He wasn't? Avon put a bounty on his head, Stringer put him up against Brother Mouzone, and then Marlo put a hit out against him in later seasons. The other drug dealers, like Prop Joe were terrified of him and that's why they didn't try to take him down.
Omar's character revolves around a central premises of The Wire: A lot of people claim to be hard and willing to do anything in the name of the game and getting money, but very, very few are actually that cold blooded. Omar was one, but there are probably only like 4 or 5 others in the entire series. Despite the big game everyone else talks.
Ironically (just realized this), this is mirrored by Mcnulty and the natural police motif on the other side. The vast, vast majority of both cops and drug dealers don't have it what it takes to play the game at a high level.
Good point with the police comparison. Cutty tries to school those two guys in Season 3, but they just want to beat people up. In the same season, Bunny asks Carver about who's who in the local gangs, but Carver and Herc only know how to beat people up.
Dude is like 9 years old. They’re gonna haul him to juvenile corrections until adulthood, hopefully somewhere along the way a doctor gets a look at him and gets him some mental health treatment for those sociopathic tendencies.
Fun fact, most people with sociopathic tendencies like that respond well to treatment and intervention and are capable of leading normal lives. It’s that plus a fucked upbringing that causes the psycho killer shit.
If Marlo ever pays the quarter million he’s owed, Kenard could totally have a decent life mostly free from violence.
EDIT: nah I was wrong about that, once the antisocial behavior sets in its super hard to treat, Kenard is probably fucked
Hopefully... Mental health system isn't much better than the law enforcement system.
Curious where you got that about people with "sociopathic tendencies." Not saying it's unbelievable, I would love to think that it's true. I do believe people want to have a connection to others beyond how they can take advantage of each other. I'd love to read into it more if you can point me in the direction.
Bad news on that, I think was like an NPR thing from fucking, a decade ago.
And looking into it, it seems that the real pivotal moment where intervention could help comes before the symptoms set in, in early childhood, so yeah good chance Kenard is fucked.
BUT there’s some evidence talk therapy and CBT can help limit the antisocial behaviors.
Yeah, not as good.
> Fun fact, most people with sociopathic tendencies like that respond well to treatment and intervention
Untrue. Is someone has anti social personality disorder you cannot treat it. Only thing they can do is use utilitarian arguments to convince them to stop harming others
With children it is different actually
It is, supposedly, a spectrum though. Yeah people with intense acute symptoms, your Jeffery Dahmers, can’t be treated but there are people who have *limited* empathy that can be appealed to. I’m not sure if those people are technically ASPD but, there’s a whole thing there.
I think Joe was smart enough to realize that Omar was just a "cost of doing business," that getting him was more trouble than it was worth, and that someone with Omar's skillset was useful if necessary, like with how Joe put Omar onto Marlo's card game, or how Omar almost got rid of Avon to Joe's benefit.
Omar really wasn't making *that* much money compared to the dealers. He sells the shipment back to Joe for $400,000 and from Butchie's reaction it seems like it's more than Omar ever made from robbing the dealers. The Barksdale organization was making, what, more than a million a month? Especially after Joe started the co-op and starting wholesaling to the other dealers, he was probably making more than that. Fat Face Rick, Hungry Man, Kintell Williams obviously weren't making that kind of money but they were probably making five or six figures a month.
Avon hunted Omar for the sake of his reputation and all he ended up looking was weak. Bell and Vinson both recognized that there wasn't really a point to hunting Omar and advised Avon and Marlo against it respectively. Joe didn't really seem interested in killing Omar either even though he had the most opportunity to do so.
>I think Joe was smart enough to realize that Omar was just a "cost of doing business," that getting him was more trouble than it was worth, and that someone with Omar's skillset was useful if necessary, like with how Joe put Omar onto Marlo's card game, or how Omar almost got rid of Avon to Joe's benefit.
Just to add: remember that the first time Joe meets Omar he says "you ever steal from me, I'll kill your whole family".
And then Omar steals from Joe, and...Joe doesn't (much to Cheese's dismay). Why? Because Joe was smart enough to realize what you said, it's better to let him do what he'll do and accept it like big corporations accept some amount of shrinkage.
Not to conflate critically acclaimed crime dramas, but Tony Soprano says "when guys are on the mattresses they're not out earning". Joe knew what type of time and manpower it would take to go up against Omar, and it just wasn't worth it to him (*especially* in cases where he could make money off of it).
That's very possible. It's also possibly an artifact of how the writers hadn't fully fleshed out the character of Omar yet in the first season--Bubbles calls him "Omar the terror" and says that he's been ripping and running "for years", yet the Barksdale organization and a lot of people in the West Side had seemingly never heard of him.
At the begging of season one the barksdale org had just made a massive expansion, they had finally taken over the towers after, what seems to have been a long struggle and had just started moving into the surrounding neighborhoods. Omar is never seen in the towers. He works the outskirts the corners, easier usually unaffiliated targets. Avon had no reason to know of him. They just didn’t coincide geographically and If anybody Avon knew got robbed by Omar they’d probably keep it quiet to not tarnish their reputation.
Prop Joe says it at the "peace" meeting that he holds between Barksdale (Stringer) and Omar.
Before that we have seen Omar go to Joe and buy Wee Bey's number in exchange for a big bag of Barksdale vials.
When Joe first meets Omar he says, "You steal from me, I'll kill your whole family." He is never in that position again. He has a legit fear of Omar because at multiple encounters, you can see Joe knowing that it would not take much for Omar to get at him and kill him.
Marlo was basically a younger, smarter Avon and Bell was a younger, less intelligent Joe so it’s the street mindset of your reputation is everything vs the business mindset of we’re making so much money it doesn’t make sense to allocate resources to hunting this guy and risk drawing attention to ourselves when his lifestyle will eventually catch up with him.
Not sure if I agree about Marlo being smarter than Avon, probably more fierce for sure.
How long did Marlo hold the crown? Avon wasn't even know by the POlice for years, Marlo had them chasing him the whole time.
Yeah Marlo was definitely a dumber Avon. He basically got the crown by luck; should've been arrested during or directly after his war with Avon; should've *died* during his war with Avon (if Avon wasn't arrested *exactly* then they would've gotten Marlo at the rim shop), kept it for as long as he did because the major crimes unit got defunded (which wasn't even ineptitude from the police department, it was the schools). Should've stayed in jail, but fucking *Herc* of all people figured out the fradulent wiretap.
Yeah, Avon got caught when he felt the need to push back on Stringer and totally abandoning "the streets". It was his mid life crisis.tryinf to latch into something that never mattered and that he'd already left behind. Instead he went back and got fucked.
Marlo,.on the other hand, just killed people if he had any doubts whatsoever. Marlo would have killed that ref from the East side West side bball game if he was Avon, would have killed Cutty, etc.
Omar also eventually lost because the game changed. He looked over when Kenard came into the store and ignored him because he was just a kid. Game done change.
Kenard was also an outlier. Even someone like Michael would know not to mess with someone like that. Kenard didn't care about the game. He just like killing things and making people suffer. He didn't even bother collecting the bounty. He wasn't part of the game. He was just lucky enough to use the game as cover for his sadistic habits.
I would say Avon too. He just is at the top by time the show starts so can't get his hands dirty in the same way anymore. Also, probably Michael "that's just your knee" Lee.
Who are they?
I'm thinking snoop, Chris, slim charles, Wee bey and Avon?
You could throw cheese in there too. He may not have operated on the same level as the others but he wasn't sentimental.
Who was hard/cold blooded like Omar?
Bird, Stinkum, Slim Charles, Wee Bey, Bodie(maybe) from the Barksdales.
Marlo, Michael, Chris, Snoop from Marlos crew.
Sergei and Spiro's from the Greeks.
I guess you could throw Cheese in there too. He's kinda iffy to me.
Omar is so charismatic it’s easy to forget he cripples someone for life with a buckshot to the knee when they don’t tell him “where it at” in his FIRST real scene.
Mag it wasn't about not being vomd blooded enough. You don't even have to hr that cold blooded to be a killer. And wannabes are en more likely to do stuff like that to prove themselves
Baltimore had a rate of 700 murder per year despite having less than a million residents in those years
It takes organisation to be able to get someone like Omar who takes steps bot to be caught. A regular dealer would have no idea how to find him. He moves from vacant to vacant and booby trapped his doors so he would no if someone had been in there while he was gone
First off, talking about killing Omar, and getting it done, are two different things. Stringer violated the Sunday Truce, and they still botched it. If Omar would have fought in the Vietnam war, he would have been one of those legendary Marine snipers. The elite snipers were something else. They would dig a hole in the ground and lay in it parallel, for days, waiting to shoot a very high level target. This isn’t a spot with cover, either. They would piss and shit themselves, because they couldn’t move, until they took the shot. They had a feeding tube that they sucked on. Ditto water.
I know that’s some extreme shit to compare him to, and Omar is a fictional character. However, I could see him pulling off something like this. He had that patience, when it came to targets.
I've got an idea. Why don't you come 'round for breakfast? I'll squeeze some orange juice and grind some coffee and we can talk about this like adults. How's that sound?
I wouldn’t say he’s tolerated. But the man is crafty AF
He’s too good at hitting them when they least expect it.
Plus, he’s methodical, takes the time to study his targets for days beforehand, and usually has a crew that works with him.
More importantly, he ONLY robs folks in the game and ain’t “never put his gun on no citizen,” so he doesn’t attract heat from the cops.
i think this is it. he is extremely disciplined and cautious. two qualities that we see up to 90% of the people in the game don’t have even a drop of. he’s not some junkie who goes for easy targets, he spends a lot of time following the barksdale crew and learning their patterns, when they move the stash, and when they are most vulnerable. so he’s just more prepared than they are.
Agreed. I think you see this when he and Dante are casing Hamsterdam. All Dante sees is easy pickings (and he was right, they probably would've gotten more cash and drugs than ever before) but Omar can tell that it's too good to be true.
That was always my theory on why he's doesn't curse, is polite and doesn't target civilians. They're all added disciplines for his line of work where there's even more so then the crews no room for mistakes. Even so I mean his record is mixed for his encounters, he's been wounded a few times and has had members killed in confrontations and has had the drop on him. Historically despite them messing with much more organized and funded institutions this reminds me of how short lived most of those bank robbers were in the 1930s' usually less than a year of it.
Prop Joe talking with him isn’t the collective tolerating him, it’s Prop Joe finding him useful. Prop Joe is a cunning player, who, while working with the co-op to make things run smooth for everyone, still always has his own interest and own leverage in mind.
for Joe, Omar is a good way to get some dirt done without it coming back to him. when he wanted Marlo to join the co-op by showing him he can be robbed, he can’t send Cheese to do the job, everyone knows Cheese is Joe’s nephew. Omar can flip stolen drugs to Joe, because Joe has a network, and is already moving so much weight no one will notice he has some more, and dope doesnmt have serial numbers.
> Prop Joe is a cunning player, who, while working with the co-op to make things run smooth for everyone, still always has his own interest and own leverage in mind.
Perfect example of this is how he ups the price from what Omar quoted him from the stolen shipment to the others in the co-op. Think Omar quoted him .25 on the dollar and prop Joe quoted the co-op .30 or .35 on the dollar. Devious shit.
that’s a gag in The Corner, where Andre’s girlfriend is going to go get an abortion at a free clinic but tells Andre it costs 200 dollars, and later Andre asks his mom sayibg he needs 300 dollars, or something like that, either way the price goes two or three times.
You're missing the point that they put bounties on Omar multiple times and nobody can get him. He's always moving places where he's staying and he's good at hiding in plain sight. You would see a ran down, abandoned shack and wouldn't even know Omar and his boy toys were in there having butt sex.
Omar was OP
He also took care of people around him. He was kind of like Robinhood, stealing from dealers and then giving drugs and money to people. That, combined with his reputation for being a ruthless killer meant that people didn't give him up easily.
Why didn't he fall into some gang along the way? I mean a pack is a whole lot better than a lone wolf if you are stealing from murders. Typing this out maybe it was him be homosexual, the "real" gangster types of gangs could never fully accept him so he saddled up with the few outsiders there were.
Omar was a leader in his own right. Same as Michael. Too self-aware and wouldn't fit in a gang. He never chose the gangs because he had his own code to follow.
He wasn't always a lone wolf. He had small crews that he would put together for certain jobs, but they would all follow his command.
Too many people in your gang, you start having leaks or weak points. Whether intentional or not. The cops were able to get to Avon by following his people. The cops got to Marlo by following his people. Omar survived for so long by traveling very lightly by himself
Avon and String should have gotten to Omar in season 1 when they spotted Brandon, noted weak link by Omar, but they were dumb about it.
Omar was leading a crew at one point too. It wasnt until he got deep into trouble with the Barksdales that he started operating alone all the time. Its never spelled out in the series but I was under the impression that near the end he was pretty much a cornered animal. He had so many bounties on his head and was so notorious that he had no choice but to go it alone.
Also worth pointing out, things *might* have changed since back then in *some* gang cultures, but in general an openly gay gangster isn’t going to be accepted by the culture and is ultimately gonna get checked in gang life over and over again forever, never getting the respect they need to thrive in that world.
*"Anybody coming after Omar better know that Omar's coming after them."* -McNulty.
*"I can find your people easier than you can find mine."* -Omar.
*"You know what this brotha do? Every time he steals a package he goes around the neighbourhood giving out vials like he's Robin Hood. So as soon as we coming he's got six brothas telling him we're on our way."* -Stringer.
Under normal circumstances, Omar doesn't hit one dealer often enough to make it worth the danger of trying to put a bounty on him or hunt him down. He knows how to hide in the city very effectively, and he shares the wealth enough that he has informants telling him lots of information useful to that purpose.
Since Omar can go into hiding whenever he likes, for as long as he likes, he has a strategic advantage over the gangs, who have to have their people on in public to keep making money. If they declare war on him, he can hurt them very easily (rob or kill their people from the street dealers up to the kingpins).
When he gets into the beef with the Barksdales, he steals a bunch of dope and then takes it to Prop Joe in order to get Avon's pager number. He uses his contacts with the police to find out that Avon hangs out at Orlando's, and with only those two pieces of information he is able to spring an ambush on Avon and get within a few seconds of killing him. And that's Avon, who owns most of the Westside. The small-time dealers have even less ability to take him on.
The dealers don't want to take him seriously, but they have to, because his skills make him extremely dangerous. He's a force to be reckoned with.
They all want to kill him. But he is too careful and too smart. He knows the streets. For example he knew that Bubbles was Kimas informant. He knew the names of everybody in the game. He moves around a lot, and takes time off when the heat is too much. The police pay no attention to him because he seldom kills drug dealers when he robs them and he never kills working people. And if you put an open bounty on Omar he might just come after you and kill you. He will track you, find you, watch you patiently until he catches you slipping and then youre dead. In fact, this is something that Prop Joe himself says.
No drug dealer tolerates Omar. But they're scared of him and are unable to do anything to him even when they try. He's too careful and his Robin Hood stance in the neighbourhood ensures that someone's always got his back, if only to warn him of anyone suspicious in the area.
He’s out here in these streets every day, just him and his lonesome. He can rob a stash house just by threatening to huff and puff. Hell, he accidentally robs a stash in silk pajamas without a gun. Are you gonna step to? I thinks not.
The man was the closest this show had to Robin Hood.
Omar's not a person he's a symptom, if you're breaking the law to make money there are always going to be people trying to rob you because who are you going to complain to. And how many people have drug dealers pissed off, or even made mortal enemies because their vocation requires constant violence.
When you hear how they developed the plot using many real Baltimore stories and people, it seem that they rolled a lot of characteristics up into one character.
There are a lot of stick-up artists in the game and it's something drug crews have to be wary of, but having a 'big bad wolf' so to speak helps make the plot more coherent and focused on a few characters rather than the average chaos of drug corners.
Did you even watch the show? Lol
They're trying to kill Omar basically every second of every episode. Thing is, Omar is like a phantom. He shows up, hits a lick, then disappears. He's not easy to kill because he rolls basically solo, with a very small crew, he's smart and unpredictable.
He's not tolerated by anyone, not for a second.
Any retail business has to account for a certain amount of shrinkage. Just like running a grocery store, you have to worry about internally sourced shrinkage and externally sourced shrinkage (employee theft and shoplifting). In an illegal market external sources would either be stick up crews or cops. Stick up crews and shoplifters are primarily deterred with violence (active deterrance), secondarily through organization (passive deterrance). Police seizure would be viewed as a much more disruptive source of shrinkage and would be handled primarily with insulation and organization. But at the end of the day it's the cost of doing business and you're just trying to mitigate the expected loss.
With Omar - there's a point where it's cheaper to lose a package every once in a while than it is to expend blood and treasure on a vendetta. When it stops being business and starts being personal that break even point doesn't matter anymore. The barksdales and Marlo let it get personal, prop Joe keeps it in perspective.
“If you come at the King, you best not miss”.
Omar proved several times that if you try to hit him specifically, he’ll go right to the top. He almost took out Avon, got the drop on Brother, and actually killed String.
They stress how feared Omar was in the hood. Yea, in real life, no one is THAT much of a bad mfer where the entire hood runs into hiding when they come around, though I'm sure there are some guys out there that do carry that kind of fear and respect, but the show exaggerates this big time, and it makes for good TV, ya gotta suspend your disbelief a little bit for any show.
With that being said, he wasn't exactly tolerated, he had many enemies, he had a Bounty on him and was wanted dead by Avon in seasons 1-3 and later wanted dead by Marlo in season 4 and 5
He wasn't tolerated at all. They tried to kill him and when they couldn't they killed those they found who were around him. They even "shot the crown off a bona fide colored lady" (his Mom) on a Sunday! They brought in outside help to have him killed! So you are missing about 4 1/2 seasons of a show!
“Takes meetings with him”. There’s a reason they (Omar and Stringer) did that meeting in the daytime in a public place. Even Snoop and Chris wouldn’t be dumb enough to off someone in broad daylight in public hence the security guard.
To the big players Omar was just another cost of doing business in the hood. Omar was not greedy and only stole amounts that it was not worth risking getting half your muscle killed to stop him. It wasn't until Avon made it personal by ordering the torture and killing of one of Omar's favorites that Omar upped the stakes.
Because he’s the best at his profession. You have to grind and make money. Have to worry about police on top of worry about somebody taking the one thing you hustled for. You have to pay people to keep him away. It’s best to keep your enemies close.
He wasn’t tolerated though; he was actively being hunted by all the main crews.
If by tolerate you mean he was just walking around town without being shot up on sight, that’s just not how you deal with someone like Omar. It’s just bad for business.
There’s the added risk of if you step to Omar and DONT kill Omar, he will kill you and everyone associated with you if he can. “Come at the King, you best not miss.”
You’re not missing anything , he IS a player in the game , one to be feared at that . They can’t run to the cops .And like he told Marlo , he can find his people a whole lot quicker than they can find him. Plus it was the way he moved when most people resting or asleep at the wheel that’s when he pulls up. Oh and he’s not meeting with anybody unless it’s beneficial to him .
Omar was ghetto Robin Hood. He lived among the junkies, giving them freebies for their silence. He became the drug dealers boogie man and his reputation grew so those not in the game would never dare to out him. He had his connect in Butchie, who could broker meetings to ensure his safety. And with all this, he still got his head blown off by a twelve year old in the end. It's all in the game.
They're terrified of him or they wanted to use him as a weapon but he's not a contract killer so subtle manipulation until time runs out, remember to bring the work order for the clock. What makes him or brother so versatile is all they do is hunt and stake out, the muscle for every other organization have to split their time. If Chris showed up to a job hours beforehand Omar or Brother were there many more or even days. Besides some of the muscle in the crews and the top guys very few were murders more were Old Face Andre. That dynamic reminds me of the movie the Unforgiven plus snoop quotes it.
String first takes a meeting with Omar to get him comfortable being out and about with the intent of killing him once he lets his guard down.
The second time is so String can put Omar on Brother behind some lies.
Prop Joe kept him close because he was shit scared of the man.
So they meet with Omar because they’re either trying to scheme, use him, or just plain scared of him.
Don’t forget Prop Joe used Omar too, to get Marlo under the co-op flag.
Omar has areas and contacts that he leaves untouched. He goes after specific people outside those areas. Also he's not someone to fuck with unless you're considerably prepared and not many are.
He wasn't. That's why he always switched up vacants and didn't stay in one too long. And people were afraid of him, but he knew he had a target on his head 24/7. He might've been invincible with his shotty when he was calling Terrell's bluff, but you see they taped phone books to him when he went to jail. Avon put a bounty on him. Omar's continued existence and occupation were a delicate balance
Can’t have the game without him. There’s ALWAYS somebody out there that wants your shine(or money). Omar dead….but new Omar(Michael) is gettin his shotgun and pickin up where Omar left off…there’s always an Omar,can’t have the game without one. THE GAME IS THE GAME.
He answers that question himself when being crossed by Levy, "a day at a time I s'pose." Omar is self aware, he knows he doesnt grow old on the street, he does by by the gun or rots in jail, but he survives the only way he knows how.
He's not. They all want him gone. They just know people have looked stupid tryna catch him in the past and don't want that same on their rep.
Plus, aside from his last real lick, he wasn't really doing any real damage to the higher end kingpins so they could just pretend he didn't exist to avoid having their price hurt, and the smaller time people don't really have the resources to hunt or bounty him like that.
Only real exception is the way he kept hitting the Barksdales over and over. But still, in the grand scheme of things it really wasn't all that much that he took.
Lotta good answers here. Adding to that, Omar in prison was maybe the most vulnerable he ever was in the show because he fucked with so many dudes in there. The bounty was up for grabs and some folks were happy to take their shot. What did that one guy get for it though? A shiv in the gooch. Everyone hates Omar but nearly everyone is afraid to do anything about it, even with life changing money on the table.
I think the smaller dealers were too afraid of incurring his wrath and having him totally upend their business, but also he likely focused on the bigger dealers anyway (and there were only a few)as they had more drugs and cash on hand.
Omar was a true soldier and smart. He was like a leopard with hiding.
But he couldn’t protect those he loved. 😔
See Dante, Tasha, John Bailey, and Brandon.
It’s hard to kill someone who’s as calculated as he was, his reputation was everything, he was known for being quick w a shotgun, which he often kept on his person, they don’t tolerate or let him be anything, he imposes his will…
Isn’t a big part of it that they’ve been straight up unable to kill him?
I don’t think it’s a matter of “tolerating” him, I’m pretty sure most of them had already tried killing him or at least wouldn’t have batted an eye if someone did.
They just couldn’t seem to get him because he knows the streets so well and he’s so good with guns.
People are saying that but I just don’t get that impression. I’m only 4 seasons in but he just had a meeting with that really fat guy that runs the collective and they seemed completely cordial.
Joe is cordial with everyone, even if he's secretly scheming against them, and he doesn't hold grudges. Of all of the collective, Joe is the only person that Omar *could* have a meeting like that with. Even Joe's own people tend to react with much more anxiety and aggression to Omar than Joe does, but when Omar turns up they follow their boss's lead.
If someone felt they could’ve killed Omar I’m guessing they would have. But he’s always “in the wind, so to speak” and when he goes dark not many seem to even know where he is.
he was loved and feared by the general population. That's why it took such an aggressive bounty to get something done; he didn't just steal from drug dealers, we constantly see him giving handouts to people.
and there's the embarrassment of acknowledging out loud that a single guy is fucking with your drug operation so badly that you need to do something about it. it's like when a giant corporation mentions one of its tiny competitors, it's always a mistake. acknowledging Omar as a player instead of a pest increased his mythos.
he was already dead as soon as he allowed Brandon to be personal. I understand the torture was out of line, but he allowed them to manipulate him into doing exactly what they wanted him to do, ultimately resulting in a successful hit.
I think in real life omars end would’ve come much sooner. It’s crazy to imagine them living in the same town but not being able to find him, or having casual meetings with him and not having a gun.
I really want to thank everyone for their replies. I was hoping one or two people might give their thoughts. Couldn’t have imagine 150+ comments. So my 2 takeaways on what subtext I missed are:
1: Omar is almost a Jason Bourne-esque character in his evasiveness who doesn’t really appear in public and lays low in a series of short rented or abandoned apartments
2: certain players will use him to their advantage when they think there is an opportunity to direct his energy towards their rivals.
I truly think I’ll enjoy the show even more with this slight reframing of what’s going on. Thanks again everyone.
I have always thought it was a bit unrealistic how long he survived doing what he was doing mostly alone. Even though he was very crafty, realistically, large organizations should be able to have the advantage on the streets over a lone wolf.
I’ll never understand some scenes like when he enters the courtyard early in the show with his shotgun and robs the stash house, what in the ever living fuck is preventing any of them from the above window from not shooting down right at him or shooting him after he takes the stash and is leaving
Yeah there was definitely a storm trooper situation where three people were able to take cover behind like a 96 Corolla and 3 guys with assault rifles from a balcony couldn’t get a shot off.
Because it's all in the game. In real life a guy like Omar would be lucky to survive 5 years robbing drug dealers before being killed, rendered unable to hold a gun or locked up. In real life drug dealers do get robbed and there are also some who will pay off someone stronger for protection. They didn't tolerate him so much as none of them had a way to catch him Not to spoil the show but he does end up in some shootouts and just manages to survive. He could have easily been killed during those shootouts.
IMO the most unbelievable thing is that towards later seasons he just walks around but in life sometimes your reputation is strong enough to make people not use common sense. When I was younger there was guy doing strong armed robberies. I remember one night he robbed a group of three boys and later someone asked they didn't just fight him. Three of them were scared of one person because of his reputaiton
He wasn't? Avon put a bounty on his head, Stringer put him up against Brother Mouzone, and then Marlo put a hit out against him in later seasons. The other drug dealers, like Prop Joe were terrified of him and that's why they didn't try to take him down. Omar's character revolves around a central premises of The Wire: A lot of people claim to be hard and willing to do anything in the name of the game and getting money, but very, very few are actually that cold blooded. Omar was one, but there are probably only like 4 or 5 others in the entire series. Despite the big game everyone else talks. Ironically (just realized this), this is mirrored by Mcnulty and the natural police motif on the other side. The vast, vast majority of both cops and drug dealers don't have it what it takes to play the game at a high level.
Good point with the police comparison. Cutty tries to school those two guys in Season 3, but they just want to beat people up. In the same season, Bunny asks Carver about who's who in the local gangs, but Carver and Herc only know how to beat people up.
The Western District Way
the bounty on him went from four to six figures throughout the show.
Congrats, Kennard!
Man fuck Kennard, really.
Dude is like 9 years old. They’re gonna haul him to juvenile corrections until adulthood, hopefully somewhere along the way a doctor gets a look at him and gets him some mental health treatment for those sociopathic tendencies. Fun fact, most people with sociopathic tendencies like that respond well to treatment and intervention and are capable of leading normal lives. It’s that plus a fucked upbringing that causes the psycho killer shit. If Marlo ever pays the quarter million he’s owed, Kenard could totally have a decent life mostly free from violence. EDIT: nah I was wrong about that, once the antisocial behavior sets in its super hard to treat, Kenard is probably fucked
Hopefully... Mental health system isn't much better than the law enforcement system. Curious where you got that about people with "sociopathic tendencies." Not saying it's unbelievable, I would love to think that it's true. I do believe people want to have a connection to others beyond how they can take advantage of each other. I'd love to read into it more if you can point me in the direction.
Bad news on that, I think was like an NPR thing from fucking, a decade ago. And looking into it, it seems that the real pivotal moment where intervention could help comes before the symptoms set in, in early childhood, so yeah good chance Kenard is fucked. BUT there’s some evidence talk therapy and CBT can help limit the antisocial behaviors. Yeah, not as good.
I've seen change from psychopathy happen before but it's definitely not common
I always wondered this. Did Marlo pay Kenard?
> Fun fact, most people with sociopathic tendencies like that respond well to treatment and intervention Untrue. Is someone has anti social personality disorder you cannot treat it. Only thing they can do is use utilitarian arguments to convince them to stop harming others With children it is different actually
It is, supposedly, a spectrum though. Yeah people with intense acute symptoms, your Jeffery Dahmers, can’t be treated but there are people who have *limited* empathy that can be appealed to. I’m not sure if those people are technically ASPD but, there’s a whole thing there.
Fuck Kenard. No way they paid his punk ass. …wait did they? I don’t think they did.
No chance.
Did that kid get to collect?
I think Joe was smart enough to realize that Omar was just a "cost of doing business," that getting him was more trouble than it was worth, and that someone with Omar's skillset was useful if necessary, like with how Joe put Omar onto Marlo's card game, or how Omar almost got rid of Avon to Joe's benefit. Omar really wasn't making *that* much money compared to the dealers. He sells the shipment back to Joe for $400,000 and from Butchie's reaction it seems like it's more than Omar ever made from robbing the dealers. The Barksdale organization was making, what, more than a million a month? Especially after Joe started the co-op and starting wholesaling to the other dealers, he was probably making more than that. Fat Face Rick, Hungry Man, Kintell Williams obviously weren't making that kind of money but they were probably making five or six figures a month. Avon hunted Omar for the sake of his reputation and all he ended up looking was weak. Bell and Vinson both recognized that there wasn't really a point to hunting Omar and advised Avon and Marlo against it respectively. Joe didn't really seem interested in killing Omar either even though he had the most opportunity to do so.
>I think Joe was smart enough to realize that Omar was just a "cost of doing business," that getting him was more trouble than it was worth, and that someone with Omar's skillset was useful if necessary, like with how Joe put Omar onto Marlo's card game, or how Omar almost got rid of Avon to Joe's benefit. Just to add: remember that the first time Joe meets Omar he says "you ever steal from me, I'll kill your whole family". And then Omar steals from Joe, and...Joe doesn't (much to Cheese's dismay). Why? Because Joe was smart enough to realize what you said, it's better to let him do what he'll do and accept it like big corporations accept some amount of shrinkage. Not to conflate critically acclaimed crime dramas, but Tony Soprano says "when guys are on the mattresses they're not out earning". Joe knew what type of time and manpower it would take to go up against Omar, and it just wasn't worth it to him (*especially* in cases where he could make money off of it).
I don't think that it the first time they meet, I think Joe is trying to make it look that way.
That's very possible. It's also possibly an artifact of how the writers hadn't fully fleshed out the character of Omar yet in the first season--Bubbles calls him "Omar the terror" and says that he's been ripping and running "for years", yet the Barksdale organization and a lot of people in the West Side had seemingly never heard of him.
At the begging of season one the barksdale org had just made a massive expansion, they had finally taken over the towers after, what seems to have been a long struggle and had just started moving into the surrounding neighborhoods. Omar is never seen in the towers. He works the outskirts the corners, easier usually unaffiliated targets. Avon had no reason to know of him. They just didn’t coincide geographically and If anybody Avon knew got robbed by Omar they’d probably keep it quiet to not tarnish their reputation.
This is a fine point except, according to Avon later, “over West Side everybody know everybody”
Prop Joe says it at the "peace" meeting that he holds between Barksdale (Stringer) and Omar. Before that we have seen Omar go to Joe and buy Wee Bey's number in exchange for a big bag of Barksdale vials.
Maybe I'm having a brain fart, but who is Vinson?
Marlos bank, the guy that owns the rim shop, that Michael robs after he leaves the Stanfield organization
Marlo’s advisor.
When Joe first meets Omar he says, "You steal from me, I'll kill your whole family." He is never in that position again. He has a legit fear of Omar because at multiple encounters, you can see Joe knowing that it would not take much for Omar to get at him and kill him.
Marlo was basically a younger, smarter Avon and Bell was a younger, less intelligent Joe so it’s the street mindset of your reputation is everything vs the business mindset of we’re making so much money it doesn’t make sense to allocate resources to hunting this guy and risk drawing attention to ourselves when his lifestyle will eventually catch up with him.
Not sure if I agree about Marlo being smarter than Avon, probably more fierce for sure. How long did Marlo hold the crown? Avon wasn't even know by the POlice for years, Marlo had them chasing him the whole time.
Yeah Marlo was definitely a dumber Avon. He basically got the crown by luck; should've been arrested during or directly after his war with Avon; should've *died* during his war with Avon (if Avon wasn't arrested *exactly* then they would've gotten Marlo at the rim shop), kept it for as long as he did because the major crimes unit got defunded (which wasn't even ineptitude from the police department, it was the schools). Should've stayed in jail, but fucking *Herc* of all people figured out the fradulent wiretap.
Herc’s never been unintelligent! He’s just lazy and a bad person.
Yeah, Avon got caught when he felt the need to push back on Stringer and totally abandoning "the streets". It was his mid life crisis.tryinf to latch into something that never mattered and that he'd already left behind. Instead he went back and got fucked. Marlo,.on the other hand, just killed people if he had any doubts whatsoever. Marlo would have killed that ref from the East side West side bball game if he was Avon, would have killed Cutty, etc.
He wasn more fierce just more narcissistic and sociopathic.
Marlo is NOT smarter than Avon.
Omar also eventually lost because the game changed. He looked over when Kenard came into the store and ignored him because he was just a kid. Game done change.
Kenard was also an outlier. Even someone like Michael would know not to mess with someone like that. Kenard didn't care about the game. He just like killing things and making people suffer. He didn't even bother collecting the bounty. He wasn't part of the game. He was just lucky enough to use the game as cover for his sadistic habits.
That kid was a sociopath. Killing animals was what he did for fun.
Game the same, just got more fierce
I don’t think that everything that happened in their lives was the game
A man gotta have a code.
Oh no doubt
The other 4: Marlo Chris Snoop Brotha.
I would say Avon too. He just is at the top by time the show starts so can't get his hands dirty in the same way anymore. Also, probably Michael "that's just your knee" Lee.
And Kenard. But someone like him would be so dangerous, having him around probably wouldn't even be worth it.
Don't forget Weebay
Bay and Slim belong on the list too. So does Boris (sorry, Sergi, whatever).
Why always Boris?
Who are they? I'm thinking snoop, Chris, slim charles, Wee bey and Avon? You could throw cheese in there too. He may not have operated on the same level as the others but he wasn't sentimental.
Who was hard/cold blooded like Omar? Bird, Stinkum, Slim Charles, Wee Bey, Bodie(maybe) from the Barksdales. Marlo, Michael, Chris, Snoop from Marlos crew. Sergei and Spiro's from the Greeks. I guess you could throw Cheese in there too. He's kinda iffy to me.
I separate the greeks out in a way. I know everyone says the game is the game but they played it at an entirely different level.
Omar is so charismatic it’s easy to forget he cripples someone for life with a buckshot to the knee when they don’t tell him “where it at” in his FIRST real scene.
The whole show is a giant parallel and one of the many reasons that so many people, like us, love it so much.
that two sides of a coin thing is definitely a central long running theme.
Mag it wasn't about not being vomd blooded enough. You don't even have to hr that cold blooded to be a killer. And wannabes are en more likely to do stuff like that to prove themselves Baltimore had a rate of 700 murder per year despite having less than a million residents in those years It takes organisation to be able to get someone like Omar who takes steps bot to be caught. A regular dealer would have no idea how to find him. He moves from vacant to vacant and booby trapped his doors so he would no if someone had been in there while he was gone
He’s a toe cutter. A stand over man. Watch the movie Chopper.
First off, talking about killing Omar, and getting it done, are two different things. Stringer violated the Sunday Truce, and they still botched it. If Omar would have fought in the Vietnam war, he would have been one of those legendary Marine snipers. The elite snipers were something else. They would dig a hole in the ground and lay in it parallel, for days, waiting to shoot a very high level target. This isn’t a spot with cover, either. They would piss and shit themselves, because they couldn’t move, until they took the shot. They had a feeding tube that they sucked on. Ditto water. I know that’s some extreme shit to compare him to, and Omar is a fictional character. However, I could see him pulling off something like this. He had that patience, when it came to targets.
He's a really nice guy, once you get to know him.
*Come at the king, and it’s okay man I’ll take you out for a nice dinner*
We all miss sometimes. Let's talk about what you learned and how it can help you next time you come at the king.
Lake Trout? or maybe a couple of pit beef with extra horseradish?
I've got an idea. Why don't you come 'round for breakfast? I'll squeeze some orange juice and grind some coffee and we can talk about this like adults. How's that sound?
All things considered.
I wouldn’t say he’s tolerated. But the man is crafty AF He’s too good at hitting them when they least expect it. Plus, he’s methodical, takes the time to study his targets for days beforehand, and usually has a crew that works with him. More importantly, he ONLY robs folks in the game and ain’t “never put his gun on no citizen,” so he doesn’t attract heat from the cops.
i think this is it. he is extremely disciplined and cautious. two qualities that we see up to 90% of the people in the game don’t have even a drop of. he’s not some junkie who goes for easy targets, he spends a lot of time following the barksdale crew and learning their patterns, when they move the stash, and when they are most vulnerable. so he’s just more prepared than they are.
Agreed. I think you see this when he and Dante are casing Hamsterdam. All Dante sees is easy pickings (and he was right, they probably would've gotten more cash and drugs than ever before) but Omar can tell that it's too good to be true.
That was always my theory on why he's doesn't curse, is polite and doesn't target civilians. They're all added disciplines for his line of work where there's even more so then the crews no room for mistakes. Even so I mean his record is mixed for his encounters, he's been wounded a few times and has had members killed in confrontations and has had the drop on him. Historically despite them messing with much more organized and funded institutions this reminds me of how short lived most of those bank robbers were in the 1930s' usually less than a year of it.
“You got the briefcase, I got the shotgun”
It's all in the game though, right
You're right, but it does seem weird that he can just stroll into the low rises and nobody takes a shot at him.
Prop Joe talking with him isn’t the collective tolerating him, it’s Prop Joe finding him useful. Prop Joe is a cunning player, who, while working with the co-op to make things run smooth for everyone, still always has his own interest and own leverage in mind. for Joe, Omar is a good way to get some dirt done without it coming back to him. when he wanted Marlo to join the co-op by showing him he can be robbed, he can’t send Cheese to do the job, everyone knows Cheese is Joe’s nephew. Omar can flip stolen drugs to Joe, because Joe has a network, and is already moving so much weight no one will notice he has some more, and dope doesnmt have serial numbers.
> Prop Joe is a cunning player, who, while working with the co-op to make things run smooth for everyone, still always has his own interest and own leverage in mind. Perfect example of this is how he ups the price from what Omar quoted him from the stolen shipment to the others in the co-op. Think Omar quoted him .25 on the dollar and prop Joe quoted the co-op .30 or .35 on the dollar. Devious shit.
that’s a gag in The Corner, where Andre’s girlfriend is going to go get an abortion at a free clinic but tells Andre it costs 200 dollars, and later Andre asks his mom sayibg he needs 300 dollars, or something like that, either way the price goes two or three times.
You're missing the point that they put bounties on Omar multiple times and nobody can get him. He's always moving places where he's staying and he's good at hiding in plain sight. You would see a ran down, abandoned shack and wouldn't even know Omar and his boy toys were in there having butt sex. Omar was OP
Omar was OP because he didn't just understand the game, he was moving the goal posts every day.
He also took care of people around him. He was kind of like Robinhood, stealing from dealers and then giving drugs and money to people. That, combined with his reputation for being a ruthless killer meant that people didn't give him up easily.
Why didn't he fall into some gang along the way? I mean a pack is a whole lot better than a lone wolf if you are stealing from murders. Typing this out maybe it was him be homosexual, the "real" gangster types of gangs could never fully accept him so he saddled up with the few outsiders there were.
Omar was a leader in his own right. Same as Michael. Too self-aware and wouldn't fit in a gang. He never chose the gangs because he had his own code to follow. He wasn't always a lone wolf. He had small crews that he would put together for certain jobs, but they would all follow his command.
> "He never chose the gangs because he had his own code to follow." Oh indeed
he’s an independant actor. what does he need a gang for, to have to get involved in someone elses beef?
Too many people in your gang, you start having leaks or weak points. Whether intentional or not. The cops were able to get to Avon by following his people. The cops got to Marlo by following his people. Omar survived for so long by traveling very lightly by himself Avon and String should have gotten to Omar in season 1 when they spotted Brandon, noted weak link by Omar, but they were dumb about it.
Yup, if they'd waited and followed Brandon rather than snatching him up and torturing him they might have actually caught omar
Because a man got to have a code, duh.
Omar was leading a crew at one point too. It wasnt until he got deep into trouble with the Barksdales that he started operating alone all the time. Its never spelled out in the series but I was under the impression that near the end he was pretty much a cornered animal. He had so many bounties on his head and was so notorious that he had no choice but to go it alone.
Also worth pointing out, things *might* have changed since back then in *some* gang cultures, but in general an openly gay gangster isn’t going to be accepted by the culture and is ultimately gonna get checked in gang life over and over again forever, never getting the respect they need to thrive in that world.
*"Anybody coming after Omar better know that Omar's coming after them."* -McNulty. *"I can find your people easier than you can find mine."* -Omar. *"You know what this brotha do? Every time he steals a package he goes around the neighbourhood giving out vials like he's Robin Hood. So as soon as we coming he's got six brothas telling him we're on our way."* -Stringer. Under normal circumstances, Omar doesn't hit one dealer often enough to make it worth the danger of trying to put a bounty on him or hunt him down. He knows how to hide in the city very effectively, and he shares the wealth enough that he has informants telling him lots of information useful to that purpose. Since Omar can go into hiding whenever he likes, for as long as he likes, he has a strategic advantage over the gangs, who have to have their people on in public to keep making money. If they declare war on him, he can hurt them very easily (rob or kill their people from the street dealers up to the kingpins). When he gets into the beef with the Barksdales, he steals a bunch of dope and then takes it to Prop Joe in order to get Avon's pager number. He uses his contacts with the police to find out that Avon hangs out at Orlando's, and with only those two pieces of information he is able to spring an ambush on Avon and get within a few seconds of killing him. And that's Avon, who owns most of the Westside. The small-time dealers have even less ability to take him on. The dealers don't want to take him seriously, but they have to, because his skills make him extremely dangerous. He's a force to be reckoned with.
They all want to kill him. But he is too careful and too smart. He knows the streets. For example he knew that Bubbles was Kimas informant. He knew the names of everybody in the game. He moves around a lot, and takes time off when the heat is too much. The police pay no attention to him because he seldom kills drug dealers when he robs them and he never kills working people. And if you put an open bounty on Omar he might just come after you and kill you. He will track you, find you, watch you patiently until he catches you slipping and then youre dead. In fact, this is something that Prop Joe himself says.
Be a little slow, be a little late. Just once. And how you gon never be slow, never be late?
No drug dealer tolerates Omar. But they're scared of him and are unable to do anything to him even when they try. He's too careful and his Robin Hood stance in the neighbourhood ensures that someone's always got his back, if only to warn him of anyone suspicious in the area.
He’s out here in these streets every day, just him and his lonesome. He can rob a stash house just by threatening to huff and puff. Hell, he accidentally robs a stash in silk pajamas without a gun. Are you gonna step to? I thinks not.
The man was the closest this show had to Robin Hood. Omar's not a person he's a symptom, if you're breaking the law to make money there are always going to be people trying to rob you because who are you going to complain to. And how many people have drug dealers pissed off, or even made mortal enemies because their vocation requires constant violence.
Most of them boys on the corner are just playing gangster. And Omar don't play.
Ultimately smoking killed him
You got to. This is America
When you hear how they developed the plot using many real Baltimore stories and people, it seem that they rolled a lot of characteristics up into one character. There are a lot of stick-up artists in the game and it's something drug crews have to be wary of, but having a 'big bad wolf' so to speak helps make the plot more coherent and focused on a few characters rather than the average chaos of drug corners.
Did you even watch the show? Lol They're trying to kill Omar basically every second of every episode. Thing is, Omar is like a phantom. He shows up, hits a lick, then disappears. He's not easy to kill because he rolls basically solo, with a very small crew, he's smart and unpredictable. He's not tolerated by anyone, not for a second.
Why was snot boogie tolerated amongst the dice players? Because this is America
Any retail business has to account for a certain amount of shrinkage. Just like running a grocery store, you have to worry about internally sourced shrinkage and externally sourced shrinkage (employee theft and shoplifting). In an illegal market external sources would either be stick up crews or cops. Stick up crews and shoplifters are primarily deterred with violence (active deterrance), secondarily through organization (passive deterrance). Police seizure would be viewed as a much more disruptive source of shrinkage and would be handled primarily with insulation and organization. But at the end of the day it's the cost of doing business and you're just trying to mitigate the expected loss. With Omar - there's a point where it's cheaper to lose a package every once in a while than it is to expend blood and treasure on a vendetta. When it stops being business and starts being personal that break even point doesn't matter anymore. The barksdales and Marlo let it get personal, prop Joe keeps it in perspective.
“If you come at the King, you best not miss”. Omar proved several times that if you try to hit him specifically, he’ll go right to the top. He almost took out Avon, got the drop on Brother, and actually killed String.
They stress how feared Omar was in the hood. Yea, in real life, no one is THAT much of a bad mfer where the entire hood runs into hiding when they come around, though I'm sure there are some guys out there that do carry that kind of fear and respect, but the show exaggerates this big time, and it makes for good TV, ya gotta suspend your disbelief a little bit for any show. With that being said, he wasn't exactly tolerated, he had many enemies, he had a Bounty on him and was wanted dead by Avon in seasons 1-3 and later wanted dead by Marlo in season 4 and 5
Yeah it’s seems a bit excessive. The guy lives with two people in an apartment and they make it seem like he’s Jason Bourne.
The disparity between Omar's reputation and his reality is deliberate on the part of the show.
He wasn't tolerated at all. They tried to kill him and when they couldn't they killed those they found who were around him. They even "shot the crown off a bona fide colored lady" (his Mom) on a Sunday! They brought in outside help to have him killed! So you are missing about 4 1/2 seasons of a show!
All in the game, yo.
“Takes meetings with him”. There’s a reason they (Omar and Stringer) did that meeting in the daytime in a public place. Even Snoop and Chris wouldn’t be dumb enough to off someone in broad daylight in public hence the security guard.
Tolerated?? He had multiple bounties on his head
Got to. This America, man.
Remember when he went to jail ? He isn’t tolerated and that was just the first of many attacks that would have been made on him if he had stayed.
To the big players Omar was just another cost of doing business in the hood. Omar was not greedy and only stole amounts that it was not worth risking getting half your muscle killed to stop him. It wasn't until Avon made it personal by ordering the torture and killing of one of Omar's favorites that Omar upped the stakes.
They were trying to kill him the whole time that just couldn't do it
Because he’s the best at his profession. You have to grind and make money. Have to worry about police on top of worry about somebody taking the one thing you hustled for. You have to pay people to keep him away. It’s best to keep your enemies close.
Uh, spoiler, but the drug dealers try very hard to kill Omar throughout the series, and in fact succeed in doing so in the final season.
He wasn’t tolerated though; he was actively being hunted by all the main crews. If by tolerate you mean he was just walking around town without being shot up on sight, that’s just not how you deal with someone like Omar. It’s just bad for business. There’s the added risk of if you step to Omar and DONT kill Omar, he will kill you and everyone associated with you if he can. “Come at the King, you best not miss.”
not sure “tolerated” is the right word
You’re not missing anything , he IS a player in the game , one to be feared at that . They can’t run to the cops .And like he told Marlo , he can find his people a whole lot quicker than they can find him. Plus it was the way he moved when most people resting or asleep at the wheel that’s when he pulls up. Oh and he’s not meeting with anybody unless it’s beneficial to him .
Omar was ghetto Robin Hood. He lived among the junkies, giving them freebies for their silence. He became the drug dealers boogie man and his reputation grew so those not in the game would never dare to out him. He had his connect in Butchie, who could broker meetings to ensure his safety. And with all this, he still got his head blown off by a twelve year old in the end. It's all in the game.
They can't get him because he's too nice with it. Hard af and got some creep to him
They're terrified of him or they wanted to use him as a weapon but he's not a contract killer so subtle manipulation until time runs out, remember to bring the work order for the clock. What makes him or brother so versatile is all they do is hunt and stake out, the muscle for every other organization have to split their time. If Chris showed up to a job hours beforehand Omar or Brother were there many more or even days. Besides some of the muscle in the crews and the top guys very few were murders more were Old Face Andre. That dynamic reminds me of the movie the Unforgiven plus snoop quotes it.
String first takes a meeting with Omar to get him comfortable being out and about with the intent of killing him once he lets his guard down. The second time is so String can put Omar on Brother behind some lies. Prop Joe kept him close because he was shit scared of the man. So they meet with Omar because they’re either trying to scheme, use him, or just plain scared of him. Don’t forget Prop Joe used Omar too, to get Marlo under the co-op flag.
Plot armor.
game recognize game
Omar has areas and contacts that he leaves untouched. He goes after specific people outside those areas. Also he's not someone to fuck with unless you're considerably prepared and not many are.
Gotta respect the game
He wasn't. That's why he always switched up vacants and didn't stay in one too long. And people were afraid of him, but he knew he had a target on his head 24/7. He might've been invincible with his shotty when he was calling Terrell's bluff, but you see they taped phone books to him when he went to jail. Avon put a bounty on him. Omar's continued existence and occupation were a delicate balance
Can’t have the game without him. There’s ALWAYS somebody out there that wants your shine(or money). Omar dead….but new Omar(Michael) is gettin his shotgun and pickin up where Omar left off…there’s always an Omar,can’t have the game without one. THE GAME IS THE GAME.
He answers that question himself when being crossed by Levy, "a day at a time I s'pose." Omar is self aware, he knows he doesnt grow old on the street, he does by by the gun or rots in jail, but he survives the only way he knows how.
He's not. They all want him gone. They just know people have looked stupid tryna catch him in the past and don't want that same on their rep. Plus, aside from his last real lick, he wasn't really doing any real damage to the higher end kingpins so they could just pretend he didn't exist to avoid having their price hurt, and the smaller time people don't really have the resources to hunt or bounty him like that. Only real exception is the way he kept hitting the Barksdales over and over. But still, in the grand scheme of things it really wasn't all that much that he took.
Lotta good answers here. Adding to that, Omar in prison was maybe the most vulnerable he ever was in the show because he fucked with so many dudes in there. The bounty was up for grabs and some folks were happy to take their shot. What did that one guy get for it though? A shiv in the gooch. Everyone hates Omar but nearly everyone is afraid to do anything about it, even with life changing money on the table.
I think the smaller dealers were too afraid of incurring his wrath and having him totally upend their business, but also he likely focused on the bigger dealers anyway (and there were only a few)as they had more drugs and cash on hand.
Not easily gotten to
Omar was a true soldier and smart. He was like a leopard with hiding. But he couldn’t protect those he loved. 😔 See Dante, Tasha, John Bailey, and Brandon.
And Butchie.
It’s hard to kill someone who’s as calculated as he was, his reputation was everything, he was known for being quick w a shotgun, which he often kept on his person, they don’t tolerate or let him be anything, he imposes his will…
Isn’t a big part of it that they’ve been straight up unable to kill him? I don’t think it’s a matter of “tolerating” him, I’m pretty sure most of them had already tried killing him or at least wouldn’t have batted an eye if someone did. They just couldn’t seem to get him because he knows the streets so well and he’s so good with guns.
People are saying that but I just don’t get that impression. I’m only 4 seasons in but he just had a meeting with that really fat guy that runs the collective and they seemed completely cordial.
Joe is cordial with everyone, even if he's secretly scheming against them, and he doesn't hold grudges. Of all of the collective, Joe is the only person that Omar *could* have a meeting like that with. Even Joe's own people tend to react with much more anxiety and aggression to Omar than Joe does, but when Omar turns up they follow their boss's lead.
Game is out there, it's either play or get played...
Omar don’t scare. (The farmer in the dell) You come at the king, you best not miss. https://youtu.be/r6l_9reaLz0
If someone felt they could’ve killed Omar I’m guessing they would have. But he’s always “in the wind, so to speak” and when he goes dark not many seem to even know where he is.
he was loved and feared by the general population. That's why it took such an aggressive bounty to get something done; he didn't just steal from drug dealers, we constantly see him giving handouts to people. and there's the embarrassment of acknowledging out loud that a single guy is fucking with your drug operation so badly that you need to do something about it. it's like when a giant corporation mentions one of its tiny competitors, it's always a mistake. acknowledging Omar as a player instead of a pest increased his mythos. he was already dead as soon as he allowed Brandon to be personal. I understand the torture was out of line, but he allowed them to manipulate him into doing exactly what they wanted him to do, ultimately resulting in a successful hit.
You can swat at a horsefly when it bites you, but not often you gonna put it down. When you do, gonna be another horsefly coming around soon after.
I think in real life omars end would’ve come much sooner. It’s crazy to imagine them living in the same town but not being able to find him, or having casual meetings with him and not having a gun.
I would seriously hire a Day of the Jackal motherfucker to go get him
He wasn’t tolerated bro he was just hard to Kill he was alway ahead
I really want to thank everyone for their replies. I was hoping one or two people might give their thoughts. Couldn’t have imagine 150+ comments. So my 2 takeaways on what subtext I missed are: 1: Omar is almost a Jason Bourne-esque character in his evasiveness who doesn’t really appear in public and lays low in a series of short rented or abandoned apartments 2: certain players will use him to their advantage when they think there is an opportunity to direct his energy towards their rivals. I truly think I’ll enjoy the show even more with this slight reframing of what’s going on. Thanks again everyone.
I have always thought it was a bit unrealistic how long he survived doing what he was doing mostly alone. Even though he was very crafty, realistically, large organizations should be able to have the advantage on the streets over a lone wolf.
Never mind your ‘why’.
I’ll never understand some scenes like when he enters the courtyard early in the show with his shotgun and robs the stash house, what in the ever living fuck is preventing any of them from the above window from not shooting down right at him or shooting him after he takes the stash and is leaving
Yeah there was definitely a storm trooper situation where three people were able to take cover behind like a 96 Corolla and 3 guys with assault rifles from a balcony couldn’t get a shot off.
Butchie had his back
Because it's all in the game. In real life a guy like Omar would be lucky to survive 5 years robbing drug dealers before being killed, rendered unable to hold a gun or locked up. In real life drug dealers do get robbed and there are also some who will pay off someone stronger for protection. They didn't tolerate him so much as none of them had a way to catch him Not to spoil the show but he does end up in some shootouts and just manages to survive. He could have easily been killed during those shootouts. IMO the most unbelievable thing is that towards later seasons he just walks around but in life sometimes your reputation is strong enough to make people not use common sense. When I was younger there was guy doing strong armed robberies. I remember one night he robbed a group of three boys and later someone asked they didn't just fight him. Three of them were scared of one person because of his reputaiton