As previously confirmed on Twitter by show creator David Simon (The Deuce, The Wire), HBO’s true-crime limited series, We Own This City, will premiere on Monday, April 25. The new series chronicles the high-octane implosion of the corrupt Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force. Starring Jon Bernthal (The Unforgiveable), Josh Charles (The Good Wife), and Jamie Hector (Bosch), the series announced full cast character bios as part of the network’s TCA press panel on Tuesday.
Bernthal, Charles, and Hector will portray three of the main police officers at the center of the story. Bernthal is Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, the narrative lead of the GTTF. Charles will play Daniel Hersl, an officer with a long history of citizen complaints of brutality, who finds himself on the GTTF after being banned from policing the Eastern District. And Hector is homicide detective Sean M. Suiter who gets caught up in the task force’s scheme.
Lovecraft Country’s Wunmi Mosaku is Nicole Steele, a civil rights attorney who stumbles upon the GTTF investigation while seeking to reform the current operations of Baltimore’s police department. Her work centers on the systemic structures that allow officer corruption to go unchecked by the litany of Baltimore judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement.
Known for his work in The Passage and Mercy Street, Mckinley Belcher III plays 11-year BPD veteran Momodu “G Money” Gondo. Among his crimes of robbery and overtime fraud, Gondo moonlighted as an informant for a drug dealer named Antonio “Brill” Shropshire. Shropshire operated an elite heroin ring.
Darrell Britt-Gibson (Fear Street Part One: 1994) is Jemell Rayam, a GTTF officer whose brazen offenses included racketeering, extortion, unlawful detainment, and three shootings with one resulting in a fatality. Rayam was a frequent target of Internal Affairs for his abuse of power but never received much punishment.
Don Harvey (Die Hard 2) and Dagmara Domińcyzk (Succession) will portray John Sieracki and Erika Jensen, respectively. The two officers led the federal investigation into GTFF. Harvey was a second-generation city cop assigned to the public corruption task force. Jensen, a New York native joined the FBI following the events of 9-11.
Rob Brown (Finding Forrester) is Maurice Ward, a plainclothesman member of GTTF implicated in several illegal activities. However, his moral compass compelled him to question the force’s corrupt activities, with him even disposing of the bounty coveted from their crimes. Ward was early to cooperate with prosecutors once the investigation brought to light charges against the unit.
David Corenswet (Hollywood) and Larry Mitchell (Paterno) will play veteran investigators, David McDougall and Scott Kilpatrick, respectively. The two drug task force officers began investigating the abnormal number of drug overdoses occurring in their respective counties, which sparked the probe into the GTTF.
D.O.J. trial attorney Ahmed Jackson will be played by Ian Duff (The Republic of Sarah). Tired of criminal prosecutions, Jackson joined the Office of Civil Rights and was assigned to Steele’s team in her investigation of systemic policing issues in Baltimore.
Delaney Williams (Red) is Kevin Davis, the Police Commissioner hired after the death of Freddie Gray at the hands of Baltimore police. Following the city’s eruption to Gray’s murder, Davis finds himself stuck between duty and loyalty as politics and the “Blue line” prevent him from reforming the BPD.
Finally, Lucas Van Engen (City on a Hill) has been cast as U.S. Attorney, Leo Wise, the lead prosecutor in the case against the GTTF.
In addition to this main cast, the series boasts guests stars Treat Williams (Everwood), Thaddeus Street (The Deuce), Susan Rome (My One and Only), Kim Tuvin (House of Cards), Chris Clanton (LUV), Anwan Glover (12 Years a Slave), Bobby Brown, Gabrielle Carteris (Raising Cain), Tray Chaney (We Need to Talk), Domenick Lombardozzi (The Family), Nathan E. Corbett (Half Nelson), Michael Salconi (The Wire), and Maria Broom (Really Love).
Based on journalist Justin Fenton’s book, We Own This City: A True Story Of Crime, Cops, & Corruption, the series is created and executive produced by Simon and George Pelecanos (The Pacific), with fellow executive producer Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard) directing.
The six-episode series will be available on HBO and HBO Max.