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Speaking of race, does anyone else find it as funny as I do that Brother Mouzone's reading list is the pinnacle of white upper middle class establishment liberalism? The only magazine he didn't namedrop was The New Republic. e: nevermind Lamar mentioned TNR Alec Bald Snatch fucked around with this message at 13:30 on May 18, 2013 |
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May 18, 2013 13:20
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One of the details I love about Brother Mouzone is how close he holds his gun to his chest. It's a very defensive stance used to keep yourself from being disarmed, especially necessary in close quarters. Not only does it add to his air of quiet and reserved menace, it's also quite practical for his line of work.
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May 18, 2013 19:26
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I love the western showdown style scene between Major Crimes and the FBI. Its wonderfully timed and the joke/reaction is perfectly in character and really makes the characters feel human. I don't think Koutris is corrupt, he is doing what every other law enforcement officer does in the show. Doing favors and ignoring crimes of a CI in order to roll up to a more important target. He is just doing it on a much larger scale. Except for Herc, Fuzzy Dunlops never did wrong by anyone.
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May 18, 2013 20:06
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To me, corruption implies some level of self-serving. If Koutris was using the Greeks to make money or fame for himself to the detriment of the job, he'd be corrupt, but I don't think we ever see him do that. As far as we know with the information we're given, he's just a morally gray agent, willing to sacrifice people and do dirty things for the greater good (as determined by FBI protocols, I guess).
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May 18, 2013 20:51
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Jerusalem posted:I'm really interested in what people think of Agent Koutris, whether they feel he is corrupt or not. When I first saw this season, the cooperation between the Greek and Koutris immediately jumped out to me as a reference to Whitey Bulger. For those who don't know about Bulger, the character of Frank Costello in the Departed was heavily based on him. One of the most important things drilled into law enforcement officers who use confidential informants is that you must be certain that you are in control of the relationship and the informant is not using you for his or her own purposes. Bulger was an FBI informant who shrewdly manipulated his handlers, to the point that he was able to leverage it and effectively became boss of organized crime in Boston. He tipped the FBI to weaken rivals, and they protected him from investigation and prosecution much as Koutris does for the Greek. In the beginning the FBI's objective was to use Bulger as a way to get at the Italian Mafia in Boston, but eventually Bulger displaced the Mafia as well as the other Irish gangs, and at that point he should have been their primary target. Bulger's organization was eventually brought down after other law enforcement agencies realized that the FBI was scotching all their investigations, and a joint DEA/MSP/Boston PD task force came after him by carefully keeping operations secret from the FBI. In the end, though, the indictments resulting from the investigation had to come from the Justice Department and the FBI got word that Bulger was about be arrested and warned him, and he was on the lam from 1995-2011. The story is fascinating and worth looking up in more detail, and I'm sure Simon and the other writers were thinking about it when they wrote Koutris. In the end the agent who had mainly worked with Bulger, John Connolly, went to prison for murder because of a killing he had enabled in 1984 (he told Bulger that one of his people was informing on him). The use of protected informants is a pretty thorny ethical question, because you have the authorities directly enabling criminality. At times it becomes a necessary evil, though, because you use that relationship to make larger cases against more dangerous criminals, at least in theory. I think the tipping point is when the criminal you're protecting is worse than the ones you're busting, as is probably the case with Koutris and the Greek. It's definitely worth noting that Koutris's drug bust has a big dollar value, but there's no arrest--the Greek basically fined them for loving with his money. When you compare this to what the Greek is able to do thanks to Koutris's help, with the drugs, theft, human trafficking, and so on, it doesn't come close to evening out. The most damning thing, though, is the murders--specifically the murder of Frank Sobotka. If Koutris's role in Frank's death were known, he would be indictable for murder just as John Connolly was. Ainsley McTree posted:To me, corruption implies some level of self-serving. If Koutris was using the Greeks to make money or fame for himself to the detriment of the job, he'd be corrupt, but I don't think we ever see him do that. As far as we know with the information we're given, he's just a morally gray agent, willing to sacrifice people and do dirty things for the greater good (as determined by FBI protocols, I guess). The show doesn't come out and say this directly, but you if you pay close attention it's clear he's bent. We know that Koutris was an agent in San Diego (I think) when he started using Glekas as an informant and by implication hooked up with the Greek. It is very important to note that it is Glekas who is on record with the FBI, while Spiros and the Greek are unknown. Koutris deals with those two directly and on a face-to-face basis, so he must have deliberately omitted to put them on paper with the FBI. He also directly lied to Fitzhugh when asked about Glekas. This is all very suspicious and all but confirms that he is not acting on the legit. Anyway, he's an agent in San Diego when he starts working with them, but we see him several years later, and now he has a key supervisory posting in Washington D.C. The obvious implication of this is that he has parleyed his relationship with the Greek into professional advancement, likely with prior superstar smuggling busts, so there is definitely a self-serving aspect of what he's doing.
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May 18, 2013 21:30
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What I wrote here about Koutris had already basically been said but I think we can assume that whatever "terrorism" tips he's feeding Koutris are largely bullshit. At least that's the way I've always seen it; it's ironic that we only see him tip Koutris off about a big drug bust, since that's supposed to be the war the FBI doesn't care about anymore. I guess dope on the table is dope on the table.
grading essays nude fucked around with this message at 23:07 on May 18, 2013 |
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May 18, 2013 23:03
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Ainsley McTree posted:To me, corruption implies some level of self-serving. If Koutris was using the Greeks to make money or fame for himself to the detriment of the job, he'd be corrupt, but I don't think we ever see him do that. As far as we know with the information we're given, he's just a morally gray agent, willing to sacrifice people and do dirty things for the greater good (as determined by FBI protocols, I guess). I wonder how much different people would feel if we saw an FBI version of Comstat where Koutris gets grilled for not producing enough intel on terrorism (which is easily imaginable with the institutional themes of the show). I don't deny that there's a personal motive to what he's doing but I think there are probably institutional pressures as well.
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May 18, 2013 23:10
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I think the main reason viewers assume Koutris is dirty (myself included) is because he basically pulls a Houdini at the end, which could imply guilt.
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May 18, 2013 23:14
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Parachute Underwear posted:I think the main reason viewers assume Koutris is dirty (myself included) is because he basically pulls a Houdini at the end, which could imply guilt. Was Koutris still at San Diego when Fitz initially called him, or was he with the Counterterrorism unit all along? I can never tell.
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May 18, 2013 23:20
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cletepurcel posted:Was Koutris still at San Diego when Fitz initially called him, or was he with the Counterterrorism unit all along? I can never tell.
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May 18, 2013 23:24
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cletepurcel posted:What I wrote here about Koutris had already basically been said but I think we can assume that whatever "terrorism" tips he's feeding Koutris are largely bullshit. At least that's the way I've always seen it; it's ironic that we only see him tip Koutris off about a big drug bust, since that's supposed to be the war the FBI doesn't care about anymore. I guess dope on the table is dope on the table. The Greek makes a point of joking that "they're all terrorists over there" and on the news item, it's reported as a massive blow for a known "Narco-Terrorist Group" so the FBI is spinning it as a win on the "War on Terror", which is as as dumb a "war" as the "War on Drugs". escape artist posted:Koutris is always in Washington when we see him. The first time he's called by Fitz, Fitz is automatically patched through to Koutris. The second time Fitz calls the San Diego office, he finds out Koutris has been in D.C. for a year or two. Yep, McNulty looks at Fitzhugh's ability to put through calls through the computer wistfully, but if Fitzhugh had done things the old fashioned way he would have learned immediately that Koutris was in Counter-Terrorism. There is a chance, however improbable, that he'd question why a search for a low level Baltimore fence would link him directly to the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Unit and they'd have at least suspected there was a deeper relationship there.
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May 18, 2013 23:51
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EvanSchenck posted:
I dunno about that part. The way Fitzhugh reacts when he finds out that Koutris is working in counter-terrorism didn't strike me as "that bastard lied to me," but it was more of a "poo poo, that guy was counter-terrorism, those guys do this shady poo poo all the time" kind of thing. That's the way I read into it anyway; that the counter-terror division in post-9/11 america has carte blanche to jerk the other departments around, and fill them in or keep them in the dark as they see fit. But I could be way off and be reading too much into it.
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May 19, 2013 01:45
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EvanSchenck posted:The show doesn't come out and say this directly, but you if you pay close attention it's clear he's bent. We know that Koutris was an agent in San Diego (I think) when he started using Glekas as an informant and by implication hooked up with the Greek. It is very important to note that it is Glekas who is on record with the FBI, while Spiros and the Greek are unknown. Koutris deals with those two directly and on a face-to-face basis, so he must have deliberately omitted to put them on paper with the FBI. He also directly lied to Fitzhugh when asked about Glekas. This is all very suspicious and all but confirms that he is not acting on the legit. This is actually why I didn't know the greek was really an informant the first time or two that I watched it. I thought (borrowing from the Departed) that Koutris was Matt Damon's character to the Greek's Nicholson.
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May 19, 2013 03:28
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The way Koutris barely reacts to the "confidential source monitor" on his computer seems to imply he's saved their asses plenty of times. He couldn't have a history with the Greeks without having seen tragedies like the dead girls situation. He's not a loving good guy. On that source monitor, Glekas and Serge's names are red and blue (respectively) and underlined. Does this mean they're both protected? Or maybe just that they both have a record?
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May 19, 2013 04:35
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Nobody's saying he's a good guy. It's more whether he's enabling the Greeks because he's on the take or because the FBI deems it a necessary evil.
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May 19, 2013 04:42
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comes along bort posted:Nobody's saying he's a good guy. It's more whether he's enabling the Greeks because he's on the take or because the FBI deems it a necessary evil. It seems like this is one and the same. Is bribing someone with one of the biggest drug busts in FBI history any less a bribe than handing a man $1,000,000 cash?
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May 19, 2013 04:53
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We don't get enough on Koutris to really suss out his deep motivation, but he certainly is profiting by the association with the Greek. The system runs on this sort of corruption, and he's a product of the system. When he retires there'll be an up and coming Koutris to step into his shoes.
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May 19, 2013 04:59
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comes along bort posted:Nobody's saying he's a good guy. It's more whether he's enabling the Greeks because he's on the take or because the FBI deems it a necessary evil. I still maintain that it's the latter. It's just more in tune with the themes of the show. Time and again it depicts the FBI as an agency so obsessed with counter-terrorism (or other high-level protocols) that it's willing to turn a blind eye to more run-of-the-mill domestic crimes (sex slavery, "ghetto drug poo poo", and so on). Having a scene where a counter-terrorism agent outright gets a key witness in a drug case killed just to protect his CI in a counter-terrorism case makes sense. And like another poster pointed out, there's precedent for the law enforcement characters on the show turning a blind eye to shady poo poo for what they perceive as the greater good. There's that scene in season one where McNulty, Freamon, and Kima sit Omar down after he murders Stinkum (and they know he did it) and tell him to hang back, then let him loose anyway without a real promise that he's gonna stop murdering people because they need him, and McNulty says "are we still cops, Lester?" It's a funny line, but it seems relevant to what Koutris does too, I suppose. Then again, it's not like there isn't precedent for characters looking out for their own interests over the job (either in the form of outright bribery, or career advancement) so that's possible too. I don't think we get enough information about Koutris' character either way, but I think corruption is too simple of an answer so I choose to believe it's more complicated than that.
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May 19, 2013 05:02
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Spoilers Below posted:It seems like this is one and the same. Is bribing someone with one of the biggest drug busts in FBI history any less a bribe than handing a man $1,000,000 cash? Sadly, one is illegal and the other is considered a legitimate necessity/trade-off. It all goes towards the hypocrisy of the system that will rant and rave about the evils of one immoral thing but justify another equally disgusting thing.
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May 19, 2013 05:02
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Jerusalem posted:Sadly, one is illegal and the other is considered a legitimate necessity/trade-off. It all goes towards the hypocrisy of the system that will rant and rave about the evils of one immoral thing but justify another equally disgusting thing. That's exactly what I was trying to suss out. One may be legal by the letter of the law, but ethically?  Lawful Evil, to use the D&D definition.
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May 19, 2013 05:26
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To see Koutris as an independently corrupt agent who ruins stuff by himself directly contradicts everything else the show says about institutions and individuals. Sepinwall has a good bit in his book, which has a chapter on The Wire, on this idea of the one bad apple, which Simon very specifically fought against (I think he says that people seeing Koutris as independently corrupt is one of the biggest misinterpretations people make when watching the show.) I know Death of the Author and all, and admittedly it's not conveyed that well on the show, but for what it's worth. grading essays nude fucked around with this message at 05:32 on May 19, 2013 |
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May 19, 2013 05:27
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Spoilers Below posted:That's exactly what I was trying to suss out. One may be legal by the letter of the law, but ethically? Although what Koutris does is obviously far, far worse, this reminds me of the end of season 1 where the FBI will only take the Barksdale case if they can get Avon and Stringer to flip on Clay Davis, etc (with McNulty taking offense and pissing all over them since this means they'd probably walk.) The difference of course is that that sort of thing is completely legal but still.
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May 19, 2013 05:40
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I understand the explanations. Despite the root causes of Koutris acting like that, he's not a sympathetic character. The bad things he allows are not necessary evils, at least within the context of the show. The comparison to Whitey Bulger is smart and reveals what you need to know to judge him.
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May 19, 2013 05:46
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Nobody's saying Kourtis is sympathetic, and the show certainly doesn't portray him in that light. Banality of evil and all that. cletepurcel posted:To see Koutris as an independently corrupt agent who ruins stuff by himself directly contradicts everything else the show says about institutions and individuals. Sepinwall has a good bit in his book, which has a chapter on The Wire, on this idea of the one bad apple, which Simon very specifically fought against (I think he says that people seeing Koutris as independently corrupt is one of the biggest misinterpretations people make when watching the show.) One could make the argument that the post-9/11 mission of the FBI allows for people like Koutris to flourish by subsuming what would've been major crimes any other day toward a separate definition of crime. Agent Fitzhugh complains to McNulty about the bureau pulling their focus away from drug crimes, but he's never upset enough to rail against it; it's more a "welp this is what the bosses want" sense of resignation, and obviously he does what he can to aid BPD over and over again. It's interesting that the feds are the most passive of the bureaucrats toward the capriciousness of their superiors' whims. Maybe it's a power thing.
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May 19, 2013 08:13
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comes along bort posted:It's interesting that the feds are the most passive of the bureaucrats toward the capriciousness of their superiors' whims. Maybe it's a power thing. I think it could also be a prestige thing. Presumably the FBI is a pretty exclusive workplace; if an agent decides to be a loose cannon, the bosses would have no trouble dropping them because there would be a dozen hungry qualified applicants waiting to take their place. Whereas (from the boss' perspective) a place like the BPD is stuck with the occasional McNulty or Freamon; as much as they buck against the system, good help is hard to find when you aren't willing to pay much for it. I'm indulging in guesswork a little bit here; we don't get to see the insides of the FBI very much, but one of the show's recurring phrases is "one day I wanna work for a real police department, just to see what it's like" (or newspaper, in the case of the Baltimore Sun). I assume that it's easier to rage against the machine when the machine's not running so hot. Ainsley McTree fucked around with this message at 09:04 on May 19, 2013 |
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May 19, 2013 09:01
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It's possible there are McNultys and Lesters inside the FBI, we just don't see them. But as Fitzhugh says, they're the ones who get exiled to Indian reserves in the middle of nowhere.
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May 19, 2013 09:30
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Jerusalem posted:FBI gets what they wanted out of the case anyway - shutting down a Union. I think this goes to the heart of season 2. We already had that one scene with Frank's Speech which everyone agrees is perhaps the most important scene in season 2. Well, this is the response to Frank and his Union standing up to Bobby Kennedy, Tricky Dick and Ronny the Union Buster. He might think they lived through that, but really, they didn't. Their foundations were eroded, more power was given to law enforcement and sooner or later it catches up to them. It's a fight between two institutions, and so it takes place on a bigger scale and takes more time, but ultimately the results are clear, power was taken from the Unions and given to the institutions of the Police, the FBI, the Justice Department and so on. While most of The Wire might be about individuals vs institutions, this one is about institution vs institution, and the people caught in the middle. We kind of see another scenario of this with the FBI vs the Police meeting and the contrast of that meeting with the animosity between the two institutions in season 1. In this story we also must realize, that literally every single person on this show is entirely insignificant. This fight between institutions is just so much bigger than them that none of them matter in any way, shape or form. They are all just caught in the middle. Hearing the music they must dance, but none of them get to change the tune. The Greek, who isn't even Greek, and his escape and untouchability further underlines just how insignificant everything that happens on this show ultimately is. It's also the key point in the fight between the institutions of the Police and the the FBI. Clearly, the FBI, being more powerful, wins, even at the expense of some of the work of some of its own agents. There's only one person we get to see on the whole show who maybe, possibly could have changed the tune. We don't get to meet him until next season, as a contrast to all the completely insignificant actors we've known so far, but then things go right back to individual vs institution, and we once again get to see how the institution triumphs and things keep on going the way they were, in no small part due to the disconnect between this person and the daily lives of all the people we've looked at in detail so far. Why this disconnect? Why, because they don't really matter, not even to him, ofcourse. Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 13:03 on May 19, 2013 |
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May 19, 2013 12:46
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cletepurcel posted:To see Koutris as an independently corrupt agent who ruins stuff by himself directly contradicts everything else the show says about institutions and individuals. Sepinwall has a good bit in his book, which has a chapter on The Wire, on this idea of the one bad apple, which Simon very specifically fought against (I think he says that people seeing Koutris as independently corrupt is one of the biggest misinterpretations people make when watching the show.) Who's saying that Koutris is the one bad apple and independently corrupt, and the FBI is blameless? Koutris being crooked is not exclusive from the FBI being crooked, they're both terrible. In fact it's the dirty institutional environment of the FBI that encourages and validates his corruption. We never see him taking cash bribes, instead the Greek pays him off by helping his career. Their connection is presumably how he rises from chasing a petty theft ring for the regional office in San Diego to a desk supervising counter-terrorism in D.C. At the same time, it's clear from subtext and the way he behaves in his brief on-screen appearances that Koutris's activities go beyond what the FBI would permit. He insulates the top tier of the Greek's organization by registering only Serge and Glekas as informants, while omitting Spiros and the Greek. In response to a direct question about Glekas from another FBI agent, he he lies, hedges, and warns the Greek that he's being investigated. Note that, if this was all the FBI and not Koutris acting on his own initiative, he could have just hung up and called the Fitzhugh's boss, the Baltimore SAC, and told him to ease up because the Greek is a protected informant and source of vital counter-terrorism information. He doesn't do that. Finally, and something rather significant that people on the other side of this question haven't mentioned, he directly initiated a murder by warning the Greek about Frank proffer. There's no way he did that without knowing Sobotka would be killed. At any rate, Koutris is very clearly hiding his relationship with the Greek from the FBI, which illustrates rather concretely that he's up to some dirt that is beyond what even they would permit. But from what we see of the Bureau in other contexts, he's an exceptional case but not that far out of the ordinary. The FBI on the show is always more interested in scoring points union-busting and chasing politicians than stopping serious crimes. I would say Koutris is to the FBI as Valchek is to the BPD, in that their environments are toxic but even so they're particularly venal and self-serving individuals.
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May 19, 2013 17:14
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The answer is really simple: Koutris is looking to advance his own interests because that's what the institutional culture has done to him. You don't advance in the FBI by abstractly 'protecting society', you advance by putting dope on the table. No matter how many dead women get in your way.
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May 19, 2013 18:29
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Jerusalem posted:Glekas goes down and Ziggy follows him, finally seeing what he's wanted to see, Glekas staring back over his shoulder in fear of HIM - Ziggy has finally gotten somebody to fear him, taught them a lesson about respect, forced them to acknowledge him as somebody important. Glekas begs him,"PLease!" and Ziggy fires one last shot into his face, calling him "Malaka" before turning to leave. He spots the assistant lying on the ground with a belly wound, attempting to call the police, and drops the money - always unimportant/secondary - next to him, then walks out of the store. The camera takes us into Ziggy's headspace, everything seems blurred and shaky, sounds aren't filtering through, he moves with determination towards his car but his mind is clearly in a daze until a noise finally registers - his parking meter has run to show TIME EXPIRED, a fairly obvious bit of symbolism. He climbs into the car and tries to start the engine, but his auto-pilot is off now and he's come back to himself and massive enormity of what he has done. He grabs his cigarettes and tries to light one, but his hands shake and the cigarette falls out of his mouth, and as the sound of police sirens grow louder he cluthches his hands together and press them to his mouth, looking almost as if he is praying. Tears fall from his eyes as he breaks down, he's just killed one man, perhaps fatally wounded a young innocent and ruined his own life to boot. It's one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen in a show filled with them. This is one of the most amazing scenes I've ever seen in a dramatic production. In ANY other show, Ziggy's actions would be incredibly badass - he even gets the one-liner in as he shoots Glekas. But it doesn't work that way in the Wire, or in real life. I can't rewatch that scene without wanting to throw up. edit: Oops, I double posted this instead of editing it into my other post, sorry guys 
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May 19, 2013 18:59
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Yeah the scene where Ziggy snaps is loving amazing and probably my favorite part of the entire series. When I was younger I'm not proud to admit that I acted a lot like Ziggy and I feel like that's how it would've ended up if I was ever stupid enough to get into serious crime. I love the following scene with Landsman too, just because he's completely solemn and respectful towards Ziggy in a way that's never seen before. Compare it to when Bird is in the interrogation room and he's just goofing off and talking poo poo.
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May 19, 2013 20:15
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Edgar Death posted:I love the following scene with Landsman too, just because he's completely solemn and respectful towards Ziggy in a way that's never seen before. Compare it to when Bird is in the interrogation room and he's just goofing off and talking poo poo. Not to hate on Landman but if you've read Homicide you will know exactly why he's acting that way - the police are always friendly, solemn and respectful if you're willing to do them the simple favor of confessing to murder. Hey, for changing a name from red to black, they'll even go get you some cigarettes. Landsman doesn't have an ounce of sympathy for Ziggy - he sees an easy kill and he gets it.
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May 19, 2013 22:06
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You can see it in the way Landsman's face falls when Ziggy asks if he can make a change to his confession, thinking he's getting second thoughts and is going to start making justifications, and from there it's only a short skip to bringing in his lawyer and then things get complicated and more time and energy has to be "wasted" on the investigation. Landsman does have a rare moment of sympathy with a suspect in a later season though, which is also one of the more deeply depressing scenes of the series.
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May 19, 2013 22:36
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Jerusalem posted:Landsman does have a rare moment of sympathy with a suspect in a later season though, which is also one of the more deeply depressing scenes of the series. gently caress the clearance. Remember, we're a spoiler-tag free thread. Omar is killed by Kenard. Stringer is killed by Omar and Mouzone. Bodie and Butchie and Prop Joe are all unceremoniously killed! Michael kills Snoop. Ahh, institutions kill everybody!!!
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May 19, 2013 22:41
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escape artist posted:gently caress the clearance.  Just to counteract this, Bubbles cleans up 
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May 19, 2013 22:52
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escape artist posted:gently caress the clearance. I was wondering about that; I wanted to mention the Landsman/Bubbles scene too but wasn't sure if it's frowned upon to talk about stuff that's far removed from the episode currently being rewatched in the thread, so I kept my mouth shut. But if it is cool to do that, I'm totally gonna do it in the future when I think it would be interesting. Dramatika posted:
I recently re-watched the entire series, and when it got to the part with Bubbles sitting down at the table with his sister I had honest-to-goodness tears rolling down my face. I was not expecting that to happen, seeing as how I knew it was coming but it did! Either this show is more amazing than I realized, or I'm more of a big weepy lady than I realized
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May 19, 2013 23:44
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Yeah there are no spoiler tags here, everybody is free to talk about absolutely everything that has happened/will happen in the show. In my write-ups I try to be careful about my knowledge of future events color descriptions of what is happening in the episode too much, though I will digress at length about things that happen in the future at different points. That said, I do think - for write-ups at least - it pays to try and think about these things from the point of view of only the information presented in the show to that point.
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May 19, 2013 23:48
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Jerusalem posted:I'm really interested in what people think of Agent Koutris, whether they feel he is corrupt or not. I tend to WANT to think of him as corrupt, but I keep thinking back to all the things that the police let people slide on in this show - Bubbles is a junkie thief who steals and scavenges to get high, and not only do the police turn a blind eye, they give him money to go out and get high with in return for information. When looking for information on Homicides, you get detectives coming down and telling corner boys,"You think I give a gently caress about drugs?" and offering them deals in return for giving them something on some bigger, "more important" crime. this is how all police work is done, or at least in respect to drugs. The police would be utterly powerless against the drug trade if they had no informants(save for the occasional lucky traffic stop) and they know this. They try to flip everybody they get their hands on, and they oftentimes have an informant like bubbles who they know will do anything for drug money. They know petty crimes happen every day so they dont care about letting a b&e or larceny slide if it leads them to a drug or gun arrest. Intel from a junkie is often the only way police can get probable cause against a pusher, even if they knew for certain they were selling heroin beforehand Whether koutris is corrupt or not, it makes sense for him to turn a blind eye to the greek's crimes because without his cooperation he wouldn't have any info on the greek or those he is informing on. If he didnt cooperate with the greek then 2000+ lbs of crack and god knows what else would slip across the border right under their noses. A good real-life example of this is whitey bulgers involvement with the fbi in boston back in the day. A criminal of that stature can get information on international crime rings that the fbi never could otherwise.
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May 20, 2013 01:14
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cheese and crackers posted:
...But that Bulger situation was disastrous. He played the cops. And their "generosity" with him may ruin the state's case against him now. The Greek IS the big fish, and cooperating with him (he's a slaver, remember?) is the point where use of CIs becomes less morally ambiguous. They should arrest him and offer a very generous plea deal if he gives up a good number of people at his level. That said, police action is more effective against terrorism than military action. I admit I'm not an expert and I might be wrong on this topic.
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May 20, 2013 01:40
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cheese and crackers posted:A good real-life example of this is whitey bulgers involvement with the fbi in boston back in the day. That was a complete fiasco for the FBI, as I outlined above. quote:A criminal of that stature can get information on international crime rings that the fbi never could otherwise. The Greek is the international crime ring. The only reason he gave up that crack shipment to Koutris was the Colombians tried to stiff him on chemicals they needed to process cocaine into crack. Based on what Spiros said in his conversations with Nick, that deal involved delivery of whole shipping containers full of such chemicals, i.e. tons. The Colombians reneged on their end so it ended up a one-off, but initially Spiros talked to Nick about getting further containers in the future. That is, the Greek gave up about a metric ton of their crack to the FBI, but only because they tried to screw him on a deal that would have helped them produce many tons of crack on a continuing basis. And this is just one facet of his operations.
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May 20, 2013 08:48
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