You guys willing to go kick in the dudes door and take the money? Jenkins said. He ran me over because I was getting away.. However, he was also sued for misconduct before his arrest in 2017. 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. And that's what I did.". 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. A reporter also reviewed videos of judicial proceedings stemming from the officers arrests. It's no wonder people come out meaner than when they come in.". It feels a little bit like splitting hairs. 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. 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. Jenkins, shown here with then-Commissioner Kevin Davis, was awarded a bronze star in April 2016 for his efforts to save injured officers during the unrest a year earlier. Lets get this done, but were going to do it 100 percent. Nothing was 10 percent.. They are not typically tethered to specific posts, or burdened by responding to 911 calls. Wayne Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department way back in 2003 as a beat cop patrolling the streets of Baltimore. He names the veteran he says coached him into stealing for the first time. In January, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh fired her police commissioner and replaced him with former Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa, who promised sweeping reforms to the department. In an interview from prison, he said it wasnt uncommon for the officers to take contraband and submit it to evidence control without arresting someone. Yet another of Jenkins' friends said something I wasn't expecting. The message read: "Greetings. 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. Because believe me, I'll stand my ground in a second.". Read about our approach to external linking. He was like King Kong, the officer, who still works for the police department, recalled. "This is Wayne.". "He perverted the criminal justice system.". They wanted to tell me that Jenkins was a dedicated father, a good football coach. Stepp says Jenkins started bringing over shipments of drugs on an almost daily basis, putting them in a locked shed behind Stepp's house. Wayne Jenkins a former Marine? 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. Stepp turned everything over to the US prosecutors. I dont know the nuances, what was said, what wasnt. But thats likely not what triggered the unprovoked beating of OConnor. Still, a yearlong investigation by The Baltimore Sun found warning signs that Wayne Jenkins wasnt such a good cop. In my conversation with Jenkins, he spent a lot of time disputing Stepp's account of their partnership. 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'. In fact, Fries went on to promote Jenkins in June 2006 into a high-profile plainclothes unit called the Organized Crime Division. Officers in plainclothes units often operate in the shadows of a police department. Federal prosecutors displayed the contents of a bag found in the trunk of Sgt. "Seen it done, honest to god, 500 times.". 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.. Later that year, the mayor held a news conference for another of Jenkins busts. After outlining this, Ward said, Jenkins reconsidered. Some defense attorneys say their clients told them Jenkins had robbed them. 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. 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. He also says that he only made roughly $75,000 off of the narcotic sales, as opposed to the figure put on it by Stepp. "Everything I tell you, I will take a polygraph," Jenkins says near the beginning of that first phone call. That the GTTF's leader, a former Marine and amateur MMA fighter named Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, was a hero who'd plunged into a violent crowd during the unrest to rescue injured officers. I sold drugs as a dirty cop," he says. If Wayne Jenkins asked you to come work for him, you felt honored, Ward said. He said he started dealing drugs at age 9, selling. 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 . "I knew the things we were doing were wrong," he said. Later in 2015, he took over a new squad of plainclothes officers within the latest rebranding, the Special Enforcement Section. He said they were confiscating the cash and 20 pounds of marijuana. 2023 BBC. But the police departments Internal Affairs office still had an open file on the case. 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. When I saw the video, Webb later told The Sun, it didnt corroborate what was in the statement of probable cause at all.. "This is not the man I know," she wrote. 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. Within days, prosecutors issued a letter to police saying they were declining to charge Jenkins with a crime. He's even got a clothing line coming out around his defunct bail bond business, Double D Bail Bonds. In May 2014, three Baltimore prosecutors convened a meeting. None of the cases led to any police department discipline for Jenkins, his personnel records show. Wayne Jenkins from Baltimore was sentenced to 25-years-in-prison. "It shows what a committed, sophisticated, devious person can do," Mr Wise said. Far from it. "And I remember taking the $10,000.". Both men have requested new trials. When Jenkins was allowed to speak, he turned first to face the Davis family and apologised repeatedly. Wayne Jenkins' police vehicle when he was arrested in 2017. 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. 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. "I never took a thing. They didnt call for an ambulance or even write a report. Historical Accuracy (Q&A): Is Sgt. And while searching the area, Jenkins claimed, he found a BB gun under a nearby car. Taxpayers footed the bill. 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. Or harm you or even kill you.". After three weeks of astonishing testimony, the jury found the two remaining officers guilty. 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. The two police officers came over because they had nothing else to do.. To single him out as a flawed individual in an otherwise perfectly functioning system is a way to avoid change in the police department, to shirk the responsibility of actually preventing this from happening again. 'You say this, you say that, right?' He also acknowledged stealing the man's $4,000 (2,956) watch, which he gave to Stepp to sell. "It's still hard though, because I get a lot of pain in my mouth at night. The show briefly depicts Wayne Jenkins' wife in episode 5, and we are told that Wayne takes time off for the impending birth of his child. Across the country, these plainclothes squads have often been where scandals are born. As the leader of the unit, he received the longest prison sentence and the federal authorities who prosecuted the squad viewed him as its most culpable member. When the phone rings, I put the call on speaker and hear a robotic, pre-recorded female voice: "You have a prepaid call. 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. He tells me that the first time he ever stole money, he was just a rookie. I thought, How is he doing it? The departments Internal Affairs chief at the time says then-Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa intervened to prevent the punishment. 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". 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. 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. As adults, they ran into each other again at an underground card game frequented by Baltimore Police officers. When Jenkins was on paternity leave, commanders groused that his squads productivity dropped. He was scared. In September 2021, Jenkins spoke with BBC journalist. They had the autonomy to catch and release suspects and develop informants. At the trial four years later, Jenkins and his fellow officers claimed that the witness had been throwing bottles at them, but security camera footage shown at the trial proved what Jenkins claimed was not true. For example, I asked him about the robbery of a man who lived in a large mansion in the suburbs of Baltimore - a robbery he pled guilty to in his plea agreement. 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. Once it left my shop they had reduced the punishment.. 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