In this closing spin on that moment, Jenkins is giving his speech not to officers in training, who look upon him with distant respect, but to all the other officers, underlings, and bosses he has served with over the course of the season, and they’re all cheering him on, clapping and yelling and embracing him as one of their own. The moment is a reimagining of an earlier scene from “ Part 1,” in which Jenkins - seemingly a successful hero cop who puts guns and drugs on the table, a valuable quality in the aftermath of the killing of Freddie Gray - gives a speech to police cadets about the value of intelligence and patience in police work instead of brutality and violence. And in the finale episode, “ Part Six,” an unnerving, pretentious speech from Jon Bernthal’s GTTF sergeant Wayne Jenkins drives home We Own This City’s guiding thesis with jarring clarity.

The six episodes of George Pelecanos and David Simon’s HBO miniseries, adapted from the nonfiction book of the same name by Justin Fenton, never lose sight of that betrayal. The dehumanization and sabotage of which Hogan speaks didn’t affect GTTF’s members but were inflicted by them on the people they were supposed to be protecting. And they did it all while collecting praise from their colleagues and bosses, more resources from the department, and millions of dollars in overtime - often more than their annual salaries. “To reverse the tide of rising crime, we need to stop demonizing and sabotaging the dedicated men and women who risk their lives every single day to keep the rest of us safe,” Hogan continued in that speech, a grimly ironic statement juxtaposed with the subject of We Own This City.įor years, members of the Baltimore Police Department Gun Trace Task Force had run roughshod over citizens, stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and millions in drugs, framed people for crimes they hadn’t committed, and caused the death of a bystander during an unnecessary car chase.

The line is from an October 15, 2021, press conference during which Republican Hogan refused calls to defund the police and instead announced a $150 million package intended as “a desperately needed shot in the arm” for Maryland police agencies. “The city of Baltimore is a poster child for the basic failure to stop lawlessness,” says Maryland governor Larry Hogan in the opening credits of We Own This City, and there’s a smirking bent to the series’ decision to feature that quote in each of its six episodes.

We own this city justin fenton