He had a criminal case to fight, and his freedom was more important. He popped the trunk and carried the drugs into the garage. Not long after Stepp flipped on his former friend, Jenkins pled guilty. In court, Ward apologised to the victims, to his family and to the Baltimore Police Department, as well as to his co-defendants. Wayne Jenkins, ex-police sergeant, leading the Gun Trace Task Force Sergeant Wayne Jenkins was a decorated leader of the corrupt plain-clothes police unit in Baltimore whose detectives robbed . Hed grown up in the working class suburb, where his father worked two jobs, including at Bethlehem Steel. The two said Jenkins had found drugs in the ceiling of a mans vehicle. One former supervisor never responded. ET on HBO. The leaked case file doesnt say why. The daughters of 86-year-old Elbert Davis also told the court about the 2010 car crash Jenkins caused while he was pursuing a man named Umar Burley. But when I tell him that I've interviewed Wayne Jenkins, his one-time drug partner, Stepp is displeased, to put it mildly. A line prosecutor, Molly Webb, had been notified by a defense attorney of the footage footage that the police department hadnt submitted to her. Until this point, I'd only heard Jenkins on. No one had called police to complain, but Jenkins and Fries told the men to go inside. However, he was also sued for misconduct before his arrest in 2017. They said he prepared an arsenal of weapons and tools to begin carrying out burglaries. During his 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. But the video captured by closed-circuit TV showed the officers searching the car extensively and never appearing to make a discovery. Wayne Jenkins was on a mission to find big dealers and steal their drugs and cash. "I never had [theft complaints] because I never took money off individuals. Over the years, I wrote to all of these former officers in prison several times, asking them to help me understand their breathtaking crimes. You're taught that - the second someone gets in trouble we meet up, and we talk face to face," he says. He says Stepp pressured him into it. 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. We Own This City airs Mondays at 9 p.m. You didnt catch me in nothing.. The BBC is not naming these three former supervisors, since none of them has been charged with a crime in connection with this case. Hill said in the interview that De Sousa reduced the punishment to verbal counseling in effect, no punishment at all. "I've tarnished the badge," he said through tears. Maurice Ward says he, Sgt. "Obviously I'm in here now, so I see both sides. Jenkins would stop bringing those big drug seizures to the evidence room, and instead give them to Stepp to sell. 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. Ex-police sergeant Wayne Earl Jenkins apologized in the courtroom for the crimes he committed at the same time as he was head of an elite squad referred to as the Gun Trace Task . He reminds me that the US Attorney's office found him more credible than Jenkins. By the time his criminal streak was in full swing, it entailed high-stakes robberies and breaking and entering even as he was bringing in paychecks totaling over $170,000 in a year, in part because of overtime fraud. A plea agreement is a document that lists specific criminal acts that the defendant is agreeing to plead guilty to. Hours later, in a quiet waterfront neighborhood 15 miles east of downtown, a drug-dealing bail bondsman was roused from his sleep. 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. It turned out that federal agents had the unit under surveillance for months. The dealers would be sitting in a jail cell. Over the course of four phone calls (courtesy of some traded bags of crisps), Jenkins paints a picture of the Baltimore Police Department as a place where indoctrination into corruption starts almost immediately. 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. "I see some police officers harassing people, doing the same little tactics that the Gun Trace Task Force was doing.". Wayne was a cops cop, local hero kind of guy, said Cirello, the retired officer. His drill sergeant described him as having the utmost flawless character Ive seen in two decades of service. Inside was a stack of bills. "It's nothing I've ever imagined. Former Baltimore Police Department Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, currently inmate number 62928-037 at a federal prison in Kentucky, is on the line. But Davis, Baltimores police commissioner from 2015 to 2018 and a veteran of two other departments, calls plainclothes units necessary and critical to the crime fight. They go looking for guns and drugs, he said, and often are successful. 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'. The officer they talked to didnt seem like a candidate for that, the lawyers said. They testified he told them to carry BB guns to plant if they ever injured or killed an unarmed person, that he often took large quantities of drugs off of suspects without submitting them to the police evidence room. In another man's house, the GTTF broke into a safe and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars. None of the cases led to any police department discipline for Jenkins, his personnel records show. It was his first public appearance since he was arrested along with six other officers last year. So I kind of had a mental, like maybe a messed up moral code.". 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". One member of the task force during Jenkins leadership, Detective John Clewell, was not charged with any crimes. Jenkins was a rising star in the department, because of his ability to regularly bring in huge seizures of drugs and guns. "What chance do we have when you have people like Jenkins and his co-defendants fabricating evidence?". "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. It's a depressing fact that this is a viewpoint likely shared by many in Baltimore, and is a part of the reason why the GTTF got away with what they did for so long. A few months after the OConnor incident, Jenkins was involved in another run-in where his sworn account was contradicted. Then they could enter the house and take the money, only later calling county officers to say they were executing the warrant. Not all the allegations against Jenkins came from lawsuits. Read about our approach to external linking. Detective Marcus Taylor on Thursday was sentenced to 18 years in prison on racketeering charges, including robbery and overtime fraud. He is very remorseful.". After outlining this, Ward said, Jenkins reconsidered. The GTTF did not hold a monopoly on harm, of course. Jenkins pleaded guilty in court on January 5, 2018, for numerous counts of four of these charges. I have no idea what he wants to say, or why after four years, he's breaking his silence. 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. This past summer, as I was wrapping up work on "Bad Cops", a strange email appeared in my inbox. A lot of what he told me was much more systematic. As adults, they ran into each other again at an underground card game frequented by Baltimore Police officers. They employed tactics that straddled and sometimes clearly crossed the line that divides aggressive policing and trampling on civil rights. It is simply not true., U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake denied Oakleys motion to suppress the evidence. Jenkins had told his squad hed heard over wiretaps that Belvedere Towers, a high-rise apartment complex in North Roland Park, was the scene of large drug deals. One afternoon, he took two officers there and they wound up stopping a drug deal in progress. I mean, it had velocity, Jenkins said. 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. I sold drugs as a dirty cop," he says. Read about our approach to external linking. He calls Stepp "the biggest exaggerator I've ever met in my life". Barksdale, the former deputy commissioner who crafted department strategies from 2007 to 2012, leaned heavily on plainclothes units. Arrest him, too, Jenkins yelled at the responding officers. 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. But I think he also spoke to me because he doesn't like the image of himself that's been in the media - as a sociopath, as someone almost inhumanly evil. 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. ", Paul Schiraldi/Baltimore Police Department/HBO, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Instead, while their cash and drugs were gone, the dealers were free men. I'm staring at my cell phone in the dark. "I'm finally trying to get my life back on track," he told me. "It's that simple.". "I never took nothing from a looter, so help me god. I ask, slightly confused. And that's what I did.". Dan Horgan said his mentality was your typical Marine camaraderie, teamwork. Human error to blame for train crash - Greek PM, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. "an inmate in a federal prison," the robot finishes. Today, he's a free man, living without restrictions with his spouse and young daughter in the eastern part of Baltimore County. Marcus Taylor split up $20,000 in cash they stole in 2015. Credit: Kevin Richardson / Baltimore Sun, serving a federal sentence for tax evasion. Maurice Ward, the former detective now in prison, also remembers De Sousa coming to the rescue and reducing the punishment, though he believes Jenkins was still suspended. "Wayne is truly sorry for his actions. I just knew it was a lie, Ward recalls. 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 . "It strikes at the foundation of our entire criminal justice system.". Investigators recommended Jenkins be demoted and suspended without pay. "Pills of heroin, bags of marijuana," he says. Far from it. I wasnt privy. He couldn't get anyone to believe him at the time, and to this day, he fears law enforcement. Jenkins earned praise outside the department, too. In federal prison, inmates are only allowed to talk on the phone for 15 minutes before the line is automatically cut. Within days, prosecutors issued a letter to police saying they were declining to charge Jenkins with a crime. VideoAt the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece, Havana Syndrome unlikely to have hostile cause - US, How 10% of Nigerian registered voters delivered victory, Sake brewers toast big rise in global sales, The Indian-American CEO who wants to be US president, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip. "I still maintain my innocence. He resigned and the top spot at the Baltimore Police Department remains vacant. Inside the police department, the Gun Trace Task Force was known for its success in capturing suspected drug dealers, their stashes and their illegal firearms. But Internal Affairs was still working on the case that the States Attorneys Office had decided it could not pursue: the suspicion that Jenkins might have planted drugs in a car to justify an arrest. But when the sun came up on 1 March 2017, the city awoke to a vastly different reality. "I ain't have a trial because the simple fact is I knew [the court] would believe them over top of me," he told the jury. But the scope and breadth of these allegations were staggering. On Friday, both detectives Evodio Hendrix and Maurice Ward were sentenced to seven years in prison. There's no telling how many other people were affected, but were too afraid to come forward. HBO asked Stepp to be a consultant on the project, which he enthusiastically agreed to do. After the indictments, one of Jenkins supervisors told Internal Affairs investigators she had believed he was the best gun cop this department has ever seen.. They also didnt give chase. And in the midst of that investigation, another arose. Jenkins was a member of the Baltimore police department's Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), a plain-clothed unit tasked with finding guns and drugs in bulk in a bid to tackle the city's high murder. Near Druid Hill Park, amid the shouting, sirens and buzzing choppers overhead, he commandeered a state prison department van and helped pull injured officers inside. Jenkins, who is serving a 25-year sentence in a federal prison in South Carolina, declined to speak with The Sun. 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. Stepp says Jenkins started bringing over shipments of drugs on an almost daily basis, putting them in a locked shed behind Stepp's house. Image Credit: Baltimore Police Department. Prior to this, they'd been lauded as some of the best gun cops in the city - seizing dozens of illegal firearms every month, and demonstrating a "a work ethic that is beyond reproach", in the words of one supervisor. View all articles on the Gun Trace Task Force on The Baltimore Sun. In September 2021, Jenkins spoke with BBC journalist. Some tried to complain, but were ignored. Weeks later, I search these locations myself to see if I can find anything. This series was supported by the Pulitzer Center. According to the Internal Affairs file, the only times Jenkins had been disciplined by the department was for twice failing to appear in court. Wayne Jenkins posed as a . He said they were confiscating the cash and 20 pounds of marijuana. During his time on the streets of Baltimore Jenkins was involved. Read more: Inside one of America's most corrupt police squads. I have so many questions to ask, and I'm not sure if this will be my one and only opportunity to speak to him. But in less than a year, Sergeant Jenkins was put in charge of the new plainclothes squad in West Baltimore. 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. It was surreal hearing his voice, talking to me. And were not getting Jenkins.. 2023 BBC. One was that he felt he'd been railroaded into his plea agreement by the US prosecutors (the Maryland US Attorney's Office declined to comment). But when the officers exited the elevators on the building's second floor, they were met by an FBI SWAT team. Sergeant Wayne. "He drew first blood," Stepp says of Jenkins. The line goes dead, and I feel like I've barely gotten anywhere. In the years since his arrest, he'd never given a public interview. They said that while they had their backs turned, someone had clocked OConnor and taken off. Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department in 2003, first becoming a beat cop and patrolling the streets of Baltimore. 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. 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. Just in recent weeks, two officers have been criminally charged with misconduct. Can this US city go 72 hours without a murder? 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. In a recent interview, Simon told The Sun, I never had no BB gun. Plainclothes officers, as the description suggests, just work in street clothes usually casual rather than uniforms. However, the focus on quantity rather than quality led Jenkins and the seven other GTTF officers to start planting evidence, take money from the homes they invaded, and even resell the drugs they seized back onto the streets. In May 2014, three Baltimore prosecutors convened a meeting. Back before our interview, Jenkins' representative wanted me to speak to some of his old high school friends. 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 also acknowledged stealing the man's $4,000 (2,956) watch, which he gave to Stepp to sell. Jenkins' lawyer mentioned that he has been assaulted at least once by another inmate who was targeting him for being a former police officer. In fact, it's highly likely - if not certain - that many of the people Jenkins' put in prison himself had those tactics used on them by prosecutors. All seven now sit in federal prisons scattered across the country. Wayne Jenkins. 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. He was getting suspects off the street, but his cases often werent holding up in court. On 1 March, 2017, Sergeant Wayne Jenkins and six of his subordinate officers from the Gun Trace Task Force walked into the Baltimore Police Department's Internal Affairs building, believing they were there to clear up a minor complaint about a damaged vehicle. Wayne Jenkins, who . But then, about an hour later, the phone rings again. I thought, How is he doing it? And Jenkins, whod been identified as a rising talent early in his career, was celebrated among department brass and rank and file officers as a leader with an uncanny knack for delivering the goods. He was scared. "Nobody still knows the truth about what's going on in the city," Taylor told the judge. 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. It took place as Jenkins and other officers were searching an apartment. "I'm wrong, God knows I'm wrong," the 37-year-old said. His earliest admitted theft was in 2011. Taxpayers footed the bill. Jenkins, along with Detective Ben Frieman, had followed an African American man driving a nice car through Northeast Baltimore. Although she did not address the court, in a letter to Judge Catherine Blake, Jenkins' wife Kristy asked for leniency. We knew he wasn't the straight-and-narrow cop that all cops are supposed to be," he said. "How police act towards people ain't changed," he told me recently. The department valued their work too much to end this style of police work. Yes. When Jenkins was on paternity leave, commanders groused that his squads productivity dropped. "He is no more than a common criminal," Davis' daughter, Shirley Johnson, said of Jenkins. I asked him if he thinks that another scandal is inevitable. The jury found against the officer who broke Sneeds jaw but cleared Jenkins. "So you did take money, ultimately?" Later, Jenkins came out carrying two kilos of cocaine he tossed in Stepp's vehicle. Jenkins tells me he traded some sausages with other inmates in the line, bartering his way to the front. 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. But overall, plaintiffs prevailed in at least three lawsuits accusing Jenkins of beatings or other misconduct from 2006 to 2009, resulting in $90,000 in taxpayer payouts. 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. Still, a yearlong investigation by The Baltimore Sun found warning signs that Wayne Jenkins wasnt such a good cop. "I'm grateful, very grateful.". In our conversation, Jenkins says that that's not true - members of the squad did steal money that day, but from somewhere else in the house. Sneed hired an attorney, who obtained footage from a city surveillance camera on the corner. Jenkins lied to them, saying he was a federal agent. "I knew the things we were doing were wrong," he said. It didn't take long before Stepp began to suspect that Jenkins ratted him out. Jenkins was a decorated cop and had a reputation for his role in several high-profile drug busts. "I felt comfortable with it because all the police officers that I met, which were many during the card games, in my opinion, they owned the city," Stepp would later tell the jury at the GTTF trial. Burley's vehicle struck another, killing Mr Davis. No single person was in a position to make unilateral discipline decisions.. Later on, he claims, they'd throw the drugs out the window or down a sewer grate. I deserve to go to jail.". During his time on the streets of Baltimore Jenkins was involved in several arrests that resulted in the injuries of the people he took into custody. "Absolutely. I lived modest, we wasn't enriching ourselves," he answers. It feels a little bit like splitting hairs. And yet, here we are, me in my closet "studio" and him at the front of a line of 20 to 30 other inmates, all waiting for their turn on the prison phone. Stepp and Jenkins' history runs deep. In reality, he says, they were making arrests by any means necessary. In an incident to which Jenkins would later plead guilty, the officers handcuffed two men. While Jenkins most serious crimes the drug dealing, the robberies appear to have been well hidden, it is not surprising they flourished within Baltimores permissive plainclothes culture. He admitted to knowing . Just as she was completing her podcast series on the story, she got a very unexpected call from prison. Then he said something that struck Ward as bizarre: He said he was going to take the marijuana to his home, and burn it all. 2023 BBC. What Detective Wayne Jenkins wrote in his affidavit for the search warrant was a complete fabrication, Oakley said. Turmoil has continued at the Baltimore Police Department, an agency that saw four commissioners in little more than a year among them De Sousa, now in prison for tax fraud. His punches came fast Jenkins was a trained boxer and OConnor soon felt the warmth of blood spilling down his cheek. the dim light of the Baltimore Police Departments downtown nerve center, Sgt. The unit began looking into a case involving Jenkins, in which he had run down a young man with his unmarked Dodge Avenger early in 2014. "He's never been a true friend," Stepp says. 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. 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. Prosecutors investigated and even presented evidence to a grand jury but concluded they didnt have enough evidence to obtain an indictment. In March, HBO announced a new miniseries by David Simon, the creator of the classic Baltimore true crime series, 'The Wire'. The matter was referred to the police integrity unit of the Baltimore states attorneys office for investigation. While researching the We Own This City true story, we confirmed that the real Wayne Jenkins had spent three years in the Marines before joining the Baltimore Police Department in 2003. Floor, they were making arrests by any means necessary 's vehicle struck another, killing Mr.! Just as she was completing her podcast series on the corner him.. Under surveillance for months Jenkins be demoted and suspended without pay officers there and wound! 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