In federal prison, inmates are only allowed to talk on the phone for 15 minutes before the line is automatically cut. 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. Later in 2015, he took over a new squad of plainclothes officers within the latest rebranding, the Special Enforcement Section. Jenkins, along with Detective Ben Frieman, had followed an African American man driving a nice car through Northeast Baltimore. Wayne Jenkins, Baltimore's dirtiest cop, is sentenced: It still doesn't feel like justice Jenkins was supposed to get guns off the street in Baltimore but wound up running a vicious. Hours later, in a quiet waterfront neighborhood 15 miles east of downtown, a drug-dealing bail bondsman was roused from his sleep. I have to try to untangle his answers as he moves from subject to subject, sometimes so fast I can't keep up. One such warning came in 2010 from a Baltimore man caught drug dealing. "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.". 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. Former Baltimore Police Sgt. Read more: Inside one of America's most corrupt police squads. But two pronounced their innocence and went to trial, which I covered for the BBC. ", Despite this happening more than once, Jenkins remained in his superiors' good books and when Fries was promoted in 2007 he decided to also give Jenkins a boost because he was "the best officer [he] had working under [his] command.". It's propped up on top of a suitcase sitting on top of a plastic tub, and I'm holding my recorder and microphone at the ready. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. In May 2014, three Baltimore prosecutors convened a meeting. But the suits triggered no internal punishment by the police department. The dealers would be sitting in a jail cell. HBO's new true-crime drama stars Jon Bernthal as Jenkins, with the show examining Jenkins' rise in the city's police department and eventual arrest after a two-year federal investigation into the GTTF. 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. "He drew first blood," Stepp says of Jenkins. "Life in prison with three small children. Over the years, I wrote to all of these former officers in prison several times, asking them to help me understand their breathtaking crimes. At OConnors trial, Fries remarked that the others were worthless and didnt meet the standards of the organized crime unit. 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. Becoming Wayne Jenkins: Jon Bernthal's Deep Dive Into We Own This City 's Corrupt Cop For the HBO miniseries, the actor went on nightly ride-alongs and spoke at length with the imprisoned. "Wayne is truly sorry for his actions. These units often operated with little supervision. A loyal friend. In court, Ward apologised to the victims, to his family and to the Baltimore Police Department, as well as to his co-defendants. Contact Justin Fenton at jfenton@baltsun.com. At that time, I didnt think they were officers, Simon said. And that's what I did.". The departments Internal Affairs chief at the time says then-Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa intervened to prevent the punishment. Would they report the incident? It wasn't the first time I've heard that word to describe Jenkins. Many plainclothes units would work out of a satellite office inside a trailer in Northwest Baltimore. I thought, How is he doing it? Jenkins, indignant, aggressively shot back at questions from OConnors attorney. His punches came fast Jenkins was a trained boxer and OConnor soon felt the warmth of blood spilling down his cheek. "Later on that evening, Gondo did give me money, that means hours later, I'm talking hours later, he gave me money.". But already he was working in a plainclothes flex unit that rewarded dynamic officers and gave them freedom to roam. 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. He served 20 months of a five year sentence in connection with the Gun Trace Task Force case, before being granted a compassionate release. An officer who sometimes worked with Jenkins, Keith Gladstone, pleaded guilty last month to going to the scene of Simons arrest to plant the BB gun a response, Gladstone admitted, to a phone call from a frantic Jenkins asking for the help. Attorneys in the integrity unit had approached another officer involved in the arrest, asking him pointed questions about whether Jenkins had lied about the drugs. 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. And were not getting Jenkins.. He was getting suspects off the street, but his cases often werent holding up in court. They tracked other dealers and broke into their houses when no one was home. He calls Stepp "the biggest exaggerator I've ever met in my life". Or harm you or even kill you.". 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. These officers often operate with a great deal of independence. Amid controversies over the years, police brass would publicly disband the units, then reconstitute them with the same personnel under a different name. It is simply not true., U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake denied Oakleys motion to suppress the evidence. I ask. Sneed hired an attorney, who obtained footage from a city surveillance camera on the corner. Such questions over integrity have in the past prompted prosecutors to stop calling an officer as a witness, forcing the departments hand to take him off the streets. If I could take everything back in my life, I would have been a prosecutor," he says. 2023 BBC. Some tried to complain, but were ignored. By Josiah Bates. Instead, while their cash and drugs were gone, the dealers were free men. 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. ", 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. It's no wonder people come out meaner than when they come in.". "It's that simple.". 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. Here's what the public was led to believe about the Gun Trace Task Force, before the FBI arrested almost every member of the squad: That in a city still reeling from the civil unrest that followed the 2015 death of Freddie Gray in police custody, the GTTF was a bright spot in a department under a dark cloud. 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. For the most part, these defendants decided it wasnt in their interest to tell government authorities that. They said Jenkins instructed them to carry BB guns to plant on suspects to justify their actions if they made a mistake. While it may seem incongruous that an officer would be hailed as a hero while racking up complaints, in the Baltimore Police Department it was not. On Friday, both detectives Evodio Hendrix and Maurice Ward were sentenced to seven years in prison. But the police departments Internal Affairs office still had an open file on the case. In 2018, Jessica wrote a piece which detailed the explosive trial at a Baltimore federal courthouse that revealed the unit's crimes, She then turned that story into a new seven-part podcast series called Bad Cops which you can listen to in its entirety below. 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. 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. The leaked case file doesnt say why. During his time on the streets of Baltimore Jenkins was involved. There is no love lost between these two former friends. "I did, yes. Jenkins was a rising star in the department, because of his ability to regularly bring in huge seizures of drugs and guns. 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. "He perverted the criminal justice system.". I got gangster charges, racketeering charges, things they usually give the mob, who were burying bodies in cement.". OConnor had spent much of the day tossing back beers at the Brewers Hill Pub & Grill in Southeast Baltimore when the manager asked him to leave. He says he couldn't risk it as a father with a young family. Jenkins pleaded guilty in court on January 5, 2018, for numerous counts of four of these charges. 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, 37, pleaded guilty in January to robbery . He. Fenton joined The Sun as a suburban reporter in 2005. He ran me over because I was getting away.. In December 2017, eight months after Jenkins was arrested, the FBI and Baltimore County officers broke down Stepp's door and arrested him in his kitchen. 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. Wayne Jenkins. Correction 11 June 2018: This article has been amended to make clear that prosecutors pointed to how 1,700 criminal cases have been affected by the unit's corruption. But, he added, I think that if I am held responsible for my actions, then the same should be with the officers for their wrongdoing.. 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. Back then, Jenkins escaped scrutiny again. Later, Jenkins did more than talk about such a theft. Here is everything you need to know about the real Jenkins and where he is now. "I'd rather be a prosecutor so I don't overkill people. Far from it. Jenkins, who later led the GTTF, pleaded guilty to civil rights violations for participating in the coverup and is serving 25 years in prison for crimes including robberies and selling drugs. "I got 25 years. I lived modest, we wasn't enriching ourselves," he answers. Today, he's a free man, living without restrictions with his spouse and young daughter in the eastern part of Baltimore County. In the gloom I see the number of the bureau of prisons light up my cell phone screen. 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