David Simon: O’Malley ‘Destroyed’ Policing

David Simon, creator of The Wire and a former Baltimore journalist, slammed ex-mayor and current presidential candidate Martin O’Malley for “destroying police work in some real respects.” Simon claimed the loss of “all professional ethos” in the police force began with the war on drugs, but “whatever was left of it when [O’Malley] took over the police department, if there were two bricks together that were the suggestion of an edifice that you could have called meaningful police work, he found a way to pull them apart.” Simon did, however, say that if O’Malley wins the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, “I’m going to end up voting for him. It’s not personal and I admire some of his other stances on the death penalty and gay rights.”