Creator of ‘The Wire’ Asks Mercy for Man Charged in Actor’s Death
“What happened to Mike is a grievous tragedy,” Mr. Simon wrote. “But I know that Michael would look upon the undone and desolate life of Mr. Macci and know two things with certainty: First, that it was Michael who bears the fuller responsibility for what happened.”
And second, Mr. Simon continued, “No possible good can come from incarcerating a 71-year-old soul, largely illiterate, who has himself struggled with a lifetime of addiction” and who sold drugs not for profit “but rather as someone caught up in the diaspora of addiction himself.”
“The Wire” was a five-season panorama of the drug trade in Baltimore, where Mr. Simon once was a police reporter. It followed narcotics and their attendant corruption from the streets through every municipal institution. Mr. Williams’s character made a living by robbing dealers, his presence presaged by an ominously whistled version of “The Farmer in the Dell” and shouts of “Omar’s coming!”
Mr. Simon said that during the third season of “The Wire,” Mr. Williams quietly acknowledged his struggles with addiction to a producer. “Then, to stay at work — which was, in fact, a stabilizing influence in his life — he readily agreed to let us help him address his drug use, going so far as to seek the constant companionship of a crew member whose job was to assure some distance between Mike and temptation.”
Source: The New York Times
