The Wire: Kima Greggs

The role of Shakima "Kima" Greggs is that of neophyte. Granted, she was in The Wire for all five seasons but her character is the one used most often as Simon's way of explaining the day-to-day work of the Baltimore Police Department. McNulty's character is the "input" character, used to show the social relationships and structure of the hidden rules and institutions. Greggs's character is the "output" character, used most often to show the actual work of policing.

When she is introduced, she is a member of a trio of detectives in Narcotics - Ellis Carver and Thomas "Herk" Hauk are the other members of the group. Despite being technically the junior detective, she's the most competent of the three in terms of actual policing and using her mind to solve crimes instead of her authority. I believe that the audience would most likely identify with Greggs rather than Carver or Herk; I know I did.

Greggs shows the viewer that in The Wire, policing is not like it is in other cop shows. Like acting, a lot of being a successful policeman is just waiting around until you get the chance to make an arrest. During this waiting around process, you will be on stakeouts, gathering information and not knowing if the information your are gathering is valid or if it will ever be used in a court - or if it is used in a court, if the jury will act on it. One saying about being a soldier is that it is "hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of terror" and Greggs is the clearest example of that.

It is through Greggs that we meet Bubbles, a junkie and street informer whose assistance proves valuable in the Avon Barksdale case. It is also noteworthy that Greggs has built up an informer - McNulty comments in another season, I believe, that part of being an effective cop is cultivating good sources of information - and neither Carver nor Herk have informers. (When Herk tries using an informer, it ends disastrously.)

In Season One, Greggs is wounded in a shootout during an undercover stakeout. Her gun was taped to the bottom of the seat, but she couldn't reach it and Greggs winds up in intensive care. Her colleagues grapple with the consequences of Greggs's near-death, leading McNulty to conclude (temporarily anyway) that the work it is taking to bring down drug kingpin Barksdale might not have been worth it.

Greggs is a rarity among her colleagues - she's an out lesbian. Greggs explained (partially joking) that part of the reason she's out is because it deflects male attention. Like many other policemen, she has to balance the relationship between her job and her personal relationships. She has a long term relationship with Cheryl, her girlfriend, who asks Greggs to transfer to a desk job after Greggs is shot - Cheryl can't stand the thought of Greggs dying somewhere on the street.

Unfortunatley, the call of being in the thick of street work calls to Greggs - a desk job simply isn't satisfying. This endangers Greggs's relationship with Cheryl. Furthermore, Cheryl is very interested in getting pregnant and starting a family with Greggs. However, while a pregnant Cheryl shops with Kima for baby gear the viewer learns that Greggs is disengaged. Clearly, having the baby is Cheryl's idea and not Greggs's.

Greggs is dissatisfied with her relationshp and begins to do what Jimmy McNulty does - cheat. The joke is that it's very easy to cheat on one's spouse as a police officer because you can always call in and claim you're working a case - officers love supplementing their salaries with overtime pay, and sometimes the necessities of police work demand irregular hours. By Season Four, the Greggs/Cheryl relationship is clearly a casualty...but it was already on shaky ground to start.

Cheryl remains with the Major Crimes Unit until Deputy Commissioner William Rawls sabotages the unit by putting Lieutenant Marimow in as the new commander after Daniels is promoted. Marimow's overmanagement and insistence on his units making petty arrests and showing up at meetings (surveillance be damned) lead Greggs to request a transfer. Daniels helps Greggs by helping her get assigned to Homicide.

After some petty hazing, Greggs shows that she too is "real murder police". Her notice of a small detail helps solve a case which is potentially quite embarassing for the police department. Unfortunately, when Greggs learns that one of her colleagues in Season Five has crossed the standards of behavior in a big way, she has to make one of the toughest decision any police officer could make - whether she should "rat out" a close colleague.

Greggs makes it work in the end. She's competent and quick-witted, but it came at a price. She had to blow the whistle on a good friend. She's now just "Aunt Kima", a close friend of Cheryl and her son instead of a partner. I don't know if she's happy about the way her relationship worked out, but I suspect she's satified with her work as murder police. Sometimes, it's strictly an either-or proposition.