I like how instead of just editing "Ride of Valkyries" over the scene which would have been cheesy, they have Rawls play it therefore making him look like a douchebag.
That's how most music is handled on the there's hardly ever any music during scenes unless it's coming from a radio or the like. The only exceptions I can think of are the season finale montages.
Colvin says how drug war was the end of real police and it's become militarized in so many words in a different episode. Foreshadowing this scene. The whistle and commanding "over the top" reference to ww1 then helicopters with dance of the valkyries a reference to apocalypse now. Damm what great writing in the legend show
Yep. There was a police funeral in Baltimore maybe 7 years ago and the police from city and country lined 83 N from the interchange to the Cockeysville exit. I was driving south and I remember passing multiple vehicles I can only describe as armored personnel carriers. A few years later I went to a Billy Joel concert at Camden yards and walking back to my car I passed squads of police with military grade weaponry wearing tactical gear. It bothers and scares me that our "civilian" police forces look more like an occupying army than a civilian law enforcement force.
Wrong twice. We don't have armored vehicles. The police have armored vehicles. We're on the wrong end of the nightstick there. And it has nothing to do with those incidents. That may be their justification but it's not the real reason. As the previous commenter said, the cops have become an brutal occupation force suppressing the common people. Given that in many parts of America the police evolved from slave patrols and strike-breakers, this should hardly be suprising. But the war on drugs has taken it to another level.
@@brianleap5830 In a small town just outside OKC with a population of less than 10,000 (I'm surprised it's even that much; it seriously feels like a place that might have 5,000 people at best), they have one of those armored personnel carriers. This is one of those towns where 90% of everything is on one street & it's out in the country to begin with. But for some unknown reason, they basically have a tank. There's no tank level threat out there, lmao.
When Herc said "Bout Fuckin Time" .. You can tell from Carver's reaction he did not want Hamsterdam to end .. He just wanted the streets to be safe and the murder rate to drop .. He knew for exonerating Hamsterdam shit was gonna be as bad as it was before ..
@@bhunji1850 Imagine being a police officer and only arresting street kids forced into drug dealing by the end of a gun, instead of wondering how and who controls the supply of drugs, all cocaine comes from south america but its everywhere in the world, 70-90% of ecstasy/mdma comes from holland but somehow its also everywhere.
+gunterdak Bodie claimed entrapment cause they caught him on the wire, when bubbles was recording him ordering the re-up. But he got out of it because he was slinging in hamsterdam. everyone arrested in the hamsterdam raid probably didn't get a charge, it was all for show. When they're at the BPD later, Lester points out all the people in bracelets and says "here's everyone we caught on the wire", so they only charged people relevant to the Barksdale wiretap.
MoRiellyMoProblems Uh, thats half right, I guess. Its not entrapment if police simply provide opportunity to commit a crime that you were already inclined to commit. But there are scenes in this season where uniformed officers tell people to go sell drugs in hampsterdam, and promise that they won't be arrested for it. That is literally the EXACT definition of entrapment, even if all those people were regular drug dealers.
gunterdak It's not just half right, the whole point of entrapment is that you're committing a crime that you otherwise wouldn't have outside the circumstances. Hamsterdam wasn't turning law abiding citizens into drug dealers and dope fiends, those people were already deep into that life. They were criminals before, and they're criminals after.
MoRiellyMoProblems The fact that those people were all career criminals or habitual drug users does not mean that they cannot be entrapped. You don't get arrested for just generally being a criminal. You get arrested for committing a specific offense at a specific time and place. The definition of entrapment, according to the supreme court, is when an official, acting under real or apparent authority, tells someone something is not illegal, then later arrests them for it. While in this case, the police did not exactly say it was legal to sell drugs, they did use overbearing tactics to convince people that it was acceptable to sell there, and ensured that no one would be arrested. The police, in uniform, drove people to hamsterdam, told them it was ok to buy and sell drugs there, and watched them do it. When the dealers were reluctant, uniformed cops INSISTED that they sell there. They even used threats and coercion. All of that would go a long way in an entrapment defense.
Rawls is such a piece of shit. Deeply-rooted feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing on account of his homosexuality and failure to advance in his career lead him to spread pain and misery for his own pleasure. There is no better illustration than blasting Ride of the Valkyries here. In Apocalypse Now, that song is played when the Americans roll in and massacre an entire village just to root out enemy combatants. It's genocidal, and Rawls, completely missing the point of that scene, plays the song like the jingoistic bully he is.
I swear Rawls fits the role of a supervisory police officer so accurately it's scary ! He should have been made deputy in the B-More police just for playing his role so perfectly !
the references to World War 1 and the Vietnam War are fitting of course given the historical relationship between Baltimore's black community and the city's police department, the latter often being regarded by the former as akin to an invading army. This is why the Wire is so important and just so damn good. It has no equal.
The phase "over the top," in regards to the trenches of WW1. Vietnam reference was the song and the line "outstanding, red team outstanding. Get you a case of beer for that one." Which both were from the Vietnam War movie Apocalypse Now.
I think Ride of the Vylkeries speaks to what bunny was talking about the whole time, how the cops vs dealers had turned into a litteral war, with the cops just occupying baltimore instead of trying to improve it. Rawls is playing Ride of the Vylkeries and says "over the top gentlemen!" As a reference to Apocalypse Now, and he is Colonol Kilgore. I could almost see Rawls saying sadly "some day, this wars guna end"
I made it through the first two seasons without shedding a tear. Then when I got to the destruction of hamsterdam I lost it. I knew it was coming, but seeing it happen just made me sick.
@@flisko123 that's 100% him. Pretty funny to see. They reused characters like that somewhat often, I believe chris was a cop in the background during season 1
@@nononono12345 yeah, if you go back to the first episode you can see him looking at the camera ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BRNm21GWEJY.html go to about 3:31
Bunny Colvin could have raided and closed down Hamsterdam himself the day before he presented his stats to Rawls and Burrell. Then he could keep the great stats, cleared Hamsterdam temporarily, kept his major's pension and there would be nothing Rawls or Burrell could do to him. But he was such an honorable man and the scriptwriters wanted Bunny punished.
But that would send a messege to the dealers that Hamsterdam isn't actually safe to conduct their business. They'd just go back to their usual corners around the city to do the same thing which will probably lead to an uptick in drug violent related offenses
"Over the top, gentlemen!" and the "Ride of the Valkyries" tie back to Colvin's earlier conversation with Carver--that policing and soldiering aren't the same thing, and that police work was ruined when the line was blurred.
I love this scene because what's being portrayed is a literal war. Everything included but the deaths lol (most drug addicts would probably prefer death then to withdraw in prison anyways). That's probably the reason for the music, they really wanted to get over the whole "war" feel. Cops were straight up punching women, taking people off their toilet's butt naked.
In the DVD commentaries they talk about the whole subtext of series 3 being about war. Culminating in that scene between Avon and Slim where Slim says "Even if it's a lie, we fight on that lie"
@@Vid3oG4mers wait.... they did give up the murderer. I remember him turning himself in. That definitely wasn’t the reason why it got shut down. It got shut down because it got leaked to the press. You the one that didn’t watch the show 🤦🏾♂️
Colvins idea was great. Drugs are always gonna sell, you can only fight the harm it brings by taking it to someone secluded. Colvins approach in general helped us see a modest relationship between the community and the police. Damn you Rawls.
Rawls just executed orders here. The media were putting pressure and due to the election, the gouvernement had to take action because it harmed their image. It doesn't matter if hamsterdam was a good idea, it just mattered if it looked good to the public/ for the police chiefs.
Me personally I'll never understand how anyone can ever be against legalizing or at the very least decriminalizing drugs. Maybe not all of them cause there's always going to be a new dangerous drug coming out but stuff like marijuana,crack/cocaine,heroin,pain pills/opiates,psychedelics like mushrooms and maybe even meth though that one is debatable. Its like with cigarettes being legal. Just because they are legal doesn't mean more people will smoke. Even if they were illegal then there would become a big black market for them. Big pharma lobbies to keep drugs illegal and so do the alcohol industry and dont get me started on alcohol a drug that does its fair share of destruction. I'll never understand why they don't control everything and tax everything and thus make alot of money for our communities but also keep everything safer and much more manageable. Also prisons and jails are full of people in there over drugs or alcohol and incarcerating people is big business and charging fines and court costs bring in alot of money. Its all corrupt there's alot of money to be made from arresting drug addicts and fining them and keeping our jails packed. When will people realize that there will always be addicts and drug dealers and drugs? Than people who make sure it stays illegal are probably the ones making the most money and helping to bring it in,working with cartels and taking lobbyist money. It's all a bad joke
I'm from Chicago Heights Illinois about 30 minutes south of downtown Chicago next door to Chicago Heights is Ford Heights this is literally what Ford Heights was throughout the 90s it was a function in Hamsterdam
Hamsterdam was one of the best ideas in the history of TV law enforcement, with a second being Vic Mackey's idea of one drug dealer in place with no competition drastically drops murders. The streets were clear and clean during Hamsterdam. The neighborhood returned to luster and people could walk the streets safely again. Fking brilliant
@@thenewadventuresofhenry6998 Who gives a shit about one block? There are more unoccupied houses currently standing in the US than there are homeless people forced to live on the streets. That astounds me more than the idea of Hamsterdam
@@JimmySteller - I think that was his point. Despite all the positives, lowered general crime rate at minimal cost, the system can't let a free zone exist because "Controlled and confined crime is still crime"
@@Red_Beard2798 it's easy to say when ppl saying it aren't from bad areas. No matter what the cops do the dealers and gangs will always be here. This idea literally made them all leave. I would love to see my neighborhood ridded of all the dealers. It would literally be heaven. The addicts will get their drugs nomatter what you do. Lock them up or anything. This move made them all go one place. Imagine kids not having to see addicts and dealers while they walk to school like ppl that live in middle class areas get to have it.
The Hamsterdam experiment was doomed from inception. Drug abuse, drug selling, drug addiction and failed policing are symptoms, not the problem itself. The problem is generational poverty. Hamsterdam has the physically, mentally and psychologically most vulnerable people concentrated one area. Even the majority of the dealers are poorly educated, operating off primal instinct and being manipulated by higher ups. We saw in the second season that the white working class was bring drawn into the cycle by the lack of jobs, education and community stabilizing resources. Colvin could only do what he knew, lock up the worst part. He never thought twice about all of the kids trapped and doomed in his freezones... This series is so great
This really well proves the point Colvin was making to Carver; "You call this a war and pretty soon everybody's running around acting like warriors. They'll be running around on a damn crusade, storming corners, slapping on cuffs, racking up the bodycount." And what's Rawls doing? Acting like a World War 1 officer, ordering his men over the top to storm the enemy trenches.
This is why legalization requires more than just legalization. You gotta offer rehab (free of cost), quality assurance (no contamination), and regulation (licensed dealers with regular review processes)
0:54 marker shows that things in the Western are about to go right back to what they were. Herc & Carver's reactions tell what side of the coin they'll be on. Carver, from this point, will become good, community police, while Herc will continue his brutal tactics on the citizens he's supposed to protect.
Find the scene after this moment where Major Colvin is in the office with Burrell & Rawls getting ousted/fired A key quote from that is Burrell saying “Well you won’t fall alone; only the way we want you to fall.”
I love how they're just massively arresting people randomely... just standing there on the street with nothing in their hands. lol I guess they had to make a show for the news.
Bodie was the only one who listend when Colvin. And and talked and explained the rules and shit one thing about bodie he always listened when mfs was talking no matter if it was cop,drug dealer,or kid he always listened
The shot from the ghetto bird of the department wrangling everyone in Hamsterdam up has to be one of the most depressing scenes in the series. And that’s saying a lot.
So in Apocolypse Now col Kilgore onv plays ride of the valkyries but also ad one of the helicopter pilots destroys an artillery piece in the skirmish he notable says " nice one,I'll get ya a case of beer for that one". I just thought it was funny that Rawls happend to say that to heli piet here. The nods and references to other media in this show are insane and really awesome to rewatch and pick up on years later. Such an amazing show all around.
Time will come and we will see all drugs legalized. The walls of prohibiton are already cracking. Some years, maybe 10, maybe 20 and we have no longer to witness such injustice.
It'll start with decriminalisation. At some point, they'll be sick of arresting consumers because it's pointless. I don't really know about drug trade becoming legal at any point soon, tho.
Rawls: "I'm a closeted gay man who fears exposure and my own self. Therefore, I must mask myself in the veneer of Machismo-Masculinity by playing Ride of the Valkyries and re-enacting that scene from Apocalypse Now."
the fault in the plan was that they should have built a mini fence around the freezone, or atleast heavily protected the out of bounds line. maybe some frequent routines of weapon searches aswell.
Rollerz leader Yeah, they really needed a better monitoring system for weapons, that's where they were lax. It was a good idea, unfortunately nearly all good ideas centered around group cooperation always has some knucklehead willing to mess it up for stupid reasons.
