Characters / The Wire: Major Crimes Unit

The Wire Main Character Index
Baltimore Police Department (Major Crimes Unit | Homicide Unit | Police Commanders | Western District) | Baltimore Underworld (The Barksdale Organization | Omar and Associates | The Greeks | The Stanfield Gang | New Day Co-Op) | Courthouse | Baltimore Docks | City Hall | The Baltimore Sun | Other Characters (Homeless People and Addicts | The Next Generation)

"Same fuck-ups in the same shit detail, workin' out of the same shithouse kind of office. You people lack personal growth, you know that?"

— Lester Freamon

Intended as a temporary creation to address a specific problem, the Major Crimes Unit becomes the main focus of attention within the police. After Judge Phelan sees the Barksdale gang blatantly intimidate witnesses in his courtroom and is enlightened about the reach and scope of the organization by McNulty, he complains to the police higher ups that he wants an investigation specifically targeting the Barksdales, and in response they create the first MCU squad. Populated largely by cops who are either worthless or perceived to be so, and commanded by the promising but career minded Lieutenant Cedric Daniels, the MCU is intended to do the absolute minimum amount of work necessary to satisfy Phelan without having to become too involved.

Against all odds, however, the MCU investigation picks up steam once they begin shedding dead weight and other officers assigned to it wind up being able to contribute much more than would be expected. As Daniels proves to be willing to put his career on the line to support the Unit's efforts, they manage to bring down a significant part of the Barksdale Empire including Avon Barksdale himself, although the fact that Stringer Bell remains free allows the Barksdales to remain a force within the drug trade.

The Unit is disbanded at the end of season 1, but put back together at the insistence of Valchek in season 2 due to his petty feud with Frank Sobotka and desire to have Sobotka and his union similarly dismantled. After that point the unit remains in place and works with other divisions of the police throughout season 3, although once Daniels is promoted and moved elsewhere it becomes a shell of itself in season 4. The Unit gets one last day in the sun, however, when it gets assigned the duty of taking down Marlo Stanfield.

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Tropes

• The Last Dance: In Season 5, Jimmy and Lester enlist Sydnor and temporal or one-time help from some of the guys of the old unit to bust Marlo, illegally.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Season 3, busting Avon in the middle of his war with Marlo directly allows Stanfield to rule the Baltimore underworld. By all means, Marlo turns out to be a far worse kingpin.
• Putting the Band Back Together: Lt. Daniels spends most of Season 2 putting the Barksdale detail from Season 1 back together as the new Sobotka detail, which he hopes to eventually turn into a permanent Major Case Unit. It becomes a reality in Season 3, but by Season 4, it's a shadow of its former self after being sabotaged by Rawls. In Season 5, Jimmy and Lester reassemble it partially and illegally in their crusade against Marlo.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Two of the cops who bust Avon mess up their careers, one almost dies and almost everyone else doesn't seem to have anything to show for their sacrifices.
  • Later on, McNulty and Freamon use the former's fake serial-killer to get increased police funding and an illegal wiretap, which they use to take down the Stanfield organization. They cripple most of it, but Marlo Stanfield himself walks free and McNulty and Freamon—acknolwedged as two of the whole department's best detectives—have to quit.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A bunch of flawed antiheroes strung together by circumstances.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Daniel's detail is seen as a dumping ground for the BPD in the first season, and many divisions are happy to reassign their problem children to the unit.
• Who Watches the Watchmen?: A crux in the story. The amount of irregularities and outright illegalities they commit in their crime-fighting only increases as the series goes by, with only political inconvenience saving some of its members from indictment. Even in-story, it's up for debate how justified this course of action is.

Jimmy McNulty

Played by: Dominic West

"What the fuck did I do?"

Bunk: Jimmy McNulty, when he ain't policing he's a picture postcard of a drunken, self-destructive fuck-up. And when he is policing... he's pretty much the same motherfucker. But on a good case, he runnin' in front of the pack. That's as close as the man comes to bein' right.

The closest thing to a main character in The Wire. A detective in Homicide, he is an alcoholic womanizer, something of a deadbeat, insubordinate toward his supervisors, and known for coming up with creative solutions to hard cases. His disrespect for the chain of command makes him many enemies among his superiors, while his self-destructive behavior alienates his peers and friends.

After the Barksdales show their power by getting D'Angelo acquited, McNulty goes to Judge Phelan and sets in motion the creation of the Major Crimes Unit in season 1. This maverick crusade irks Rawls and Burrell, and at the end of the season he is assigned to what he sees as the worst possible position for him in the BPD: the marine unit. He spends the start of the second season there, but when Daniels puts the band back together, McNulty is recruited back into the MCU and spends the rest of season 2 and all of season 3 there, where he resumes his crusade against the unpunished Stringer Bell. Burnt out on being a detective, at the end of season 3 he begins a relationship with Beadie Russel and puts in for a transfer to patrol, and spends the 4th season as a beat cop, happier in the less intense world of walking a beat.

McNulty proves unable to stay uninvolved with the Stansfield Gang's reign of terror, however, and attempts to get Bodie to cooperate with the police against Marlo. This quickly gets Bodie killed, and inflames both McNulty's guilt and his drive to catch and punish the bad guy. He returns to the MCU, and takes all his self-destructive behaviors up to eleven as he takes part in the efforts to catch Marlo even while the police budget is slashed to the bone by Carcetii. At this point he dreams up the fake Serial Killer idea, and uses the resources sent to the department to illegally pursue Marlo. When his superiors finally catch on, it proves to be the last straw for McNulty's career and he's forced to resign.

Somehow he never actually receives a McCloud Speech to his face during the show (well, with the exception of Landsman's eulogy at his mock detective's wake), but other characters give descriptions of him that almost fit the trope.

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• Achilles in His Tent: During season 4 he gives up being a detective and takes a job as a regular patrol cop. He's asked several times by Daniels and his other supervisors to become a detective again, because he's too good an investigator to be in a patrol car but he refuses. Saying he's happier walking the beat. Only when Marlo Stanfield and his gang grow out of control does Mcnulty finally decide to rejoin the Homicide unit to try and stop him.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Jimmy usually takes with a smile many of the numerous jabs he receives.
• The Alcoholic: It has been observed that he's one of the most realistic portrayals of a high-functioning alcoholic on television. His job is so important to him that he manages to be a Functional Addict outside of his private life. In his private life however, he's a complete wreck. When we see him regularly drinking on the job in season 5, it's a good sign of just how low he's sinking and how many of his own lines he's crossing.
• All for Nothing: His serial killer plan finally gets Marlo off the streets (for now) but destroys his career. A montage of Baltimore shows that at large, it hasn't changed for the better.
• Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: He tends to say, "What the fuck did I do?" when reprimanded in a way that denies responsibility for whatever they're talking about. Sometimes, however, the ramifications of what he's done get through to him and he says it in a guilty tone.
• AM/FM Characterization: He's a fan of Punk Rock such as The Pogues and The Ramones.
• Antagonist in Mourning: He spends half the show trying to build a case on Stringer, and finally gets him on tape incriminating himself. That very afternoon, Stringer is betrayed to Omar and Brother Mouzone, who ambush and murder him. McNulty is distraught.
  McNulty: I caught him, Bunk. On the wire, I caught him. He doesn't fucking know it.
• Anti-Hero: He's an alcoholic, womanising cop in Baltimore who has taken every action possible to try and fight the drug problem in Baltimore. Despite him Jumping Off the Slippery Slope long ago he still is better than the drug dealers in Baltimore.
• Arch-Enemy: He definitely regards Stringer as this, and holds a serious grudge against him after he gets off scot free at the end of Season 1, which leads to McNulty becoming obsessed with taking him down as payback in Season 3. It's highly unlikely Stringer ever saw him the same way, more of a nuisance.
• Author Avatar: Word of God confirms he's based heavily on Ed Burns, the co-creator of the show.
• Badass Pacifist: McNulty rarely gets into a fight, but he regularly and casually stares down dangerous criminals. When the SWATs are ready to perform a full out assault, he simply strolls into the Barksdale lair, like a walk in the park, arrests Avon nonchalantly and delivers a Badass Boast to Stringer: "Catch you later."
• Born in the Wrong Century: Jimmy probably would've been right at home fifty years prior in a setting where police had more leeway and deference and the lines of good and evil were clearly defined by everyone. He simply isn't suited to a time where police are expected to stick rigidly within rules and obey a chain of command built more around those higher up looking good than actually helping anyone.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite his dysfunctional private life and serious drinking problems, Jimmy is a very talented and driven investigator, and he has quite the eye for detail, often noticing seemingly trivial clues and connections that others miss. Discussed Trope at length. Especially at his mock funeral in the finale.
  Landsman: Natural police, but Christ, what an asshole!
• Byronic Hero: Hot-blooded, alcoholic, workaholic womanizer with quite a reputation. This is his ironic answer to Landsman about his previous whereabouts in the very first episode.
  Drinking. Crack smoking. Whoring myself on the streets of Baltimore.
• Catchphrase: "What the fuck did I do?" Played for laughs and drama. Frequently used sarcastically (i.e. "What the fuck did I do?"), to demonstrate his inability to acknowledge his own stupid mistakes.
• The Chains of Commanding: In season 5 he's trusted with some managerial duties and responsibilities, with varying and ironic results
  [to Lester] You're a supervisor's nightmare.
• Character Development: Played with. After he settles down with Beadie he moves away from investigation quests, along with boozing and womanizing, "Good"-ol'Jimmy is back in Season 5, not before earning quite a few incredulous remarks about his domesticated state.
  Lester: World is on its hole when Jimmy McNulty is the most qualified to drive.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: One of his bigger character flaws. While McNulty will usually restrict it to going behind the backs of his superiors to get what he wants, he'll also throw his colleagues under the bus or otherwise exploit them if he believes it is for the benefit of his investigations.
• Commuting on a Bus: in season 4, when he resigns from MCU, works as a patrolman and gets his personal life back together.
• Cowboy Cop: Deconstructed. McNulty plays by his own rules and goes against his superiors, and while he backs it up by being a brilliant detective, his antics end up destroying both his career and his family life.
  • Also, on multiple occasions Jimmy bends and breaks rules to get information because he doesn't have the patience for doing things according to the rules... and gets exactly the same information that other good detectives like Bunk and Lester got by following procedure.
  • He may also be seen as a Reconstruction of the trope. He has the traits, but he's smart enough to gather evidence through surveillance and isn't one for hotheaded violence. Additionally, when he does break the rules, they tend not to be the constitutional ones intended to protect the individual rights of citizens (the biggest constitutional violation in the series is actually Freamon's illegal wire, which McNulty merrily used but didn't actually come up with), but rather the budgetary and protocol rules that are supposedly aimed at keeping the police under the control of the elected politicians, but are actually most often used to protect the asses of the BPD higher-ups.
    Fuck the bosses.
• Culturally Religious: Outside of the Catholic guilt that seems to fuel his Determinator status on the job, he's not shown as especially religious outside of jokingly balking at being offered Bushmills, a "Protestant" whiskey, over his preferred Jameson.
• Deadpan Snarker: He usually voices his objections in a sardonic way.
• Defective Detective: Lampshaded; Freamon observes that despite his excellent police work, the rest of his life is a train wreck.
  "The things that make me right for this job, maybe they're the same things that make me wrong for everything else."
• Defensive "What?": It's his own goddamn catchphrase.
• Descent into Addiction: In Season 5, McNulty's alcoholism (which was under control during the previous season), comes back with a vengeance, as does his womanizing, despite him practically being married to Beadie at that point. That said, although he's constantly drinking, it's a fair argument that McNulty's true addiction is his own ego and feeling like he matters. Booze and women are just the outlet he uses for that until he hatches the fake serial killer plot to catch Marlo.
• The Determinator: When Jimmy is on to something or is working a case he cares deeply about, he gives it everything he has and doesn't let anything, even the basic rules of police work, stand in his way. This is regularly shown as a positive and negative trait as it allows him to be a good detective and overcome obstacles that would stop others but also means he is unable to pull back or consider that he might be in the wrong and he abandons any sense of self-preservation in order to be proven right.
  Daniels: You ever see how a dog gets when he smells a bone buried in the yard?
  Rawls: Yeah, and I seen one take a shit on my carpet, too. And don't give me that he's-got-that-fire-in-the-belly garbage, either. The answer is no.
• Didn't Think This Through: A serious and recurring issue for Jimmy is his tendency to not fully consider the consequences of is actions and then act blindsided when they come up later, usually when he doesn't respect the chain of command.
• Drinking on Duty: Multiple examples. Prominent ones during season 5 (pictured◊) and in his prequel segment.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Doesn't need much of an excuse to prop up the bar, but he always does it if he's distraught.
• Drunk Driver: At times.
• Fallen Hero: By the end of the show. And despite his fake serial killer plan being somewhat successful, he is driven out of the force in the end. The ending does suggest that he's on a path to becoming a better person since he rekindles his relationship with Beadie and brings the homeless man he stashed in Virginia back to Baltimore, but he has a long way to go.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride. Jimmy has a compulsive need to prove his intellect and has tied pretty much all his self-worth into his image as the smartest cop in any given room. When this image is threatened, he tends to make very bad mistakes in order to reassert his own intellect.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Downplayed as other detectives do like him, since Jimmy is a pretty charming guy on a good day, but many are regularly pissed at his reckless approach to his work, disinterest in rules and protocol and obliviousness to how his behavior affects others.
• Foot-Dragging Divorcee: Jimmy needs a lot of time to understand that Elena wants to move on with her life. He ends paying $3000 per month as alimony, and he can't afford it.
• Good Is Not Nice: Unlike many in the Baltimore Police Department, he has a deep emotional investment in bringing the bad guys to justice. He's also, as Rawls puts it, a gaping asshole.
• Guilt Complex: Makes the sign of the Cross before tampering with the vagrants, apologizing beforehand, and Bunk theorizes his background is the reason behind Jimmy giving a damn about a random dead woman.
  Bunk: How does that matter? You see, this is that Catholic shit, Jimmy. This is that little altar-boy-guilt talking.
• Handsome Lech: A drunken womanizer prone to banging floozies in bar parking lots.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Very fond of his vintage leather jacket, which evokes at least the looks of a Hardboiled Detective.
• Heel Realization: It took him five seasons, but he does eventually come to see that ignoring good police procedural work and just doing his own thing without regard to the consequences ultimately causes more problems than it solves. Too bad he'll never work as a policeman again after the end. See He Who Fights Monsters below.
• Heroic BSoD: Briefly goes into one in the first season after Kima gets shot including acting out the Vomiting Cop trope. Rawls of all people snaps him out of it.
• Heroic Wannabe: His desire to be a cop is driven by this persona.
• He Who Fights Monsters: In his quest against Marlo, McNulty becomes a prosecutable criminal by inventing a fake case, technically embezzling money and being indirectly responsible for the death of two vagrants. A mild version of the trope in that he keeps his morals after all it's said and done in the Stanfield case, as illustrated by his last scenes and his crimes are not even remotely comparable with Marlo's.
• Hired to Hunt Yourself: In Season 5, he is the lead investigator on the Serial Killer case. He's so overwhelmed with resources that he quite capably diverts them to actual police work. Eventually he's given a right-on-the money FBI profile about himself.
• Honor Before Reason: Jimmy refuses to play the game and puts doing his work above everything else, even loyalty to those who have put their neck on the line for him like Daniels and his own well-being. This blows up in his face regularly.
• How's Your British Accent?: Pretends to be a British businessman to go undercover in a brothel. It's bloody orrible, nowhere near Sheffield-born Dominic West's natural accent.
  Cwoikey! I was lookin' to get a little hanky-panky, and this one bloke gave me this number to cawl when I got acwoss the pond
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: For all his arrogance and abrasiveness, McNulty believes deep down that if he isn't being a detective and catching bad guys his life doesn't amount to anything and he is basically worthless.
• It's All About Me: Self-confessed. Jimmy doesn't lack empathy and cares deeply about helping those he can, but when he sets his mind to something, nothing will interfere with his quest, come hell or high water.
  Landsman: Jimmy is an addict, sir. [To] himself. It's not funny, it's a fucking tragedy.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The vast majority of Jimmy's gripes with the police department and hierarchy and how they impede cops from actually helping anyone are dead on, even if his methods and belief that the rules based around that don't apply to him are questionable to say the least.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He may be a womanizing insubordinate asshole, but he does care about being a good cop and helping others, and his screw-ups hit him VERY hard.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: The fake serial killer in Season 5.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Jimmy has no illusions about the streets or the realities of the department but he still cares about doing good and helping people.
• Knight Templar: His pals suggest it sometimes, due to the mayhem he causes. Jimmy himself wonders if they are right.
  You start to tell the story, you think you're the hero, and then when you get done talking...
• The Last DJ: Doing actual police work is a sure way to harm your career. A recurring theme in the first season is that McNulty's career is hanging by a thread due to him embarrassing the police brass with Judge Phelan and the press, which eventually escalates to Rawls outright trying to find an excuse to get Jimmy fired. At the end of the first season and through part of the second he is reassigned to riding a boat in the harbor unit, a duty he absolutely despises. The trope is somewhat played with, however, since it's often pointed out that some serious character flaws such as self-destructiveness, arrogance, and a need to prove himself to everyone around him are part of what drives him to such extremes and makes him willing to put his career on the line, not just a moral drive to do the right thing.
• Last-Name Basis: Even Russell's kids call him McNulty. Bunk and Freamon do use Jimmy, especially when they want to talk him out of something.
• Lovable Rogue: Jimmy is a very harsh deconstruction of this trope. He's a charming, determined and intelligent cop with a sly wit and little regard for rules or authority and who follows his own instincts and moral compass in order to do what's right, not caring about the cost to himself or who he pisses off. In almost any other setting, he'd be the hero whose cavalier attitude is treated as endearing and the only way to get results. In this world, he's a barely functional trainwreck whose disrespect for those he works with and for and belief that the rules don't apply to him end up causing even more problems for himself and everyone around him.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Less wrong when you can flash a badge to the patrolmen and then continue about your business.
• Manchild: Jimmy is pretty immature, to say the least, and it's not treated as endearing or a harmless flaw either:
  McNulty: You know what they call a guy who pays that much attention to his clothes, don't you?
  Bunk: Mm-hmm, a grown-up.
• Married to the Job: As Freamon says in this get-a-life scene.
  Lester: Oooh, you need somethin' outside of this here. The job won't save you Jimmy.
• Men Can't Keep House: The status of his apartment is reflective of the status of his wrecked life.
• Mistaken for Racist: Played with; he poses as a bigot with a sheriff, assuming the man would be a prejudiced hick. He has to backpedal when he learns that the guy's wife is black.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He is demoted at the end of season 1 for his role in bringing the Barksdales to justice. Happens again in 5 when he brings Marlo's crew to justice barring Marlo himself.
• Officer O'Hara: Averted - he's of Irish descent (and possesses a couple of stereotypical traits), but he is a competent detective and doesn't have a comedy accent.
• Off the Wagon: In season 5. The results are predictably disastrous for both Jimmy and everyone around him..
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: The way he sees his enemy, Stringer. He is the only one who is moved by his death soon after the latter was killed.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Dominic West's natural English accent leaks through on occasion.
• Parental Neglect: McNulty loves his kids Sean and Michael but won't be up for any father-of-the year awards.
  • Due to his tight schedule, he has his kids mixed with less-than-exemplary companions such as Omar and Bubbles.
  • Loses sight of his children when they are made to play-tail Stringer in a market.
  • He doesn't really know the first thing about his kids' education or whether Sean is in sixth or seventh grade.
  • He leaves the kids alone in the house to have a quickie in a hotel, in the middle of the night.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Goes out of his way in the case of the thirteen "Jane Does" (unidentified dead women) and involves himself in a personal, humane level when nobody from Homicide gives a damn about'em. This shows Beadie that deep down, McNulty is a decent guy.
  • Going to pick up the homeless man he stashed in Virginia as part of his scheme, the implication being that he's going to get him help.
• Phrase Catcher: His assholism is referenced by almost every character, often. He's also a magnet for "My office, now!"
• Police Brutality: Averted; he's basically the only character affiliated with the police who's never seen beating a suspect.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Takes down Marlo's crew in Season 5 and ultimately is thrown off the force but Marlo is never allowed to return to the streets again and is forced to retire which unlike Stringer, is Marlo's own personal hell.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Twice. The second time he actually prefers it though.
• Prodigal Hero: Considered and often called the prodigal son and the black sheep due to his on-off relationship with Homicide and the MCU.
• Reassignment Backfire: Rawls puts him on the boat. Jimmy still finds a way to get back at Rawls and shove one major case up his jurisdiction, for the lulz.
  Rawls: (laughing) Fuckin' Jimmy. Fuckin' with us for the fun of it. I gotta give the son-of-a-bitch some credit for wit on this one. Cocksucker.
• Red Oni: To Bunk's Blue Oni (alternatively, to Kima's or Lester's Blue).
• Sex with the Ex: Just the once, leading Jimmy to think Divorce Is Temporary. It isn't.
• Shirtless Scene: Several. For a borderline alcoholic who usually looks like he slept in his clothes, Jimmy is in pretty good shape.
• Shotgun Wedding: He dropped out of college and married Elena after she got pregnant.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: The narrative shows how some of his twisted shenanigans stem from an odd sense of justice and personal righteousness.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Lean, black-haired and good-looking, probably too much for his own good, even scoring while comatosely drunk.
• Three-Way Sex: Jimmy is bloody outnumbered◊ in a bordello, with sexy results. Other characters are still talking about it several seasons later.
• Too Clever by Half: He's too competent for his own good, smart enough to chase criminals like Avon and Stringer but not smart enough to work around his own flaws. It speaks volumes that his only period of stability happens when he is away from investigative tasks.
• Toxic Friend Influence: To everyone who indulges him, but specially to Bunk, Lester and Sydnor in season 5, because Jimmy's illegal schemes compromise their integrity. In his determination, without malice but steadily, Jimmy is a dangerous chum that drags people towards his cutting-corners, destructive course.
  Lester: You put fire to everything you touch McNulty, then you walk away while it burns!
• Tragic Hero: The same traits that make Jimmy heroic and why the audience can never fully turn against him such as his determination, intelligence and genuine desire to do good and help others, especially those no one else in the department gives a shit about, also regularly come back to haunt him and eventually destroy his career after nearly wrecking his personal life for the second time.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Willing to stab Daniels in the back through Colvin despite Daniels working to get McNulty off the boat, much to Daniels' Tranquil Fury. Unlike most examples, this is not for personal gain but to do his work. Jimmy puts the job above everything else, even personal loyalty.
• Unscrupulous Hero: He cites anger as a major source for his dysfunction and half the shit he does can be rooted back to his need to demonstrate that he's smarter than anybody else, but he gets a bit too involved and casual when tampering with the vagrants, like a child on a candy store, which doesn't go unnoticed by Bunk, Lester or the FBI.
  Lester: McNulty, you are deserving of serious psychological study
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Bunk.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Receives these, in tandem with "The Reason You Suck" Speech, on a regular basis.
  Bunk: There you go. Givin' a fuck when it ain't your turn to give a fuck.
  • Subverted in season 5 when Bunk brings Lester to the loop, hoping to end the serial killer scheme. Lester objects because the lie needs more wings to fly.
    Lester: Shit like this actually goes through your fucking brain?
• Working with the Ex: Has an affair with Rhonda at the beginning of the series. They keep working together occasionaly after the break-up. He's very cool about Daniels dating her.
• Worthy Adversary: Intellectual vanity is one of his motors. He is proud to be chasing Avon and Stringer, on the basis that stupid criminals make stupid cops.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Jimmy seems to believe he's the heroic cop whose devotion to his work and disinterest in rules is the only way to get the job done, even if it pisses off those in charge and rubs some of his colleagues the wrong way. In reality, he's widely regarded as a selfish, insubordinate jerkass whose flaws end up negating his noble efforts and making things worse for everyone, especially himself.

Cedric Daniels

Played by: Lance Reddick

"Bend too far and you are already broken"

Comes a day you're gonna have to decide whether it's about you or about the work.

Daniels begins the show as a Lieutenant in charge of the Narcotics Unit for the Western District, and spends most of the series in charge of the special details that would become the model for the Major Crimes Unit. He is fiercely loyal to those under his command and demands similar loyalty in turn. He works to rein in the various excesses of McNulty, Herc, Carver, and Pryzbylewski, while resisting the bureaucratic rot that has corrupted the district command. There is only so much he can do, given his superiors' impatience for in-depth police work, and the existence of a dossier implicating him in past corruption that Ervin Burrell holds over his head.

He begins the series as a career-minded officer who is pliant to the demands of his superiors, but when he's confronted with the deeds and scale of the Barksdale drug crew, realizes the inefficacy of the limited investigative measures that his bosses will allow, and is pressured by McNulty, Greggs and Freamon to commit to the case, ultimately he jumps in with both feet. Daniels's renewed commitment to quality police work costs him much throughout the series (including his marriage), but in seasons 4 and 5, he receives a series of rapid promotions that ends with a gig as Police Commissioner. Daniels soon resigns after earning this top spot, since keeping the job would entail juking the crime statistics for the mayor, or a fight to keep the job which would put the lives and careers of his friends in jeopardy. At the end of the show he's become a defense attorney, finally making use of the law degree he'd earned before his police career.

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• Ambiguously Evil: The main question about Daniels in Season 1 is if he is a good cop. Early on, he coaches Prez on how to talk to internal affairs and lie about why he blinded a child, but shows a lot of shame in doing so. Fitz casually tells McNulty that Daniels had been investigated for corruption, but McNulty comes to respect and vouch for him either way. The series makes it pretty clear that Daniels is a morally good man who is trying to be an Internal Reformist. It also never goes into detail about the nature of his corruption.
• Badass Pacifist: He has a brains over brawns style and approach to crime-fighting. Behold his peaceful arrest of Avon inside the Barksdale compound, taking over a SWAT operation. He also has the stones to hold his own against Burrell and Clay Davis in a dignified manner.
• Bald of Authority: Begins to sport a shaved head in season 3, which makes him look even more commanding.
• Being Good Sucks: In the end, Cedric correctly indentifies that the mayorally mandated fixing of the crime stats are one of the largest structual problems for the police as an institution, and one of the main obstacles for any kind of meaningful reform, and when he becomes Commissioner he staunchly refuses to have any part in it. Unfortunately, this refusal to play ball results in City Hall pressuring him into resigning.
• Benevolent Boss: Cedric Daniels is a pretty supportive boss, even Jimmy calls him, "better than most".
• Catchphrase: Downplayed with "This is (some) bullshit."
• The Chains of Commanding: Daniels is always struggling between the politics of the higher-ups, his own judgement, the pressure and Cowboy Cop antics from some of his more uncontrollable but competent detectives and the need to protect his more inept underlings.
• Character Development: He begins the series as a company man observant of the chain of command, but grows tired of the chronic obstructionism and he gradually becomes a reformist, it's not about him, but about the job.
• Chekhov's Gun: His law degree. This is Truth in Television, as one of the detectives David Simon shadowed when writing Homicide, Terry McLarney^note  Who Detective Steve Crosetti was loosely based on, was a law school graduate. Another gun of a much higher caliber is the corruption investigation in his past.
• Da Chief: Warns early on that he doesn't want "cowboy shit" and tries to reign McNulty in most of the time during the first season. He becomes a justified case in mid-season 3 when Jimmy and Kima abuse his confidence, force his hand and derail his investigation with their extracurricular activities, but is still willing to have McNulty in his unit after telling him that he's done.
• Deadpan Snarker: From time to time.
  So one thieving politician trumps 22 murders. Good to know.
• Death Glare: He often gives to people who he feels have stepped over the line to just let them know that he is going to give them a serious dressing-down in private later. And he is scarily good at them.
• Defector from Decadence: Daniels quits the force after being told to cheat on the crime stats.
• A Father to His Men: Tries to protect his subordinates after their numerous displays of incompetence or disloyalty, even when this reflects bad on him.
• Good Is Not Soft: He can be quite reasonable and accommodating, but when something angers him, he'll be very vocal about it.
• Guile Hero: After being burned a few times, he becomes relatively adept at playing office politics indirectly and/or without openly antagonizing other powerful officials. It's how he earns Carcetti's favor.
• Honor Before Reason: Several times, particularly toward the end of the series.
  "You bend too far and you are already broken."
• Internal Reformist: Tries to transform the "stats game" into real police work.
• Large and in Charge: Usually the tallest police officer in any room unless the 6'3" Rawls is present.
• The Last DJ: To Burrell's infinite chagrin.
• Married to the Job: Cedric literally tells his wife Marla that he loves the job, which eventually leads to the end of their marriage.
• The Mentor: He's not merely a commanding officer, he likes to give advice to his subordinates whenever he can. It takes awhile, but Carver eventually heeds his advice and it, along with what Carver learns from Colvin, makes Carver a better policeman.
• The Missus and the Ex: A male example. He expects McNulty to not be very happy about his dating of Rhonda, but the two men have a friendly chat over it and everything goes fine and dandy.
• Mr. Fanservice: He is in excellent shape and occasionally gets shirtless scenes to show it off. He also gets a sex scene with Rhonda at the end of Season 3 that prominently shows his body.
• Nerves of Steel: He has the stones to hold his ground against Senator Davis and Deputy Burrell and stand tall while he's a mere Lieutenant.
• Not So Above It All: At work, he cracks fewer jokes than the rest of the team. At home, he's one of the few guys who can skewer Lester. And even he joins in on the asskicking when Bird refers to Kima as a cunt, which shows how much Bird has it coming. More so, Daniels later tells Bunk to send Bird his love when the trial approaches.
• Noodle Incident: The precise nature of the corruption allegation he faced earlier in his career is never revealed, though it is implied to have been something along the lines of skimming drug money.
• Nice Guy: He loses his temper many times with some of less competent underlings but he's A Father to His Men who is way more accommodating and reasonable than most of the other police commanders, has a solid conscience and is Amicable Exes with Marla Daniels.
• Official Couple: With lawyer Rhonda Pearlman in season 3.
• Passed-Over Promotion: Burrell implies that Daniels will get the command of the next available district. The promise is nullified after their fallout over the Barksdale detail and the post goes to a more manageable officer. Burrell ultimately later fills the promise at the end of season 3 after forcing Bunny Colvin out of the Western District over the Hamsterdam fracas.
• Perpetual Frowner: His typical expression borders on Death Glare territory.
• Rank Up: A rising star under Carcetti's New Day. He's too good to last. He's proud to be promoting Carver face to face in one of his last acts as policeman.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Eventually revealed to be one. He's gruff and not someone to take major fuck-ups lightly but he is generally good to those he works with and will listen to those under him.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: After the first Barksdale detail is wrapped up, Burrell sends him to the basement to handle evidence control.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Subverted in Season 2; he grows tired of all the bullshit inherent in the BPD, sends in his resignation papers and is days away from leaving the force, but he changes his mind after the Major Crimes Unit and actual police work become plausible.
  • Played straight in Season 5 when he's put between a rock and a hard place.
• Secret-Keeper: Daniels will keep secrets to save loyal subordinates and loved ones. In the end he is given a choice to either juke the stats or address his allegedly corrupt past that he is being blackmailed with. He could have fought but he quits the force instead because it's implied his ex-wife was involved.
• Shirtless Scene: Several during his private life. The man is really ripped.
• Silent Treatment: He tends to show his disapproval by going deadly quiet. Often.
• Sophisticated as Hell: He almost always keeps a polite and formal tone but has no issue using as much profanity as anyone else.
• The Stoic: Tends to keep his emotions in check which makes the few times he does lose it either hilarious or absolutely terrifying.
• Token Good Teammate: He's one of the few people above the detectives and officers in command who actually gives a shit about doing good and helping the city rather than his own career advancement. Given the setting he's in, this does him little good.
• Tranquil Fury: One of his specialties and very good at this. Detectives that wouldn't think twice about throwing down with hardened gangbangers are scared shitless when Daniels' voice drops another octave in restrained fury.

Shakima "Kima" Greggs

Played by: Sonja Sohn

"Don't tell me we're the same kind of asshole?"

I mean, I know you don't like it. But shit, I was proud.

Kima starts out as detective in Narcotics, working under Daniels, considered by Daniels to be his best and most reliable detective. As a result he promptly enlists her into the special detail investigating the Barksdales, as he needs someone he can trust and rely on. One of the more competent cops on the team, she does much work in surveillance and recruiting informants, particularly Bubbles.

While undercover she is shot and badly wounded in the first season, but recovers and, under pressure from her girlfriend, who doesn't like Kima's dangerous line of work, transfers to a desk job. Ultimately, Daniels lures her back into the fray and after spending season 2 and 3 as part of the MCU she eventually earns an assignment in Homicide.

Kima is completely beholden to her conscience and strong sense of ethics, (which doesn't make her nice; while she'd never look the other way at a crime or lie to her superiors, she doesn't think twice about beating the crap out of a suspect) and as a result in the fifth season, she is the one who reports McNulty and Freamon's fake serial killer to Daniels.

---

• Action Girl: She fights crime in a rather literal sense, and isn't averse to jumping into the fray or tuning up prisoners.
• All Lesbians Want Kids: Zig-zagged. Kima is talked into having a child with her girlfriend, but is completely unenthusiastic about it, which ultimately causes their separation. In season 5, she starts to regret her decision and spends more time with the child.
• Babies Make Everything Better: Averted; Kima's girlfriend having a baby makes their relationship worse, and eventually contributes to their breakup. Kima does come to care for her son however.
• Blood Knight: She doesn't find police work satisfying unless she has the chance to forcefully confront and bust criminals face-to-face.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: The soft center comes out when children are involved.
• Butch Lesbian: Kima is open with her colleagues about her sexual orientation, although the womanizing McNulty tries to hit on her before she tells him.
• By-the-Book Cop: The closest thing to one on this show, as evidenced by her refusal to testify that she saw that Wee-Bey was the second gunman when she gets shot in Season 1 and her blowing the whistle on Freamon and McNulty in season 5; however, she still gets in on a little extracurricular brutality and other inappropriate conduct at times.
• Can Always Spot a Cop: Averted. When she goes undercover with Orlando, she completely convinces the various Barksdale soldiers, even Wee-bey, that she's one of Orlando's stripper girls. This nearly causes her death, as Little Man shoots her without hesitation so that there will be no witnesses to Orlando's execution, when they probably would have backed off on the hit if they had known she was a cop.
• Consummate Professional
• Fair Cop: Despite — or perhaps because of — her butch attitude Kima is quite good-looking and attracts the attention of both men and women.
• The Fettered
• Henpecked Husband: A lesbian example. A consequence of being the masculine half of her relationship. Lampshaded by Herc.
• Honor Before Reason: Her refusal to falsely testify that she knows for a fact that it was Wee-Bey who shot her when she is only mostly sure.
• The Lad-ette: She enjoys drinking, screwing, and busting heads as much as any of her male co-workers; conversely, she doesn't have much interest in "feminine" activities like shopping or homemaking.
• Married to the Job: Her partner begins to resent her dedication to policework when it detracts from her willingness to be a parent to their child.
• Naïve Newcomer: When she lands in homicide, she experiences a number of novice-related pranks from the veteran cops. The audience surrogate part is downplayed, as this happens in season 4.
• "Not So Different" Remark: At one point in Season 3 while doing some late night drinking commiserating with Jimmy McNulty she makes one of these remarks to him, having recognized their many similarities not just at work (natural police, enormous dedication to the job, jumping through hoops to work around the police bureaucracy and obstructive bosses) but also in their flawed personal lives. (At this point Kima is straining her relationship with Cheryl much like Jimmy wrecked his relationship with his ex-wife Elena, she's drinking too much and sleeping around too much, including taking tips from McNulty himself on how to have police partners cover for infidelities, etc.) She eventually tones down the worst aspects of these similarities and never winds up going as self-destructive as McNulty does.
  Kima: Don't tell me I'm the same kind of asshole?
  McNulty: [laughing] Pucker up, girlfriend!
  Kima: Jesus. I'm turning into McNulty.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: When she is posing as a criminal's girlfriend for a sting operation, she brings out her femme side and draws admiring comments from her male colleagues.
• Twofer Token Minority: As a mixed black/Korean lesbian, she ought to count as a threefer, but in this case it's an aversion since the show realistically portrays the demographic makeup of Baltimore and she's not the only black, the only lesbian, or the only female detective around.

Thomas "Herc" Hauk

Played by: Domenick Lombardozzi

The Western District Way

I say we go down to the terrace and fuck some people up.

One of Those Two Guys in Narcotics. Herc is probably the dumbest working detective on the show. To him, the job is all about the "rip and run" and banging heads on the corners (often literally). What little active detective work he does do often involves cutting corners (such as placing bugs and pulling a surveillance camera without proper authorization) or bumbling his way through ineffective interrogations. He's also not above stealing confiscated drug money. That said, he does have some positive qualities, such as loyalty to his friends and some capacity for self-reflection.

During season 3 he becomes a part of Mayor Royce's security team, and witnesses the mayor having an affair with his secretary. He is bought off with a promotion to sergeant and a transfer back to the MCU, but loses any political connections when Royce is voted out in favor of Carcetti. He is forced to resign in season 4 after he manages to wrongfully arrest an influential black minister and lose an expensive police surveillance camera in a short period of time. After leaving the force he becomes part of Maurice Levy's firm as a private investigator, where his friendships within the department and dumb luck earn him a bright future.

---

• Aesop Amnesia: At the end of season 1 he's seen lecturing a couple of rookies on the importance of "smart" detective work as opposed to haphazard violent busts. If this lesson ever truly sank in and he wasn't just posturing, it's all but forgotten in the following seasons. The closest thing we get to an explanation of why he didn't pay attention to that aesop is him exclaiming about what a hassle police paperwork is when he tries doing some property seizures in season 2, hinting that his distaste for the bureaucracy and the work that goes into actual smart policing nudged him back to his old ways of busting heads.
• Authority in Name Only: No one respects his rank of sergeant, both because of the circumstances of his promotion and the fact he's an idiot.
• Boisterous Bruiser: A fun loving, not too bright foot soldier in the police department who always favors physical solutions to departmental problems, and clearly enjoys the physical side of the job above everything else.
• Brooklyn Rage: Lombardozzi's New York accent was so blatant that the show eventually wrote it in that Herc was originally from the Big Apple, and there are few cops in the show more violent or prone to Police Brutality.
• Butt-Monkey: His incompetence often lands him in very hot water and eventually (along with his dishonesty and thuggery), gets him fired. Even when he's right, his colleagues usually ignore him until someone competent can confirm it.
• Catchphrase: "The Western district way."
• Character Development: In the last season, after he has been kicked off the force and is working for Levy as a consultant, he privately admits to Carver that he realizes he was a useless, brutal police and wishes he'd tried to make a better go of it.
• Cowboy Cop: Like McNulty, a deconstruction; in his case of the "cut corners and rough up the suspects" variety.
• The Ditz: For all his asshole-ish attitude and knuckle-headedness, it's really hard to stay mad at the guy, though.
• The Driver: His role in the Mayor's detail. This puts him in a very awkward spot when he comes to collect Royce and finds him in a pantless situation.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Like Carver, he gets tired of doing lowly surveillance jobs and transfers away from the MCU, but unlike Carver, Herc earns little respect or knowledge and eventually comes back to the unit.
• Dumb Muscle: A brute that approaches crimefighting with "the Western district way" motto; rounding up corners, knocking heads and a complete lack of subtlety, in a nutshell.
• Everyone Has Standards: Appalled by the downward spiral of Hamsterdam with events such as the police having to hide a murder committed inside of the free zone, he blows the whistle and informs a reporter.
• Face–Heel Turn: After being fired from the BPD and taking a job as an investigator with Levy he becomes something of a Punch-Clock Villain. Ironically, being fired from the BPD makes him undergo at least some introspection and Character Development that makes him tone down some of his previous faults, but his new job also makes him a minor antagonist, and he is indirectly responsible for Levy being able to free Marlo.
• I Know You Know I Know: He finally makes sergeant thanks to it. When detailed with the Mayor, he awkwardly surprises Royce in the middle of getting a blowjob from his secretary. After being counseled by Valchek, Royce and Herc reach an implicit agreement about his silence and the Mayor gets him a promotion and transfer with a single phone call.
• Irony:
  • For all the idiotic screwups he is responsible for throughout season 4 (losing the police camera, revealing Randy's identity, abandoning Bubbles...), the thing that galvanizes the mayor and police brass to find any way possible to fire him is something that wasn't entirely his fault. (Roughing up and searching a minister's car based on a false tip from Bubbles.)
  • After all his years as a cop where he refused to learn the nuances of the lives of criminals or build community relations, as Levy's investigator his greatest strengths are knowing the nuances of the BPD and ability to maintain relations with them and get the cops to spill details about what is going on inside the department.
• Jerkass: An abrasive, crass, immature cop who lives to get physical with suspects and makes a racist faux pas when wrongfully detaining a black minister. That last one makes the ministers complain and demand his head for his actions.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As dim witted, crass, blunt, and brutal as he can be, he's not without Pet the Dog moments.
  • Apologizes to Bodie's grandmother for the inconvenience and foul language they used after the police come blazing into her house.
  • For all his failings, when Internal Affairs descends on his department, he takes the fall himself, instead of trying to save himself by lying, trying to get the others in the unit to cover for him (impossible under the circumstances, and if they had tried it likely would have meant at least a hit to their careers as well), or attempting to blame someone else.
  • He supports Carver in his decision to bubble Colicchio to IID after Colicchio attacks a civilian for no reason. While Herc acknowledges that the act won't go over well with some rank and file cops, he encourages Carver to do what he thinks is right, regardless of what those cops say or think. At the same time Herc voices regret for having been a violent and incompetent cop.
• Karma Houdini: He was an aggressive and lousy cop, which ultimately costs him his job when he pisses off the wrong people, but he ends up making far more money in his new job at Levy's law firm. Levy eventually invites him to have dinner with his family, and with Levy's connections, Herc has a very bright future ahead of him as a bodyguard or private detective for the city's wealthiest.
• The Load: At the beginning of the show he and Carver are far and away the least competent detectives among the major characters; Daniels only trusts them to do surveillance work and half the time they can't even manage that. Carver eventually gets better, Herc doesn't.
• Manchild: At times even more immature than some of the hoppers.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: More than once, but his interrogation of Little Kevin, in which he lets slip that Randy talked to the police and thereby ruins Randy's life, is the worst.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: His Bronx accent sticks out like a sore thumb; in season five there's finally a spoken acknowledgment that he's originally from New York.
• The Peter Principle: He wasn't exactly competent as a detective, but at times he could be a decent foot soldier, and was useful for simple tasks, and if he screwed those simple tasks up (as he sometimes did) the repercussions were generally minimal. Once promoted to Sergeant and sent back into the field, his screw ups have much bigger ramifications and he is no longer Beneath Notice as far as the bosses are concerned. In record time he manages to piss off pillars of the community, wreck a young man's life, lose police equipment that he took without proper authorization, and cause a minor political crisis for the mayor himself. This quickly results in Herc being dismissed from the BPD.
• Police Are Useless: You could fill several pages detailing his many screw-ups over the course of the show.
• Police Brutality: Most of the cops on the show engage in at one point or another, but Herc is more guilty of police brutality than most; brutality complaints are one of the main reasons he's not promoted to sergeant despite scoring well on the exam.
  Daniels: ...a formal brutality charge, which for Herc will make an even four in the last two years.
  Herc: None sustained...
  Daniels: But all of them true.
• Punch-Clock Villain: After he gets kicked from the police force, he goes to work for Maurice Levy as an investigator and helps get Marlo Stanfield a walk on the charges against him. But he's still friends with Carver and it's clear he just likes having a good paying job with perks.
• Rank Up: He scores surprisingly well on the Sergeant exam, but does not get a promotion until the mayor kicks him upstairs after Herc witnesses him in a delicate situation.
• Those Two Guys: With Carver.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: He gets progressively stupider as the seasons go by. Season 1 seems to teach a lesson about the importance of subtle police work, but it all goes down hill from there.
• Villainous Friendship: After his crucial role in the Stanfield case, Levy invites him to his inner circle and starts to treat Herc like "family".
• Villain with Good Publicity: He is kicked from the police force after many years of being a brutal cop and a screwup, but he mentions to Levy in Season 5 that he still has lots of friends in the police, and many of the rank and file cops think he was screwed over by the system, the bosses, and the politicians, basically seeing him as a police martyr.

Ellis Carver

Played by: Seth Gilliam

"It all matters. Everything we do."

I don't need to chase these fucking knuckleheads. I know half of 'em. Shit, I know where they hang.

The other of Those Two Guys in Narcotics. Although brighter and more perceptive than Herc, Carver starts the series with a similar mentality to his partner, showing almost identical levels of immaturity, corruption, and being just as willing to engage in Police Brutality. Due to the influences of Daniels, and more importantly, Bunny Colvin, Carver begins to change his outlook and grow into a more effective and responsible policeman.

He is instrumental in keeping Hamsterdam running in Season 3, sometimes making desperate attempts to keep Colvin's experiment going as he sees the difference it makes on the street. In Season 4 he tries to help out Randy Wagstaff, but makes the mistake of trusting Herc with the young boy in an attempt to help Herc keep his career going. Herc's mishandling of the situation makes Randy a pariah on the streets and puts him in danger of being sent back to a group home. In one of the series' biggest Tear Jerkers, Carver cannot save Randy from the group home.

As time goes on Carver proves himself a competent commander with a strong sense of ethics. He is promoted to lieutenant in the finale, showing a strong resemblance to his early mentor, Daniels.

---

• Authority in Name Only: In Season 2, when he's brought onto the Sobotka investigation. Daniels tells him that even though he's a Sergeant, his rank was not earned (it was given because he was The Mole to Burrell in Season 1), and that Greggs will have authority over him. Eventually in Seasons 4 and 5, he actually earns the respect and authority as he shows more skills in leadership.
• Badass Boast: When he procures Marlo's number (courtesy of Herc actually), to an impressed Lester.
  Police work, detective, police work.
• By-the-Book Cop: He's a very informal cop but Colicchio pushes his luck after a demonstration of excessive force and gets officially reported by Carver, who was initially flexible.
• The Chains of Commanding: After he's promoted to sergeant, most notably when he's forced to write up Anthony Colicchio for police brutality in season 5.
• Changing of the Guard: He is the implied successor of both Colvin and Daniels.
• Character Development: Goes from a hot-headed and inexperienced rookie to a seasoned, streetwise veteran cop over the course of five seasons, and the transformation is entirely believable.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Over the course of season 2, Carver begins to tire of doing lowly surveillance jobs after he has been promoted to Sergeant, a rank which Daniels refuses to acknowledge because Carver got it in large part due to acting as The Mole inside the MCU for Burrell back in Season 1. Despite his own frustrations, at first Carver tries to defend Daniels and the assignment to an even more irate Herc, but Carver hits his Rage Breaking Point when he and Herc are staking out Nick Sobotka's house and are not notified that during their stakeout Nick has turned himself in, meaning the two had wasted entire days in a police car in front of Sobotka's house for no reason, and that their own unit had Nick and didn't think to tell them this. At that point Carver declares that he's going to transfer to an open Sergeant's post in Colvin's district, and takes Herc with him.
• Fair Cop: Perlman dismisses him as an inside man on the brothel sting because he doesn't look like he'd have to pay for sex. He takes the compliment.
• Heroic BSoD: Has a truly heartbreaking one after what happens to Randy.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Evolves into this in Season 3, and by Season 4 he almost entirely loses the "jerk" part.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Has a hilarious moment of this in Season 2, when he and Herc are left watching a townhouse all day looking for a guy that had already turned himself in.
• The Mole: In Season 1, he feeds Burrell with inside information of Daniel's detail.
• Rank Up: To Sergeant, with the implication that he's promoted because he was Burrell's mole, as Carver scored worse than Herc on the Sergeant's Exam. At the end of the final season he gets promoted to Lieutenant, in one of the few meritorious and truly deserved promotions in the whole show.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He follows Colvin's advice and becomes a reference in the neighbourhood, a policeman close to the citizen and not a perpetual antagonist to the street felon.
• Those Two Guys: With Herc.
• Took a Level in Badass: He starts out incompetent but develops into a genuinely good cop by the end of the show.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Over time Carver goes from another hardass cop who barely acknowledges the community around him to caring about the community he polices and understanding both the community and its criminals as people rather than just targets.

Lester Freamon

Played by: Clarke Peters

"Cool Lester Smooth"

We're building something here, detective. From the ground up. And all the pieces matter.

A detective transferred in to Daniels' unit from the Pawnshop Unit. At first he keeps to himself, spending much of his time applying his meticulous nature to making miniature furniture instead of doing police work, causing McNulty and others to write him off as a worthless hump. After watching the other detectives fail to secure so much as a photograph of the detail's intended target, Freamon comes off the bench and shows himself to be true "natural police" (in fact, he is a former Homicide detective), proving himself knowledgeable and adept at many of aspects of running a wiretap investigation (including an understanding of the legal and political nuances that even the other competent detectives lack), and serves as a mentor to Kima, Prez and Sydnor.

He is almost as insistent as (and at times, MORE insistent than) McNulty when it comes to pressing an investigation beyond what the department brass has tolerance for, but has more wisdom about how and when to fight for a case. While he's not above crossing his superiors and manipulating his coworkers, and goes along with Jimmy's 5th season serial killer scheme, he still lacks Jimmy's more self-destructive tendencies.

---

• The Ace: Subtle, but he's an elite investigator with a very wide range of talents, can play the role of a conman and put on accents, he has high social skill, which helps him in the job but also scoring with the ladies, and his manual ability and patience with his dollhouse furniture nets him an income superior to his own wage.
• Almighty Janitor: A regular detective working secretly inside a closet and from an abandoned warehouse brings the crime lord of Baltimore down. He single handedly orchestrates a city-wide operation and then matter-of-factly debriefs the Deputy Ops about it as if Daniels were a subordinate.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: In Daniels' words, he is by himself the Major Crimes Unit.
• Badass Boast: Near the end of the show, he wags a clock to Marlo's face to point out he has triumphed over the drug lord and cracked the code.
  Me? I'm just a police.
• Badges and Dog Tags: Although it's only brought up once or twice, Freamon served in the Army, and uses that experience to teach Shardenne how to walk so that her steps will always be the same distance, this way they can get precise measurements for the inside of the Barksdale headquarters in Orlando's. He's a little put off that none of the other detectives in the MCU served, muttering that they're "a bunch of draft dodging peace freaks."^note Which is rather ironic, given that actor Clarke Peters was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War who had to fight charges that he illegally dodged the draft.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Eccentricities such as his habit of painting dollhouse furniture at his desk lead the others to assume he's a hump; he's anything but.
• The Chessmaster: Probably the smartest of the police on the whole show, including McNulty and Daniels.
• Con Man: He plays the role of one to fool a savvy street felon and further his wiretapping operation in season 3.
• Cool Old Guy: Natural police. Occasionally mounts up and shows his prowess during field operations, for instance when he punks Bird with a bottle, and is the only character able to dominate, blackmail and outcon Clay Davis.
• Cowboy Cop: Though he's much smarter and more careful about it than McNulty or Herc.
• Cultured Badass: He became highly knowledgeable in furniture styles, particularly classics and antiques, by virtue of his having taken up dollhouse furniture making as a side business while working in the Pawn Shop Unit. The hobby has also made him fairly well-off.
• Deadpan Snarker: Has a poignant remark for almost everything, usually with a cynical flavour.
• Do Wrong, Right: When Bunk brings Lester in to talk some sense into McNulty's regarding his "serial killer" scheme, Lester apparently reacts with a What the Hell, Hero?, not because what McNulty's doing is outright illegal, but because the plot is weak and needs to be sensationalized.
• Forensic Accounting: One of his specialties, usually met with a stern opposition from the higher-ups, since drug money funds political campaigns. The few times he can use it, he compares it to a Boom, Headshot!.
  You follow drugs and you find drug addicts and drug dealers, you follow the money and you don't know where the fuck it's gonna take you.
• Guile Hero: Very subtle and very good at making other people dance to his tune. For instance, he often addresses Daniels as Cedric, in a paternalist, almost condescending way to make Daniels do what Lester asks.
• Happy Ending: He’s drummed out of the police force, but seems to have no regrets. He gets to retire comfortably on a thirty year service veteran’s pension and his lucrative side business money with his loving, beautiful girlfriend.
• Head Butting Heroes: When McNulty keeps investigating Stringer Bell on his own, Lester is compliant out of loyalty to Daniels and happy to do actual police work after years in terrible units. They nearly come to blows when McNulty appeals to Lester's pride and dares him to be police and Freamon berates Jimmy for being a selfish jackass pissing on the unit he himself created. Hilariously, they both give themselves food for thought.
• Insistent Terminology: Worked the pawn shop unit for 13 years.
  and 4 months
• The Last DJ: He endangered his career to make sure that he closed a case, not caring about the fact that he was involving a politically connected fence, or that he probably could have closed the case without involving said fence. His punishment was his ignominious exile to the pawn shop unit.
• May–December Romance: Starts up a relationship with the much younger Shardene which continues through the end of the show.
• The Mentor: To Prez and (to a lesser extent) Kima.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: When everyone refers to the humps on the first season detail, they refer to Polk, Mahone and Lester; little do they know...
• Parental Substitute: Daniels jokes about how Lester invokes this, exploiting his Team Dad status to have his way by exploiting the guilty feelings of his younger protegees/disciples.
  Daniels: He stares at you over the top of his reading glasses, with that look that says I'm the father you never had, and I don't want to be disappointed in you ever again.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Pawnshop unit after charging a politically connected fence in 1989 while working at Homicide. Thirteen years (and four months).
• Second Episode Introduction: A major and justified example. Buried in the pawnshop unit, he's miles away from police work, unlike the officers from homicide and narcotics. Absent in the pilot, he first shows up with the dead wood that is dumped into Daniel's detail in the second episode.
• Sherlock Scan: He figures out how Marlo is disposing of his victims immediately when he notices unusual nails in the boarded-up doorway of a vacant house.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: His glasses help to underscore that he's one of the smartest detectives out there.
• Team Dad: He is the oldest detective in the unit and is always imparting his acquired wisdom to anybody who cares to listen. Daniels even comments that Lester exploits this in a paternalistic way to get what he wants.
• The Vietnam Vet: Said to have fought in the Vietnam War, but is almost never brought up in the show. Upon learning that he's the only veteran assigned to the MCU, he's visibly unamused.
  "Draft-dodging peace freaks, huh?"

Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski

Played by: Jim True-Frost

"It's kinda fun, you know. Figuring shit out"

You juke the stats, and majors become colonels. I've been here before.

Roland begins the series as dead weight that's dumped on the Barksdale detail from Auto, who only still has a career in the department thanks to the aid of his father-in-law, Major Stanislaus Valchek. Prez is unhappy in his job and has a hard time keeping his head while in the street. Early in the series he accompanies Herc and Carver on an ill-conceived recon mission in the high-rise projects, where he pistol-whips a youth (which results in permanent blindness in one eye for the kid). Daniels coaches Prez on how to answer IID's questions, and he is removed from street duty.

While indoors, he takes to Lester's wiretapping, showing a real knack for codebreaking, deciphering the street talk through the tinny audio of the wiretap, following the paper trail and organizing the accumulated info on their targets. In the third season, when responding to a distress call while out making a food run, he accidentally shoots a plainclothes officer, and resigns.

He becomes a middle school teacher in season four, helping out Randy and Dukie as best he can.

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• AM/FM Characterization: Plays Johnny Cash during "work-montage" scenes—"I Walk the Line" when the MCU is piecing together the operation at the docks in Season 2, and "Ring of Fire" while fixing up his classroom at the start of Season 4.
• Author Avatar: Series co-creator Ed Burns was also a Baltimore cop who later retired from the force and became a middle school teacher.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Downplayed if compared with Freamon's, but the man has his moments where he's viewed with admiration by his colleagues for being The Smart Guy / Techno Wizard of the (not very literate) group, cracking codes, enhancing images and such.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Prez becomes a teacher because he wasn't fit to be a cop, only to find out the school system's politics is the same as the police department.
• Bullying a Dragon: A rare sympathetic example but punching your superior in the face and your father-in-law at that is never gonna end well.
• Calling the Old Man Out: With violence, when he snaps after Valchek pushes him around too far.
• Character Development: He's initially incompetent, but he gets better with some guidance.
• Cool Teacher: Season 4 onwards, once he changes jobs. He tries to be an authoritative but still respectful teacher.
• Demoted to Extra: Only has a single appearance in Season 5 at the very last episode.
• Desk Jockey: He becomes this at the beginning of season 1 and proves to be a valuable player in the position, in contrast to his ineptitude as a beat cop. According to Sydnor, Prez was unseemly good at paperwork when Sydnor himself has to pick up after him.
• Establishing Character Moment: A hopeless case of Reckless Gun Usage -luckily against a wall- in his very first scene.
• A Father to His Men: The teacher version, from season 4 onwards.
• Friend or Foe?: He mistakes a fellow cop for a gangster and shoots him to death by mistake in season 3.
• Hidden Depths: As a police officer, Prez is utterly hopeless at working in the field, but it turns out he is quite gifted as a data analyst and paper chaser, something Lester discovers as he mentors him.
• Idiot Ball: In-universe. Practically anyone working with him thinks he has a death grip. He eventually gets better.
  • Used rather painfully after his accidental shooting of Officer Waggoner in season 3. All the other police present are talking about how much of a fuck-up Prez is based off of his record prior to joining the MCU, not having seen the way that he's grown in the years since. McNulty's expression as he listens to Landsman lambaste the guy says it all: Prez's mistake is so huge that McNulty can't really refute the talk, but at the same time he knows just how unfair it is that no one outside the unit will ever understand the true quality Prez has demonstrated to his comrades.
• Idiot Houdini: He is not malicious despite his poor violent actions, he is just not made for being a field cop and since his father-in-law has pull it doesn't matter.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: He does not get along well with guns — first shooting a wall because he forgot to clear the chamber, then killing Waggoner on the assumption that he was a fleeing suspect.
• In-Series Nickname: "Prez" among his police colleagues and "Prezbo" to his students, who struggle to pronounce his actual last name.
• Karma Houdini: Is never seriously disciplined for any of his numerous mistakes, and the limited repercussions he faces frequently work out well for him.
  • His only punishment for shooting up his own squad car and pistol whipping and blinding an unarmed kid in one eye for no reason is to lose his gun and be relegated to desk duty... which he soon discovers he has a natural aptitude for and comes to enjoy.
  • He punches a superior officer in the face and never faces any real consequences. There's never even any indication that his wife (the superior's daughter) was upset about it. Although to be fair, given how much of an unlikeable Jerkass Valchek is perhaps this isn't so surprising.
  • Even killing another cop only results in him losing his job without any criminal charges being filed. He bounces back by becoming a teacher.
• Leeroy Jenkins: One of the reasons he's a poor street cop is his tendency to panic and rush in without a plan in dangerous situations. This flaw ultimately ends his police career when he accidentally kills a plainclothes officer who didn't identify himself.
• Manly Facial Hair: In season 5. Also a literal case of Growing the Beard, since he's become a pillar of authority at his school.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After he accidentally shoots and kills Officer Waggoner.
• Nepotism: His career in the force exists because he is Valchek's son-in-law. He eventually grows tired of this and decides not to put a defense after his last accident and to pursue a new career.
• Nice Guy: Whilst in the first season he Would Hurt a Child, he fully becomes a caring person as a teacher in Season 4. Not to mention there's genuinely no racism or classism to this guy.
• Only Sane Employee: It's painfully jarring that something is awfully wrong with the initial Sobotka detail when Prez is the only one resembling any display or desire of competence.
  Valchek: You sent me a detail of humps, Ervin.
• Precision F-Strike: His pleased reaction to the pieces coming together in the Sobotka case. "Fucking A"
• Reasonable Authority Figure: After becoming a teacher.
• Reassignment Backfire: Twice in the series - first when he becomes a Desk Jockey instead of a beat cop, which allows him to bring his decoding skills to the table and aid the Barksdale investigation; then when he's kicked off the police force and becomes a teacher, a profession he turns out to be very well-suited for.
• Reckless Gun Usage: He accidentally discharge on a wall because he didn't clear the round in the chamber and accidentally blind a kid by pistol whipping him in the eye. One of the main rules of gun safety being to treat a gun as if it was loaded at all time Prez fails miserably at that.
• Second Episode Introduction: Another regular dumped into Daniel's detail in the second episode.
• The Smart Guy: Zig-Zagged — He's a bad street cop, but he turns out to be highly adept at cracking the Barksdale gang's pager codes and figuring out how their organization fits together.
• Took a Level in Badass: Twice — first as a cop although he later backslides, then as a teacher.
• The Unpronounceable: Lampshaded. His students end up calling him "Prezbo" instead.
• Would Hurt a Child: In Season 1, he pistol whips a 14 year old kid in the eye, leaving him blind. He gets better.

Leander Sydnor

Played by: Corey Parker Robinson

"Low bottom enough for you?"

This is the best work I ever did. I never did a case like this. But it's not enough. I gotta go back to Auto tomorrow morning. I just feel like this just ain't finished...

A promising young detective that Daniels fights to get assigned to the unit due to his skills and undercover abilities. (And to compensate for having to receive Prez and certain others.) Does surveillance and undercover work alongside Greggs and Bubbles. He is oddly absent from the reconstituted MCU in season 2, but returns in season 3 and remains a member from that point until the end of the show, even when at one point he is the only detective within the MCU.

He agrees to help Freamon work his illegal wiretap in season 5, and in the series finale, is shown going to Judge Phelan to get a case worked on, demonstrating his willingness to disregard the rules and chain-of-command to bring in a good case.

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• Can Always Spot a Cop: Despite being one of the best undercover cops in the BPD, when he first shows off his homeless junkie disguise for going undercover in the Barksdale investigation, Bubbles quickly pokes holes in his disguise and shows that it wouldn't stand up to scrutiny from an observant dealer, let alone another actual junkie. To be fair this is likely because it's his first time going undercover in a drug related operation, (Sydnor had previously worked with the Auto theft unit) and when he actually does go undercover he is never discovered.
• Cowboy Cop: Goes along with Lester's illegal wiretap and doesn't get found out, so he gets a knack for circumventing the chain of command to obtain results, as seen in the finale.
• Dress Code: Dresses down to plausibly go undercover as a dope-fiend, but Bubbles still points out that his costume needs work.
  Torn cammies by Versace, stained sweatshirt by Ralph Lauren. Haven't showered in two days, haven't shaved in four. I am one ripe, nasty son-of-a-bitch.
• "Eureka!" Moment: After consulting a map of the city, he deduces most of the code used by Marlo; grid and coordinates.
• The Generic Guy: Probably the least distinctive and well-developed among the members of the MCU.
• History Repeats: In the finale, he asks Judge Phelan to help him circumvent the rules to advance a case in a way that closely echoes a similar scene featuring McNulty in season 1.
• Last Chance to Quit: Lester gives him a chance to avoid being involved in the illegal wiretap of Marlo, but Sydnor chooses to remain part of the Unit and keep working to bring Marlo down.
• Only Sane Man: More or less becomes one by default in Season 4 when the MCU is made up of only himself, Herc, and Dozerman.
• Out of Focus: Even when he is around, he gets less screen time and character development than most of the other cops.
• Put on a Bus: For pretty much all of season 2. Lampshaded when Sydnor reminds the other detectives that he doesn't remember the details of the port case because he didn't work it with them.
• The Reliable One:
  • Stays in the background, but is always doing good work, and is competent at every task he puts his head to, even if he has no taste for some of the work he has to do, such as chasing down paper trails after Prez leaves the unit. This makes his Character Development into the next McNulty very unexpected.
  • When Daniels picked him up for the MCU, Sydnor's superior officer was unwilling to part with him, as he considered Sydnor one of his best men.
• Second Episode Introduction: Daniels successfully fights to get Sydnor assigned to the detail as a compensation for having to carry the seemingly useless Roland Pryzbylewski.

Augustus Polk and Patrick Mahon

Augutus Polk.

Patrick Mahon.

Played by: Nat Benchley and Tom Quinn, respectively

Polk: Who signs the overtime slips?
Mahon: A case goes from red to black by way of green, Lieutenant.

Two old-timer detectives transferred from the property department, they are among the useless detectives or "humps" thrown into the first incarnation of the MCU, and proved themselves to be exactly that, even as others such as Prez or Lester showed that they had much more to contribute than expected. When the MCU attempts to raid a Barksdale stash house, Mahon is injured by Bodie and leaps at the chance for an early retirement, then encourages Polk to "accidentally" get himself injured on duty so he can do the same. Polk is ultimately unable to go through with it, and goes into a despondent drinking binge. Due to all the time he misses, Daniels gives him an ultimatum to either get to work or go on medical leave to deal with his alcoholism. Polk chooses the latter. Polk is seen later working in evidence control and no longer drinking on the job.

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• The Alcoholic: Both of them are absolutely notorious for it. Polk shows up drunk at 9am.
  Daniels: Between the two of them, I don't have a designated driver.
• Bilingual Bonus: "Póg mo thóin" (pronounced Pogue Mahone and source of The Pogues' band name) is Irish for "Kiss my ass."
• The Bus Came Back: Augustus Polk appears in Season 2 as one of the many humps of the first Sobotka detail and in Season 5 vegetating in the evidence control unit, where he's cleaned himself up somewhat and become a more productive member of the force. Daniels is glad he landed alright.
  Polk: Yeah, beats working.
• Clueless Detective: Up to pathetically comical levels, they are tasked with putting a face to Avon Barksdale and come up with a photo of a middle-aged white man.
  Greggs: Maybe he's white. (laughs)
• Fat Bastard: Mahon in particular is cantankerous, slovenly, rude, and has a beer gut. Polk is also overweight but tends to come across more as dim, directionless, and permanently befuddled, making him a lesser evil than his Jerkass partner.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Mahon's line about cases being solved by devoting at least some money into them gets vindicated and invoked by other characters in the final season when the Mayor cuts the Department budget dramatically and it undermines the ability of the police to do any real investigative work.
• Lazy Bum: Two horrible "humps". They are allergic to any kind of work.
• The Load: Far and away the most incompetent cops in the MCU.
• Non-Action Guy: While Mahon throws his lot with the rest of the cops during a raid in the field, detaining Bodie (weakly) and being assaulted in return, Polk just stays on the sidelines observing and smoking a cigarrette.
• Officer O'Hara: Two terrible dumb flatfeet of Irish extraction.
• Only in It for the Money: Polk's only real concern about the job is paid overtime. Mahon is of the same ilk and jumps at the chance of early retirement, scheming he'll even complement his pension with a cushy underground economy job.
• Police Are Useless: Oh, yes. Largely because in this case they care about absolutely nothing but themselves and getting through the day with the least amount of fuss possible. They make Scully and Hitchcock look like hyper capable go-getters by comparison.
• Put on a Bus: Mahon takes early retirement following his injury, and is last seen encouraging Polk to do the same.
• Protectorate: Mahon might be a useless piece of work, but he is still "one of our own"; when Bodie revolves and assaults the man during a raid, the hoodlum is promptly shown the "Western district way" by Carver, Herc and Kima.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Polk ends up assigned to evidence control, where he proves to be surprisingly more useful. At the very least, when Daniels sees him once again, he's sober.
• The Slacker: They've long since stopped caring about doing their work properly.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: They are two slothful, incompetent guys with a badge and whose disheveled, boorish ways and mere presence greatly contrast with some of the neat, meticulous and dedicated members of the unit such as Daniels and Freamon, who have every reason to be contemptuous of them.
• Those Two Guys: They hang around together, doing very little until their shift is over. Probably for the best.
• Token Evil Teammate: Mahon takes his laziness and dishonesty too far; he openly scoffs at being part of the unit and tries to convince Polk to hurt himself also to get retirement benefits, even if it means suing the city after deliberately injuring himself.

Caroline Massey

Played by: Joilet F Harris.

A policewoman who joins the MCU in season three, very adept at deciphering street slang over the wire.

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• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Vanishes without a trace toward the middle of Season 4 when LT. Marimow takes over the MCU. Last mentioned to be handling some wiretap paperwork and would be back to the MCU shortly but is never seen or heard from again for the rest of the series.
• Cunning Linguist: Can decipher street lingo far better than most cops.
• Remember the New Guy?: Caroline is just kind of there at the beginning of Season 3 and never gets much of an introduction or focus.
• Sassy Black Woman: She has a sharp tongue and plenty of sass for whoever tries to mess with her.

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