Chad Coleman talks with trainer Calvin Ford while doing research for his role as Dennis “Cutty” Wise on #TheWire. This pic put me down a rabbit hole. There’s a lot of dots to connect, but the boxing connection to stories in The Wire goes beyond the Cutty arc. A thread:
-Before turning his life around, Calvin Ford worked as a lieutenant for Warren Boardley, distributing drugs in the Lexington Terrace. Ford was known as C.C.O. (think Kima’s line “Wee-Bey? Savino? Stinkum? C.C.O.? Roc-Roc?”)
-Warren Boardley (one of the two influences for Avon Barksdale) also employed Donnie Andrews (one of the inspirations for Omar). Boardley had been shot in the foot by members of a rival crew (the Downer Brothers). Boardley enlisted Andrews and another man, Reggie Gross to retaliate. Gross was a boxer who trained under Mack Lewis. Lewis made an appearance in Season 1 of The Wire, in the gym where Lester gets the poster of Avon from.
-On September 23, 1986, Andrews and Gross found two members of the Downer crew outside a house on Gold Street. Gross opened fire with an Uzi and killed Rodney Young. The second man, Zach Roach, took off running.
Note: The remainder of this post is a cut-and-paste from a 2009 Independent UK profile on Donnie Andrews.
“Once Reggie's Uzi went off, [Zach] jumped up and it was a spontaneous reaction on my part. I just fired and, as he ran up the street, he tripped and fell. I went to give him the coup de grâce and he looked up at me. I looked him in the eye and, before he died, he asked me: 'Why?' It was like I was frozen in time. I thought: why? This guy looks just like me. He could have been my brother, my son, my father. And why for drugs? Because somebody shot Warren in the foot? Why? It stuck with me, and I couldn't get it out of my head. I'm trying to figure out why to this day."
His payment, $5,000 and two ounces of heroin, did little to ease his guilt. The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) suspected him of the murder, but lacked evidence. One homicide detective who came knocking was Ed Burns. In early 1987, Andrews ran into Burns at the city court house. "Ed followed me to the parking lot and said: 'I can give you a second chance at life.' I was like, who does he think he is, God? But I thought about it. Even a fool wants a second chance."
Burns's partner made a strange suggestion: Andrews, he said, should read the Bible – specifically the story of Paul. The tale of a brutal tax collector's conversion moved him, as it was meant to. In August 1987, he confessed to the murder, then wore a concealed recording device to meetings with Boardley and Gross, where both implicated themselves in the crime. A prosecutor promised Andrews he'd be free in 10 years. "Donnie was remarkable," says David Simon. "He gave himself up when they had very little evidence against him. Ultimately, it was an act of conscience – and that doesn't happen a lot in police careers."
Burns's partner made a strange suggestion: Andrews, he said, should read the Bible – specifically the story of Paul. The tale of a brutal tax collector's conversion moved him, as it was meant to. In August 1987, he confessed to the murder, then wore a concealed recording device to meetings with Boardley and Gross, where both implicated themselves in the crime. A prosecutor promised Andrews he'd be free in 10 years. "Donnie was remarkable," says David Simon. "He gave himself up when they had very little evidence against him. Ultimately, it was an act of conscience – and that doesn't happen a lot in police careers."
Andrews had kicked his heroin habit in jail, trained as an electrician, taken up a college course by mail, and even begun to mentor some of the younger inmates. Burns, who retired from the BPD and briefly became a schoolteacher, would send him books. Simon, meanwhile, sent him copies of the Sun: "He'd see some small story about a shooting, then call me a few weeks later with very good information.” (1/2)
To be continued…
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