Donnie Andrews, man who inspired ‘Omar’ from The Wire, dead at 58

Donnie Andrews, the Baltimore “gangster” who inspired the part of Omar Little on the TV series The Wire has died of a heart attack. He was 58.

Andrews grew up on the West Side of Baltimore, and made a living being a stick up kid – robbing drug dealers. He served 18 years in jail, but was let out on parole in 2005.

In an interview with Vice Magazine, Donnie Andrews said The Wire character resembled him to the tee. ”They made Omar exactly the way I was,” Andrews said. “David [Simon] wrote ‘The West Side Story’ [the initial Baltimore Sun article about Donnie] after my conviction in ’86 and they basically had everything down-pat. The gay part they took from a guy called Billy Outlaw, he was a gay stick-up guy.”

But after confessing to murder and helping authorities crack down on a major crime ring, he took another mission : helping the youth.  He started a non-profit called “Why Murder?” offering counseling to gang members and inner city children.