Major Colvin's speech

"Regarding Officer Dozerman, his condition has been upgraded to guarded. Until he can receive visits, he's been moved to a recovery unit.

As of this tour, all hand-to-hand undercover buys of CDS are suspended in the Western District.

Somewheres back in the dawn of time this District had itself a civic dilemma of epic proportions. The city council had just passed a law that forbid alcoholic consumption in public places. On the streets and on the corners. But the corner is, and it was and it always will be the poor man's lounge. It's where a man wants to be
on a hot summer's night. It's cheaper than a bar, catch a nice breeze, you watch the girls go by. But the law's the law and the western cops rollin' by, what were they gonna do? If they arrested every dude out there for tipping back a High Life there'd be no other time for any other kind of police work. And if they looked the other way, they'd open themselves to all kinds of flaunting, all kinds of disrespect.

Now, this is before my time when it happened but somewheres back in the 50s or 60s, there was a small moment of goddamn genius by some nameless smokehound who comes out the cut-rate one day and on his way to the corner he slips that just-bought pint of Elderberry into a paper bag. A great moment of civic compromise. That small wrinkled-ass paper bag allowed the corner boys to have their drink in peace and gave us permission to go and do police work. The kind of police work
that's actually worth the effort, that's worth actually taking a bullet for.

Dozerman, he got shot last night
trying to buy three vials. Three!

There's never been a paper bag for drugs. Until now."

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Bunny
• Colvin
• Robert
• Wisdom
• The
• Wire

[danielhiryu]

We need people like Colvin in the real world.

Guaranteed... things would change for the better.

[Molijn]

This speech is so powerful, too many cops nowadays spend their time on unnecessary things. It's time to go back to real police work; policing that protects neighborhoods, makes people feel safe. The 'civic compromise' Major Colvin discusses is what we as citizens need to pay back.

The world would indeed be so much better if we were not focussed on just statistics. We should be looking at these cases as human beings and try to understand the underlying causes.

[Sylocat]

Bunny Colvin, Cutty Wise, Cedric Daniels and the (non-Sobotka) Stevedores are the only kinds of people this world really needs.

[tommybrown187]

a great moment of civic compromise

[getreadytotube]

Bunny Colvin for President!

[Aivottaja]

Colvin saw the big picture. He is the example of someone trying to both uphold the law and trying to control crime. But he was careless by trusting his career wouldn't take a hit because of his years of service. Truly an example of resourcefulness getting assraped by politics.

[theman2017inc]

@danielhiryu AMEN to that!!!!

[Danfitz2010]

Regardless of your views on drugs and their effect on society any rational human being has to ask the question "is criminalising drug addicts working; cutting the crime, and benefiting our society, considering the many many decades force and prison has been the answer?" you could see the horrors of "Hamsterdam", it wasn't a long term solution, but the different way of thinking had to be addressed.

[dpayO2]

@uwlwsrpm Because people were getting busted for drinking in public, they then put paper bags on their drinks so that others couldn't see they were drinking alcohol, and the police would let them go (as a compromise).

There is no "paper bag" for drugs means there is no compromise. Nice speech.

[uwlwsrpm]

I don't get it, what's the "paper bag" for drugs that he's referring to?

[timytim4prez]

Every “war on drugs” politician should be required to watch this video. Actually, ALL politicians should be required to watch every episode and every season of The Wire.

[goceltics339]

@alec1115 hmmmm Good point. I think Daniels was a role model too. And maybe Lester. And Gus from the paper.