I was just curious about that, but we don't see a single captain officer of the Baltimore PD during the entire series.
Besides, Cedric Daniels was promoted from lieutenant straight to major (the same happened to Dennis Mello, I think), and Colvin was demoted from major to lieutenant after the Hamsterdam thing became public.
I wonder if the writers did it just to keep the dynamics of the narrative or if there's any basis for that.
No Ed Burns was one of the writers on the show and he was a BPD homicide detective so it is accurate
http://www.hierarchystructure.com/baltimore-police-hierarchy/
I wonder if the writers did it just to keep the dynamics of the narrative or if there's any basis for that.
The Chief is presented on the show in season 3. He's sitting at the front table of the stat meeting with Rawls and Burrell. Rawls calls him a nitwit at one point when bunny is explaining Hamsterdam. The question of Captain seems a little more confusing they seem to have them today but may not have at the time Simon was writing this. The explanation I read was that the position of Captain is a civil service position which has the protections of the union so the force prefers to use Majors which can be fired or demoted whenever they want.
shareThe guy Rawls calls a "nit" was the Major in charge of IID.
shareI don't know were you got your info from, but mine came from Wiki. Doesn't say anything about that just that those positions are apart of the BDP police structure and they were left out to make it easier on the viewer. Not saying your're wrong cause IDK for sure but the simplest explanation is usually the right one.
shareNot like its a big deal but I don't know how eliminating Captain would make it easier on the viewers. Every cop show in the world has Captains if anything it stood out more that there weren't any here. There weren't any Captains in Homicide Life on the Streets either so its definitely a David Simon decision
shareIf they properly used all the ranks, then Landsman wouldn't have been the guy in between the Homicide Detectives and Rawls. He'd likely have 1 or 2 Lts he answered to and then there'd be Rawls.
But for sake of making it simple, they didn't bother and just had Rawls only have one subordinate in Landsman.
There being no Captains does have a basis in reality. IIRC a Commissioner got rid of that Rank and made it so that you'd go from Lt to Major. Mainly because it means you can only get that high via appointment and lose it just as easily but you can't do that with a Captain Rank. I guess all subsequent Commissioners liked the idea too.
It's probably what Burrell meant when he said "There isn't one of you who isn't here by appointment.", he was referring to how all of them got their rank of Major NOT by just doing good work but other things.