It has nothing to do with my level of desire. 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. He was born in 1980 which, Fenton notes, means that Baltimore has been shrinking and struggling for most of his life. From top left, Daniel Hersl, Evodio Hendrix, Jemell Rayam, Marcus Taylor, and from bottom left, Maurice Ward, Momodu Gando, Wayne Jenkins and Thomas Allers. Who did this? 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. Police Sgt Wayne Jenkins is now serving a prison sentence until January 2039. The results of this quest were predictably meager, and it wasnt long before pressure began to mount on Commissioner Kevin Davisfrom both the public and the mayorto find the assailant who killed this heroic cop in the line of duty. And there was all of this corruption that he was around. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. That should be happening anyway. I dont think were losing momentum. Through his early years on the force, Jenkins goes from learning how to scam the overtime rules to outright larceny. 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. 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. Will it be reported? English, The Netherlands Here, WWD looks at 11 new documentaries and docuseries to watch in December 2021. 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. 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. HBO documentary about Baltimore Police and Detective Sean Suiter's death set to debut in December By Alex Mann Baltimore Sun Nov 12, 2021 at 11:03 am A documentary film profiling. For every inept, violent Roland Pryzbylewski, there was a Lester Freamon, practicing the patient craft of building a case. There are other theories. 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. English, Bulgaria 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. 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? With a mission to improve Baltimore through green space and education, Parks & Peoplebelieves that everyone deserves a park as a place to learn, play, grow and enjoy. Rayam opens up about the GTTF. Theyre a very private family. Was his death a calculated effort to keep him silent, or was Suiter himself a cop under scrutiny with a past he couldnt face? The official podcast of the HBO Original Limited Series. I was railing when there was nobody railing with me. Sohn was at home in North Carolina when George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis last year. The city knows that Suiter was going to testify against a group of corrupt cops and there is this history of corruption in the police department in Baltimore, then that lack of trust is amplified throughout this city., So the first theory that folks are thinking is, Of course you guys killed him. This beautiful family who is patient and has faith in them, they really dont care. The cops once reportedly found a gun and a pound and a half of marijuana in an illegal warrantless search. Maybe this is intentional. English, Australia With candid interviews from members of the Baltimore P.D., Suiters widow and children, journalists committed to uncovering the truth, 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. Funding social structures that support the people is just a given. I was sitting up at CBGBs [music club], the only Black girl with shaved hair, screaming, and I had a zine. Like, even if youre a police officer, they really dont.. English, Japan What do you think, Sonia, the mystery of Sean Suiter's death and the fallout say about Baltimore and the public's relationship with the police as a whole? Whats the mission?, Exactly. Many residents in the city, especially in Black communities, just don't trust the police. In a heightened atmosphere of distrust between disenfranchised communities and the police, THE SLOW HUSTLE brings to light the challenges of uncovering the truth and highlights the devastating fallout on ordinary citizens and police officers alike. In March 2017, eight members of the GTTF were indicted and arrested on federal charges of robbery, extortion, overtime fraud and selling drugs seized during police operations. With Bomenka around the corner, Suiter approached this figure, shots rang out, and Bomenka raced to the scene, whereas frantic bodycam footage illustrateshe found Suiter lying dead from a gunshot wound to the head. He noted that the location of the lethal gunshot indicated that it could have been a self-inflicted wound, but later remarked that if Suiter was trying to cover up a suicide, he wouldnt have shot himself in the head; instead, he would have fired at his chest, which would have made it resemble a murder. And Josh Charles (The Good Wife) plays impressively against type as Daniel Hersl, a bullet-headed task-force thug who makes Jenkins look like a diplomat. Jenkins brings Suiter along on a raid. Baltimore Police. 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. 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. Richard Gonzales. They told us not just what they did but how and that was very eye-opening testimony. 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. Four of them agreed to cooperate with the justice department and testified against the remaining two officers, both of whom were convicted by a jury in February 2018. But it is a pointed reminder that after all this time to quote a series that remains quotable for a reason the game is the game. A protest of Sean Suiters death in The Slow Hustle. All rights reserved. Executive produced byGeorge Pelecanos (The Deuce) and David Simon (The Wire) -- and based on the book by Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton --We Own This Cityis a six-hour, limited series chronicling the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force. 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. But theres a lot of pushback of course. New Study: DC Is One of the Worst Cities for Decent-Size, Affordable Apartments, Baltimore Could Be DCs Hottest New Suburb, Lil Uzi Vert and Ice Spice Will Perform at This Years Broccoli City Festival, Rant About the Books You Hate at This Book Club on H Street, An Ex-Oath Keepers New Book Gives an Inside Look at the Far-Right Militia Involved in January 6, Trucker Convoys Began to Fail Their Way Around DC One Year Ago. Instead, its members were convicted on corruption charges. With police reform stalled in Congress, and Republicans stoking fear of rising crime in major cities, does she believe the momentum of the Black Lives Matter protests can be sustained? The Slow Hustle exists at the intersection of true crime and social justice documentaries, concerned as it is with a fatal mystery wrapped up in an epidemic of police corruption. The Seven Five, also known as Seven Five Precinct, is a 2014 documentary directed by Tiller Russell, and produced by Eli Holzman, Aaron Saidman, and Sheldon Yellen.The film looks at police corruption in the 75th precinct of the New York Police Department during the 1980s. I felt alone and I was happy. 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. Thats a terrible fucking idea. Having thus stipulated, it would also be absurd to pretend not to notice the connection. 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. Bernthal (recently of the Sopranos prequel, The Many Saints of Newark) makes a convincing baby gangster, arrogant and petulant, growing sloppier and greedier. Except, as The Slow Hustle soon reveals, things werent as cut and dried as they initially appeared. What it does offer, however, is a forlorn perspective on a major metropolis whose police force has so betrayed the publics trust that the truth is now impossible to determineand, consequently, cynicism reigns supreme regarding the powers-that-be. Eight members of the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) were being investigated for a wide range of offenses, including shaking down citizens, filing false paperwork, committing civil rights violations, and making fraudulent overtime claimsas well as rolling around town in unmarked cars while wearing black hockey masks, robbing drug dealers of their narcotics and cash, and then planting evidence on them to send them up the river. English, Spain Simons longtime critiques in many ways anticipated the protests over policing of the past several years. So that's sort of like the sieve through which the rumors come through. His death set off a massive manhunt for the killer, and Suiter gets a hero's funeral. I Got A Monster (2023) Documentary Official Trailer In March of 2017, America's deadliest city was rocked by one of the nation's biggest Police corruption scandals. 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. And we're all not feeling protected nor served. 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. Documentary Crime After Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter is killed in the line of duty, the tragedy soon becomes enmeshed in a widening corruption scandal that threatens to unravel the public's already strained relationship with law enforcement. FLORIDO: That was Sonja Sohn. When we spoke recently, I asked what drew her to Detective Suiter's case. Kostoplis replied: No. Start from the beginning and watch the first episode ofWe Own This Cityfor free. What, he asks Steele, is driving the polices actions? Theres been so much rightful attention on police brutality and so we know when an officer shoots somebody theres an injury, theres a death. We'll help you live your best #DCLIFE every day, A Bigger Field Awaits Us: The Scottish Soccer Team That Fought the Great War. We Own This City instead works as a kind of appendix, an updated extra for Simon and Pelecanoss existing, well-earned fan base. 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. Suiter, it turned out, wasnt just some nondescript detective; he was scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury about his fellow officers corruption the following day. Why isnt his death solved by now? HBO alum Kary Antholis also serves as executive producer; Bill Zorzi as writer/co-executive producer, and D. Watkins as writer. 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. Focusing on the 1980s, the documentary tells the story of Michael Dowd, a former. Im still worth something., The Slow Hustle is now available on HBO with a UK date to be announced. Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. She is the director of the new HBO documentary called "The Slow Hustle." In total, the task . Jenkins followed in his fathers footsteps by joining the Marines but happened to leave with an honourable discharge just a month before the September 11 terrorist attacks. Ive been waiting for you all my life and now youre here and Im an old lady. But lets see what I can do. They are joined by longtime collaborators Nina K. Noble as executive producer, and Ed Burns as writer/executive producer. Kostoplis was transferred out of the GTTF soon after. Along the way, though, you got a lot of rich personal stories to invest in, which is how dramas with a broad social scope manage to succeed as both art and argument. Suiter faces distrust of the police at a crime scene. Fenton has spoken to many people in Jenkins orbit and made multiple attempts to contact Jenkins in prison but without success. And the rumors start to tear Baltimore apart. The leader of a rogue Baltimore police unit sobbed as he was sentenced to 25 years in prison in a corruption scandal prosecutors called "breathtaking". They were veritable gangsters, and the fact that Suiter died in this puzzling manner a mere day before he was speaking to the feds about his shady colleagues raised immediate suspicions that he was actually the victim of an orchestrated hit. 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 English, Pakistan Jenkins learns his fellow officers are cooperating with the investigation as the full extent of his crimes come to light. Like many series right now, this one is using a nonfiction story to approximate the power of fictional drama. 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. Watkins is the most outspoken of The Slow Hustles many talking heads, but even he confesses that anythings possible when it comes to Suiter, given that its difficult to ascertain the nature and degree of his involvement with the GTTF. 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 George's 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. 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. 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 actor-turned-directors new film The Slow Hustle tells the story of a detective who was killed just before he was set to testify in a corruption case. I consider Baltimore to be as much of a home to me as the place where I grew up in Virginia. I didnt know how much I had been impacted by it physically until 2020 came and I saw the correlation, she says. 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