Wire actor stabbed at Overlea party

Life imitated art this weekend for Christopher Clanton. Clanton, who played Savino in seasons 1 and 5 of The Wire, was stabbed at a party at Overlea Caterers at 6809 Belair Road.

WBAL.com

Police say they went to Overlea Caterers Inc. for reports of a big fight and had to use pepper spray to get a crowd of 30 people under control.

Cpl. Mike Hill says Clanton was the only person injured in the disturbance. Clanton was taken by ambulance to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center after being stabbed in the chest and butt.

Clanton played Savino Bratton, a character in the first and fifth seasons who died at the hands of Omar Little.

Baltimore Sun

An actor on the Baltimore-based HBO series “The Wire” was stabbed in the chest and buttocks during a melee early yesterday at a social hall in Overlea.

[…]

“Mayhem broke out,” Clanton recounted. He said he was trying to push past a fight between two other men when someone started fighting with him, and others assaulted him.

“I was trying to get out of the way. I wanted to get past one of the guys that was involved,” Clanton said. “It escalated from there.”

Cpl. Michael Hill, a county police spokesman, said Clanton was the only person who reported being injured during the fight. At least 30 people were at the party, Hill said.

[…]

The actor also was an extra on “The Corner,” a 2000 HBO miniseries about a Baltimore family’s struggle within inner-city drug culture. The miniseries was based on a book by former Sun reporter David Simon, who also created “The Wire,” which ended this year.

[…]

The actor, who lives in Northeast Baltimore, has had his own encounters with the law.

In August 2006, Clanton pleaded guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court to manufacturing, distributing and dispensing a controlled dangerous substance and other drug-related charges.

He was given a five-year sentence, four years of which were suspended, and he was subsequently placed on three years of supervised probation.