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. Jenkins later alleged in official paperwork that Simon had pointed a weapon at Frieman and that he ran Simon down to stop the threat. Jenkins was a decorated cop and had a reputation for his role in several high-profile drug busts. Just as she was completing her podcast series on the story, she got a very unexpected call from prison. Wayne Jenkins a former Marine? It didn't take long before Stepp began to suspect that Jenkins ratted him out. "He's a pathological liar," Stepp says. Have we raised the possibility of a wire? Pineau asked. Read about our approach to external linking. He's due to be released in 2038. It's no wonder people come out meaner than when they come in.". Back before our interview, Jenkins' representative wanted me to speak to some of his old high school friends. Would they report the incident? Until this point, I'd only heard Jenkins on secretly taped FBI recordings, wiretapped phone calls, body camera footage and at the hearing in June 2018 when a federal judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison. They told me they were disturbed that he was being portrayed as a "monster". He resigned and the top spot at the Baltimore Police Department remains vacant. They stole drugs and cash, sold seized narcotics and guns back on the street, planted evidence on people, even committed home invasions. Weeks later, I search these locations myself to see if I can find anything. They are not typically tethered to specific posts, or burdened by responding to 911 calls. "He always had large sums of money in his pocket. One member of the task force during Jenkins leadership, Detective John Clewell, was not charged with any crimes. "It was a front for a criminal enterprise," Stepp said of the Gun Trace Task Force. I have to try to untangle his answers as he moves from subject to subject, sometimes so fast I can't keep up. He and six members of that unit now sit in federal prison for crimes including conspiracy, racketeering and robbery, all committed under the guise of legitimate police work. 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 . Still, a yearlong investigation by The Baltimore Sun found warning signs that Wayne Jenkins wasnt such a good cop. 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". "I never took nothing from a looter, so help me god. According to testimony from Ward and Hendrix, Jenkins played an outsized role in the schemes. Donald Stepp was released from federal prison back in January of this year. When I saw the video, Webb later told The Sun, it didnt corroborate what was in the statement of probable cause at all.. 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. "Right off the bat, we wasn't living lavishly. He said he started dealing drugs at age 9, selling. 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. They also didnt give chase. 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. Prosecutors investigated and even presented evidence to a grand jury but concluded they didnt have enough evidence to obtain an indictment. 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). Later, Jenkins came out carrying two kilos of cocaine he tossed in Stepp's vehicle. 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). "It's that simple.". "Seen it done, honest to god, 500 times.". The line goes dead, and I feel like I've barely gotten anywhere. 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. Jon Bernthal embedded with Baltimore police to play city's dirtiest cop in HBO's "We Own This City" On "Salon Talks" Bernthal reveals he spoke to the real Sgt. He has covered the Baltimore Police Department and crime in Baltimore since 2008. It was billed at the time as the largest cocaine seizure in department history, one of Jenkins many large-scale seizures. Wayne Jenkins was living a double life. Wayne Jenkins is the leader of the rogue police unit in Baltimore who was sentenced to 25 years of prison in a corruption scandal prosecutors called "breathtaking". A plea agreement is a document that lists specific criminal acts that the defendant is agreeing to plead guilty to. 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. I deserve to go to jail.". Many plainclothes units would work out of a satellite office inside a trailer in Northwest Baltimore. He names the veteran he says coached him into stealing for the first time. Its a Viking mentality: You go out into the field among the bad guys, and you bring back a bounty, Davis said. "We're not stupid. In Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago, plainclothes teams have been charged with corruption. 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. It feels a little bit like splitting hairs. 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. Despite the lawsuits and later, video evidence from his squads body cameras Jenkins supervisors failed to scrutinize the arrests he was making. 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. During hia time in the department, Jenkins was involved in numerous arrests . Become a subscriber today to support investigative reporting like this. Critics argue Barksdale was among police leaders who fostered a warrior culture, to the citys detriment. 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. Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton spent a year delving into the operations of Wayne Jenkins and his officers, both as members of the Gun Trace Task Force and before. Former Baltimore Police Sgt. 'You say this, you say that, right?' 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". He's doing, as he likes to say, "rather swell". The bondsman would take care of selling them, then split the profits with the police sergeant. Back then, Jenkins escaped scrutiny again. But he added, All disciplinary decisions were put through the proper consideration by command staff and BPD legal department. 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. Simon's new project will tell a fictionalised version of the Gun Trace Task Force saga, and began filming on the streets of Baltimore over the summer. Human error to blame for train crash - Greek PM, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. He said they were confiscating the cash and 20 pounds of marijuana. 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. After outlining this, Ward said, Jenkins reconsidered. Former Baltimore Police Department Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, currently inmate number 62928-037 at a federal prison in Kentucky, is on the line. 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. Jenkins winced as the handcuffs were placed on his wrists, and US Marshals led him out of a back door of the courtroom. Sneed hired an attorney, who obtained footage from a city surveillance camera on the corner. At one point, dozens of pharmacies were looted and millions of dollars worth of medication went missing. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. One of the most shocking incidents from the plea agreement is an event that Jenkins now unequivocally denies. "This is a saying we state: 'Don't let probable cause stand in the way of a good arrest,'" Jenkins says. "Hi, ma'am," Jenkins says when I pick up. "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. Image Credit: Baltimore Police Department. 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. The message read: "Greetings. He is serving the harshest sentence : 25 years . 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. "I deserve to be punished. "I've tarnished the badge," he said through tears. 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. Ward and the other cop followed Jenkins into the woods. His account and Jenkins claim that hed found the gun is evocative of testimony by two of Jenkins officers in the 2018 Gun Trace Task Force trial. Wayne Jenkins, who led . The three prosecutors concluded the officer admired Jenkins work even as he may have been trying to protect the sergeant. "He perverted the criminal justice system.". "This is not the man I know," she wrote. In part due to his cooperation in the case, he received a much shorter sentence than the officers of the GTTF. 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 almost daily basis, including heroin, cocaine and prescription painkillers. He states flatly that Jenkins is lying to me. He started to worry. Wayne Jenkins, 37, pleaded guilty in January to robbery . "I'm so sorry for what you're going through. He was arrested along with almost every member of the unit in March 2017. The BBC is not naming these three former supervisors, since none of them has been charged with a crime in connection with this case. But there was just enough room for doubt Sneed had been off camera briefly that Jenkins could argue the video didnt show the full story. "I knew the things we were doing were wrong," he said. "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.". Contact Justin Fenton at jfenton@baltsun.com. Any attempts to make the force become less of a warrior and more of a guardian was looked at terribly, he said. Right away I learn that Jenkins is an incredibly fast talker. Then they spilled out of the house and onto the sidewalk, struggling. Plainclothes officers made the most arrests, they seized the most drugs and money, assets, former Police Commissioner Kevin Davis told The Sun. "It ain't over. 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. 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. Jenkins, who is serving a 25-year sentence in a federal prison in South Carolina, declined to speak with The Sun. Ignoring warning signs of misconduct, Baltimore Police praised and promoted Gun Trace Task Force leader. He calls Stepp "the biggest exaggerator I've ever met in my 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. 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 . Both men have requested new trials. As in the past, a video had surfaced that conflicted with the written account of a drug arrest by Jenkins and another officer. 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. Hill could not be reached by The Sun for comment. I'm standing in my pandemic "radio studio" - aka the closet in my apartment - surrounded by hangers holding button-up shirts and dresses. "My dad would be alive today would it not be for his actions that day. It was his first public appearance since he was arrested along with six other officers last year. I asked him if he thinks that another scandal is inevitable. That creates a culture its not unique to Baltimore, but its pronounced here that those guys should be given a pass, Davis said. All seven now sit in federal prisons scattered across the country. But it's the big man upstairs," he says. With the investigations behind him, Jenkins seemed emboldened. Hill said in the interview that De Sousa reduced the punishment to verbal counseling in effect, no punishment at all. Can this US city go 72 hours without a murder? "I have no respect for him.". His fee will be donated to the victims of the Gun Trace Task Force. In the bedroom, Jenkins says he and a veteran supervisor found a suitcase filled with tens of thousands of dollars in cash. BALTIMORE, MD A Baltimore police sergeant has admitted to robbing citizens, selling stolen drugs and putting innocent men behind bars, among other offenses. He kept $10,000 for himself, saying he planned to install a front-end crash bar so his department-issued vehicle wouldnt get damaged in his frequent collisions. 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. In a recent interview, Simon told The Sun, I never had no BB gun. Wayne Jenkins posed as a . A squad of veteran police officers stood accused of committing numerous robberies, as well as extortion and overtime fraud. 49 . In Baltimore, theyre often referred to as knockers, a reference to their historically aggressive tactics. 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. 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. Instead, while their cash and drugs were gone, the dealers were free men. In the years since his arrest, he'd never given a public interview. If I could take everything back in my life, I would have been a prosecutor," he says. Then 34, he was already an admired leader of aggressive street squads and would go on to head the elite Gun Trace Task Force, one of the Baltimore Police Departments go-to assets in the fight against violent crime. 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. I ask. At that time, it was within De Sousas purview as the deputy commissioner in charge of administrative matters to intervene to resolve a discipline case, according to another former deputy commissioner, Jason Johnson. Sure enough, no report was ever made. The two police officers came over because they had nothing else to do.. "Everything I tell you, I will take a polygraph," Jenkins says near the beginning of that first phone call. They said Jenkins instructed them to carry BB guns to plant on suspects to justify their actions if they made a mistake. "It shows what a committed, sophisticated, devious person can do," Mr Wise said. Jenkins and members of his squad were praised for their work getting guns off the streets in an October 2016 police department newsletter. The departments Internal Affairs chief at the time says then-Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa intervened to prevent the punishment. 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. Sergeants are the eyes and ears of the command, the front-line supervisors trusted to keep close tabs on their officers. I asked Wayne Jenkins several times why he wanted to do the interview with me. The jury found against the officer who broke Sneeds jaw but cleared Jenkins. 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. 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. 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. All seven members were soon in handcuffs. The actions of former Baltimore police Sergeant Wayne Jenkins and his team of plain-clothed officers in the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) are explored in We Own This City. Jenkins had joined the force at 23 after serving three years in the Marines, where he took up boxing. The leaked case file doesnt say why. I think about Shawn Whiting, a former heroin dealer who went to prison for years after the officers robbed him. To justify their actions if they made a mistake was completing her podcast series on the corner the account... 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