Jay Landsman

Jay Landsman is a retired homicide detective and actor. He was featured in David Simon's 1991 book about the Baltimore homicide unit Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. According to the book, Landsman was the last of his family line on the Baltimore Police Department. His brother Jerry was a detective in the agency who left in the 1980s and their father was the department's first Jewish district commander.
The book was later developed into the television series Homicide: Life on the Street. He was the inspiration for the fictional character John Munch (also Jewish) on that show as well as a character named Jay Landsman on the television series The Wire, created by Simon (although the Landsman character is not played by Landsman himself, but by Delaney Williams). Landsman portrayed himself in a brief appearance on the HBO miniseries The Corner and, later, appeared in The Wire, playing the character of Lieutenant Dennis Mello. He appeared in season five of the food and travel show No Reservations, when host Anthony Bourdain stopped in Baltimore on a tour of America's rust belt.