Fans of The Wire, which is compared to the novels of Balzac, Dostoevsky, and Dickens, were upset though perhaps not surprised to learn that Felicia “Snoop” Pearson, who played the pint-sized killer “Snoop” on the show, and who had previously served prison time after shooting a girl when she was 14 years old, was arrested in a drug sting operation. At Slate, Wire creator David Simon responded to the news:

In an essay published two years ago in Time magazine, the writers of The Wire made the argument that we believe the war on drugs has devolved into a war on the underclass, that in places like West and East Baltimore, where the drug economy is now the only factory still hiring and where the educational system is so crippled that the vast majority of children are trained only for the corners, a legal campaign to imprison our most vulnerable and damaged citizens is little more than amoral….

Both our Constitution and our common law guarantee that we will be judged by our peers.  But in truth, there are now two Americas, politically and economically distinct. I, for one, do not qualify as a peer to Felicia Pearson. The opportunities and experiences of her life do not correspond in any way with my own, and her America is different from my own. I am therefore ill-equipped to be her judge in this matter.

Here’s a 2007 clip from The Brian Lehrer show in which Pearson, promoting her memoir Grace After Midnight, talks about being a “hard-headed kid,” witnessing a friend’s pregnant mother being murdered by an arrow, and the shooting that landed her in prison.