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Frank Sobotka
Francis "Frank" Sobotka is a fictional character in of the HBO drama '' The Wire'', played by the actor Chris Bauer. Plot Frank is a respected Polish-American treasurer for the International Brotherhood of Stevedores at the Baltimore docks. As the '' pater familias'' for the docks' longshoremen population, it is his job to manage the finances of the labor union and make sure that workers are taken care of - a task made harder by the decline of the local shipping industry and lack of available hours. Desperate to return prosperity to the docks, he begins making overtures to lobbyists and politicians to support initiatives that will make the port a more attractive shipping location. His two main objectives are to have the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal dredged to increase the depth for incoming ships, and to re-open the grain pier. Bruce DiBiago, a lobbyist, serves as go-between for Sobotka and politicians such as State Senator Clay Davis. In order to obtain the necessary fu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Wire
''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2, 2002, and ended on March 9, 2008, comprising 60 episodes over five seasons. The idea for the show started out as a police drama loosely based on the experiences of his writing partner Ed Burns, a former homicide detective and public school teacher. Set and produced in Baltimore, Maryland, ''The Wire'' introduces a different institution of the city and its relationship to law enforcement in each season, while retaining characters and advancing storylines from previous seasons. The five subjects are, in chronological order: the illegal drug trade, the port system, the city government and bureaucracy, education and schools, and the print news medium. Simon chose to set the show in Baltimore because of his familiarity with the city. The l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maryland State Senate
The Maryland Senate, sometimes referred to as the Maryland State Senate, is the upper house of the General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland. Composed of 47 senators elected from an equal number of constituent single-member districts, the Senate is responsible, along with the Maryland House of Delegates, for passage of laws in Maryland, and for confirming executive appointments made by the Governor of Maryland. It evolved from the upper house of the colonial assembly created in 1650 when Maryland was a proprietary colony controlled by Cecilius Calvert. It consisted of the Governor and members of the Governor's appointed council. With slight variation, the body to meet in that form until 1776, when Maryland, now a state independent of British rule, passed a new constitution that created an electoral college to appoint members of the Senate. This electoral college was abolished in 1838 and members began to be directly elected from each county and Bal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perp Walk
A perp walk, walking the perp,The term "perp" is short for "perpetrator", and is commonly used by police departments for those they arrest. It is legally inaccurate since the arrested individual's guilt has not been judicially established at that point. or frog march, is a practice in American law enforcement of taking an arrested suspect through a public place, creating an opportunity for the media to take photographs and video of the event. The defendant is typically handcuffed or otherwise restrained, and is sometimes dressed in prison garb. Within the United States the perp walk is most closely associated with New York City. The practice rose in popularity in the 1980s under U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, when suspects charged with felonies were perp-walked. The perp walk arose incidentally from the need to transport a defendant from a police station to court after arrest. Law enforcement agencies often coordinate with the media in scheduling and arranging them. It has be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beadie Russell
Beatrice "Beadie" Russell is a fictional character on the HBO drama '' The Wire'', played by actress Amy Ryan. She was featured prominently in the second season, after she discovered thirteen corpses in a container on the Baltimore docks. Character storyline Background Russell is introduced into the series as a port authority officer, a job that she's been doing for two years. She took the job because she needed the pay to support her two young children after her husband abandoned them. Before her appointment, she worked collecting tolls, which did not provide a decent income. Russell's parents often help her with the kids. She found the job unchallenging and spent most of her time patrolling the docks and checking shipping manifests. She developed a friendly working relationship with many of the stevedores, including Frank Sobotka, though she was kept out of the loop regarding major criminal activities within the stevedore's union because of the Port Authority's lack of manp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extraction of organs or tissues, including for surrogacy and ova removal. Human trafficking can occur within a country or trans-nationally. Human trafficking is a crime against the person because of the violation of the victim's rights of movement through coercion and because of their commercial exploitation. Human trafficking is the trade in people, especially women and children, and does not necessarily involve the movement of the person from one place to another. People smuggling (also called ''human smuggling'' and ''migrant smuggling'') is a related practice which is characterized by the consent of the person being smuggled. Smuggling situations can descend into human trafficking through coercion and exploitation. Trafficked people a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy McNulty
James "Jimmy" McNulty is a fictional character and the protagonist of the HBO drama ''The Wire'', played by Dominic West. McNulty is an Irish-American detective in the Baltimore Police Department. While talented in his profession, McNulty's conceited belief that he is more intelligent than his peers and his willingness to ignore the chain of command in pursuit of his own investigative projects mean that he regularly incurs the wrath of his superiors. When off the job, he has frequent problems involving alcoholism, alimony, child support, cheating and sexual promiscuity, and unstable relationships. He is central to many of the successful high-end drug investigations that take place within the series. McNulty is loosely based on Ed Burns, co-writer of the series. Casting British actor Ray Winstone was originally considered for the part. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Winstone had difficulty returning to Britain for several weeks due to the subsequent grounding of f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intermodal Container
An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – from ship to rail to truck – without unloading and reloading their cargo. Intermodal containers are primarily used to store and transport materials and products efficiently and securely in the global containerized intermodal freight transport system, but smaller numbers are in regional use as well. These containers are known under a number of names. Based on size alone, up to 95% of intermodal containers comply with ISO standards, and can officially be called ISO containers. Many other names are simply: container, cargo or freight container, shipping, sea or ocean container, container van or sea van, sea can or C can, or MILVAN, SEAVAN, or RO/RO. The also used term CONEX (Box) is technically incorrect carry-over usage of the name of an importa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ervin Burrell
Ervin H. Burrell is a fictional character on the HBO drama ''The Wire'', played by Frankie Faison. Burrell was an officer in the Baltimore Police Department who ascended from Deputy Commissioner of Operations to Commissioner over the course of the show. Biography A careerist, Burrell believes in the Baltimore Police Department's chain of command and stores knowledge of corrupt activities by his subordinates to maintain his authority. Also a statistical bureaucrat, he cares more about reducing crime on paper than building strong cases. Conscious of the media coverage of the BPD, he is very sensitive to the newspaper headlines concerning its progress. Throughout the series, he struggles to direct the BPD to adequately reduce crime levels and constantly feuds with the city's politicians, some of whom blame him for the department's problems. Burrell attended Dunbar High School and was a member of the school's glee club. He was a year ahead of " Proposition Joe" Stewart, who describ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltimore Police Department
The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) is the municipal police department of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Dating back to 1784, the BPD, consisting of 2,935 employees in 2020, is organized into nine districts covering of land and of waterways. The department is sometimes referred to as the Baltimore City Police Department to distinguish it from the Baltimore County Police Department. History Foundation to the 1840s The first attempt to establish professional policing in Baltimore was in 1784, nearly 60 years after the founding of the colonial town and eight years after United States independence. The city authorized a night watch and a force of day constables to enforce town laws. Nightwatchman George Workner was the first law enforcement officer to be killed in the city; he was stabbed during an escape attempt by nine inmates at Baltimore City Jail on March 14, 1808. The department was founded in its current form (with uniforms and firearms) in 1853 by the Maryland st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stan Valchek
Stanislaus "Stan" Valchek is a fictional character on the HBO drama ''The Wire'', played by actor Al Brown. Biography Valchek is the Polish-American commander of the Baltimore Police Department in the Southeastern district, home to many of the remaining ethnic white neighborhoods in Baltimore. More a politician than a policeman, he has ties with various Democratic organizations close to City Hall, most notably the politically influential developer Andrew Krawczyk. His political savvy helps him quickly ascend the ranks, though commanding officers such as Commissioner Ervin Burrell and Deputy Commissioner William Rawls dislike him. Valchek is Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski's father-in-law. Season 1 Valchek first appears in a meeting with Deputy Commissioner Burrell and Lieutenant Cedric Daniels, trying to smooth over Prez's drunken maiming of a fourteen-year-old. Valchek tells Daniels that if he helps Prez, Valchek will owe him a favor. Season 2 Valchek pushes for an invest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Malatov
Sergei "Serge" Malatov (Ukrainian: Сергій Малатов) is a fictional character on the HBO drama series ''The Wire'', played by Chris Ashworth. He acts as a driver and enforcer for The Greek. He is Ukrainian, although Americans often assume he is Russian. He hates this and their subsequent tendency to nickname him "Boris". He is responsible for picking up containers of smuggled goods from the port and taking them to The Greek's front warehouse to be fenced. Biography Malatov is a trusted lieutenant in The Greek's import business. He is said by White Mike to be "straight muscle." When vodka, appliances, electronics, drugs or Eastern Bloc women destined to be sex workers arrive in Baltimore, Sergei ensures the cargo is delivered to The Greek's associates in the city. He mentions that he has spent four years in prison in Ukraine, and that American prisons are nowhere near as harsh. Season two Sergei is supposed to collect fourteen prostitutes hidden in a cargo container f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spiros Vondas
Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos ( Greek: Σπύρος Βονδόπουλος) is a fictional character on the HBO drama '' The Wire'' played by actor Paul Ben-Victor and the secondary antagonist in season 2. Biography Vondas is The Greek's second-in-command and acts as a buffer between The Greek and his illegal activities, using a small cafe as his base of operations. Vondas tells Nick Sobotka that he has "many names, many passports." Vondas' actual name and nationality are unknown; his main alias is Greek in origin, but he laughs to his superior that his name is not really his name. The name Spiros Vondopoulos is one of a range of identities that he has available to him. For example, he holds Hungarian and Croatian passports, but it is unclear if he is really a citizen of these countries. He is later shown destroying his Hungarian passport during a meal with The Greek. Vondas' Hungarian identity is Janos Kovats from Budapest, and his Croatian identity is Kirko Skaddeng, who i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
