Ranking Characters Of The Wire: The Streets
12. Wallace
Played by a young pre-fame Michael B. Jordan, Wallace was a naïve and gullible drug dealer who worked under D'Angelo Barksdale in The Pit. Wallace was somewhat educated and had a moral core that made him a centre piece for The Wire's first season.
Wallace wanted to impress his superiors, D'Angelo in particular, so when the opportunity came to finger Omar's boyfriend Brandon after they robbed a Barksdale stash, he did so and it resulted in Brandon's brutal torture and murder. When Wallace discovers Brandon's mutilated corpse, he falls into a deep depression brought on by guilt and falls into drug abuse.
Wallace was a good kid, he looked after younger children and clearly had values, but his naivety concerning the criminal world he was involving himself in led him to a particularly dark fate. After much anguish, Wallace snitches about the Brandon murder to the police. He later regrets the decision and attempts to return to the drug trade but Stringer decides he cannot be trusted.
In one of the saddest moments of the show, the young Wallace is murdered by his two friends Poot and Bodie who tell him to "be a man" before they shoot him.