The Wire's David Simon and George Pelecanos are returning to Baltimore for an HBO police corruption limited series

Deadline

Simon and his longtime collaborator, crime writer Pelecanos, are adapting investigative journalist Justin Fenton's book We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops and Corruption, focusing on the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force. Last fall, Pelecanos told Deadline "we rounded up the old (writing) crew from The Wire” for their next project. According to Deadline, "We Own This City is set in Baltimore 2015. Riots are erupting across the city as citizens demand justice for Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man who has died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. Drug and violent crime are surging, and the city is reaching its highest murder count in more than two decades: 342 homicides in a single year, in a city of just 600,000 people. Facing pressure from the mayor’s office—as well as a federal investigation of the department over Gray’s death—Baltimore police commanders turn to a rank-and-file hero, Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, and his elite plainclothes unit, the Gun Trace Task Force, to help get guns and drugs off the street."