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

[Canada Goose]

I heard regular people would scatter when "Babyface" from Flatbush Brooklyn would appear in public.


Dude was basically an early 90s version of a YN

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/23/nyregion/a-gunman-is-sought-in-5-brooklyn-slayings.html

Now, street nikkas who had guns on them probably didn't scatter at the sight of babyface, but regular people supposedly did THAT aspect of the Omar character is realistic

 

[Diunx]

@Kasper KArr knows all about it.

 

[BrothaZay]

I heard regular people would scatter when "Babyface" from Flatbush Brooklyn would appear in public.


Dude was basically an early 90s version of a YN

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/23/nyregion/a-gunman-is-sought-in-5-brooklyn-slayings.html

Now, street nikkas who had guns on them probably didn't scatter at the sight of babyface, but regular people supposedly did THAT aspect of the Omar character is realistic

I wonder if the same was true for Wayne Perry then

I thinc I remember an interview of someone saying Monster Kody had ppl nervous to be around him.

But LA street culture is way different than east coast

 

[Wiseborn]

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.

You answered your own question then contradicted it.

First of all Jacking dealers was a whole thing everywhere so it wasn’t like nikkas was definitely dying immediately.

It was a business decision you can have massive security or you can accept some shrink.

In the scene that you described yes Prop Joe could’ve killed Omar But he worked at a junk shop. The Puerto Rican guy could did exactly what Omar did when Butchie go killed and just clapped the lot of them. Hell he could’ve ran in had Omar not came out in a certain time.

Who knew that Omar didn’t have a whole crew behind him he was able to assemble crew on an as needed basis he even had help in jail.

On the show Omar was gay that was a huge benefit in it’s self. They didn’t say that Kimmie and the other chick was gay but it was implied. Marlo was marked out and lined up by a chick that Avon sent to him Had he not been so paranoid he would’ve died then.

If you’re a major drug dealer you want to actually sell drugs not go to war all the time. That’s why the Co-Op existed in the first place


Like String said the bodies bring the police all the investigators started when bodies started dropping. so if a nikka like Omar is hitting houses yeah you try to prevent that but killing his grandmoms ain’t gonna get you no closer but it would ensure YOUR Grandmom gets hit.

You really think that Omar really took his Grandmom to church every weekend?

The one fake thing about the show or maybe that was real too is some kind of Sunday Truce that was followed by everyone at all times.

Again big mobs might have followed it to prevent chaos but nikkas on the come up?

You think Marlo was that sentimental?

You catch Omar slipping yes and it was bound to happen sooner or later but the way he moved on the show it’d be no reason to waste time trying to eliminate Omar which is why even a top enforcer like Chris said to wait.

 

[AceAge]

You answered your own question then contradicted it.

First of all Jacking dealers was a whole thing everywhere so it wasn’t like nikkas was definitely dying immediately.

It was a business decision you can have massive security or you can accept some shrink.

In the scene that you described yes Prop Joe could’ve killed Omar But he worked at a junk shop. The Puerto Rican guy could did exactly what Omar did when Butchie go killed and just clapped the lot of them. Hell he could’ve ran in had Omar not came out in a certain time.

Who knew that Omar didn’t have a whole crew behind him he was able to assemble crew on an as needed basis he even had help in jail.

On the show Omar was gay that was a huge benefit in it’s self. They didn’t say that Kimmie and the other chick was gay but it was implied. Marlo was marked out and lined up by a chick that Avon sent to him Had he not been so paranoid he would’ve died then.

If you’re a major drug dealer you want to actually sell drugs not go to war all the time. That’s why the Co-Op existed in the first place


Like String said the bodies bring the police all the investigators started when bodies started dropping. so if a nikka like Omar is hitting houses yeah you try to prevent that but killing his grandmoms ain’t gonna get you no closer but it would ensure YOUR Grandmom gets hit.

You really think that Omar really took his Grandmom to church every weekend?

The one fake thing about the show or maybe that was real too is some kind of Sunday Truce that was followed by everyone at all times.

Again big mobs might have followed it to prevent chaos but nikkas on the come up?

You think Marlo was that sentimental?

You catch Omar slipping yes and it was bound to happen sooner or later but the way he moved on the show it’d be no reason to waste time trying to eliminate Omar which is why even a top enforcer like Chris said to wait.

All of what you said is plot armor. Thread premise is real life, where’s there’s no plot armor. Real life, guy like Omar would’ve been dead in a year tops. You not robbing a kingpin repeatedly , walking around freely on Sunday mornings, and then walking in his shop talking trash to his face while it’s killers in the room.

 

[FTBS]

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.

The one dude that helped him in jail "Bunchie sent us" was the real Omar...or at least one of them. I think he is the one that actually jumped out the window too.

 

[Wiseborn]

All of what you said is plot armor. Thread premise is real life, where’s there’s no plot armor. Real life, guy like Omar would’ve been dead in a year tops. You not robbing a kingpin repeatedly , walking around freely on Sunday mornings, and then walking in his shop talking trash to his face while it’s killers in the room.

My guy a 90’s drug King pin like Alpo was in the clubs all the time smashing multiple bytches. Why would someone become a drug dealer if they had to walk around with goons at all times couldn’t go out in public much and had to protect their whole family?

Even if he wanted to do that do you think all his little Man’s wanted to die just because he lost a package once or twice.

Let’s talk real life. 50 Cent died not because Supreme killed him but because he was backdoored by his Man’s Puerto Rican Righteous.

Tut was walking around untouched, Haitian Jack got deported not killed.

Absolutely most Stick up Kids got killed eventually but not right away.


shyt Rakim became a whole rapper ( I used to be a Stick up Kid) He wasn’t a big time stick up kid but Killer Ben was

shyt there was that infamous picture that 50 cent and various Stick up kids was in.

We can go down the line of nikkas who jacked The Supreme Team alone and lived for a decent time before they got killed.

E moneybags was dissing ‘Preme openly for a minute before he died.

 

[Wiseborn]

All of what you said is plot armor. Thread premise is real life, where’s there’s no plot armor. Real life, guy like Omar would’ve been dead in a year tops. You not robbing a kingpin repeatedly , walking around freely on Sunday mornings, and then walking in his shop talking trash to his face while it’s killers in the room.

we get caught up in disagreements and arguments where there isn’t any.

At the end of the day you commit crimes you either get bagged or die. There was a few cases where king pins retired with their money intact that that was rare.

I’m not saying that Stick up kids didn’t die they did I’m saying that they didn’t die immediately and If you wanted to be a famous Stick up Kid like 50 cent then you died quicker but a crew hitting stashes here and there of big mobs didn’t die.

at some point they got caught slipping but that was bound to happen like Killer Ben getting clapped at a phone booth that he kept using.

I’m also saying family that wasn’t involved was usually off limits.

The Jamaicans played the going after usually male relatives and the cops helped the FBA’s out and immediately bagged them. There was no witness protection in Jamaica so like the Colombians before them learned Don’t kill civilians Don’t even have shootouts where a civvy might get hurt. If you want an almost immediate bagging shoot up a mall or something trying to get at the opps.

 

[Wiseborn]

The one dude that helped him in jail "Bunchie sent us" was the real Omar...or at least one of them. I think he is the one that actually jumped out the window too.

most of the shyt that Omar did Donnie did. He jumped out the window, he took the stand against his Co-D’s he gave away drugs to fiends.

 

[tuckgod]

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.

nikkas that sell dope don’t want them kind of problems they really want to run a smooth business, the wolves are the ones that bring the murders, and the smart dope boys keep a stable of wolves on their side.

 

[TMBlue]

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.

What's your definition of a super small city?

 

[boogers]

i actually dig the corner more than the wire. its kinda wild seeing lester freamon shoot up lol. his arm was looking like popeye by the end.

its only six episodes iirc and its on youtube. highly recommended!

i have the book "on the corner" by david simon. i think he is a racist but he is a good documentary maker. i think he does have empathy for these people but he looks down on them. i could be wrong but its just what i infer from his writing style. i hope im wrong.

seriously, watch the corner if you like the wire. shyt made me cry lol

 

[Wiseborn]

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.

In that scenario yes.

 

[Wiseborn]

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.

I have family members and play cousins that robbed nikkas and they’re alive and well.

 

[Wiseborn]

i actually dig the corner more than the wire. its kinda wild seeing lester freamon shoot up lol. his arm was looking like popeye by the end.

its only six episodes iirc and its on youtube. highly recommended!

i have the book "on the corner" by david simon. i think he is a racist but he is a good documentary maker. i think he does have empathy for these people but he looks down on them. i could be wrong but its just what i infer from his writing style. i hope im wrong.

seriously, watch the corner if you like the wire. shyt made me cry lol

Yeah The Corner was wild. Fran Boyd ( the mother) married Donnie Andrews in real life.

Id have to read the book to see the racism, I could see how he would look down on people because it’s kinda wild that they let all that shyt happen.

In the series that area was hood but a decent neighborhood then crack and heroin came in and everything changed.

You gotta blame the residents for that allowing to happen.

The fact that the lady ran the rec center with almost zero help and Blue becoming a drug counselor and able to be around dope without copping leads to to ask why did he get on dope in the first place?