Ranking Characters Of The Wire: The Law
9. William A. Rawls
The homicide unit commander was an ambitious career climber and a particularly unsavoury man that was difficult to work under due to his volatile and aggressive nature. Having a strong hatred for McNulty in particular which occasionally manifested itself in the form of a vendetta, Rawls is often portrayed as a foil for the major crimes unit and its detectives for most of the show.
Rawls is always focused on the statistics of his unit and (as he begins to collect promotions) the statistics and case clearance rates of the whole department. Similar to Burrell in that sense, Rawls cares more about the numbers than actually putting together strong cases and making Baltimore safer.
That being said, Rawls' best scene comes in the first season after Greggs is shot and McNulty is blaming himself. Rawls' hard as nails exterior folds away to reveal a more sensitive side as he reassures McNulty that, despite the fact he loathes him, this was not his fault. It was a necessary scene to show that Rawls is still a human being underneath it all.