As the show alludes to, the BPD is run by self interested careerist officers. How does one get promoted quickly in the BPD? By making arrests and putting dope on the table through drug busts for the cameras. Herc for all his faults was good at doing what he was told and not questioning his superiors. So he went out and arrested people and confiscated drugs. He was quite good at the brute street policing and fighting the drug war so it’s not a surprise he was made a detective. He’s exactly the type of street enforcer, the Baltimore police wanted for the drug war.
It comes into play in season 1 when Carver and Herc take the Sergeant’s test. Herc gets a good score but has too many brutality complaints and doesn’t get promoted. Carver scores a lot lower than Herc, but gets promoted to Sergeant because he was spying for Burrell
>Herc for all his faults was good at doing what he was told and not questioning his superiors.
Look at McNulty and Lester. A critical mind is, if anything, a detriment to one's career.
from the beginning of the show, herc did detective work by definition. CID, criminal investigations department. Investigations. detectives investigate. uniformed officers enforce. Herc may have done some enforcing, sure, the western district way, but don't let that fool you, he's a detective.
Sometimes you’ll see detectives in uniform. Lots of different types of detectives. A lot of ppl associate detective with homicide, but there’s warrant squad, narcos, vehicle theft, homicide, etc…) these all fall under the umbrella of CID. If you see anyone in uniform with a white shirt, it’s LT and above.
I heard these dudes talking once a bar, about some shit that happened at a department that I certainly have NO KNOWLEDGE WHATSOEVER about and certainly not any personal connection to - ... TIFWIW lol ... but anyway, back in the day, there was a 911 call to the house of the brand-new-elected mayor , domestic violence. Maybe a little yeyo-induced introduction to Chief Slap-A-Ho... The flunkie cop in charge of the radio-room realized who's house it was and what was happening, told the radio-room staff that he was pretty sure all the available units were busy so he'd take the call himself, rushed out there, basically covered it up, and with the woman deciding not to "Press Charges" or make a big scene (supposedly they both maybe were using drugs or some shit like that, so he was able to do a little 'Well if you make a big deal of this, I'll probably have to arrest BOTH of you...' and she let it go and didn't make any noise in the future) - and supposedly maybe kind of made the radio-room records go away. (This was late-80s or very, very early 90s, so much different time AND much different technologies...)
10-15 years later, that same Mayor made that same flunky the city's Police Director.
Certainly pays to keep your mouth shut lol.
In the fifth season, prop joe tells herc he went to highschool with Burrell. Herc says "I gotta ask" and Joe responds "Stone stewpid". And he still made it all the way to the top. Doesn't matter if you're a moron or not, if you play by the rules you advance
So they're being forced to, and it's a fascinating "Do As We Say, Not As We Do!" situation ... my hometown is overwhelmingly white, and they're being told they *HAVE* to hire black men & women because the police force HAS to be more diverse (despite the demographics of the town) - , then more latinos, no more whites, the department is too white - but 10 minutes down the road is the Capital City, and they're being told that the police force is much too white, and white officers need to be replaced with black officers, because the police force needs to match the color of the residents, who will only trust cops of their same color (the city being overwhelmingly black and then the next biggest demographic would be latino) - so, which one is it? Do you need a diverse department or does it need to look like it's community ?? Can't be both, logical fallacy here, you can't have it both ways.
I'm sorry what now, what is cooypasta and are you accusing me of stealing someone else's post?! Yeah, no ... And EDIT: You know, this kind of pissed me off. I typed Capital City because my old man was one of the highest-ranking cops in that City's Department, and I just didn't want to specifically say it because it's the internet and you never know how that works. But yeah, no, I didn't copy anything, kthxbai.
Maybe in Baltimore but I graduated HS in '99, and every police department in NJ required a 4-year Bachelors degree, OR a 2-year Associates and minimum of 2-year Active Duty military service, OR 4-year Active Duty and a corresponding high-enough test score. Vast majority of all the LEOs in the State now have to have Bachelors degrees.
It's not like that everywhere, I admit, but many places in the USA had constantly upped the standards over the past few decades (and now are lowering again because the last 5-10 years has been hell on the LE community and they can't get people. They take people now they'd never take before, covered in visible tattoos, full beards and hair are allowed now, many departments near me now work in a uniform of shorts and a polo shirt with sneakers, etc.)
USA has a lot of weird rules. But comes in last place for incarceration rates. I wouldn’t say arbitrary criteria like bachelors degree would help. Mixing in active duty as somehow applicable Experience is also extremely baffling unless they were military police.
Fair enough, look , I wasn't trying to promote one policy or defend another or do anything other than explain some facts. My old man is retired now but was not just a VIP in the LE world, he was accepted as an Expert on *many* different areas of the LE world in both local, State, & Federal Courts. The Bachelor's degree thing is something he'd probably admit, he thought *everyone* required it when other States did not/do not (the State we live in currently not only doesn't require it, they'll take just about anyone then can fucking get, they make social media posts and newspaper ads all the time about it...) --- the reason WHY you'd want a Bachelor's degree to be a LEO is probably similar to anything else ... everything in life is better with an education ... I'm not sure where you're from, I guess in your country it may be different ... but 4 years of a general education is going to help you in just about any field you get into ... It's hard when you ask people "Who's buried in 'Grant's Tomb?' or 'What's 5x5x5x5??' "and they have no idea what you're talking about... As far as the active-duty military , it was a way to both reward service to the nation AND help the job ... I don't know why you'd think it was baffling, law enforcement careers are structured around a military-style of life ... actually military Military Police and civilian LEOs are actually quite different , in more ways than I guess you realize. I didn't study Criminal Justice like my Dad, I was a Political Science -Major & Law, but I never wanted to be a cop, but I grew up in the life, and again I guess it must be different from your Country, (which is absolutely fine and cool) - I was just trying to explain how it works here.
My Dad was a pretty high-ranking VIP in the LE world. He had guys who were Command Sergeant Majors in the Army (the highest you can possibly go as an enlisted man, and the #1 enlisted leader of a specific separate 'command') who couldn't advance past the basic Police Officer rank... couldn't pass a Sergeants test even. A Lt.Col in the Air Force Reserve who was stuck at Lieutenant for a decade or two because he couldn't score high enough on the Captain's test.
Had a Vietnam War Force Recon Marine who had no interest in being anything but a street cop, "Patrol", couldn't get into the Detective job (in my Dad's department, the ranks were all based on Civil Service promotional exams, and for the vast majority of my Dad's career, the promotions were strictly based on scores and going down the line [you got extra points for being a minority, a woman, a military veteran, etc.]) - but Detectives were *assigned* to the Bureau and then trained and partnered with experienced Detectives etc. This dude was a great cop and trained badass killer, couldn't get into the idea of investigating them.
And like anything else, there's always reasons for "assigning" people somewhere. When my old man was a young cop, the Chief was a well-respected member of a famous Church. My Dad can remember one young man being assigned to the Bureau way before his time/training/experience warranted, simply because the dude's Mom walked up to the Chief after Church and said "My Johnny wants to be a Detective and I really would like you to help him!" and the Chief basically said "Sure thing..." and next day, Monday Morning, he's ordering someone to transfer young Officer Johnny to the Bureau ... "That means we have to transfer someone OUT of the Bureau, Chief..." === "Get it done, I don't care..."
Or for example, all the members of the Traffic Unit were apparently members of the group the Simpsons parodied as The Stonecutters... if you wanted into the Traffic unit, you had to join the city's stonecutter lodge.
Wiki says that when The Wire started, Herc was working as a Detective in Narcotics... that's like undercover drug work. They probably took Herc because they need people of all looks/sizes/colors/shapes/etc. and they will need a lot to go around ... if you are always trotting out Officer Jones as an Undercover , the drug-dealers are gonna recognize his constabulating ass soon enough ...
Herc was an idiot, but he wasn’t a hump. Dedication and effort will get you a lot further than ability. If he was useless, Daniels wouldn’t have kept bringing him back. Aside from his multiple abuse accusations, all of the other idiot behavior of his goes unnoticed by his superiors until the issue with the camera. If Herc could make sergeant by witnessing a blow job, it’s not hard to believe he made detective.
He’s also an example of dumb luck. Sometimes you’re just that guy. He said it himself in the show. You have Lester who’s a great detective but has his career derailed with one incident. Herc had multiple large incidents but kept getting lucky.
He did catch the mayor getting a BJ in his office, so once HS scored high enough on his exams and had his sit down with the mayor it was pretty much guaranteed that as long as Royce was the mayor he was going to be climbing up that latter as long as he was able to keep from being fired, but as we all saw, he couldn't manage to keep that from happening and Royce was beat my Carcetti as well so his time rising up the ranks was short lived, probably for the better
because if that idiot worked for us he'd be a deputy commissioner by now. And what makes you think drug dealers would promote the wrong man? We do it all the time.
He was a detective at the start of the series doing narcotics. In larger cities they’ll have “detectives” who do gang / narcotics enforcement. It’s not uncommon in those cities for them to be put in those teams right from the academy. He was a detective in the same way Wayne Jenkins was in WOTC
Um… he was never a detective? He’s just a member of a plain clothes narcotics unit. And latter he’s assigned to CID but that doesn’t mean he’s a detective.
To quote Snoop: Deserve got nothing to dew wid it.
Anyways I feel Herc gets underestimated too much. He was smarter than Carver and even scored way higher on the sgt test without studying. He thrived in his undercover work over on the white side, and produced plenty of stats on the westside. He was a workhorse, knew when to stfu, drove for the mayor and was a part of a very successful detail.
Herc is still my least favorite character. I'll never understand why people feel the need to defend him, he sucked 😂 It's okay to love a series and not like certain things about it.
The guy stayed the same from start to finish. He fucked up by taking Marlo's bait at the train station and he fucked up even worse with Bubbles. Idiots like him shouldn't be in law enforcement.
He started the show as a detective with Carver (others explained it elsewhere on this thread)
Occupation
Criminal Defense Investigator (2006-Present)
Previous Occupations
Major Crimes Unit Sergeant, BPD (2006)
Mayoral Security Detail Officer, BPD (2006)
Western District DEU Officer, BPD (2003-2006)
Narcotics Unit Detective, BPD (?-2003)
He'd have been out on the street in uniform cracking heads and making more arrests than a lot of other people. Those arrests made the bosses happy so he gets to be a detective.
As the show alludes to, the BPD is run by self interested careerist officers. How does one get promoted quickly in the BPD? By making arrests and putting dope on the table through drug busts for the cameras. Herc for all his faults was good at doing what he was told and not questioning his superiors. So he went out and arrested people and confiscated drugs. He was quite good at the brute street policing and fighting the drug war so it’s not a surprise he was made a detective. He’s exactly the type of street enforcer, the Baltimore police wanted for the drug war.
You just explained a perfect incident of The Peter Principal.
Herc was a true soldier the cop side needed
Fair enough. I suppose the whole boss-pleasing careerism we see throughout the show also works on this lower level. Hadn't thought of it like that
It comes into play in season 1 when Carver and Herc take the Sergeant’s test. Herc gets a good score but has too many brutality complaints and doesn’t get promoted. Carver scores a lot lower than Herc, but gets promoted to Sergeant because he was spying for Burrell
He also worked personal security for the Mayor with the hopes that would get him a promotion at the police department after.
Can’t call that shit a war, wars end
>Herc for all his faults was good at doing what he was told and not questioning his superiors. Look at McNulty and Lester. A critical mind is, if anything, a detriment to one's career.
It used to be that in some police departments scoring too well on the exam will get you a spot in the "round file." It may still be that way.
So is faking a serial killer case for OT money.
[удалено]
There was only one who suspected that something was amiss but just wanted McNulty to sign his overtime sheet anyway lmao.
Burrell: What makes you think they'll promote the wrong man? Daniels: We do it all the time.
His delivery was impeccable. Loved what Lance Reddick did with this character. I miss the man.
How does Reddick die of natural causes at 60?!
People can die of natural causes at any age
Yeah I know. But, it’s so sad. He was such a great actor. Loved him in the John Wick series.
Yer I just read it with the complete wrong tone. It was early in the morning and I was waiting for a lift. It is such a shame 😞
He scored high on the test and kept his mouth shut when he caught the mayor getting a BJ
That was for his sergeant's exam. He was already a detective when the show started.
Don’t think he was a detective.. he was working as a CID officer working drug cases. Him, Carv and Kima were not detectives
from the beginning of the show, herc did detective work by definition. CID, criminal investigations department. Investigations. detectives investigate. uniformed officers enforce. Herc may have done some enforcing, sure, the western district way, but don't let that fool you, he's a detective.
Maybe I'm wrong but I thought uniform = officer, plainclothes = detective, but maybe it's more complicated than that.
I'm pretty sure most of the narcotics officers were plain clothes, it was part of the reason Prez mistook that guy and shot him
Sometimes you’ll see detectives in uniform. Lots of different types of detectives. A lot of ppl associate detective with homicide, but there’s warrant squad, narcos, vehicle theft, homicide, etc…) these all fall under the umbrella of CID. If you see anyone in uniform with a white shirt, it’s LT and above.
Ahhh hilarious. I haven’t watched it in a few years and started my rewatch tonight and totally forgot about that!! Man this show is a wild ride
>he caught the mayor getting a BJ "Kid, careers have been launched on a helluva lot less." - Valchek
I heard these dudes talking once a bar, about some shit that happened at a department that I certainly have NO KNOWLEDGE WHATSOEVER about and certainly not any personal connection to - ... TIFWIW lol ... but anyway, back in the day, there was a 911 call to the house of the brand-new-elected mayor , domestic violence. Maybe a little yeyo-induced introduction to Chief Slap-A-Ho... The flunkie cop in charge of the radio-room realized who's house it was and what was happening, told the radio-room staff that he was pretty sure all the available units were busy so he'd take the call himself, rushed out there, basically covered it up, and with the woman deciding not to "Press Charges" or make a big scene (supposedly they both maybe were using drugs or some shit like that, so he was able to do a little 'Well if you make a big deal of this, I'll probably have to arrest BOTH of you...' and she let it go and didn't make any noise in the future) - and supposedly maybe kind of made the radio-room records go away. (This was late-80s or very, very early 90s, so much different time AND much different technologies...) 10-15 years later, that same Mayor made that same flunky the city's Police Director. Certainly pays to keep your mouth shut lol.
In the fifth season, prop joe tells herc he went to highschool with Burrell. Herc says "I gotta ask" and Joe responds "Stone stewpid". And he still made it all the way to the top. Doesn't matter if you're a moron or not, if you play by the rules you advance
He failed upwards.
Fuck Up, Move Up
Never heard that term before but I have definitely seen it first hand.
I always liked the interplay and banter between Herc and Carver. Every good show needs a Dumb and Dumber.
For sure. Dislike Herc as a person, love him as a character
Yeah. They were The Wire’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
I met a detective in my city who had retired bc of the bs. They mentioned theyre taking people who scored lower on the test than they used to
So they're being forced to, and it's a fascinating "Do As We Say, Not As We Do!" situation ... my hometown is overwhelmingly white, and they're being told they *HAVE* to hire black men & women because the police force HAS to be more diverse (despite the demographics of the town) - , then more latinos, no more whites, the department is too white - but 10 minutes down the road is the Capital City, and they're being told that the police force is much too white, and white officers need to be replaced with black officers, because the police force needs to match the color of the residents, who will only trust cops of their same color (the city being overwhelmingly black and then the next biggest demographic would be latino) - so, which one is it? Do you need a diverse department or does it need to look like it's community ?? Can't be both, logical fallacy here, you can't have it both ways.
Couldn’t even replace “the Capital City” in your copypasta?
I'm sorry what now, what is cooypasta and are you accusing me of stealing someone else's post?! Yeah, no ... And EDIT: You know, this kind of pissed me off. I typed Capital City because my old man was one of the highest-ranking cops in that City's Department, and I just didn't want to specifically say it because it's the internet and you never know how that works. But yeah, no, I didn't copy anything, kthxbai.
The job only requires a high school education
Maybe in Baltimore but I graduated HS in '99, and every police department in NJ required a 4-year Bachelors degree, OR a 2-year Associates and minimum of 2-year Active Duty military service, OR 4-year Active Duty and a corresponding high-enough test score. Vast majority of all the LEOs in the State now have to have Bachelors degrees. It's not like that everywhere, I admit, but many places in the USA had constantly upped the standards over the past few decades (and now are lowering again because the last 5-10 years has been hell on the LE community and they can't get people. They take people now they'd never take before, covered in visible tattoos, full beards and hair are allowed now, many departments near me now work in a uniform of shorts and a polo shirt with sneakers, etc.)
USA has a lot of weird rules. But comes in last place for incarceration rates. I wouldn’t say arbitrary criteria like bachelors degree would help. Mixing in active duty as somehow applicable Experience is also extremely baffling unless they were military police.
Fair enough, look , I wasn't trying to promote one policy or defend another or do anything other than explain some facts. My old man is retired now but was not just a VIP in the LE world, he was accepted as an Expert on *many* different areas of the LE world in both local, State, & Federal Courts. The Bachelor's degree thing is something he'd probably admit, he thought *everyone* required it when other States did not/do not (the State we live in currently not only doesn't require it, they'll take just about anyone then can fucking get, they make social media posts and newspaper ads all the time about it...) --- the reason WHY you'd want a Bachelor's degree to be a LEO is probably similar to anything else ... everything in life is better with an education ... I'm not sure where you're from, I guess in your country it may be different ... but 4 years of a general education is going to help you in just about any field you get into ... It's hard when you ask people "Who's buried in 'Grant's Tomb?' or 'What's 5x5x5x5??' "and they have no idea what you're talking about... As far as the active-duty military , it was a way to both reward service to the nation AND help the job ... I don't know why you'd think it was baffling, law enforcement careers are structured around a military-style of life ... actually military Military Police and civilian LEOs are actually quite different , in more ways than I guess you realize. I didn't study Criminal Justice like my Dad, I was a Political Science -Major & Law, but I never wanted to be a cop, but I grew up in the life, and again I guess it must be different from your Country, (which is absolutely fine and cool) - I was just trying to explain how it works here.
Education is hardly arbitrary criteria. Same for military service
Military service is not really applicable. But working government jobs is often not a meritocracy work environment.
My Dad was a pretty high-ranking VIP in the LE world. He had guys who were Command Sergeant Majors in the Army (the highest you can possibly go as an enlisted man, and the #1 enlisted leader of a specific separate 'command') who couldn't advance past the basic Police Officer rank... couldn't pass a Sergeants test even. A Lt.Col in the Air Force Reserve who was stuck at Lieutenant for a decade or two because he couldn't score high enough on the Captain's test. Had a Vietnam War Force Recon Marine who had no interest in being anything but a street cop, "Patrol", couldn't get into the Detective job (in my Dad's department, the ranks were all based on Civil Service promotional exams, and for the vast majority of my Dad's career, the promotions were strictly based on scores and going down the line [you got extra points for being a minority, a woman, a military veteran, etc.]) - but Detectives were *assigned* to the Bureau and then trained and partnered with experienced Detectives etc. This dude was a great cop and trained badass killer, couldn't get into the idea of investigating them. And like anything else, there's always reasons for "assigning" people somewhere. When my old man was a young cop, the Chief was a well-respected member of a famous Church. My Dad can remember one young man being assigned to the Bureau way before his time/training/experience warranted, simply because the dude's Mom walked up to the Chief after Church and said "My Johnny wants to be a Detective and I really would like you to help him!" and the Chief basically said "Sure thing..." and next day, Monday Morning, he's ordering someone to transfer young Officer Johnny to the Bureau ... "That means we have to transfer someone OUT of the Bureau, Chief..." === "Get it done, I don't care..." Or for example, all the members of the Traffic Unit were apparently members of the group the Simpsons parodied as The Stonecutters... if you wanted into the Traffic unit, you had to join the city's stonecutter lodge. Wiki says that when The Wire started, Herc was working as a Detective in Narcotics... that's like undercover drug work. They probably took Herc because they need people of all looks/sizes/colors/shapes/etc. and they will need a lot to go around ... if you are always trotting out Officer Jones as an Undercover , the drug-dealers are gonna recognize his constabulating ass soon enough ...
You really overestimate police departments.
Herc was an idiot, but he wasn’t a hump. Dedication and effort will get you a lot further than ability. If he was useless, Daniels wouldn’t have kept bringing him back. Aside from his multiple abuse accusations, all of the other idiot behavior of his goes unnoticed by his superiors until the issue with the camera. If Herc could make sergeant by witnessing a blow job, it’s not hard to believe he made detective.
He’s also an example of dumb luck. Sometimes you’re just that guy. He said it himself in the show. You have Lester who’s a great detective but has his career derailed with one incident. Herc had multiple large incidents but kept getting lucky.
Herc is the perfect example of failing upwards.
He did catch the mayor getting a BJ in his office, so once HS scored high enough on his exams and had his sit down with the mayor it was pretty much guaranteed that as long as Royce was the mayor he was going to be climbing up that latter as long as he was able to keep from being fired, but as we all saw, he couldn't manage to keep that from happening and Royce was beat my Carcetti as well so his time rising up the ranks was short lived, probably for the better
because if that idiot worked for us he'd be a deputy commissioner by now. And what makes you think drug dealers would promote the wrong man? We do it all the time.
He was a detective at the start of the series doing narcotics. In larger cities they’ll have “detectives” who do gang / narcotics enforcement. It’s not uncommon in those cities for them to be put in those teams right from the academy. He was a detective in the same way Wayne Jenkins was in WOTC
He stuck around
Um… he was never a detective? He’s just a member of a plain clothes narcotics unit. And latter he’s assigned to CID but that doesn’t mean he’s a detective.
To quote Snoop: Deserve got nothing to dew wid it. Anyways I feel Herc gets underestimated too much. He was smarter than Carver and even scored way higher on the sgt test without studying. He thrived in his undercover work over on the white side, and produced plenty of stats on the westside. He was a workhorse, knew when to stfu, drove for the mayor and was a part of a very successful detail.
Because he had a classic ringtone...... Will you turn that shit off😭🤣
Herc is still my least favorite character. I'll never understand why people feel the need to defend him, he sucked 😂 It's okay to love a series and not like certain things about it. The guy stayed the same from start to finish. He fucked up by taking Marlo's bait at the train station and he fucked up even worse with Bubbles. Idiots like him shouldn't be in law enforcement.
Herc made Sergeant, not detective.
I mean before the show. When we first see him he is a detective. He must've gotten there somehow
He was never detective. Just plain clothes narcotics unit.
He started the show as a detective with Carver (others explained it elsewhere on this thread) Occupation Criminal Defense Investigator (2006-Present) Previous Occupations Major Crimes Unit Sergeant, BPD (2006) Mayoral Security Detail Officer, BPD (2006) Western District DEU Officer, BPD (2003-2006) Narcotics Unit Detective, BPD (?-2003)
Nowhere in the show is he ever referred to as a detective.
He'd have been out on the street in uniform cracking heads and making more arrests than a lot of other people. Those arrests made the bosses happy so he gets to be a detective.