The Black Detective: Satisfied Success: Part 1

Simon chose to set the show in Baltimore because of his familiarity with the city. During his time as a writer and producer for the NBC program Homicide: Life on the Street , based on his book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets , also set in Baltimore, Simon had come into conflict with NBC network executives who were displeased by the show's pessimism. Simon wanted to avoid a repeat of these conflicts and chose to take The Wire to HBO , because of their working relationship from the miniseries The Corner.

HBO was initially doubtful about including a police drama in its lineup but agreed to produce the pilot episode. He hoped the show would change the opinions of some viewers but said that it was unlikely to affect the issues it portrays. The casting of the show has been praised for avoiding big-name stars and using character actors who appear natural in their roles.

Wendell Pierce , who plays Detective Bunk Moreland , was the first actor to be cast. Dominic West , who won the ostensible lead role of Detective Jimmy McNulty , sent in a tape he recorded the night before the audition's deadline of him playing out a scene by himself. Williams got the part of Omar Little after only a single audition. Jay Landsman , a longtime police officer who inspired the character of the same name , [13] played Lieutenant Dennis Mello.

More than a dozen cast members previously appeared on HBO's first hour-long drama Oz. Life on the Street , the earlier and award-winning network television series also based on Simon's book; Lewis appeared on Oz as well. Chew , Delaney Williams , and Benay Berger. Alongside Simon, the show's creator, head writer , showrunner , and executive producer , much of the creative team behind The Wire were alumni of Homicide and Primetime Emmy Award -winning miniseries The Corner.

The Corner veteran, Robert F. Colesberry , was executive producer for the first two seasons and directed the season 2 finale before dying from complications from heart surgery in He is credited by the rest of the creative team as having a large creative role for a producer, and Simon credits him for achieving the show's realistic visual feel.

Thorson joined him on the production staff. Stories for the show were often co-written by Burns, who also became a producer in the show's fourth season. Alvarez is a colleague of Simon's from The Baltimore Sun and a Baltimore native with working experience in the port area. Zorzi joined the writing staff in the third season and brought a wealth of experience to the show's examination of Baltimore politics. Overmyer was brought into the full-time production staff to replace Pelecanos who scaled back his involvement to concentrate on his next book and worked on the fourth season solely as a writer.

The directing has been praised for its uncomplicated and subtle style. Each episode begins with a cold open that seldom contains a dramatic juncture. The screen then fades or cuts to black while the intro music fades in. The show's opening title sequence then plays; a series of shots, mainly close-ups, concerning the show's subject matter that changes from season to season, separated by fast cutting a technique rarely used in the show itself.

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The opening credits are superimposed on the sequence, and consist only of actors' names without identifying which actors play which roles. In addition, actors' faces are rarely seen in the title sequence.

Episode Review: True Detective Season 1 Finale

At the end of the sequence, a quotation is shown on-screen that is spoken by a character during the episode. The three exceptions were the first season finale which uses the phrase "All in the game", attributed to "Traditional West Baltimore", a phrase used frequently throughout all five seasons including that episode; the fourth season finale which uses the words "If animal trapped call " written on boarded up vacant homes attributed to "Baltimore, traditional" and the series finale , which started with a quote from H.

Mencken that is shown on a wall at The Baltimore Sun in one scene, neither quote being spoken by a character. Progressive story arcs often unfold in different locations at the same time. Episodes rarely end with a cliffhanger , and close with a fade or cut to black with the closing music fading in.

When broadcast on HBO and on some international networks, the episodes are preceded by a recap of events that have a bearing upon the upcoming narrative , using clips from previous episodes. Rather than overlaying songs on the soundtrack, or employing a score, The Wire primarily uses pieces of music that emanate from a source within the scene, such as a jukebox or car radio.

This kind of music is known as diegetic or source cue. This practice is rarely breached, notably for the end-of-season montages and occasionally with a brief overlap of the closing theme and the final shot. The season four version of "Way Down in the Hole" was arranged and recorded for the show and is performed by five Baltimore teenagers: During season finales, a song is played before the closing scene in a montage showing the lives of the protagonists in the aftermath of the narrative.

John and performed by Paul Weller and the fifth uses an extended version of "Way Down In The Hole" by the Blind Boys of Alabama, the same version of the song used as the opening theme for the first season. While the songs reflect the mood of the sequence, their lyrics are usually only loosely tied to the visual shots. In the commentary track to episode 37, " Mission Accomplished ", executive producer David Simon said: It brutalizes the visual in a way to have the lyrics dead on point. Yet at the same time it can't be totally off point.

It has to glance at what you're trying to say. Two soundtrack albums, called The Wire: The writers strove to create a realistic vision of an American city based on their own experiences. A Year on the Killing Streets , where he met Burns. Burns served in the Baltimore Police Department for 20 years and later became a teacher in an inner-city school. The two of them spent a year researching the drug culture and poverty in Baltimore for their book The Corner: Their combined experiences were used in many storylines of The Wire.

Central to the show's aim for realism was the creation of truthful characters. Simon has stated that most of them are composites of real-life Baltimore figures. In distinguishing the police characters from other television detectives, Simon makes the point that even the best police of The Wire are motivated not by a desire to protect and serve, but by the intellectual vanity of believing they are smarter than the criminals they are chasing.

However, while many of the police do exhibit altruistic qualities, many officers portrayed on the show are incompetent, brutal, self-aggrandizing, or hamstrung by bureaucracy and politics. The criminals are not always motivated by profit or a desire to harm others; many are trapped in their existence and all have human qualities. Even so, The Wire does not minimize or gloss over the horrific effects of their actions.

The show is realistic in depicting the processes of both police work and criminal activity. There have even been reports of real-life criminals watching the show to learn how to counter police investigation techniques. In a December Washington Post article, local African-American students said that the show had "hit a nerve" with the black community and that they themselves knew real-life counterparts of many of the characters. The article expressed great sadness at the toll drugs and violence are taking on the black community. Many important events occur off-camera and there is no artificial exposition in the form of voice-over or flashbacks , with the exceptions of two flashbacks — one at the end of the pilot episode that replays a moment from earlier in the same episode and one at the end of the fourth season finale that shows a short clip of a character tutoring his younger brother earlier in the season.

Thus, the viewer needs to follow every conversation closely to understand the ongoing story arc and the relevance of each character to it. Simon chose this structure with an eye towards long story arcs that draw a viewer in, which then results in a more satisfying payoff. He uses the metaphor of a visual novel in several interviews, [3] [49] describing each episode as a chapter, and has also commented that this allows a fuller exploration of the show's themes in time not spent on plot development.

Simon described the second season as "a meditation on the death of work and the betrayal of the American working class Writer Ed Burns , who worked as a public school teacher after retiring from the Baltimore police force shortly before going to work with Simon, has called education the theme of the fourth season. Rather than focusing solely on the school system, the fourth season looks at schools as a porous part of the community that are affected by problems outside of their boundaries.

Burns states that education comes from many sources other than schools and that children can be educated by other means, including contact with the drug dealers they work for. Simon has identified the organizations featured in the show—the Baltimore Police Department , City Hall, the Baltimore public school system , the Barksdale drug trafficking operation , The Baltimore Sun , and the stevedores ' union—as comparable institutions.

All are dysfunctional in some way, and the characters are typically betrayed by the institutions that they accept in their lives. Simon described the show as "cynical about institutions" [46] while taking a humanistic approach toward its characters. Central to the structure and plot of the show is the use of electronic surveillance and wiretap technologies by the police—hence the title The Wire. The Wire employs a broad ensemble cast, supplemented by many recurring guest stars who populate the institutions featured in the show.

The majority of the cast is black, which accurately reflects the demographics of Baltimore. The show's creators are also willing to kill off major characters, so that viewers cannot assume that a given character will survive simply because of a starring role or popularity among fans. In response to a question on why a certain character had to die, David Simon said,. We are not selling hope, or audience gratification, or cheap victories with this show.

The Wire is making an argument about what institutions—bureaucracies, criminal enterprises, the cultures of addiction, raw capitalism even—do to individuals. It is not designed purely as an entertainment. It is, I'm afraid, a somewhat angry show. The major characters of the first season were divided between those on the side of the law and those involved in drug-related crime. The investigating detail was launched by the actions of Detective Jimmy McNulty Dominic West , whose insubordinate tendencies and personal problems played counterpoint to his ability as a criminal investigator.

The detail was led by Lieutenant Cedric Daniels Lance Reddick who faced challenges balancing his career aspirations with his desire to produce a good case. Kima Greggs Sonja Sohn was a capable lead detective who faced jealousy from colleagues and worry about the dangers of her job from her domestic partner. Her investigative work was greatly helped by her confidential informant , a drug addict known as Bubbles Andre Royo. The duo's initially violent nature was eventually subdued as they proved useful in grunt work, and sometimes served as comic relief for the viewer.

Though not initially important players in the operation, Freamon proved a quietly capable and methodical investigator with a knack for noticing tiny but important details, and Prez turned out to be a natural at following paper trails and his persistence when dealing with seemingly unbreakable codes paid off eventually.

These investigators were overseen by two commanding officers more concerned with politics and their own careers than the case, Deputy Commissioner Ervin Burrell Frankie Faison and Major William Rawls John Doman. Assistant state's attorney Rhonda Pearlman Deirdre Lovejoy acted as the legal liaison between the detail and the courthouse and also had a sexual relationship with McNulty. In the homicide division, Bunk Moreland Wendell Pierce was a gifted, dry-witted, hard-drinking detective partnered with McNulty under Sergeant Jay Landsman Delaney Williams , the sarcastic, sharp-tongued squad supervisor.

Peter Gerety had a recurring role as Judge Phelan, the official who started the case moving. On the other side of the investigation was Avon Barksdale 's drug empire. Williams , and Wallace Michael B.

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Jordan , all street-level drug dealers. Omar Little Michael K. Williams , a renowned Baltimore stick-up man robbing drug dealers for a living, was a frequent thorn in the side of the Barksdale clan. Vondas was the underboss of a global smuggling operation, Russell an inexperienced port authority officer and single mother thrown in at the deep end of a multiple homicide investigation, and Frank Sobotka a union leader who turned to crime to raise funds to save his union.

As the second season ended, the focus shifted away from the ports, leaving the new characters behind. The third season saw several previously recurring characters assuming larger starring roles, including Detective Leander Sydnor Corey Parker Robinson , Bodie J. Williams , Omar Michael K. Williams , Proposition Joe Robert F. Colvin commanded the Western district where the Barksdale organization operated, and nearing retirement, he came up with a radical new method of dealing with the drug problem.

Proposition Joe, the East Side's cautious drug kingpin, became more cooperative with the Barksdale Organization. Sydnor, a rising young star in the Police Department in season 1, returned to the cast as part of the major crimes unit.

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Bodie had been seen gradually rising in the Barksdale organization since the first episode; he was born to their trade and showed a fierce aptitude for it. Omar had a vendetta against the Barksdale organization and gave them all of his lethal attention. New additions in the third season included Tommy Carcetti Aidan Gillen , an ambitious city councilman; Mayor Clarence Royce Glynn Turman , the incumbent whom Carcetti planned to unseat; Marlo Stanfield Jamie Hector , leader of an upstart gang seeking to challenge Avon's dominance; and Dennis "Cutty" Wise Chad Coleman , a newly released convict uncertain of his future.

In the fourth season , four young actors joined the cast: The characters are friends from a West Baltimore middle school. Another newcomer was Norman Wilson Reg E. Cathey , Carcetti's deputy campaign manager. The fifth season saw several actors join the starring cast. Gbenga Akinnagbe returns as the previously recurring Chris Partlow , chief enforcer of the now dominant Stanfield Organization. Neal Huff reprises his role as Mayoral chief of staff Michael Steintorf having previously appeared as a guest star at the end of the fourth season. Two other actors also join the starring cast having previously portrayed their corrupt characters as guest stars— Michael Kostroff as defense attorney Maurice Levy and Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Crew member Clark Johnson appeared in front of the camera for the first time in the series to play Augustus Haynes , the principled editor of the city desk of The Baltimore Sun. The first season introduces two major groups of characters: The season follows the police investigation of the latter over its 13 episodes. The investigation is triggered when, following the acquittal of D'Angelo Barksdale for murder after a key witness changes her story, Detective Jimmy McNulty meets privately with Judge Daniel Phelan.

McNulty tells Phelan that the witness has probably been intimidated by members of a drug trafficking empire run by D'Angelo's uncle, Avon Barksdale , having recognized several faces at the trial, most notably Avon's second-in-command, Stringer Bell. He also tells Phelan that no one is investigating Barksdale's criminal activity, which includes a significant portion of the city's drug trade and several unsolved homicides. Phelan reacts to McNulty's report by complaining to senior Police Department figures, embarrassing them into creating a detail dedicated to investigating Barksdale.

An intradepartmental struggle between the more motivated officers on the detail and their superiors spans the whole season, with interference by the higher-ups often threatening to ruin the investigation. The detail's commander, Cedric Daniels , acts as mediator between the two opposing groups of police. Meanwhile, the organized and cautious Barksdale gang is explored through characters at various levels within it. The organization is continually antagonized by a stick-up crew led by Omar Little , and the feud leads to several deaths.

Throughout, D'Angelo struggles with his conscience over his life of crime and the people it affects. The police have little success with street-level arrests or with securing informants beyond Bubbles , a well known West Side drug addict. Eventually the investigation takes the direction of electronic surveillance, with wiretaps and pager clones to infiltrate the security measures taken by the Barksdale organization. This leads the investigation to areas the commanding officers had hoped to avoid, including political contributions. When an associate of Avon Barksdale is arrested by State Police and offers to cooperate, the commanding officers order the detail to undertake a sting operation to wrap up the case.

Detective Kima Greggs is seriously hurt in the operation, triggering an overzealous response from the rest of the department. This causes the detail's targets to suspect that they are under investigation. Wallace is murdered by his childhood friends Bodie and Poot , on orders from Stringer Bell, after leaving his "secure" placement with relatives and returning to Baltimore. D'Angelo Barksdale is eventually arrested transporting a kilo of uncut heroin, and learning of Wallace's murder, is ready to turn in his uncle and Stringer.

However, D'Angelo's mother convinces him to rescind the deal and take the charges for his family. The detail manages to arrest Avon on a minor charge and gets one of his soldiers, Wee-Bey , to confess to most of the murders, some of which he did not commit. Stringer escapes prosecution and is left running the Barksdale empire. For the officers, the consequences of antagonizing their superiors are severe, with Daniels passed over for promotion and McNulty assigned out of homicide and into the marine unit.

The second season, along with its ongoing examination of the drug problem and its effect on the urban poor , examines the plight of the blue-collar urban working class as exemplified by stevedores in the city port , as some of them get caught up in smuggling drugs and other contraband inside the shipping containers that pass through their port. McNulty harbors a grudge against his former commanders for reassigning him to the marine unit. When thirteen unidentified young women are found dead in a container at the docks, McNulty successfully makes a spiteful effort to place the murders within the jurisdiction of his former commander.

Meanwhile, police Major Stan Valchek gets into a feud with Polish-American Frank Sobotka , a leader of the International Brotherhood of Stevedores, a fictional dockers' union , over competing donations to their old neighborhood church. Valchek demands a detail to investigate Sobotka. Cedric Daniels is interviewed, having been praised by Prez , Major Valchek's son-in-law, and also because of his work on the Barksdale case. He is eventually selected to lead the detail assigned just to investigate Sobotka; when the investigation is concluded Daniels is assured he will move up to head a special case unit with personnel of his choosing.

Life for the blue-collar men of the port is increasingly hard and work is scarce. As union leader, Sobotka has taken it on himself to reinvigorate the port by lobbying politicians to support much-needed infrastructure improvement initiatives. Lacking the funds needed for this kind of influence, Sobotka has become involved with a smuggling ring.

Around him, his son and nephew also turn to crime, as they have few other opportunities to earn money. It becomes clear to the Sobotka detail that the dead girls are related to their investigation, as they were in a container that was supposed to be smuggled through the port. They again use wiretaps to infiltrate the crime ring and slowly work their way up the chain towards The Greek , the mysterious man in charge. The Greek has a mole inside the FBI and starts severing his ties to Baltimore when he learns about the investigation.

After a dispute over stolen goods turns violent, Sobotka's wayward son Ziggy is charged with the murder of one of the Greek's underlings. Sobotka himself is arrested for smuggling; he agrees to work with the detail to help his son, finally seeing his actions as a mistake. The investigation ends with the fourteen homicides solved but the perpetrator already dead. Several drug dealers and mid-level smuggling figures tied to the Greek are arrested, but he and his second-in-command escape uncharged and unidentified. The Major is pleased that Sobotka was arrested; the case is seen as a success by the commanding officers, but is viewed as a failure by the detail.

Across town, the Barksdale organization continues its business under Stringer while Avon and D'Angelo Barksdale serve prison time. D'Angelo decides to cut ties to his family after his uncle organizes the deaths of several inmates and blames it on a corrupt guard to shave time from his sentence. Eventually Stringer covertly orders D'Angelo killed, with the murder staged to look like a suicide. Avon is unaware of Stringer's duplicity and mourns the loss of his nephew.

Stringer also struggles, having been cut off by Avon's drug suppliers and left with increasingly poor-quality product. The man and woman followed along obediently. They surveyed the area around the vehicle carefully and when it seemed no one suspicious was loitering about the men jumped back on the train; as the train built up steam and pulled away from the station the keen-eyed protectors continued to be on guard. The porter deposited sister and brother in front of a double door that led to a sleeper car.

The accommodations were modest — an upper and lower berth on either side of the narrow walkway. The shades on the windows next to the berths were down so no one could see in or out. Allan Pinkerton, a hefty Scotsman with a beard and no mustache considered the man and woman standing in the entrance of the car. After a brief, tense moment the tall man shed the shawl around his shoulder, removed his hat, and extended hand to Allan to shake.

President elect Abraham Lincoln responded with a grin. The politician turned to the woman next to him and handed her his shawl. Kate looked up into the kindly face of the President elect and smiled graciously. The train whistle sounded and Mr. Lincoln crowded himself and his worn traveling bag into one of the berths. Kate took a seat on a bench between the President elect and the door of the car. Her chief article of baggage was a loaded pistol. Chicago in the summer of was booming. Shipping and railroad lines were established there and hotels, churches, and theatres mushroomed around the prosperous enterprises.

The streets were continually crowded with people coming and going from the numerous houses being built. The sound of sawing, hammering, and shouts of workmen were commonplace. With the growth in citizenry came a growth in crime. The need to restrain the increase in robberies and murders was great. Allan Pinkerton, a Scottish born barrel maker turned law enforcement agent, established the first business to battle against such illegal activity.

Allan Pinkerton and attorney Edward A. Rucker formed the Pinkerton Detective Agency in , opening an office in the heart of Chicago. In addition to Edward Rucker, Allan had a staff of a half dozen capable men dedicated to ridding the communities of outlaws that terrorized. He was diligent about keeping reports on the cases the company handled. Reviewing the material helped him to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the work the agency was doing, how to improve on their success, and what new techniques needed to be employed to assure an arrest.

One early afternoon in , Allan was reading over a file from one of the agencies most newsworthy cases. It was the capture of Jules Imbert, a famous French forger. Pinkerton agent, George H. Bangs, a tall, fine looking man of commanding presence and a close student of human nature, was the lead detective on the investigation.

He was traced by George to Canada and captured. With no effort at subterfuge, George accused Imbert directly of forging checks and by sheer pluck managed to get the criminal to confess to his crime. Once Imbert confessed, the Pinkerton agent and his prisoner started for home via the train. After traveling a hundred miles, Imbert drifted off to sleep. George, who was exhausted, followed suit.

When he awoke he found to his irritation that the Frenchman had picked the lock of the handcuffs and escaped. The last stop the train made before entering the United States was s station called Fonda. George felt sure the prisoners had left the car at this point. George had the train stopped and retraced the distance on foot. It was late at night and he went to the main hotel in town and asked for a bed, intending to begin his search in the morning. The hotel clerk said the only bed he could have was one which was already occupied by a recent arrival.

Glad to sleep anywhere, George accepted the offer. When he turned down the coverlet of the bed he saw to his astonishment and delight that his companion was his recent prisoner. He quickly subdued Imbert and the following morning the pair boarded a train and returned safely to New York. Imbert was tried, convicted, and sent to state prison where he died eight years later. He was pondering how much the company had progressed since starting the agency when his secretary announced that a young woman was waiting to see him.

Allan rose to his feet as the slender, brown-eyed woman entered his office. Kate Warne politely introduced herself. She was bold and unintimidated. Her face was honest which would cause one in distress instinctively to select her as a confidant. Kate had come to the Pinkerton Detective Agency in search of a job. She was a widow with no children and had definite ideas about what she wanted to do for work. Allan assumed she was searching for a job as a secretary. He was surprised to learn Kate was not looking for clerical work, but actually answering an advertisement for detectives he had placed in one of the Chicago newspapers.

She explained quite persuasively how she could be of service. Men become braggarts when they are around women who encourage them to boast. Women have an eye for detail and are excellent observers. Kate had thought the idea out thoroughly and Allan could see the rationale behind granting her request, but he asked her for twenty-four hours to consider having a woman on his payroll. Allan was a keen businessman. His vision for the agency was for the public to see that being a detective was a profession and not merely an occupation.

Allan was creating a unique service that would command a great respect for the trade. Men in his employ were referred to as operatives and not detectives. Detectives, particularly in the Chicago area were seen as abusive police officers who looked for evidence to solve a crime.

Operatives were to behave in a more dignified manner, to be beyond reproach, and possess refined skills. An operative could be an expert in handwriting analysis, disguises, or tracking. Allan expected his operatives to be well-groomed and polite. He maintained detailed records of not only the subject or situation his staff was charged with investigating and the clients who hired them, but he expected no less than the meticulous note taken by those working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

Allan believed procedures and priorities combined would define the industry and alleviate the trade to one of great respectability. He wanted the company to have a reputation for using innovative methods to achieve its goals. That was one of the motivating factors that led to his agreeing to hire a woman. As was the standard, Allan started a file on the ambitious lady operative that included a variety of pertinent information about her life before becoming an agent. Her parents, Israel and Elizabeth Hulbert, struggled financially and Kate had few opportunities of education.

She married at a young age and was widowed by early She then moved to Illinois with her parents and her brother Allan. Kate realized the importance of finding employment if she was to support herself and provide some for her family. Her first job in the city was as a house cleaner, but it was unsatisfying to her. Kate wanted to prove herself at a position that challenged her mind. The detective agency Kate so fearlessly approached for a job was contracted by several prominent railroad lines to guard the rolling stock transported across the Midwestern frontier.

Kate Warne joined a staff of nine operatives including Allan Pinkerton.

Among those men employed by the agency was Timothy Webster, a former New York City police officer; Pryce Lewis, a former book salesman; John Scully, a quick-witted British gentleman who was prone to drinking too much; John H. He was tall, remarkably good-looking, with long black hair. In addition to the normal duties and responsibilities the Pinkerton Detective Agency had with the railroad lines the company also worked with attorneys, law enforcement departments, and government representatives. Cases were subject to careful scrutiny before Allan would take them on. The agency would never investigate the morals of a woman unless in connection with another crime, nor would it handle cases of divorce or a scandalous matter.

A stranger appears in the neighborhood. He may appear to be a businessman, a speculator a sporting man, a rowdy, a loafer, a thief — it matters not which. In short time after his appearance, the officers who could previously obtain no clue to the depredators, now easily find them out, and when they are secured or cleared out the stranger disappears also. Kate Warne was assigned to a case within two days of being made an operative.

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She was able to play a variety of roles while investigating criminal suspects. Perhaps she expressed her love of actin to Pinkerton during her initial interview and assured him she was capable of hiding her true identity while working a case. In depth records about that meeting were destroyed in a fire in What is known is that Pinkerton saw something in Kate he believed would make a find investigator.

The Adams Express Company was founded in and began personal delivery of securities, documents, and parcels between the financial centers of Boston and New York. A s diner, it looks exactly as it did when Ken chose it as the location for his first meeting with Ron. A mile or so later, the skinny cigar smoker pulled up outside a dive bar that the local Klan used as its recruitment centre. Ken was inside with another man, and a Klan membership form for Ron.

Ken was 28, short and stocky — an army man. The military base, Fort Carson, was a short drive away. Ken boasted that, under him, the Crusad er , the Klan newspaper, was now widely circulating in Colorado prisons and military staff were secretly joining in droves. What is certainly true is that many white military men resented the new black presence among their officers — a perfect opportunity for the Klan to widen its base.

It was often, says Ron, very hard not to burst out laughing at the credulity and the petty officiousness of the Klan members. Only once did any members of the Klan get suspicious. Ken proceeded to prescribe me a remedy. The deeper the investigation probed, the less laughable the inept Klansmen became. Soon after that first meeting, Ken called Ron to invite him to his house.

Plans to burn four 17ft crosses were discussed and finalised: Publicly, the Klan were against violence. Ken gave White Ron the tour of his own personal arsenal, which included 13 shotguns, plus the weapons he carried in his vehicles. As special guests at his next rendezvous, Ken invited the leaders of a powerful Nazi survivalist group, Posse Comitatus. Together they watched a screening of a nationalist film and discussed collaborating on terrorist activities. David Duke , the white supremacist politician and a holocaust denier, is still an influential person in American political life.

In the pivotal breakthrough in the case, Ron was put on to Duke to check the status of his membership card. Duke is a PR man to his core.