David Simon: Back on the police beat

"Wire" creator David Simon is in the midst of working on a drama pilot for HBO, New Orleans-set "Treme," but that doesn't mean he's not a keen-eyed reader of his alma mater, The Baltimore Sun. Once a police reporter, always a police reporter, according to this account that Simon penned for Sunday's Washington Post. (Click here for the entire story.)

On Feb. 17, when a 29-year-old officer responded to a domestic dispute in East Baltimore, ended up fighting for her gun and ultimately shot an unarmed 61-year-old man named Joseph Alfonso Forrest, the Sun reported the incident, during which Forrest died, as a brief item. It did not name the officer, Traci McKissick, or a police sergeant who later arrived at the scene to aid her and who also shot the man.

It didn't identify the pair the next day, either, because the Sun ran no full story on the shooting, as if officers battling for their weapons and unarmed 61-year-old citizens dying by police gunfire are no longer the grist of city journalism. At which point, one old police reporter lost his mind and began making calls.