Rather, they take great care to comprehend Jenkins and his actions within the larger context of a city beleaguered by rising crime rates and anger over the death of Freddie Gray, and a police force furious over the prosecution of the officers blamed for Gray’s demise, to the point that numerous cops either resigned or refused to make arrests-thus making Jenkins’ GTTF, despite its innumerable controversies, a celebrated unit.įor 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. Zorzi and Dwight Watkins, as well as King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green, don’t paint with broad brushstrokes.

Yet while Jenkins was a bad, bad man, Simon, along with fellow writers George Pelecanos, Ed Burns, William F.

His actions ensnared many, some willing and some less so, such as former cohort-turned-homicide detective Sean Suiter (Jamie Hector), whose mysterious fate was examined in last December’s HBO doc The Slow Hustle. He was as dirty as they come, selling the drugs he pilfered, framing his victims-whether they were guilty of infractions or not-and generally carrying himself like a gunslinging desperado. First introduced lecturing the department about the fact that genuine police success comes from doing things the right way-since dishing out beatings and alienating the public only thwarts cops’ main objectives-he’s a charismatic gung-ho cowboy, and Bernthal embodies him with such macho he-man charisma that it’s immediately apparent why he became a BPD star.Īs We Own This City quickly details, Jenkins’ popularity was also due to the fact that he enthusiastically robbed any criminal or civilian unfortunate enough to cross his path and doled out (lesser) shares of his spoils to his comrades. Jenkins was an individual tailor-made for this job, earning accolades, promotions (eventually to sergeant) and, most important of all, the trust and loyalty of his squad members, including Daniel Hersl ( Josh Charles), Momodu Gondo (McKinley Belcher III), Jemell Rayam (Darrell Britt-Gibson), and Maurice Ward (Rob Brown). 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.

Justin fenton we own this city review