Set in Baltimore, it followed a police force dealing with
street-corner drug gangs and politicians.
The storyline followed attempts to shut down the drug trade,
of course. Against this background, the episodes traced characters within each
group as well. Narratives focused on the
choices (good and bad) these people made as well as highlighting options unavailable to them.
I was saddened by the deaths of some of the street-punks, which was the term given to those selling on the ‘corners’.
I was distressed by some of the deaths of the ‘drug-fiends’ who bought
the drugs. This wasn't all that surprising because I had gotten to know these people and their stories.
I was stunned as I watched the screen highlight violent neighborhoods because they looked familiar. I remembered
similar boarded-up, crumbling, and graffiti-scarred brick facades of inner-city
ghetto-like row-houses.
They were recognizable because I had volunteered in a
downtown Cincinnati neighborhood that bore look-alike disfigurements to those
depicted in Baltimore. The scenes were identical from
the ‘corners’ to the in-street-shootings, from happy children in playgrounds to
those same innocents scrambling away from gun-shots, from glassy-eyed muggers
to mothers cradling babies on the filthy steps of the hood.
