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We Own This City
We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption | Justin Fenton
4 posts | 5 read | 2 to read
The astonishing true story of one of the most startling police corruption scandals in a generation (The New York Times), from the Pulitzer Prizenominated reporter who exposed a gang of criminal cops and their yearslong plunder of an American city COMING SOON AS AN HBO SERIES FROM THE WIRE CREATOR DAVID SIMON AND GEORGE PELECANOS A work of journalism that not only chronicles the rise and fall of a corrupt police unit but can stand as the inevitable coda to the half-century of disaster that is the American drug war.David Simon Baltimore, 2015. Riots are erupting across the city as citizens demand justice for Freddie Gray, a twenty-five-year-old Black man who has died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. Drug and violent crime are surging, and Baltimore will reach 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 mayors officeas well as a federal investigation of the department over Grays deathBaltimore 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. But behind these new efforts, a criminal conspiracy of unprecedented scale was unfolding within the police department. Entrusted with fixing the citys drug and gun crisis, Jenkins chose to exploit it instead. With other members of the empowered Gun Trace Task Force, Jenkins stole from Baltimores citizensskimming from drug busts, pocketing thousands in cash found in private homes, and planting fake evidence to throw Internal Affairs off their scent. Their brazen crime spree would go unchecked for years. The results were countless wrongful convictions, the death of an innocent civilian, and the mysterious death of one cop who was shot in the head, killed just a day before he was scheduled to testify against the unit. In this urgent book, award-winning investigative journalist Justin Fenton distills hundreds of interviews, thousands of court documents, and countless hours of video footage to present the definitive account of the entire scandal. The result is an astounding, riveting feat of reportage about a rogue police unit, the city they held hostage, and the ongoing struggle between American law enforcement and the communities they are charged to serve.
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Amiable
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Pickpick

I dragged my feet on picking a NONFICTION winner for #2024ReadingBrackets to move on. For March, the clear winner was the tagged book, a true story about police corruption in Baltimore. I first saw the HBO series about the scandal, produced by David Simon (“The Wire”). Once I heard it was based on a book … I flew through it. It was a great read (and TV show). But I keep thinking about Raskin's book, so I had to move that through.

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Cortg
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I moved 20 min. outside of Baltimore 10+ years ago and have been following these stories about corrupt Baltimore police, Freddie Gray, BLM stories. Baltimore Sun reporter, Justin Fenton, did a wonderful job of taking all these little stories I‘ve been listening to and stringing them together to make more sense as a whole. I‘m planning to watch the HBO Series based on this book. It‘s so infuriating to read, but important to understand.

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isinglead
Pickpick

Loved this book! Well written, very engaging, and easy to follow. Read this after watching the HBO show by the same name and it helped clarify some questions/confusion I had. Highly recommend if you like non-fiction.

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squirrelbrain
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I had really high hopes for this after reading a glowing review in the British press, although I can‘t remember which newspaper. It *was* really interesting and definitely a pick (and not a low pick) but it just didn‘t grab me as much as I expected. After a few days trying to figure out why, I think it just didn‘t have enough of that ‘storytelling‘ element; it wasn‘t up there with Patrick Radden Keefe‘s books, for example.

Cinfhen I recently bought this as an Audible deal / glad to hear it‘s a pick 🤩 2y
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Cinfhen And yay on all the prompts!! #DoubleDip 🍦 2y
Cortg A colleague recently told me this read is a must! I‘ll listen to the audio. I live about 15-20 minutes from Baltimore so it‘ll be interesting! 2y
squirrelbrain I think the audio may work even better than print. @Cinfhen @Cortg And, Cortney, super-fascinating for you - I bet you‘ll know some of the places mentioned. 2y
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