We Own This City

We Own This City is a six-part HBO crime drama from David Simon and George Pelecanos, the creators of The Wire. Based on Justin Fenton's nonfiction book of the same name, the series examines the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force, a plainclothes unit that became a criminal enterprise. Jon Bernthal stars as Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, the unit's charismatic and corrupt leader, while Wunmi Mosaku plays Nicole Steele, a federal prosecutor who arrives in Baltimore to help reform the department. The series aired weekly from April 25 to May 30, 2022.

The show is not a simple story of a few bad cops. It digs into the systemic failures that allowed such corruption to flourish, from drug prohibition to a police culture that prioritized arrests over public safety. Critics praised its unflinching realism and Bernthal's ferocious performance. While it never achieved the cultural footprint of The Wire, it stands as a powerful and sobering companion piece. [edit]

Set against the backdrop of Baltimore in the aftermath of Freddie Gray's death in police custody, We Own This City follows the Gun Trace Task Force, a plainclothes unit nominally tasked with getting illegal guns off the streets. Led by Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, the unit quickly devolves into a criminal enterprise, stealing money, drugs, and property from citizens, falsifying reports, and running a massive overtime fraud scheme. The series alternates between the unit's exploits and the federal investigation that eventually brings them down.

In 2016, Nicole Steele, a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, arrives in Baltimore to help implement police reforms. She teams up with federal prosecutors like Leo Wise and David McDougall to investigate the GTTF, but they face institutional resistance and a police culture that has long enabled corruption. Meanwhile, Detective Sean Suiter, a homicide investigator, becomes entangled in the case, and his storyline highlights the personal costs of speaking out within a broken system.

Across six episodes, the series weaves together court testimony, surveillance footage, and character-driven drama to paint a portrait of institutional decay. It does not offer easy heroes or villains; instead, it shows how decades of drug prohibition and tough-on-crime policies created an environment where corruption was almost inevitable. The title, taken from Jenkins' own boastful words, underscores the sense of entitlement that defined the unit. The show builds methodically to the federal trial of the officers, but it is less interested in a dramatic climax than in a sobering look at accountability and its limits.[edit]