Donnie Andrews, inspiration for Omar character on 'The Wire,' dies – baltimoresun.com

Donnie Andrews, inspiration for Omar character on ‘The Wire,’ dies
By Justin Fenton and Jessica Anderson, The Baltimore Sun
6:57 PM EST, December 14, 2012
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Like the television character he helped inspire, Donnie Andrews lived by a code.
In his earlier years when he was robbing rival dealers as a young hustler in West Baltimore — experiences that would later form the basis for the popular Omar Little character on the Baltimore crime drama “The Wire” — he vowed to never involve women or children in his crimes.
But after confessing to a murder and helping authorities bring down a crime syndicate, he took on a different mission: working to prevent youth from going down the same path that he did.
Andrews died Thursday following heart complications while in New York City, where he was attending an event as part of his efforts to promote a non-profit outreach foundation. He was 58.
“Donnie was truly a rare bird, a fierce street warrior who had been to hell and back,” said Sonja Sohn, an actress who worked with Andrews in youth outreach, “and lived not only to tell about it, but to transform that pain and darkness into the brightest of lights, infused with the love he had for youth and communities suffering from the injustices of that life, often times, unfairly doles out to those born with the short end of the stick.”
Andrews, whose full name was Larry Donnell Andrews, had been around violence most of his life, physically abused by his mother and watching at age 10 from behind a washing machine as a man was bludgeoned to death for 15 cents. He grew up in the housing projects of West Baltimore, where he was mentored by hustlers and drug dealers. He became a stick-up artist, robbing other drug dealers with a .44 Magnum.
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