The Wire “The Detail”

Lt. Daniels asked for more men for his Barksdale detail.  He got them.  Now he doesn’t want them for some very good reasons.

As much as there’s pressure to get Avon Barksdale caught, it doesn’t look like the department is really willing to do what’s necessary to do it.  McNulty, Greggs, and Daniels are all more or less on top of things, and Greggs brings Herc and Carver along, but the rest?  Drunks, screw-ups, and worse.  One fellow, Lester Freemon, comes from the pawn division and seems to spend all his time making doll house furniture.  And then there’s the guy they call Prez.  I am not writing out his full name.  Even the characters on the show have trouble saying it.

Prez is the guy who sets off his gun in the office the detail is working out of.  He didn’t remember the one in the chamber when he was telling Carver about the light trigger.  Prez is a world-class screw-up, and the only thing keeping him on the force is his father-in-law is a high-ranking officer that keeps pulling strings for the guy.

But that’s neither here nor there.  Daniels wants better cops, and maybe a better place to work out of than a forgotten basement where there isn’t enough office furniture to go around.

Much of this episode, besides showing how good Daniels is at playing politics, is showing how good everyone is at their respective jobs.  D’Angello understands how messed up the system is when he explains to two underlings why the guy who invented the McNugget probably isn’t rich.  D’Angello’s biggest problem is he has a conscience when it comes to other people.  He doesn’t mind selling drugs, but he also doesn’t want to hurt people from the looks of things.

That doesn’t stop him from becoming a person of interest in the murder that closed out the previous episode, and when Bunk pulls the case, he and McNulty go down to talk to D’Angello.  They even take him in for questioning, and though Daniels is initially pissed, he does decide to back McNulty on the condition that Greggs sit in on the interrogation.  They manage to get D’Angello to write a letter of apology/condolences to the dead man’s three orphaned kids.  That the dead man had no kids (the framed photo produced for the interrogation room was actually Bunk’s children) doesn’t matter.  Greggs seems to appreciate the way Bunk and McNulty work together.  And while the letter doesn’t hold anything remotely like evidence, that doesn’t stop D’Angello’s lawyer from telling his client off, or for Avon to do it himself later at a cook-out.

McNulty is personally also impressed by Greggs’ work getting photos of the various members of the Barksdale organization.  That was a simple enough trick of having Bubbles hand out a bright red fedora to get Barksdale’s people to try on while Greggs, Carver, and Herc take photographs from a nearby rooftop.

But for all that some people play the game and do their jobs well, there are others who don’t.  McNulty is in even more trouble when the fact a witness turned up dead ends up in the newspaper.  It wasn’t even his fault this time.  And then Herc, Carver, and Prez have a few drinks after work and decide to go to the projects and throw their weight around.  Police abuse from Herc and Carver seem to be nothing new (Daniels indicates Herc has beaten the rap for brutality four times already), but Prez pistol-whips a teenager for not getting off his car, an incident that blinds the young man in one eye.  Then stuff starts dropping, a gun goes off, and Prez returns fire.  Daniels at the scene the next day sees their car, with valuable police equipment still inside, was burnt to a metallic crisp, Herc is injured, and he has to coach Prez on what to say when Internal Affairs comes to interview him.

So, really, maybe Daniels should listen to his wife, who counsels him to quit the case.  I don’t think Daniels is that kind of guy from the looks of things.