I've been reading the posts for years and never written, but I gotta comment on people givin' Kima grief for snitching.

What the Wire guys have done here is create a perfect turnabaout where the police, who are well-intentioned and following the code they were "raised on" are put in a desperate situation by an utter lack of money and resources and therefore have resorted to crime in order to get done what they feel they are obliged to get done. No different than any of the desperate sad kids we've seen over five years turn to hustlin'.

With Kima, they've shown those of us who root for the cops (like me, I am prosecutor) exactly what it is we've been asking Wallace, D'Angelo, Bodie, Randy, etc to do. All the betrayal, fear, confusion you feel about Kima's decision-that's what you are expecting from these young men when you ask them to come forward. Sadly, I expect reprisals against Kima lin the last episode, and hope they are more like what happened to Randy and less like what happened to the other "snitches"

Good post. I like that the show compares the "stop snitchin'" mentality across the different institutions. Not only have De'Angelo, Bodie, etc had to deal with the dilemma, but this season we have seen the likes of Bunk, Clay Davis, and Kima struggle with the same decision.

I agree that this is an interesting theme.

But in my opinion what makes it interesting is that whether on not 'snitching' is the right thing to do is not always black and white. This is the problem with following any inflexible 'code'.

Every situation is somewhat unique. I believe Carver was definately in the right to turn in the abusive cop. Wallace and DeAngeleo are tragic figures by attempting to follow some semblance of consicience and paying the ultimate price.

Bunk wouldn't go along with Mcnulty and Lester, but he didn't 'snitch' either. If he had snitched would Baltimore have been better off? I think he found a balance of not violating his own ethics while also allowing some good to be done.

In most cases I would side with the wistleblowers. But in Kima's case I'm not so sure.

Also, don't put it past the brass to kill Kima's snitching. You know she's not going to head to the press with it, and she won't go to Levy either. Herc is too dumb to make the connection between the homeless case and the Marlo tap, and until the homeless killer is "caught" or at least arrested his phone number, and the wire-tap on him aren't public record (I don't think, but correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just assuming this as the exact number of a wiretap being public record would completely negate the reason for wiretaps)

Unless deputy ops decides to burn down the department, the mayor, and McNulty... Kima's snitching doesn't guarantee that this whole thing unravels.

Is that right, Mr. Prosecutor? I assume I can't just go down to One Police Plaza and find out the phone numbers of every mob figure the NYPD is currently tapping. As long as the department keeps Kima's snitch under wraps, and corroborate all their tips and evidence, I don't see how Levy will find out about McNulty's grand lie.

i was gonna bore the shit out of everybody with something long winded and probably a little vague. but you got it exactly right. and i do wonder if the system's gonna fail and leave Kima hangin' the same way it failed completely Wallace and Bodie and Randy and D'Angelo. I will say that maybe the "good po-lice" ethos is what pushed Kima (and Carver) to snitch and maybe nothing else; maybe the same institutional loyalty others have said informs the Stanfield crew is what drove her to do it. and if institutions are the pervasive evils of the wire how then do we judge kima?

What I find less than credible is that Kima would do this. It strays from her character, from the bond she's forged with McNulty, from her understanding as a member of 2 oppressed minorities that black and white rules of morality need to be weighted against context. Up until now, she's seemed way too 3-dimensional a character to be a nitwit boy scout and not see the bigger picture in all this.

This is disappointing writing, but I'm assuming it was necessary to drive plot.

from her understanding as a member of 2 oppressed minorities

Actually three (racial, gender, and sexual) but who's counting?

Anyway, what this particular plot point with Kima is supposed to be highlighting is that her relationship with police work is fundamentally different that Freeman and McNulty's. Lester and Jimmy have a burning desire to prove that they're the smartest guys in the room and that usually manifests itself by them trying to solve cases, but Kima's loyalty is to the institution of the police and the crime victims which makes her more like Bunk.

Yeah, I think one of the most telling scenes this season was Kima's observation of the therapist trying to get the child from the home invasion to address the issue. It sparked a sympathy from her, which also led her to increase contact with her son and establish a bond there (she called Cheryl right then and there to set up a playdate with Elijah). So that got the wheels in motion, and then after meeting with homeless victims' families (though there was only one that we saw, which reiterated her empathy for the parent/child relationship), she couldn't buy into Jimmy's "victimless crime" and "greater good" justifications for doctoring death scenes.

It sparked a sympathy from her, which also led her to increase contact with her son and establish a bond there (she called Cheryl right then and there to set up a playdate with Elijah).

They threw me a curve with that one because I thought Kima was going to try and use Elijah to connect with the little boy, like when McNulty had his kids follow Stringer Bell at the market back in season one or two. Instead, Kima was really just feeling something for her kid. That should have been a tip-off that she would react differently than McNulty, but then they swerved me again when Kima was trying to put together the Ikea furniture. They had it set up so that Kima could go either way on this thing.

I understand Kima's need and motive for doing this but what I've been struggling with, for a week now (I've saw ep 9 last week), is the way she did it. She really believes that it is utterly wrong and unacceptable to do what Jimmy did; fine. Why not be a real friend and brave, outstanding human being and tell Jimmy you are about to fuck him up? Look him straight in the eyes and say “I’m ratting you out because of this, this and this”. Carver did it, and that’s why Carver’s act elicited respect and understanding and Kima’s did not. Never mind the fact, that Jimmy, broken as he is, would have, probably, turned himself in if confronted with such statement, reasoning and CARE. Where is the love Shakima, where is the fucking love? When Jimmy was fighting the system (allowing her to the case she believed in), backstabbing bosses, lying to her lover, drinking with her for nights on end (allowing her to be who she wanted to be), it was O.K. ‘cause it suited Kima at the time, but now, none of those matter so, Jimmy is not worth a simple conversation or a phone call?!? That is a lame and pathetic friend. I did not expect that from Kima. That is why I'm pissed at Kima. She gravely disappointed me. It has nothing to do with Jimmy and his fabrication.

That's a great point, indeed. If Kima is so bothered by McNulty's ruse that she feels the need to rat him out, can't she at least confront him first? After all, she warned Carver that some shit might be coming his way; surely Jimmy, Lester, and Sydnor deserve the same warning.

If she truly cares about stopping the fake serial killer charade, than confronting Jimmy should be sufficient, at least as a starting point. However, it seems she is more concerned with getting back at McNulty, while maybe browning her own nose up a little. It's disappointing, but not particularly surprising; this is The Wire after all.

Mr. Prosecutor here. Absolutely. So long as the fake serial killer case remains open, the wire-tap info remains confidential and unavailable to the public. Since we know the case will never get solved, an outsider should never get to see the paperwork. So the department could decide to keep it covered up.

Where this could get screwed up is if Levy can win a motion to compel a confidential informant (Freeman is claiming his info on the Marlo bring-down came from a C/I, not the illegal tap). The basic rule is that the cops can keep the informant confidential so long as they don't need the his/her info to win the case. However, if the defense can meet a burden of proof showing the C/I to be potentially exculpatory (and being completely non-existant would be pretty exculpatory), the cops can be compelled to reveal their source - or drop the charges.

That being said, it looked to me like Marlo was walking the streets in a suit in the previews.

As for Kima turning in McNulty, in addition to all the other stuff people have cited, also rememebr that she doesn't know what happened to that missing homeless guy, and may fear something much worse.

mbarry8:

Where this could get screwed up is if Levy can win a motion to compel a confidential informant (Freeman is claiming his info on the Marlo bring-down came from a C/I, not the illegal tap). The basic rule is that the cops can keep the informant confidential so long as they don't need the his/her info to win the case.

All this will happen, and the police will say that Snoop was the C/I. She's dead, and they can blame her death on the Stanfield Organization's number three killer, Michael.

Love the Wire!!