, a theory that the Suiter family strongly resists. But these challenges continue and I wonder how we will know if the department has fixed itself. THE SLOW HUSTLE, a feature documentary directed by Sonja Sohn (HBO's "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. Wayne Jenkins (Jon Bernthal), who as the real-life head of Baltimores Gun Trace Task Force turned that elite plainclothes unit into a state-run gang, skimming cash and drugs from raid targets and using his status in the department to cover up abuse, corruption and deadly procedural violations. A detective in a nearby county traces a string of overdoses to Baltimore. In workplaces across the country, the culture is changing quite a bit. See production, box office & company info, Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall, Bad tidings in the Baltimore Police Department. Detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor. An independent review board ruled that the 43-year-old detective had in fact shot himself a finding that his family and others vehemently reject. The corruption has cost Baltimore taxpayers more than $13 million in settlements with victims and hundreds of cases the corrupt officers worked on had to be thrown out. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Underpinning it all is a Wire-style critique of institutions, in particular a police department so hollowed out by corruption that even the attempt to solve the death of one of its own is met with insurmountable doubts. And hes the worst officer doing the worst things.. His elite unit came to be seen by senior commanders as a bulwark against chaos. They were working in the shadows, and deployed by the police department as another tool to roam the streets looking for guns.. How do we measure that, how do we quantify that, especially given the deep-seated bad feelings about this department?. 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. English, Thailand The Slow Hustle, which debuts Tuesday night on HBO and HBOMax, looks at the death of Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter, who lived in Prince Georges County and who was shot in the head in late 2017, the day before he was due to testify in a federal probe of police corruption. Here we have a case in which a cop has fallen and ultimately one of the major obstacles to solving this death, this mystery, this crime is the fact that the police cant be trusted. We Own This City is based on a book by the Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton. He was born in 1980 which, Fenton notes, means that Baltimore has been shrinking and struggling for most of his life. Fenton commented: Every officials talking about reform, reform, reform and you think that all eyes are on the police department and everybodys behaving their best and yet this is going on. We Own This City: Created by George Pelecanos, David Simon. 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). So to me, that was a microcosm of the macrocosm. And in a war, you need warriors. The streets, the drug houses, the cops pursuing petty busts to drive up their stats you can almost hear the voice telling you to keep the devil way down in the hole. Nobody knew. I got one officer down. In a war, you have enemies. English, Denmark Led by interviews with Salons D. Watkins (a Baltimore native), The Baltimore Suns Justin Fenton and WMAR-TVs Brian Kuebler, Sohns film immerses itself in a city plagued by pervasive distrust of the police, thanks to a long history of corruption, harassment and murderthe most recent and notorious example of which was the 2015 killing of Freddie Gray. Suiter faces distrust of the police at a crime scene. I did not want to initially direct another film that involves law enforcement. 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. The corruption and civic woes the show details, as in much of Simons work (Treme, The Deuce), are systemic. A still from "The Slow Hustle" courtesy HBO. As new evidence emerges, the mystery deepens. The cast includes Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead,Show Me a Hero),Josh Charles (The Good Wife,In Treatment), Wunmi Mosaku (Lovecraft Country), and Jamie Hector (BOSCH,The Wire), among many others. English, English Speaking Africa Nick. Spanish, Colombia Richard Gonzales. Spanish. Instead, its members were convicted on corruption charges. The Slow Hustle starts with shocking footage of Suiters body being discovered (Oh, my god!, Sean, no! It begins with dramatic real-life body-cam footage filmed just after a shooting in the Harlem Park neighborhood of Baltimore. We Own This City tends to choose telling over showing, however, especially on the investigation side of the story. The film follows Suiters family as it tries to get answers about his death. English, Vietnam Funding social structures that support the people is just a given. 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. The true story of the Baltimore Gun Trace Task Force. Spanish, Brazil Baltimore's history of police corruption The scandal broke at a time of struggle and high tensions between Baltimore community members and the police department. That is D.s perspective within the film. When institutions cant solve their own problems, the people suffer. 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. Director Sonja Sohn Stars Umar Burley Jill Carter Kevin Davis The convicted officers were sentenced to prison terms ranging from seven to 25 years. Really, The Wire isnt the only show the setup brings to mind. I was sitting up at CBGBs [music club], the only Black girl with shaved hair, screaming, and I had a zine. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. It hasnt escaped David Simon and George Pelecanos, the creator and a producer of The Wire, who have returned to their geographic and rhetorical turf with We Own This City, beginning on HBO Monday. And that case right there has a connection to many other cases that were in the public eye at the time. Anyone can read what you share. Whats the mission?, Exactly. The latter, in the seriess view, allowed crime to spike and in turn motivated the police brass to ignore Jenkinss crimes until a federal investigation exposed them. THE SLOW HUSTLE is included in a collection of four gripping documentary titles that debut on Tuesdays, beginning November 23. Seven Baltimore Police officers indicted on federal racketeering charges D Watkins, a local journalist and author who shares the view that Suiters death could have been an inside job, says in the film: What developed for me out of the whole story is this whole idea of Black lives really dont matter. She grew up in Newport News, Virginia, had a stint in New York as a slam poet and recorded an album in London. At the center of it all lies a fallen officer and the complexities of life in one of the most investigated police departments in the country, where impropriety appears to penetrate a broken system at every level. Over the years, as I describe in the book, it lost that focus and was just another unit of plainclothes officers running around the city. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. In January, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh fired her police commissioner and replaced him with former Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa, who promised sweeping reforms to the department. There are other theories. English, Australia She's also an actor. His report, published in January this year, ran to 515 pages and sought to explain how a scandal of such proportions could begin and continue for years without being detected. English, United Kingdom Was Suiter an unwitting participant in a scheme carried out by rogue cops? English, The Netherlands Actor Darrell Britt-Gibson (Jemell Rayam) and technical adviser Detective Andres Severino sit down together to talk about the friendship they formed while making We Own This City, and how working together opened their eyes to new perspectives. This low profile helped insulate the GTTF from public scrutiny and allowed it go rogue. That is the rumour that sweeps like a wildfire through the city and the fact thats the first theory that erupts says something on a larger scale about what could happen if the police dont get their act together and regain the trust of the people., Sohn adds: To me, what Nicole [Suiters widow] and the family are going through is the microcosmic example of what is happening to all of us, that when public institutions and structures dont get their act together, the people suffer and, in this instance, the family suffers.. Copyright 2021 NPR. THE SLOW HUSTLE debuts TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7 (8:00-9:30 p.m. ET/PT). Whatever happened to the cast? You were filming as this was all playing out in real time. They are joined by longtime collaborators Nina K. Noble as executive producer, and Ed Burns as writer/executive producer. He says: He was regarded well within the police department as someone who was good at his job, who had this eye for driving down the street and seeing somebody make a movement and it turns out that person has a gun. Itexamines the corruption and moral collapse that befell an American city in which the policies of drug prohibition and mass arrest were championed at the expense of actual police work. Police Sgt Wayne Jenkins is now serving a prison sentence until January 2039. The film will debut on HBO and be available to stream on HBO Max. 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. Ive been waiting for you all my life and now youre here and Im an old lady. But lets see what I can do. Obvious answers werent forthcoming, but many came to think that if the latter were true, Suiter might not have been murdered at all; rather, he could have committed suicide, and staged it to look like a homicide so that his family would receive his full post-mortem benefits. Premiering Dec. 7 on HBO and its streaming service, HBOMax, "The Slow Hustle" is said to provide an inside look at the Baltimore Police Department by exploring Suiter's "mysterious" death and . Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. The Slow Hustle doesnt deliver a definitive resolution to its central question. 2023 Home Box Office, Inc. All Rights Reserved. English, United States SOHN: Well, you know, that's a really good question because, yes, there was a lot floating through the air. It found an extended institutional failure of the police departments internal affairs along with broad supervisory breakdowns. Rayam opens up about the GTTF. Jenkins name appears in the opening shot of We Own This City, an HBO drama that chronicles the rise and fall of the Baltimore police departments gun trace taskforce (GTTF), described in an independent report as the most shocking corruption scandal in Baltimores history. Wood Jr. woke up to find his phone full of thousands of new Twitter notifications. Two Baltimore plainclothes police detectives were convicted Monday of racketeering, robbery and fraud in a trial involving a wide range of criminal . His death set off a massive manhunt for the killer, and Suiter gets a hero's funeral. [11/16/21 - 11:00 AM] HBO Documentary "The Slow Hustle," A Searing Look at Corruption Within the Baltimore Police Department After a Detective's Fatal Shooting, Debuts December 7 The creators, cast, and crew discuss the rigorous research and attention to detail that went into bringing this true story to life in Baltimore. That should be happening anyway. I think of Baltimore as my soul home, Sohn, 57, says by phone from North Carolinas Outer Banks. A few days earlier, the 35-year-old Marine corps veteran had begun tweeting about his 11 years in the Baltimore Police Department and all the things he had seen that he now felt needed to be shared. Det James Kostoplis testified that, soon after joining the GTTF, he was asked by Jenkins to go for a ride. The film is about one of the nation's biggest police corruption scandals. There was no specific training for supervisors. They told us not just what they did but how and that was very eye-opening testimony. FLORIDO: Your film really does document the Baltimore Police Department's long history of corruption. And I think that's quite a journey that we're all on here, you know, in this country. Its remarkable.. This series may not change the game. The unsolved case also sparked far-reaching implications for a city already grappling with the complexities of policing in contemporary, urban America. 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. Baltimore is rocked by the Freddie Gray protests. Thats a terrible fucking idea. The series was shot in Baltimore and brings together several alumni of the The Wire, both on screen and behind the camera, including David Simon and George Pelecanos. His book A Bigger Field Awaits Us: The Scottish Soccer Team That Fought the Great War was published in 2018. With no reliable eyewitnesses to the crime, a harried if largely clueless search ensued, most of it predicated on a generic description of a Black man in a dark jacket with a white stripe. That revelation leads to speculation that maybe Suiter's killing was an inside job meant to keep him quiet, or that maybe he took his own life. For me this case, and the familys position in this case, represent the microcosm of the macrocosm, she says. Here, WWD looks at 11 new documentaries and docuseries to watch in December 2021. BALTIMORE A documentary film profiling Baltimore's police department in the wake of Detective Sean Suiter's on-duty death is set to hit television and streaming services next month. It also tracks several local journalists, including Baltimore Sunreporter Justin Fenton andSalon editor-at-large D. Watkins, while they parse the investigation into Suiters death to its official andto many, including Suiters familyunsatisfying conclusion. He and members of the GTTF framed the two men that Jenkins had been pursuing by planting drug evidence. / e was praised as a positive role model. Ex-po. I believe that this film substantiates further in a different way how broken the structure of law enforcement is. Do we extend that to law enforcement as well? I dont think were losing momentum. NPR's Adrian Florido speaks with director and actor Sonja Sohn about her new film, The Slow Hustle. What, he asks Steele, is driving the polices actions? Former Baltimore Police Gun Trace Task Force detective sentenced to 10 years in prison. 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. On Nov. 15, 2017, Suiter was accompanying his rookie partner David Bomenka on an assignment when he allegedly spotted a suspicious figure in an alleyway in the citys Harlem Park neighborhood. German Rather than just railing against the GTTF, Watkins spends time discussing the numerous similarities he shares with one of the convicted officers in order to highlight how Baltimores problems are less about individuals than about the environment in which theyre raised and operate. 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. 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. I think the other thing that really got me was understanding that with this crime not being solved, with this death not being solved, if the police are involved in that, then theyre willing to throw this family under the bus. So there was something different. I consider Baltimore to be as much of a home to me as the place where I grew up in Virginia. Despite numerous complaints, Hersl is placed on the GTTF. Director Reinaldo Marcus Green and writer D. Watkins, along with George Pelecanos and David Simon, discuss the importance of accuracy and authenticity when creating this series based on true events. Theres a whole philosophical debate around human beings, and, you know, are they inherently good or evil? Bernthal (recently of the Sopranos prequel, The Many Saints of Newark) makes a convincing baby gangster, arrogant and petulant, growing sloppier and greedier. As he notes, despite numerous different mayors and police commissioners, nothing much has changed in Baltimore over the years aside from the names of those engaging in criminal activity. We are seeing multilayered corruption with new eyes as a culture. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. Long history of neglect: why are missing Black people still less likely to be found? Like, even if youre a police officer, they really dont.. A protest of Sean Suiters death in The Slow Hustle. Like many series right now, this one is using a nonfiction story to approximate the power of fictional drama. For every inept, violent Roland Pryzbylewski, there was a Lester Freamon, practicing the patient craft of building a case. But they also have a brash, cocky face: Sgt. 890K views 5 years ago BALTIMORE Two Baltimore police officers are on trial this week in federal court for some of this worst misconduct imaginable. In 2017, Baltimore was rocked by the federal indictment of Wayne Jenkins, a highly decorated super-cop and leader of. By Samuel Sasu April 26, 2022. What I knew from the get-go was that the crime scene was going to be critical, so there was going to have to be a graphics person on board to help us illuminate some of those details. A unit of the Baltimore Police Department, the Gun Trace Task Force, was supposed to target guns and drugs on the city's streets. 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