85
‘Policing has to get
back to what it is,
which is protecting
cities and the
people in them.’
—DAVID SIMON, CO-CREATOR,
WE OWN THIS CITYsee each other a lot when we’re in
production. We don’t even call each
other that much. We know each other
well enough to know what the other
guy wants.
Simon: George and I can convey a lot
of concern about an upcoming scene
in a sentence and a half of a text. Not
everything requires a meeting—and
less requires angst-ridden arguments.
It’s getting easier at this point, which
is good because we’re getting older.
Some might say this is a peak
moment for based-on-truth TV
dramas. What it is about this format
that you think appeals to viewers?
PelecanoS: People like to see rich
and successful people get taken
down. That’s why a show like Law &
Order is so popular. It’s always the
person who lives on Central Park
West that did a murder. It’s a false
narrative; it makes people feel like
yeah, there is justice. The truth is
those people don’t go to jail. I think
shows that highlight the realities
stand out more.
With all the debate around
criminal-justice issues and policing
today, how do you expect this show
to resonate with its audience?
PelecanoS: It’s a divided country
right now, so I don’t have the delu-
sion that we’re going to convert a lot of
people who are steadfast in their “thin
blue line” views. We actually gave a
character a line about it. He’s reading
a report the DOJ did and he says, “Half
the country’s going to look at this and
say, Well, [someone stopped by cops]
might not have been guilty of some-
thing that day they were stopped, but
they were guilty of something.”
Simon: We don’t believe “back the
blue” or the “thin blue line” is the
motif that you need to take into a seri-
ous discussion about law enforcement.
But we also don’t believe that “defund
the police” works as a simple mantra
that solves anything. We live in the
middle. There’s a role and a mission
for good police work that’s not hap-
pening in Baltimore, which is the most
dangerous it’s been in modern his-
tory. If you live for a slogan and that’s
where you reside in your assessments
of what’s going on in America, you will
be at points disappointed in the argu-
ments that we’re trying to present.How has the way these topics—
police misconduct, systemic racism,
and so on—are discussed in Ameri-
can culture changed since 20 years
ago when you premiered The Wire?
PelecanoS: One thing that happened
since The Wire is smartphones. The
technology really made a difference.
Everybody can record what’s going on
in the streets, and people can’t lie as
easily because it’s on record. [The of-
ficer who killed George Floyd] never
would have been convicted without
the footage from the iPhone.Simon: When I was a police reporter,
if a guy came out of the back of a
wagon beat up, you basically were
dependent upon how well the arrest-
ing ofcer wrote that report, because
there was no smartphone in that alley.
It was the police ofcer’s word against
the suspect, and the police ofcer
would prevail.
Beyond that, it wasn’t just the
cops who came up with the idea
of overpolicing poor people. This
country embraced the mission of drug
prohibition being a means of making
neighborhoods safer. We have to end
the drug war. Policing has to get back
to what it is, which is protecting cities
and the people in them.And are viewers more conscious
of those issues than they were
when you two first started working
in TV?
Simon: There’s been a sufcient
amount of tragedy and scandal, but
also the incongruities of what we’re
doing with policy. That’s become a
theme in American life. A lot more
people are more aware of that than
they were 20 years ago.
PelecanoS: People are definitely
more aware, but they might see it
through [their own] prisms. When we
were doing The Wire, there weren’t
these cable news networks where you
went to get the news that you agreed
with. Which is a dangerous thing. It’s
not healthy for the country.When telling stories about
problems within disenfranchised
communities, there’s always a risk
of being exploitative. How do you
avoid that?
Simon: When I was made a police
reporter for a newspaper in Baltimore,
in a city that was 60% Black, and told,
“You’re covering crime,” I simply got
very interested in doing it as well as
I can. To do that you had to attend to
the reality. We’ve thought about that
throughout our careers. I know I have.
In the end, the work stands for itself
and for its own purposes, and it’s
delivered in such a way that everyone
is carefully humanized.
PelecanoS: The aim is to show
people respect. □