Q: What's the story on your changing technical advisors? [Dennis Kleen]
A: Maj. Gary D'Addario, who was the technical advisor on Homicide and The Corner, before working with us on
The Wire, retired from the police department. As the role of the technical advisor also involves some
coordination between elements of the actual B.P.D. and our crew, it's essential that a serving commander undertake the
role. Hence, Deputy Major Jimmy Rood, who, by the way, made his dramatic debut as the patrolman who confronts Tommy
Carcetti on Federal Hill, telling him to move along.Gary D'Addario, by the way, plays the role of the grand jury prosecutor on The Wire. He has previously acted on Homicide and The Corner as well. He was also, of course, the well-regarded commander of the shift of detectives I followed when reporting the book, Homicide. He is a right guy and a very sweet, very decent man -- a veteran of more than three decades of police work and service to the city.
Which brings me to perhaps one of the most fundamental moments of disappointment I have ever felt in regard to any public official in Baltimore or in Maryland. During the second season of The Wire, there came a moment when Gary D'Addario appeared as the grand jury prosecutor for the first time and uttered a single, non-controversial line of dialogue. After the second airing of that episode on HBO, D'Addario was hastily called into the police commissioner's office. He was traveling at the time down to the Eastern Shore with his family on an off-day, but he was nonetheless ordered back to Baltimore immediately on an emergency basis. He sat outside the commissioner's office for several hours, wondering what was happening, before being ushered in and being summarily fired. No reason was given for the action. Indeed, the city then endeavored to try to force him to retire on a lower pay grade, until D'Addario retained counsel and brought that nonsense to a halt. (He got his major's pension eventually.)
Concerned that the mayor's known distaste for the show might have resulted in this heedlessly venal and stupid action, I wrote a respectful letter to Mr. O'Malley, inquiring as to whether there was any relationship between the action and D'Addario's brief appearance in The Wire. I pointed out that D'Addario -- like many others in the department -- had been approved for secondary employment as a SAG actor, and that I was purposefully careful not to cast him in any role that brought any discredit on the department or the city. I asked the mayor to make clear to me whether city employees could appear in the show without fear of reprisal, noting that if they could not, I would surely not risk anyone's career by casting them in The Wire. I pointed out that views expressed on the show were not those of D'Addario and that as technical advisor, he had no control over the show's fundamental content. I basically asked the mayor to reassure me that there was no relationship between D'Addario's work on the show and the subsequent firing.
The mayor never responded. Not a word. Not from him, or from anyone at City Hall, or from anyone in the city film office. Certainly, if D'Addario was so treated after giving more than thirty years of service to the city of Baltimore for reasons other than his Wire appearance, Mr. O'Malley could have intimated such.
I have tried to be respectful of those civic leaders who find The Wire not to their taste and to allow for adverse opinions as to the show's effect on Baltimore and its image. We are not telling this story to hurt anyone's feelings or to give our city a black eye; we are telling a story that matters to us and, we hope, matters in general. And I certainly understand that the mayor and many other city boosters have different jobs and different responsibilities than a storyteller. They surely have the right to opinions that vary from folks making even the most earnest and careful television drama. But this singular incident -- and the mayor's inability or unwillingness to distance himself from the very appearance of such vindictiveness -- defies my every effort to empathize with the man. If he ended the career of a devoted civil servant because he was angry at our plotlines, shame on him. And if he didn't, then he needed to say so -- if only to reassure us, given that many other city employees are also part-time SAG actors working in this region.
As a Baltimore resident, I've been genuinely impressed by O'Malley at points, genuinely disappointed by him at others. And I've made a point of allowing that his dislike of The Wire is a reasonable opinion and refusing to judge him on such narrow terms. But since that incident involving Gary D'Addario, and the mayor's subsequent silence, I have frankly never been able to regard him with a full measure of respect.
Major D'Addario, bless him, is now retired and when last we spoke, he sounded happier than I'd heard him in years. Living well -- and honorably -- is always the best revenge. In any event, anyone that thinks The Wire exaggerates our depiction of the bureaucratic infighting and small-minded pettiness of Baltimore city government need only spend some time in this town. Sometimes, we imagine the worst. Sometimes, we just take careful notes.
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