Omar in The Wire…how realistic is his character for 90s Baltimore?

[BrothaZay]

I know the show came out in the early 2000s but if memory serves me correctly it was supposed to be based on Bmore in the 90s, atleast the 1st season

With that said, now realistic would it be for a dude like Omar to terrorize a whole city with just a few guys, some times a few girls, and other times just him solo.

Idk if I’m biased cuz I didn’t like his character(corny dialogue) but he just seemed a bit much at times





@BmoreGorilla

 

[Vandelay]

Wildly unrealistic. Omar probably would've lived a year or two max in real life. Robbing drug dealers in a city as small as Baltimore, he definitely would've got got at a convenience store or some other casual location just like he did in the show. You rob a drug dealer, you need to skip town.

He was well-written, but wildly unrealistic. Not sure if he's actually based on someone real though.

 

[DreadBrown]

He was based on a real person

Iirc the dude he was based on played a cameo as one of the prison inmates that protected Omar when he got locked up

 

[Phitz]

He was based on a real person

Iirc the dude he was based on played a cameo as one of the prison inmates that protected Omar when he got locked up

I read somewhere he was based off of DC hitman Wayne Perry

 

[Wiseborn]

He was based on a real person

Iirc the dude he was based on played a cameo as one of the prison inmates that protected Omar when he got locked up

He was based on Donnie Andrews ( he’s the guy who jumped out the window in a robbery) He also snitched like Omar did.

The Trenchcoat was based on a a robber named Ferdinard.

 

[Wiseborn]

I read somewhere he was based off of DC hitman Wayne Perry

Yeah they made all of them composite characters from Baltimore, DC New York and Philly guys.

 

[BrothaZay]

He was based on a real person

Iirc the dude he was based on played a cameo as one of the prison inmates that protected Omar when he got locked up

Yea I know this is true

I know jacc boys are a real thing, im
Mostly talcn about how everyone on the Blocc ran away as soon as Omar turned a corner, or dropping their whole package out the window just because Omar is standing outside

 

[AceAge]

You can’t routinely rob two of them major players in your super small city, and take your grandmother to the same church twice a month in public. He’d have been in a box in under a year.

 

[Wiseborn]

Yea I know this is true

I know jacc boys are a real thing, im
Mostly talcn about how everyone on the Blocc ran away as soon as Omar turned a corner, or dropping their whole package out the window just because Omar is standing outside

who knows if it was like that, but it sounds fake.

That being said if the nikka made the stash house why not drop the money and dope before he kicks in the door.

They wanted to Make Omar the antihero but if you’re robbing drug dealers either they give it up immediately or they kill everyone in the house.

 

[Wiseborn]

You can’t routinely rob two of them major players in your super small city, and take your grandmother to the same church twice a month in public. He’d have been in a box in under a year.

It depends again he was based on a real person and there was a ton of jackers in that period but by making him gay and the Baltimore thing of living in vacants kinda made sense.

You clip homie’s grandmother and he comes after your family and homie lived in vacants with no flash. As he said I’ll bet I can find your people way easier than you can find mines.
They addressed the obvious shyt if Omar posted up he gave crackheads free crack to keep it quiet

 

[tuckgod]

Wildly unrealistic. Omar probably would've lived a year or two max in real life. Robbing drug dealers in a city as small as Baltimore, he definitely would've got got at a convenience store or some other casual location just like he did in the show. You rob a drug dealer, you need to skip town.

Shorty Boyd, Donnie Andrews, Ferdinand Harvin, Billy Outlaw, Anthony Hollie, Cadillac, Low

 

[⠀X ⠀]

These crews had too may opportunities to drop him. The writers had to do what they had to do to keep his character in the story.

 

[AceAge]

It depends again he was based on a real person and there was a ton of jackers in that period but by making him gay and the Baltimore thing of living in vacants kinda made sense.

You clip homie’s grandmother and he comes after your family and homie lived in vacants with no flash. As he said I’ll bet I can find your people way easier than you can find mines.
They addressed the obvious shyt if Omar posted up he gave crackheads free crack to keep it quiet

If the major players in your city know where you are every two weeks and you robbing them, you’re not making it alive more than a year. As good of a businessman as Prop Joe was, in real life he would’ve took Omar out when he sold his back his shipment that final time. When his nephew Cheese said “How about we take you in the back room and find our stuff the old fashioned way” and Omar asked “You think I’m going to give it up?” A good businessman like Joe would’ve done the math and said “You are a pest costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars and stressing out our organization. I’ll take the hit on not getting this one shipment back and take you out right now, just to be able to go back to the co-op and say “We got Omar bagged up. He’s not a problem anymore.” That would’ve built so much good equity with the co-op they’d have took the financial hit of one shipment being robbed a final time.

 

[Standing on business]

I remember a scene where he walked in front of a whistling & they just threw the money down to him. In real life they would’ve just shot is ass through the window.

 

[Luke Cage]

i robbed a drug dealer once when i was a teen. Nobody killed me.
Not all drug dealers are hardened gangsters ready to kill . Sometime a drug dealer can be p*ssy

Now that was the one and only time that happened though, i didn't go around doing that all the time, just a happen stance to be honest.