David Simon casts Jon Bernthal, Josh Charles, Jamie Hector in his new police corruption show

David Simon’s TV projects have never lacked for casting talent: Between The Wire, The Corner, The Deuce, and more, Simon has filled his fictionalized versions of Baltimore and New York with some of the best working actors around, helping to launch the careers of folks like Idris Elba and Lance Reddick in the process. Even by those standards, though, the cast of his new HBO project, We Own This City, is looking pretty damn good, with Jon Bernthal, Josh Charles, and Jamie Hector all stepping into starring roles.

We reported on We Own This City back in March, when Simon and co-creator and frequently collaborator George Pelecanos first began casting on the show, which will return Simon to the Baltimore streets where he first cut his teeth as a reporter, and which later made him a mainstay of the HBO prestige crime drama schedule. The limited series is based on Justin Fenton’s book of the same name, about a Baltimore PD task force that essentially used its remit to cut gun crimes in the city as a license to rob millions of dollars from its residents.

Per Deadline, Bernthal will star as Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, one of 8 task force members charged with operating it as a widescale racketeering enterprise circa 2017. Charles will play Daniel Hersl, once described in a Huffington Post piece as “Baltimore’s most hated cop.” And Hector—who’s spent his post-Marlo-Stanfield career on shows like Power, The Strain, and, most recently, a six-season stint opposite Titus Welliver on Bosch—will play Sean Suiter, a BPD homicide detective set to testify against the Task Force members before a grand jury. (What the show will make of Suiter’s death, a day before he was set to testify in November 2017, remains to be seen.)

All told: A hell of a cast. The fact that there are still six task force members left to add to the roster only suggests that the grim good news about Simon’s return to Baltimore is only set to continue.