Its a Viking mentality: You go out into the field among the bad guys, and you bring back a bounty, Davis said. She described how the unnamed officer talked about Jenkins: Hes probably the best drug detective in the city. The courtroom was also packed with Jenkins' family and friends. He thought Jenkins and Frieman might have been impersonating police. He. 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. Instead, while their cash and drugs were gone, the dealers were free men. He served 20 months of a five year sentence in connection with the Gun Trace Task Force case, before being granted a compassionate release. "Right off the bat, we wasn't living lavishly. Stepp and Jenkins' history runs deep. The bottles were winged at us. It was still daylight, and Jenkins opened a black and red duffel bag. 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. "I have no respect for him.". Finally, in March 2015, Internal Affairs chief Rodney Hill informed Jenkins that he was being charged internally with misconduct, neglect of duty and failure to supervise the officer in his charge, according to a leaked copy of the case file obtained by The Sun. Jenkins and Fries would later say in sworn depositions that Sneed had been yelling expletives about police and throwing glass bottles at them. He has covered the Baltimore Police Department and crime in Baltimore since 2008. Then they spilled out of the house and onto the sidewalk, struggling. It feels a little bit like splitting hairs. I ask. ", Paul Schiraldi/Baltimore Police Department/HBO, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. You didnt catch me in nothing.. 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. They can let a suspect go, if they can lead to bigger fish. Far from it. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, L-R: Former Baltimore police Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, and Jon Bernthal as Jenkins in HBO true-crime drama "We Own This City. Blake who in 2017 would wind up presiding over the Gun Trace Task Force corruption case noted that the other officers present backed Jenkins account. 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". The message read: "Greetings. None of the cases led to any police department discipline for Jenkins, his personnel records show. Despite the lawsuits and later, video evidence from his squads body cameras Jenkins supervisors failed to scrutinize the arrests he was making. Jenkins joined the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) on February 20, 2003 and was promoted to Sergeant on November 20, 2013. In Baltimores recent history, the police department has consistently relied on such units, even though the conduct of many of their officers would draw criticism from city residents. The departments Internal Affairs chief at the time says then-Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa intervened to prevent the punishment. Wayne Jenkins, who led . He woke up on a frigid city street with his jaw shattered, and couldn't eat solid food for months. Wayne Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department way back in 2003 as a beat cop patrolling the streets of Baltimore. FOX45 looks at the 8 former officers of the Gun Trace Task ForceThe ring leader of the squad Wayne Jenkins is currently serving the longest sentence out of the members federally indicted on . 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 the altercation, a passerby named George Sneed was assaulted by officer Robert Cirello who broke his jaw, leading Sneed to sue. If Wayne Jenkins asked you to come work for him, you felt honored, Ward said. 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. But the police departments Internal Affairs office still had an open file on the case. 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. "I got 25 years. After three weeks of astonishing testimony, the jury found the two remaining officers guilty. "Life in prison with three small children. Not likely, Ward thought. 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. "I still maintain my innocence. 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 . They stole drugs and cash, sold seized narcotics and guns back on the street, planted evidence on people, even committed home invasions. . Oakley took the rare step of getting onto the witness stand to rebut the officers, as did an independent witness who backed his account. "I'm so sorry to the citizens of Baltimore.". Hill could not be reached by The Sun for comment. 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. They didnt call for an ambulance or even write a report. 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. 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.. Meanwhile, his Twitter account is full of pictures of him on set, hamming it up with Bernthal and some of the other actors. Wayne Jenkins' police vehicle when he was arrested in 2017. As in the past, a video had surfaced that conflicted with the written account of a drug arrest by Jenkins and another officer. April 25, 2022 5:45 PM EDT. He ran me over because I was getting away.. The leaked case file doesnt say why. Wayne Jenkins was on a mission to find big dealers and steal their drugs and cash. "He's like, 'I'm not telling you to do anything, I'm just saying it sure would be nice if we had $10,000 apiece to go up to Atlantic City,'" Jenkins recalls. Jenkins earned praise outside the department, too. In fact, Fries went on to promote Jenkins in June 2006 into a high-profile plainclothes unit called the Organized Crime Division. Until this point, I'd only heard Jenkins on. 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. "So you did take money, ultimately?" Wayne Jenkins is a former BPD Sergeant who served as the leader of the Gun Trace Task Force. He reminds me that the US Attorney's office found him more credible than Jenkins. He says something that I've never heard anyone admit out loud. His police department personnel file shows no punishment related to the case. It didn't take long before Stepp began to suspect that Jenkins ratted him out. He names the veteran he says coached him into stealing for the first time. This partnership lasted for five years. I never aimed nothing at him . 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. In the gloom I see the number of the bureau of prisons light up my cell phone screen. "Wayne is truly sorry for his actions. My thoughts return to Kenneth Bumgardner, a hard-working father who was chased by the squad when they suspected him of having marijuana. The Parkville American Legion Post named him its Officer of the Year. I mean, it had velocity, Jenkins said. Plainclothes officers made the most arrests, they seized the most drugs and money, assets, former Police Commissioner Kevin Davis told The Sun. 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. Later, Jenkins did more than talk about such a theft. The sergeant took no one else from the flex squad. Wayne Jenkins, who led . This is his senior portrait from 1998. BALTIMORE, MD A Baltimore police sergeant has admitted to robbing citizens, selling stolen drugs and putting innocent men behind bars, among other offenses. What had he gotten himself into? The GTTF did not hold a monopoly on harm, of course. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Jenkins had joined the force at 23 after serving three years in the Marines, where he took up boxing. 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. After an FBI investigation into the unit discovered the GTTF's crimes, federal officers arrested Jenkins alongside several others in the unit. Jenkins was a rising star in the department, because of his ability to regularly bring in huge seizures of drugs and guns. 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. Back then, Jenkins escaped scrutiny again. The man, Demetric Simon, 31, said he did have drugs on him and knew someone was following. At that time, I didnt think they were officers, Simon said. "He drew first blood," Stepp says of Jenkins. But already he was working in a plainclothes flex unit that rewarded dynamic officers and gave them freedom to roam. For example, in January 2006, Jenkins and Sergeant Michael Fries had an altercation with brothers Charles and Robert Lee after they continued to drink beer on the front step of their grandmother's home when the policemen had told them to stop. Then they could enter the house and take the money, only later calling county officers to say they were executing the warrant. "Obviously I'm in here now, so I see both sides. That October evening in 2005, Jenkins had been a Baltimore police officer for just two years. Would they report the incident? But during the subsequent investigation, Frieman told detectives that he never saw a gun in Simons hand and that rather than being in imminent danger he was around a corner and out of sight when Jenkins ran down Simon. "How police act towards people ain't changed," he told me recently. I have no idea what he wants to say, or why after four years, he's breaking his silence. 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. Although she did not address the court, in a letter to Judge Catherine Blake, Jenkins' wife Kristy asked for leniency. When the officers circled back later, the two were still outside holding beers. Wayne Jenkins was living a double life. 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. Wayne Jenkins eyes darted from screen to screen, taking in the surveillance images. The line goes dead, and I feel like I've barely gotten anywhere. Read about our approach to external linking. Your digital subscription helps pay for The Baltimore Sun's investigative reporting. The fallout of the squad's crimes is still rippling through the city and undoubtedly made Baltimore a less safe place for everyone who lives there. Read more: Inside one of America's most corrupt police squads. "It was a front for a criminal enterprise," Stepp said of the Gun Trace Task Force. 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 and his plainclothes colleagues operated in a world where success and misconduct were not mutually exclusive and sometimes seemed to go hand in hand. Having taken money before with previous squads, he expected the officers might skim some and submit the rest as cover. No one took anything, but Jenkins later mused about the possibilities. Inside was a stack of bills. 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. "an inmate in a federal prison," the robot finishes. I've been reporting on Jenkins, and the elite Gun Trace Task Force squad he once led, for nearly four years. 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. "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. Outside on the sidewalk, he saw a bunch of cops and yelled an expletive at one he knew who happened to be Jenkins supervisor. Barksdale, the former deputy commissioner who crafted department strategies from 2007 to 2012, leaned heavily on plainclothes units. The idea that the Gun Trace Task Force went rogue simply because their sergeant was uniquely evil ignores all the systemic ways in which he was encouraged to operate the way he did, and the larger policing culture that supported him (it should also be noted that several of the squad's members started stealing money long before they joined the GTTF). We Own This City airs Mondays at 9 p.m. It was nicknamed The Barn an apparent homage to the offices of a corrupt police unit on the television series The Shield. The show, modeled after a 1990s Los Angeles Police Department scandal, featured a strike team that roughed up suspects, lied about their investigations and took a cut of their drug busts. In Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago, plainclothes teams have been charged with corruption. Jenkins also tells me that any time an officer's misconduct gets picked up by Internal Affairs or by an outside law enforcement agency, it was routine for the involved officers to meet up, to tailor their stories to avoid punishment. "I never had [theft complaints] because I never took money off individuals. Sgt. 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. We knew he wasn't the straight-and-narrow cop that all cops are supposed to be," he said. He is very remorseful.". Had the officers done things by the book, the cash and drugs would be registered with evidence control. 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. 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