Is there a better or more widely consumed source of how reliant police are on communication interception? It portrays the difficulty of pursuing criminals very realistically.

Being “widely consumed” has no bearing on its correctness or relationship to reality. Should we also use Breaking Bad as a reason to surveil high school chemistry teachers in case they are drug kingpins?

The Wire is not a documentary. It is, above all designed to be entertaining. If they thought having a character reveal themselves to be a reptilian alien with bananas for hands made for a more entertaining show people would like, they would’ve done that. The Wire is not a proxy for reality.