LOS ANGELES: Actors Jon Bernthal, Jamie Hector, Josh Charles are set to feature in HBO's new limited series "We Own This City". The show hails from "The Wire" team of David Simon and George Pelecanos, who will write and executive produce, reported Deadline.
Reinaldo Marcus Green of "Monsters and Men" will direct and executive produce the series, based on Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton's book "We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops and Corruption".
The six-episode show is about the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force, and the corruption and moral collapse that befell an American city in which the policies of drug prohibition and mass arrest were championed at the expense of actual police work.
Bernthal will star as Sergeant Wayne Jenkins of the Baltimore Police Department, perhaps the central figure in the sprawling federal corruption case that centred on the agency's Gun Trace Task Force. The plainclothes unit went completely rogue and began hunting and robbing citizens and drug dealers alike as decades of a relentless drug war and mass incarceration in Baltimore spun wildly out of control.
Hector will essay the role of Sean M Suiter, a Baltimore City Homicide detective who was caught up in the GTTF case and called to testify before a federal grand jury. Charles will play Daniel Hersl, a cocky, swaggering cop known amongst Baltimore residents for his casual brutality who was the subject of multiple citizen complaints.
Nina K. Noble, Kary Antholis and Ed Burns are also executive producers on the show which will start production in July.