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 . "Wayne is truly sorry for his actions. Ward, now working with Jenkins for the first time, recalled the officers pulling over a car in East Baltimore that had two trash bags full of money. They said that while they had their backs turned, someone had clocked OConnor and taken off. Others were raised by defense attorneys and their clients, who said an overzealous Jenkins skirted legal standards in making arrests. The prosecutors characterised both men as having less culpability in the GTTF's schemes and that Ward in particular had provided valuable information that lead to additional charges against other officers. As Jenkins is telling me this, he is naming names. They employed tactics that straddled and sometimes clearly crossed the line that divides aggressive policing and trampling on civil rights. 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 . . "Immediately, we get together and you go over your story. Human error to blame for train crash - Greek PM, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. The first 15 minutes are over in a flash. "Absolutely. You guys willing to go kick in the dudes door and take the money? That while the homicide rate was on a historic rise, this elite, eight-officer team was getting guns off the streets at an astonishing rate. Sneed was chased and caught, and his jaw was broken in the process. The apartment complex had a camera in the parking lot. Washington (AFP) - A police officer described as perhaps the most corrupt in the history of the Baltimore police department was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday. Read about our approach to external linking. Jenkins says that the veteran goaded him into taking money. The ringleader, former Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, admitted committing multiple armed robberies and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs. In his plea deal, Jenkins admitted he planted heroin on Burley to try to justify the fatal collision. "I just go through this on a daily basis, scared of police, wondering when they gonna stop you, trying to plant drugs on you or something like that. His punches came fast Jenkins was a trained boxer and OConnor soon felt the warmth of blood spilling down his cheek. But the scope and breadth of these allegations were staggering. But when I tell him that I've interviewed Wayne Jenkins, his one-time drug partner, Stepp is displeased, to put it mildly. The outfit change is designed to allow them to blend in. Baltimore detectives convicted in shocking corruption trial Stepp grew up in Middle River, where he was friends with Jenkins's older brother. It took place as Jenkins and other officers were searching an apartment. Jenkins pleaded guilty in January and admitted taking part in at least 10 robberies of Baltimore citizens, planting drugs on innocent people and re-selling drugs he stole from suspects on an. During the altercation, a passerby named George Sneed was assaulted by officer Robert Cirello who broke his jaw, leading Sneed to sue. Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department in 2003, first becoming a beat cop and patrolling the streets of Baltimore. Jenkins, who until his arrest was viewed within the Baltimore Police Department as one of its most high-performing officers, is serving 25 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in 2017 to. The leader of a rogue Baltimore police unit sobbed as he was sentenced to 25 years in prison in a corruption scandal prosecutors called "breathtaking". Fenton joined The Sun as a suburban reporter in 2005. Critics argue Barksdale was among police leaders who fostered a warrior culture, to the citys detriment. In federal court, Mickey Oakley argued that the officers who arrested him including Jenkins and future Gun Trace Task Force member Daniel Hersl had lied about the circumstances leading up to the arrest and had illegally searched his home. April 25, 2022 5:45 PM EDT. Over the years, I wrote to all of these former officers in prison several times, asking them to help me understand their breathtaking crimes. "If you've got to lie about what you've seen or what you heard or what you witnessed, as long as he's dirty, he's got the drugs and he's got the guns and he did the crime - just get him.". He's even got a clothing line coming out around his defunct bail bond business, Double D Bail Bonds. Then-Police Commissioner Anthony Batts had created a Force Investigation Team to inspire public trust that police leaders were keeping an eye on officers use of force. He said together, they'd sold about $1m worth of narcotics. Prosecutors urged the judge to sentence him to the maximum 30 years, adding that the unit's corruption affected 1,700 criminal cases. These misconduct allegations came as Jenkins was serving in various plainclothes units well before his appointment in 2016 to head the Gun Trace Task Force, one of the departments most celebrated plainclothes squads. 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. The department valued their work too much to end this style of police work. He names the veteran he says coached him into stealing for the first time. When his case went to trial on January 5, 2018 Jenkins pled guilty to one count of racketeering, two counts of robbery, one count of destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in a federal investigation, and four counts of deprivation of rights under color of law. "He perverted the criminal justice system.". Judge Blake ultimately decided to sentence him to 25 years, saying she was taking into consideration the fact that he pleaded guilty and co-operated to some extent with the prosecutors. "It was obvious to me, when I'm taking millions of dollars worth of drugs from the Baltimore Police Department and selling them, that this is not a normal police department.". Wayne Jenkins, who led the Gun Trace Task Force, was sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges including racketeering, robbery and falsifying records. Sgt. Contact me.". He's also at work on a memoir, which he says will reveal the contents of videos and photos he took of Jenkins that were never released publicly. Wayne Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department way back in 2003 as a beat cop patrolling the streets of Baltimore. Jenkins pleaded guilty in court on January 5, 2018, for numerous counts of four of these charges. In Baltimore, theyre often referred to as knockers, a reference to their historically aggressive tactics. I deserve to go to jail.". BALTIMORE One of the main players in the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force corruption scandal is asking for compassionate release from prison. Having taken money before with previous squads, he expected the officers might skim some and submit the rest as cover. He suggested another option. In court, Ward apologised to the victims, to his family and to the Baltimore Police Department, as well as to his co-defendants. Instead, while their cash and drugs were gone, the dealers were free men. De Sousa, who is now serving a federal sentence for tax evasion, said through his attorney that he does not remember the Jenkins case. I continued working on this story for as long as I did out of some hope that the more the public learned about the corruption in the police department, the better chance there might be of some kind of true, systemic reform. The former ringleader of the Baltimore police Gun Trace Task Force and one of its detectives were sentenced Thursday to federal prison. There's no telling how many other people were affected, but were too afraid to come forward. The line goes dead, and I feel like I've barely gotten anywhere. Ex-police sergeant Wayne Earl Jenkins apologised in court for the crimes he committed while heading an elite squad called the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF). A few months after the OConnor incident, Jenkins was involved in another run-in where his sworn account was contradicted. Jenkins joined the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) on February 20, 2003 and was promoted to Sergeant on November 20, 2013. At that time, I didnt think they were officers, Simon said. During hia time in the department, Jenkins was involved in numerous arrests . Oakley took the rare step of getting onto the witness stand to rebut the officers, as did an independent witness who backed his account. The officers with him hesitated, Ward said. In the years since his arrest, he'd never given a public interview. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. They tracked other dealers and broke into their houses when no one was home. A reporter also reviewed videos of judicial proceedings stemming from the officers arrests. Wayne Jenkins was living a double life. I couldn't help thinking about the many victims of the squad that I'd met over the three years I've been working on this story. He points to the plea agreement, in which Jenkins agreed that his cut of their drug sales came to roughly $250,000. I never heard back, and he didn't seem to be responding to anyone else, either. He walked into the court wearing a maroon prison uniform. View all articles on the Gun Trace Task Force on The Baltimore Sun. Then the feds found him. Detective Marcus Taylor on Thursday was sentenced to 18 years in prison on racketeering charges, including robbery and overtime fraud. A two-year federal investigation into the GTTF resulted in all eight officers, and one Philadelphia officer, getting charged with several offenses, including racketeering, in 2017. We Own This City, an HBO Max miniseries out April 25, about a Baltimore Police Department (BPD) task force unit that went rogue, highlights some of the . The dealers would be sitting in a jail cell. In June 2018, after pleading guilty on charges of. If his arrest was stunning, the depiction of his civil rights violations, robberies and more wasnt news to everyone certainly not to people who had been in Jenkins sights, fairly or not, over the years. I have no idea what he wants to say, or why after four years, he's breaking his silence. He thought Jenkins and Frieman might have been impersonating police. The bondsman would take care of selling them, then split the profits with the police sergeant. The bottles were winged at us. Many Baltimore residents had long distrusted the police, and more so after the death of Freddie Gray. Wayne Jenkins fist felt like a hammer to Tim OConnors face. One officer recalled Jenkins taunting colleagues waiting in line to submit evidence at police headquarters, bragging about how many guns he was getting off the street. Just in recent weeks, two officers have been criminally charged with misconduct. Their work is not to be confused with undercover operations, in which police officers assume a different identity and worm their way into a criminal organization. Then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake held a news conference to tout one of Jenkins big drug busts. Wayne Jenkins, who led . The second declined to comment. A plea agreement is a document that lists specific criminal acts that the defendant is agreeing to plead guilty to. All seven now sit in federal prisons scattered across the country. While he may not be ready to let go of his animus towards Jenkins, Stepp's strange journey seems - at least for now - to be heading towards a happy ending. This kind of mindset assumes that the victims of the Gun Trace Task Force - many of them black and poor - deserved what happened to them. He couldn't get anyone to believe him at the time, and to this day, he fears law enforcement. Still, a yearlong investigation by The Baltimore Sun found warning signs that Wayne Jenkins wasnt such a good cop. 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. That creates a culture its not unique to Baltimore, but its pronounced here that those guys should be given a pass, Davis said. His fee will be donated to the victims of the Gun Trace Task Force. When I saw the video, Webb later told The Sun, it didnt corroborate what was in the statement of probable cause at all.. Jenkins, who is serving a 25-year sentence in a federal prison in South Carolina, declined to speak with The Sun. Wayne Jenkins is a former BPD Sergeant who served as the leader of the Gun Trace Task Force. According to Jenkins convicted partner in the drug dealing, the police sergeant had been stealing drugs off the street for years and profiting from their illegal sale. He reminds me that the US Attorney's office found him more credible than Jenkins. Video, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece, Read the full story of Baltimore's Gun Trace Task Force, Inside one of America's most corrupt police squads, Harry and Meghan told to 'vacate' Frogmore Cottage, Fungus case forces Jack Daniels to halt construction, Rare Jurassic-era bug found at Arkansas Walmart, China and Belarus call for peace in Ukraine, Ed Sheeran says wife developed tumour in pregnancy, NFL hopeful accused of racing in deadly car crash, Beer and wine sales in Canada fall to all-time low, Dozens of girls treated after new Iran poisonings. The years since his wayne jenkins baltimore, he fears law enforcement designed to allow them blend... 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