An actor whose character was shot dead in TV hit The Wire almost suffered the same fate after being struck by a bullet in Baltimore, where the HBO show was set.
Chris Clanton, 35, was struck in the ear in 4100 block of Eierman Avenue in Northeast District of the Maryland city on April 29, and was left with fragments of the projectile in his ear.
Clanton, who played Savino Bratton in The Wire, hit out at Baltimore’s ongoing crime crisis, telling Fox45: ‘I’m p*ssed. I’m p*ssed because it’s uncalled for.
‘My son was not far from this incident. He was in the vicinity. Luckily, he didn’t see what happened.
‘Something has to change,’ the Baltimore native said. ‘I’m from here, I love it.’
Clanton does not believe he was the target of the shooting, which is being investigated by Baltimore Metro PD.
Police said the incident is still under investigation but didn’t have any updates a week after the shooting.
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‘The Wire’ actor Chris Clanton said he thought he was going to die after he was shot in Baltimore last week, the same city where he grew up and where the hit HBO series took place
Clanton was shot in the ear on 4100 block of Eierman Avenue in Northeast District of the Maryland city on April 29
The city of Baltimore far outpaces the national average in violent crimes and murder, according to the latest data released by the FBI in September 2020
This is when Chris Clanton’s character ‘Savino Bratton’ on ‘The Wire’ was shot dead on the streets of Baltimore in an act of retaliation in season five
The FBI named Baltimore as one of the most dangerous cities in the country, with a murder rate of 58.3 per 100,000 people compared to the national average of 5 murders per 100,000, according to the latest FBI data released in September 2020
Chris Clanton, pictured, said, ‘Something has to change,’ in terms in violence in Baltimore
Clanton spent a year in jail in 2006 after admitting drug dealing, and was stabbed in the buttocks at a party in Baltimore in 2008, The Baltimore Sun reported.
He escaped police custody during a hospital visit in September 2019 after being brought there over an unspecified court order sought against him, the Sun said.
But Clanton insists he has since changed his ways – has now spoken out against crime in Baltimore, which was the United States’ fourth most dangerous city in 2020.
Clanton has since been released from the hospital and is recovering but is calling for a crackdown on violence in Baltimore
The city’s reputation saw it chosen as the setting for The Wire, HBO’s flagship crime drama which ran between 2002 and 2008.
It told the story of the city’s cops and narcotics dealers, was hailed as one of the greatest dramas of all time, and saw Clanton’s character Savino Bratton shot dead by gunman Omar Little, played by Michael K Williams.
Baltimore recorded 335 murders in 2020, with the city’s annual homicide rate topping 300 each year since 2015.
It had a violent crime rate of 1,833.4 incidents per 100,000 people and murder rate of 58.3 per 100,000 people in 2019.
Both are many times more than to the national averages of 379 violent crimes per 100,000 people and five murders per 100,000 US citizens, according to FBI date.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, left, proposed reducing Baltimore Metro PD’s department, despite spiraling crime in the city. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, right, blasted the plan
The Maryland city recorded 933 assaults per 100,000 people in 2019, close to four times the US national average of 250 per 100,000 people.
Baltimore accounted for 39 per cent of all reported violent crimes in Maryland in 2019, despite being home to just over 10 per cent of the state’s six million people, USA TODAY reported.
FBI statistics listed it as the nation’s fourth most dangerous city, but Baltimore is has a far greater murder rate than most dangerous city Detroit, which saw 275 people killed in 2019.
Baltimore’s murder rate of 58.3 homicides per 100,000 people was America’s second-highest in 2020, behind St Louis, Missouri, which had 64.54 killings per 100,000 residents.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott have been warring with each other since Scott after Scott announced plans to reduce the size of the city’s police force, despite the ongoing crime surge.
Crime in Baltimore surged after Freddy Gray, pictured, died while in police custody in 2015. Six officers were charged, but later cleared, with their treatment sparking anger by anti-brutality campaigners and police unions
Scott, who actually increased Baltimore’s police budget by five per cent – or $28 million – for the 2022 financial year – claims his plan ‘is about re-imagining what public safety is in Baltimore.’
But Governor Hogan said he was ‘shocked and outraged’ by proposed reductions, adding: ‘ We’ve had thousands of people murdered in the City of Baltimore, and it’s unconscionable, but nobody wants to do anything about it.’
Crime has spiked in the city since April 2015, when Freddy Gray, a black 25 year-old, died in police custody after being arrested for carrying a knife.
Six Baltimore Metropolitan Police Officers were charged over Gray’s killing, but were later acquitted of all charges they faced.
City leaders say the incident sparked a loss in trust in policing in the city, and also made Baltimore’s cops more timid when it came to tackling crime.
