He says he was told that because these officers were so successful at seizing guns, there was nothing to be done. Your digital subscription helps pay for The Baltimore Sun's investigative reporting. On June 13, 2016, Jenkins became the Officer in Charge of the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF,) a specialized unit within the Operational Investigation Division of the BPD. Read about our approach to external linking. His punches came fast Jenkins was a trained boxer and OConnor soon felt the warmth of blood spilling down his cheek. FOX45 looks at the 8 former officers of the Gun Trace Task ForceThe ring leader of the squad Wayne Jenkins is currently serving the longest sentence out of the members federally indicted on . Back before our interview, Jenkins' representative wanted me to speak to some of his old high school friends. He had been stationed in North Carolina and would frequently make trips home to visit his family and his high school sweetheart Kristy, the . Oh, yeah. For the past four years, Jessica Lussenhop has been reporting on the rise and fall of a corrupt squad of Baltimore police officers. One of the most surprising witnesses was a man named Donald Stepp, a bail bondsman, who revealed that he'd been selling drugs Jenkins brought him from work. the dim light of the Baltimore Police Departments downtown nerve center, Sgt. Youve got to be willing to dig into their s--- and confront them, Barksdale said. He popped the trunk and carried the drugs into the garage. "I'm so sorry for what you're going through. Jenkins signed a plea agreement in 2017 that detailed seven robberies that he participated in along with other members of the unit, as well as his drug dealing partnership with Donald Stepp, the former bail bondsman and cocaine dealer who testified at trial. To learn more about their behavior, The Sun obtained several thousand pages of court records, dozens of body camera videos and hundreds of police department emails and restricted internal files. Still, a yearlong investigation by The Baltimore Sun found warning signs that Wayne Jenkins wasnt such a good cop. I hoped it could spur a more honest discussion about what it's going to take to reform or even redefine what it means to be a cop in the US. "I see some police officers harassing people, doing the same little tactics that the Gun Trace Task Force was doing.". Jenkins names two specific locations where he says the drugs get tossed: a train bridge near the Eastern District police station, and a wooded highway off-ramp on the way to the Northern District police station. Jenkins was given a 25-year prison sentence on June 7, 2018, which he is currently in the midst of serving at a federal prison in Kentucky. De Sousa, who is now serving a federal sentence for tax evasion, said through his attorney that he does not remember the Jenkins case. Fenton joined The Sun as a suburban reporter in 2005. He started to worry. Baltimore detectives convicted in shocking corruption trial Stepp grew up in Middle River, where he was friends with Jenkins's older brother. And in the midst of that investigation, another arose. She described how the unnamed officer talked about Jenkins: Hes probably the best drug detective in the city. The fallout of the squad's crimes is still rippling through the city and undoubtedly made Baltimore a less safe place for everyone who lives there. I also point out to him that it's a fairly common practice for prosecutors to level charges that are so serious that the defendant feels they have no choice but to plead guilty. I asked him if he thinks that another scandal is inevitable. Using wiretaps and hidden recording devices, they had accumulated a wealth of evidence showing the officers were robbing citizens, filing for hundreds of hours of overtime they never worked, stealing drugs and even selling illegal firearms back on the streets. "This is a saying we state: 'Don't let probable cause stand in the way of a good arrest,'" Jenkins says. By Justin Fenton June 12, 2019 More in the series Part 1 The rise of Wayne. Jenkins admitted that he stole drugs from work and delivered them to Stepp, who would turn around and sell them. He idolizes this guy, said Shelley Glenn, another prosecutor. After he was sent to federal lock-up, I wrote Jenkins a letter once a year - along with many other journalists, book authors, producers and documentary filmmakers - requesting an interview. For the most part, these defendants decided it wasnt in their interest to tell government authorities that. In November 2012, Wayne Jenkins was promoted to the rank of sergeant giving him new authority and freedom. I did give drugs to Donny [Stepp, who testified he and Jenkins sold $1 million worth of narcotics] for the last couple of years I was police, but I didn't take people's money because then they would know you were dirty. Command created the monster, she said, and allowed it to go unchecked.. 2023 BBC. officers Wayne Jenkins, Ryan . HBO asked Stepp to be a consultant on the project, which he enthusiastically agreed to do. While no one should forget for an instant that Jenkins and his officers caused untold harm to Baltimore citizens, I don't find it helpful to try to write him off as a "monster". I was a hero," Jenkins says of his activity during the unrest. He also says that he only made roughly $75,000 off of the narcotic sales, as opposed to the figure put on it by Stepp. Oakley took the rare step of getting onto the witness stand to rebut the officers, as did an independent witness who backed his account. They urged his supervisors to get him back to work and focused, according to an internal police department investigation conducted after the indictments. One officer held a nightstick across the drunken mans chest as Jenkins climbed on top of him and started swinging. He said he started dealing drugs at age 9, selling. Detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor went forward to trial and a jury found them guilty of robbery, extortion and fraud in February. It was surreal hearing his voice, talking to me. Then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake held a news conference to tout one of Jenkins big drug busts. You're taught that - the second someone gets in trouble we meet up, and we talk face to face," he says. And while searching the area, Jenkins claimed, he found a BB gun under a nearby car. It was during these games that Stepp heard Jenkins boasting about the large drug stashes he often came across during his work as a plainclothes police officer. One former supervisor never responded. I ask, slightly confused. Shawn Whiting, a man whose house was robbed of $16,000 and a kilo-and-a-half of heroin, testified that he knew that as a drug dealer, his word counted for much less than the officers'. More than 50 people including current and former police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys and victims were interviewed. A former member of the unit, Sergeant Thomas Allers, also pleaded guilty. Jenkins tells me he traded some sausages with other inmates in the line, bartering his way to the front. He was also the ringleader of a criminal enterprise of police officers who were robbing people and dealing drugs. But Jenkins wanted to argue the details in his plea agreement, saying many of them weren't true. The message read: "Greetings. But nothing more. A surveillance video suggesting Jenkins may have planted drugs in a suspects car did make its way to the police integrity unit of the Baltimore States Attorneys Office in 2014. I never heard back from the Baltimore Police Department. Wayne was a cops cop, local hero kind of guy, said Cirello, the retired officer. I ask. Having taken money before with previous squads, he expected the officers might skim some and submit the rest as cover. The show briefly depicts Wayne Jenkins' wife in episode 5, and we are told that Wayne takes time off for the impending birth of his child. However, he was also sued for misconduct before his arrest in 2017. He ran me over because I was getting away.. But the video captured by closed-circuit TV showed the officers searching the car extensively and never appearing to make a discovery. He took pictures of himself and Jenkins together inside the police department, where Stepp would sometimes pick up drugs. But that day, Jenkins drove toward the edge of town, bobbing in and out of traffic and running red lights, until he pulled over near a wooded area off Liberty Heights Avenue. Theres been plenty of times where the suspect has said, The drugs are in the car, and I go and I cant find them. Wayne Jenkins was living a double life. Jenkins says that the veteran goaded him into taking money. He also apologised to Burley, who was not in the court, to his wife and to his father, and begged the judge for the opportunity to get out in time to be a grandfather. A squad of veteran police officers stood accused of committing numerous robberies, as well as extortion and overtime fraud. Weeks later, I search these locations myself to see if I can find anything. "I knew the things we were doing were wrong," he said. A line prosecutor, Molly Webb, had been notified by a defense attorney of the footage footage that the police department hadnt submitted to her. Read more: Inside one of America's most corrupt police squads. Stepp testified that the arrangement was so lucrative, he stuck with it for years before getting arrested himself in December 2017. In the annals of the Baltimore Police Department, Wayne Jenkins name was not being associated with wrongdoing. The indictment of Jenkins and six of his gun task force officers on federal racketeering charges rocked Baltimore when the announcement came in March 2017. It was a red flag. Baltimore leaders have agreed to pay a $6 million settlement to the family of a driver who was killed during a 2010 police chase involving Gun Trace Task Force officers. They walked far enough so they couldnt be seen from the street. They said he prepared an arsenal of weapons and tools to begin carrying out burglaries. You guys willing to go kick in the dudes door and take the money? It was Jenkins, fresh off his heroics in West Baltimore. During the altercation, a passerby named George Sneed was assaulted by officer Robert Cirello who broke his jaw, leading Sneed to sue. In We Own This City, that dynamic is highlighted through the story of Wayne Jenkins - a star police officer played by The Walking Dead alum Jon Bernthal, with a pretty solid Baltimore accent . Burley was sentenced to 15 years in prison, which he was serving until federal prosecutors uncovered the task force's corruption and freed him. He gave me a few reasons. At the trial four years later, Jenkins and his fellow officers claimed that the witness had been throwing bottles at them, but security camera footage shown at the trial proved what Jenkins claimed was not true. They ordered us to f--- them up; we f---ed them up, one of the responding officers, Robert Cirello, now retired, said later in an interview with The Sun. OConnor, a house painter who missed weeks of work because of his injuries, sued Jenkins and put forward witnesses who backed his account: After OConnor yelled at Fries, officers had pulled him to the ground, and Jenkins walloped him. It was in 2007 that Jenkins became a part of the GTTF, a new unit of plain-clothed officers focused on targeting suspected criminals believed to have big supplies of guns and drugs, in a bid to reduce the city's high murder rate. We knew he wasn't the straight-and-narrow cop that all cops are supposed to be," he said. At the time, Stepp was running his own bail bond company, Double D Bail Bonds. If Wayne Jenkins asked you to come work for him, you felt honored, Ward said. Some of the most upsetting conversations I had were with people who felt victimised twice -- by both the officers and by the criminals. Over the years, I wrote to all of these former officers in prison several times, asking them to help me understand their breathtaking crimes. The second declined to comment. Of all seven men, the last person I thought would ever agree to an interview was Jenkins, the fallen "golden boy" of the Baltimore Police Department. "Nobody still knows the truth about what's going on in the city," Taylor told the judge. He was arrested along with almost every member of the unit in March 2017. In Jenkins' plea, it says that "in April 2015 following the riots after the death of Freddie Gray, Jenkins brought DS prescription medicines that he had stolen from someone looting a pharmacy so that DS could sell the medications". Please sign up today and help make a difference. Hours later, in a quiet waterfront neighborhood 15 miles east of downtown, a drug-dealing bail bondsman was roused from his sleep. I did give drugs to Donny for the last couple of years I was police, but I didn't take people's money because then they would know you were dirty. Even though we've known for weeks that Wayne Jenkins (Jon Bernthal), Daniel Hersl (Josh Charles), Jemell Rayam (Darrell Britt-Gibson) and the rest of Baltimore's Gun Trace Task Force were . Until this point, I'd only heard Jenkins on. Another was to talk about how futile life inside the penal system is. All of the other officers would have to be inaccurate in their testimony if it is to be believed that Detective Jenkins was manufacturing information for the affidavit, she said. Later, Jenkins did more than talk about such a theft. Then, in November 2017, he was given further charges of destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations, and deprivation of rights under color of law. "He's a pathological liar," Stepp says. Many plainclothes units would work out of a satellite office inside a trailer in Northwest Baltimore. I ask this friend why he didn't say anything to anyone. The matter was referred to the police integrity unit of the Baltimore states attorneys office for investigation. At trial, Jenkins and his boss denied any knowledge of who attacked OConnor. And that's what I did.". Wayne Jenkins fist felt like a hammer to Tim OConnors face. All seven now sit in federal prisons scattered across the country. I got gangster charges, racketeering charges, things they usually give the mob, who were burying bodies in cement.". The outfit change is designed to allow them to blend in. He tells me that the first time he ever stole money, he was just a rookie. Inside was a stack of bills. According to the Internal Affairs file, the only times Jenkins had been disciplined by the department was for twice failing to appear in court. Stepp and Jenkins' history runs deep. ", Paul Schiraldi/Baltimore Police Department/HBO, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Become a subscriber today to support investigative reporting like this. Baltimore Police Sgt. A lot of what he told me was much more systematic. "He perverted the criminal justice system.". View all articles on the Gun Trace Task Force on The Baltimore Sun. If I could take everything back in my life, I would have been a prosecutor," he says. "He's never been a true friend," Stepp says. After an FBI investigation into the unit discovered the GTTF's crimes, federal officers arrested Jenkins alongside several others in the unit. He's doing, as he likes to say, "rather swell". In Baltimore, theyre often referred to as knockers, a reference to their historically aggressive tactics. On an oddly balmy January night, Jenkins and Fries were working the McElderry Park neighborhood in East Baltimore when they noticed two brothers drinking Steel Reserve beers on the sidewalk outside their rowhouse. "I did, yes. Last month, Mr De Sousa was indicted for failure to pay his taxes by the same prosecutors who brought the GTTF case. He told me that frequently, when he or his fellow officers didn't feel like submitting the drugs they seized or doing arrest paperwork, they'd simply confiscate people's drug stashes and let them go. Sneed hired an attorney, who obtained footage from a city surveillance camera on the corner. ", Explaining the tactics of the GTTF, he also told the publication: "This is a saying we state: 'Don't let probable cause stand in the way of a good arrest. Wayne Jenkins, who led . Hill told Al-Jazeera it was because then-Deputy Commissioner De Sousa got involved. He served 20 months of a five year sentence in connection with the Gun Trace Task Force case, before being granted a compassionate release. "I got 25 years. It was there that the full extent of the officers' misconduct became public. There is no love lost between these two former friends. Within days, prosecutors issued a letter to police saying they were declining to charge Jenkins with a crime. Wayne Earl Jenkins tearfully told the court: "I've tarnished the badge", (L-R) Evodio Hendrix, Daniel Hersl, Jemell Rayam, (L-R) Maurice Ward, Marcus Taylor, Momodu Gondo, Prosecutors showed evidence of Jenkins' building up the tools needed to do full-fledged robberies, Elbert Davis' daughters speak after Jenkins' sentencing, Former GTTF member Momodu Gondo testified during the trial, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. When Jenkins was allowed to speak, he turned first to face the Davis family and apologised repeatedly. "Obviously I'm in here now, so I see both sides. Stepp was on home confinement for six months with an ankle monitor until this summer. Maurice Ward, a former detective now serving a seven-year prison term for committing crimes with Jenkins, said he and other officers jockeyed to get on his team. He claims that it was Stepp's idea to start selling drugs together, not the other way around. Sure enough, no report was ever made. His eye socket was fractured. It took place as Jenkins and other officers were searching an apartment. Detectives Maurice Ward, Evodio Hendrix, Momodu Gondo and Jemell Rayam all pleaded guilty. 49 . "I'm finally trying to get my life back on track," he told me. All seven members were soon in handcuffs. "You have nightmares about police officers harassing you, beating you up, just locking you up, it's just a nightmare that I have and it basically hasn't gone away yet," he said. In September 2021, Jenkins spoke with BBC journalist. Relatives say he liked to visit his high school sweetheart, Kristy, who would become his wife. Former Baltimore Police Sgt. 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He says he was told that because these officers were so successful at seizing guns, there was nothing to be done. Your digital subscription helps pay for The Baltimore Sun's investigative reporting. On June 13, 2016, Jenkins became the Officer in Charge of the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF,) a specialized unit within the Operational Investigation Division of the BPD. Read about our approach to external linking. His punches came fast Jenkins was a trained boxer and OConnor soon felt the warmth of blood spilling down his cheek. FOX45 looks at the 8 former officers of the Gun Trace Task ForceThe ring leader of the squad Wayne Jenkins is currently serving the longest sentence out of the members federally indicted on . Back before our interview, Jenkins' representative wanted me to speak to some of his old high school friends. He had been stationed in North Carolina and would frequently make trips home to visit his family and his high school sweetheart Kristy, the . Oh, yeah. For the past four years, Jessica Lussenhop has been reporting on the rise and fall of a corrupt squad of Baltimore police officers. One of the most surprising witnesses was a man named Donald Stepp, a bail bondsman, who revealed that he'd been selling drugs Jenkins brought him from work. the dim light of the Baltimore Police Departments downtown nerve center, Sgt. Youve got to be willing to dig into their s--- and confront them, Barksdale said. He popped the trunk and carried the drugs into the garage. "I'm so sorry for what you're going through. Jenkins signed a plea agreement in 2017 that detailed seven robberies that he participated in along with other members of the unit, as well as his drug dealing partnership with Donald Stepp, the former bail bondsman and cocaine dealer who testified at trial. To learn more about their behavior, The Sun obtained several thousand pages of court records, dozens of body camera videos and hundreds of police department emails and restricted internal files. Still, a yearlong investigation by The Baltimore Sun found warning signs that Wayne Jenkins wasnt such a good cop. I hoped it could spur a more honest discussion about what it's going to take to reform or even redefine what it means to be a cop in the US. "I see some police officers harassing people, doing the same little tactics that the Gun Trace Task Force was doing.". Jenkins names two specific locations where he says the drugs get tossed: a train bridge near the Eastern District police station, and a wooded highway off-ramp on the way to the Northern District police station. Jenkins was given a 25-year prison sentence on June 7, 2018, which he is currently in the midst of serving at a federal prison in Kentucky. De Sousa, who is now serving a federal sentence for tax evasion, said through his attorney that he does not remember the Jenkins case. Fenton joined The Sun as a suburban reporter in 2005. He started to worry. Baltimore detectives convicted in shocking corruption trial Stepp grew up in Middle River, where he was friends with Jenkins's older brother. And in the midst of that investigation, another arose. She described how the unnamed officer talked about Jenkins: Hes probably the best drug detective in the city. The fallout of the squad's crimes is still rippling through the city and undoubtedly made Baltimore a less safe place for everyone who lives there. I also point out to him that it's a fairly common practice for prosecutors to level charges that are so serious that the defendant feels they have no choice but to plead guilty. I asked him if he thinks that another scandal is inevitable. Using wiretaps and hidden recording devices, they had accumulated a wealth of evidence showing the officers were robbing citizens, filing for hundreds of hours of overtime they never worked, stealing drugs and even selling illegal firearms back on the streets. "This is a saying we state: 'Don't let probable cause stand in the way of a good arrest,'" Jenkins says. By Justin Fenton June 12, 2019 More in the series Part 1 The rise of Wayne. Jenkins admitted that he stole drugs from work and delivered them to Stepp, who would turn around and sell them. He idolizes this guy, said Shelley Glenn, another prosecutor. After he was sent to federal lock-up, I wrote Jenkins a letter once a year - along with many other journalists, book authors, producers and documentary filmmakers - requesting an interview. For the most part, these defendants decided it wasnt in their interest to tell government authorities that. In November 2012, Wayne Jenkins was promoted to the rank of sergeant giving him new authority and freedom. I did give drugs to Donny [Stepp, who testified he and Jenkins sold $1 million worth of narcotics] for the last couple of years I was police, but I didn't take people's money because then they would know you were dirty. Command created the monster, she said, and allowed it to go unchecked.. 2023 BBC. officers Wayne Jenkins, Ryan . HBO asked Stepp to be a consultant on the project, which he enthusiastically agreed to do. While no one should forget for an instant that Jenkins and his officers caused untold harm to Baltimore citizens, I don't find it helpful to try to write him off as a "monster". I was a hero," Jenkins says of his activity during the unrest. He also says that he only made roughly $75,000 off of the narcotic sales, as opposed to the figure put on it by Stepp. Oakley took the rare step of getting onto the witness stand to rebut the officers, as did an independent witness who backed his account. They urged his supervisors to get him back to work and focused, according to an internal police department investigation conducted after the indictments. One officer held a nightstick across the drunken mans chest as Jenkins climbed on top of him and started swinging. He said he started dealing drugs at age 9, selling. Detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor went forward to trial and a jury found them guilty of robbery, extortion and fraud in February. It was surreal hearing his voice, talking to me. Then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake held a news conference to tout one of Jenkins big drug busts. You're taught that - the second someone gets in trouble we meet up, and we talk face to face," he says. And while searching the area, Jenkins claimed, he found a BB gun under a nearby car. It was during these games that Stepp heard Jenkins boasting about the large drug stashes he often came across during his work as a plainclothes police officer. One former supervisor never responded. I ask, slightly confused. Shawn Whiting, a man whose house was robbed of $16,000 and a kilo-and-a-half of heroin, testified that he knew that as a drug dealer, his word counted for much less than the officers'. More than 50 people including current and former police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys and victims were interviewed. A former member of the unit, Sergeant Thomas Allers, also pleaded guilty. Jenkins tells me he traded some sausages with other inmates in the line, bartering his way to the front. He was also the ringleader of a criminal enterprise of police officers who were robbing people and dealing drugs. But Jenkins wanted to argue the details in his plea agreement, saying many of them weren't true. The message read: "Greetings. But nothing more. A surveillance video suggesting Jenkins may have planted drugs in a suspects car did make its way to the police integrity unit of the Baltimore States Attorneys Office in 2014. I never heard back from the Baltimore Police Department. Wayne was a cops cop, local hero kind of guy, said Cirello, the retired officer. I ask. Having taken money before with previous squads, he expected the officers might skim some and submit the rest as cover. The show briefly depicts Wayne Jenkins' wife in episode 5, and we are told that Wayne takes time off for the impending birth of his child. However, he was also sued for misconduct before his arrest in 2017. He ran me over because I was getting away.. But the video captured by closed-circuit TV showed the officers searching the car extensively and never appearing to make a discovery. He took pictures of himself and Jenkins together inside the police department, where Stepp would sometimes pick up drugs. But that day, Jenkins drove toward the edge of town, bobbing in and out of traffic and running red lights, until he pulled over near a wooded area off Liberty Heights Avenue. Theres been plenty of times where the suspect has said, The drugs are in the car, and I go and I cant find them. Wayne Jenkins was living a double life. Jenkins says that the veteran goaded him into taking money. He also apologised to Burley, who was not in the court, to his wife and to his father, and begged the judge for the opportunity to get out in time to be a grandfather. A squad of veteran police officers stood accused of committing numerous robberies, as well as extortion and overtime fraud. Weeks later, I search these locations myself to see if I can find anything. "I knew the things we were doing were wrong," he said. A line prosecutor, Molly Webb, had been notified by a defense attorney of the footage footage that the police department hadnt submitted to her. Read more: Inside one of America's most corrupt police squads. Stepp testified that the arrangement was so lucrative, he stuck with it for years before getting arrested himself in December 2017. In the annals of the Baltimore Police Department, Wayne Jenkins name was not being associated with wrongdoing. The indictment of Jenkins and six of his gun task force officers on federal racketeering charges rocked Baltimore when the announcement came in March 2017. It was a red flag. Baltimore leaders have agreed to pay a $6 million settlement to the family of a driver who was killed during a 2010 police chase involving Gun Trace Task Force officers. They walked far enough so they couldnt be seen from the street. They said he prepared an arsenal of weapons and tools to begin carrying out burglaries. You guys willing to go kick in the dudes door and take the money? It was Jenkins, fresh off his heroics in West Baltimore. During the altercation, a passerby named George Sneed was assaulted by officer Robert Cirello who broke his jaw, leading Sneed to sue. In We Own This City, that dynamic is highlighted through the story of Wayne Jenkins - a star police officer played by The Walking Dead alum Jon Bernthal, with a pretty solid Baltimore accent . Burley was sentenced to 15 years in prison, which he was serving until federal prosecutors uncovered the task force's corruption and freed him. He gave me a few reasons. At the trial four years later, Jenkins and his fellow officers claimed that the witness had been throwing bottles at them, but security camera footage shown at the trial proved what Jenkins claimed was not true. They ordered us to f--- them up; we f---ed them up, one of the responding officers, Robert Cirello, now retired, said later in an interview with The Sun. OConnor, a house painter who missed weeks of work because of his injuries, sued Jenkins and put forward witnesses who backed his account: After OConnor yelled at Fries, officers had pulled him to the ground, and Jenkins walloped him. It was in 2007 that Jenkins became a part of the GTTF, a new unit of plain-clothed officers focused on targeting suspected criminals believed to have big supplies of guns and drugs, in a bid to reduce the city's high murder rate. We knew he wasn't the straight-and-narrow cop that all cops are supposed to be," he said. At the time, Stepp was running his own bail bond company, Double D Bail Bonds. If Wayne Jenkins asked you to come work for him, you felt honored, Ward said. Some of the most upsetting conversations I had were with people who felt victimised twice -- by both the officers and by the criminals. Over the years, I wrote to all of these former officers in prison several times, asking them to help me understand their breathtaking crimes. The second declined to comment. Of all seven men, the last person I thought would ever agree to an interview was Jenkins, the fallen "golden boy" of the Baltimore Police Department. "Nobody still knows the truth about what's going on in the city," Taylor told the judge. He was arrested along with almost every member of the unit in March 2017. In Jenkins' plea, it says that "in April 2015 following the riots after the death of Freddie Gray, Jenkins brought DS prescription medicines that he had stolen from someone looting a pharmacy so that DS could sell the medications". Please sign up today and help make a difference. Hours later, in a quiet waterfront neighborhood 15 miles east of downtown, a drug-dealing bail bondsman was roused from his sleep. I did give drugs to Donny for the last couple of years I was police, but I didn't take people's money because then they would know you were dirty. Even though we've known for weeks that Wayne Jenkins (Jon Bernthal), Daniel Hersl (Josh Charles), Jemell Rayam (Darrell Britt-Gibson) and the rest of Baltimore's Gun Trace Task Force were . Until this point, I'd only heard Jenkins on. Another was to talk about how futile life inside the penal system is. All of the other officers would have to be inaccurate in their testimony if it is to be believed that Detective Jenkins was manufacturing information for the affidavit, she said. Later, Jenkins did more than talk about such a theft. Then, in November 2017, he was given further charges of destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations, and deprivation of rights under color of law. "He's a pathological liar," Stepp says. Many plainclothes units would work out of a satellite office inside a trailer in Northwest Baltimore. I ask this friend why he didn't say anything to anyone. The matter was referred to the police integrity unit of the Baltimore states attorneys office for investigation. At trial, Jenkins and his boss denied any knowledge of who attacked OConnor. And that's what I did.". Wayne Jenkins fist felt like a hammer to Tim OConnors face. All seven now sit in federal prisons scattered across the country. I got gangster charges, racketeering charges, things they usually give the mob, who were burying bodies in cement.". The outfit change is designed to allow them to blend in. He tells me that the first time he ever stole money, he was just a rookie. Inside was a stack of bills. According to the Internal Affairs file, the only times Jenkins had been disciplined by the department was for twice failing to appear in court. Stepp and Jenkins' history runs deep. ", Paul Schiraldi/Baltimore Police Department/HBO, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Become a subscriber today to support investigative reporting like this. Baltimore Police Sgt. A lot of what he told me was much more systematic. "He perverted the criminal justice system.". View all articles on the Gun Trace Task Force on The Baltimore Sun. If I could take everything back in my life, I would have been a prosecutor," he says. "He's never been a true friend," Stepp says. After an FBI investigation into the unit discovered the GTTF's crimes, federal officers arrested Jenkins alongside several others in the unit. He's doing, as he likes to say, "rather swell". In Baltimore, theyre often referred to as knockers, a reference to their historically aggressive tactics. On an oddly balmy January night, Jenkins and Fries were working the McElderry Park neighborhood in East Baltimore when they noticed two brothers drinking Steel Reserve beers on the sidewalk outside their rowhouse. "I did, yes. Last month, Mr De Sousa was indicted for failure to pay his taxes by the same prosecutors who brought the GTTF case. He told me that frequently, when he or his fellow officers didn't feel like submitting the drugs they seized or doing arrest paperwork, they'd simply confiscate people's drug stashes and let them go. Sneed hired an attorney, who obtained footage from a city surveillance camera on the corner. ", Explaining the tactics of the GTTF, he also told the publication: "This is a saying we state: 'Don't let probable cause stand in the way of a good arrest. Wayne Jenkins, who led . Hill told Al-Jazeera it was because then-Deputy Commissioner De Sousa got involved. He served 20 months of a five year sentence in connection with the Gun Trace Task Force case, before being granted a compassionate release. "I got 25 years. It was there that the full extent of the officers' misconduct became public. There is no love lost between these two former friends. Within days, prosecutors issued a letter to police saying they were declining to charge Jenkins with a crime. Wayne Earl Jenkins tearfully told the court: "I've tarnished the badge", (L-R) Evodio Hendrix, Daniel Hersl, Jemell Rayam, (L-R) Maurice Ward, Marcus Taylor, Momodu Gondo, Prosecutors showed evidence of Jenkins' building up the tools needed to do full-fledged robberies, Elbert Davis' daughters speak after Jenkins' sentencing, Former GTTF member Momodu Gondo testified during the trial, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. When Jenkins was allowed to speak, he turned first to face the Davis family and apologised repeatedly. "Obviously I'm in here now, so I see both sides. Stepp was on home confinement for six months with an ankle monitor until this summer. Maurice Ward, a former detective now serving a seven-year prison term for committing crimes with Jenkins, said he and other officers jockeyed to get on his team. He claims that it was Stepp's idea to start selling drugs together, not the other way around. Sure enough, no report was ever made. His eye socket was fractured. It took place as Jenkins and other officers were searching an apartment. Detectives Maurice Ward, Evodio Hendrix, Momodu Gondo and Jemell Rayam all pleaded guilty. 49 . "I'm finally trying to get my life back on track," he told me. All seven members were soon in handcuffs. "You have nightmares about police officers harassing you, beating you up, just locking you up, it's just a nightmare that I have and it basically hasn't gone away yet," he said. In September 2021, Jenkins spoke with BBC journalist. Relatives say he liked to visit his high school sweetheart, Kristy, who would become his wife. Former Baltimore Police Sgt. 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