2023 BBC. "It's that simple.". Some drug dealers told their lawyers that Jenkins made stuff up to arrest them and had kept a good chunk of their money and drugs before taking them in. But when the sun came up on 1 March 2017, the city awoke to a vastly different reality. Back before our interview, Jenkins' representative wanted me to speak to some of his old high school friends. "I never had [theft complaints] because I never took money off individuals. Burley's vehicle struck another, killing Mr Davis. His wife is also depicted earlier in the series when Wayne, in his early days, attends a barbecue with his colleagues from the Baltimore Police Department and is annoyed by how they have more money than him. On June 7, 2018, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. 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. I ask, slightly confused. 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. 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. Hours later, in a quiet waterfront neighborhood 15 miles east of downtown, a drug-dealing bail bondsman was roused from his sleep. 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. "I never took nothing from a looter, so help me god. Seething frustration was spilling into the streets that afternoon in 2015. He suggested another option. Wayne Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department way back in 2003 as a beat cop patrolling the streets of Baltimore. Jenkins was developing a reputation within the department as a cop whose aggressive style brought results. During his time on the streets of Baltimore Jenkins was involved. De Sousa, who later served as commissioner and is currently serving time on federal tax charges, says he doesnt remember the case. But he says he was also struggling with a gambling addiction and dealing large amounts of cocaine. The plaintiffs prevailed in three of them, either through a jury verdict or the citys decision to settle the case. I ask this friend why he didn't say anything to anyone. Today, he's a free man, living without restrictions with his spouse and young daughter in the eastern part of Baltimore County. No one had called police to complain, but Jenkins and Fries told the men to go inside. In November 2012, Wayne Jenkins was promoted to the rank of sergeant giving him new authority and freedom. But it's the big man upstairs," he says. The man, Demetric Simon, 31, said he did have drugs on him and knew someone was following. Claiming to be a DEA agent, Jenkins then confiscated the drugs and money but did not arrest the dealers. Hill told Al-Jazeera it was because then-Deputy Commissioner De Sousa got involved. Five of the former officers, including Jenkins, pleaded guilty. He served 20 months of a five year sentence in connection with the Gun Trace Task Force case, before being granted a compassionate release. Wayne Jenkins. In January 2018, a long list of victims took the stand - many of whom had ties to the drug trade - and told harrowing stories of how they were robbed by the officers during car stops and searches of their homes. In June 2018, after pleading guilty on charges of. As Jenkins is telling me this, he is naming names. 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. He walked into the court wearing a maroon prison uniform. Someone once told me that it will take a generation for the direct impact of the Gun Trace Task Force to start to fade, and it will be impossible to measure how the victims' trauma will play out in the lives of their children, families and friends. 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. During hia time in the department, Jenkins was involved in numerous arrests . Wayne Jenkins in prison,. A strange back and forth with a man who used to be Jenkins' cell mate ultimately ended up with me in my closet waiting for that call. He was also the ringleader of a criminal enterprise of police officers who were robbing people and dealing drugs. Read about our approach to external linking. The apartment complex had a camera in the parking lot. He is working on a book about the Gun Trace Task Force, to be published by Random House. "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. "This is not the man I know," she wrote. But Stepp had an ace up his sleeve - for months, he'd been documenting their crimes on his cell phone. Once it left my shop they had reduced the punishment.. After outlining this, Ward said, Jenkins reconsidered. His drill sergeant described him as having the utmost flawless character Ive seen in two decades of service. 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. Sure enough, no report was ever made. 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. And were not getting Jenkins.. 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. They claimed they didnt see who did it. Back then, Jenkins escaped scrutiny again. 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. Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, along with Detectives Marcus Taylor and Maurice Ward, intercepted a drug deal at the Belvedere Towers in Baltimore and seized about 20 to 25 pounds of marijuana as well as $20,000 to $25,000 in a second bag. "Pills of heroin, bags of marijuana," he says. I deserve to go to jail.". 49 . Its a Viking mentality: You go out into the field among the bad guys, and you bring back a bounty, Davis said. Prosecutors pointed to the fact that Jenkins fabricated evidence, like producing a bogus iPhone video of his officers cracking a drug dealer's safe, when they had in fact already broken into it and stolen $200,000 in cash. Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department in 2003, first becoming a beat cop and patrolling the streets of Baltimore. What Detective Wayne Jenkins wrote in his affidavit for the search warrant was a complete fabrication, Oakley said. Police who went rogue - Wayne Jenkins and Momodu Gondo, Jenkins, centre, before he took command of the Gun Trace Task Force, Clockwise from top left: Evodio Hendrix, Daniel Hersl, Jemell Rayam, Maurice Ward, Marcus Taylor, Momodu Gondo, Equipment that two of the GTTF officers testified was going to be used for home invasions, Donald Stepp inside Baltimore Police headquarters, in a photo taken by Wayne Jenkins, Shawn Whiting, centre, at a press conference held by victims of the GTTF. That creates a culture its not unique to Baltimore, but its pronounced here that those guys should be given a pass, Davis said. Jenkins, who is serving a 25-year sentence in a federal prison in South Carolina, declined to speak with The Sun. 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. Former Baltimore Police Department Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, currently inmate number 62928-037 at a federal prison in Kentucky, is on the line. "He's never been a true friend," Stepp says. Gillian Whitfield recalled Jenkins as sweet and always willing to lend a hand. They weren't being paid by the taxpayers to keep the city safe, and weren't operating with all the power and protections that police have. 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. 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). 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. "Everything I tell you, I will take a polygraph," Jenkins says near the beginning of that first phone call. "This was a great abuse of the public trust," said Judge Blake. 'You say this, you say that, right?' Meanwhile, his Twitter account is full of pictures of him on set, hamming it up with Bernthal and some of the other actors. My thoughts return to Kenneth Bumgardner, a hard-working father who was chased by the squad when they suspected him of having marijuana. "We're not stupid. But the scope and breadth of these allegations were staggering. What if a complaint was made? 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. By Justin Fenton June 12, 2019 More in the series Part 1 The rise of Wayne. When the man stopped his car and started to run away, Jenkins drove after him and into someones front yard, where he struck him. 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. Weeks later, I search these locations myself to see if I can find anything. They stole drugs and cash, sold seized narcotics and guns back on the street, planted evidence on people, even committed home invasions. The pair also stole valuables, like high-end wrist watches, in break-ins. Five years later, Simons claims were confirmed. 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". In September 2021, Jenkins spoke with BBC journalist. "He's a pathological liar," Stepp says. But the Baltimore states attorneys office continued to use Jenkins. "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. 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. 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. I never heard back from the Baltimore Police Department. Wayne Jenkins who was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for years of robberies, drug dealing and other crimes has asked a judge to release him just four . Stepp's moving on with his life - in a sense. He calls Stepp "the biggest exaggerator I've ever met in my life". Far from it. BALTIMORE, MD A Baltimore police sergeant has admitted to robbing citizens, selling stolen drugs and putting innocent men behind bars, among other offenses. But the video captured by closed-circuit TV showed the officers searching the car extensively and never appearing to make a discovery. He states flatly that Jenkins is lying to me. 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. The officers with him hesitated, Ward said. He ordered a detective to drive them to the hospital and joined the front lines. Hes given us all hes going to give us, Glenn said. In the police academy, his peers saw a leader. When Jenkins was allowed to speak, he turned first to face the Davis family and apologised repeatedly. That October evening in 2005, Jenkins had been a Baltimore police officer for just two years. It was there that the full extent of the officers' misconduct became public. All seven members were soon in handcuffs. He also acknowledged stealing the man's $4,000 (2,956) watch, which he gave to Stepp to sell. Some of the most upsetting conversations I had were with people who felt victimised twice -- by both the officers and by the criminals. . The same video led to a rare police department disciplinary case against Jenkins, who was internally charged with misconduct in 2015, according to a copy of the case file reviewed by The Sun. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Former Baltimore Police Department Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, currently inmate number 62928-037 at a federal prison in Kentucky, is on the line. 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 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. For the most part, these defendants decided it wasnt in their interest to tell government authorities that. Plainclothes officers, as the description suggests, just work in street clothes usually casual rather than uniforms. Another was to talk about how futile life inside the penal system is. Then the feds found him. 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. Read about our approach to external linking.
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