'Wire' creator defends police portrayal

BALTIMORE, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Former Baltimore Sun reporter and TV writer-producer David Simon has written a column for the newspaper defending his Baltimore-set drama "The Wire."

Although the show ended its five-season run in 2008, Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III this month publicly declared the series' legacy a "smear that will take decades to overcome."

Simon maintained in Monday's edition of the Sun the show offered an accurate depiction of the Baltimore department from the late 1980s until recently.

"It is my understanding that Commissioner Bealefeld -- by finally choosing to emphasize the quality rather than the quantity of arrests -- has been able to reduce the homicide rate somewhat in our city. If true, this is not only commendable, it is a long time coming. Too long, in fact," Simon wrote.

Simon said "The Wire" "owes no apologies -- at least not for its depiction of those portions of Baltimore where we set our story, for its address of economic and political priorities and urban poverty, for its discussion of the drug war and the damage done from that misguided prohibition, or for its attention to the cover-your-ass institutional dynamic that leads, say, big-city police commissioners to perceive a fictional narrative, rather than actual, complex urban problems, as a cause for righteous concern."

The series starred Dominic West, Idris Elba and Amy Ryan.