In a 26 page letter hand written from his cell at the Federal Corrections institution in South Carolina, former Baltimore Police Sergeant Wayne Jenkins tells a judge that he saved a . 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. It was Jenkins, fresh off his heroics in West Baltimore. In my conversation with Jenkins, he spent a lot of time disputing Stepp's account of their partnership. Jenkins was stationed in North Carolina but often made the long trip back home to Middle River. In Justin Fenton's book We Own This City, on which the HBO series is based, the Baltimore Sun journalist explained that Jenkins would often be "caught in a lie" while giving evidence to a jury, but no complaints were put on his record. "This was a great abuse of the public trust," said Judge Blake. Read about our approach to external linking. They had the autonomy to catch and release suspects and develop informants. This partnership lasted for five years. 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. Just as she was completing her podcast series on the story, she got a very unexpected call from prison. 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. As in the past, a video had surfaced that conflicted with the written account of a drug arrest by Jenkins and another officer. In federal prison, inmates are only allowed to talk on the phone for 15 minutes before the line is automatically cut. When his case went to 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. 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. officers Wayne Jenkins, Ryan . Turmoil has continued at the Baltimore Police Department, an agency that saw four commissioners in little more than a year among them De Sousa, now in prison for tax fraud. He had been stationed in North Carolina and would frequently make trips home to visit his family and his high school sweetheart Kristy, the . From 2006 to 2009, Jenkins was the subject of at least four lawsuits alleging misconduct. 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. He counters that the units helped bring down crime, and says he made it a point to scrutinize their conduct. What was Jenkins really going to do with the drugs? They tracked other dealers and broke into their houses when no one was home. What Detective Wayne Jenkins wrote in his affidavit for the search warrant was a complete fabrication, Oakley said. "Wayne is truly sorry for his actions. I'm standing in my pandemic "radio studio" - aka the closet in my apartment - surrounded by hangers holding button-up shirts and dresses. He admitted to knowing . 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. "There was cameras everywhere, so I would never have took a dollar," he tells me. I also point out to him that it's a fairly common practice for prosecutors to level charges that are so serious that the defendant feels they have no choice but to plead guilty. I have no idea what he wants to say, or why after four years, he's breaking his silence. I lived modest, we wasn't enriching ourselves," he answers. Still, a yearlong investigation by The Baltimore Sun found warning signs that Wayne Jenkins wasnt such a good cop. "an inmate in a federal prison," the robot finishes. Jenkins was hired by the Baltimore Police Department in 2003, according to state records obtained by The Baltimore Sun. Right away I learn that Jenkins is an incredibly fast talker. 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. But when I tell him that I've interviewed Wayne Jenkins, his one-time drug partner, Stepp is displeased, to put it mildly. "He's a pathological liar," Stepp says. Jenkins earned praise outside the department, too. On the off-ramp, I find four empty dime bags scattered along a section of sidewalk with no foot traffic. Wayne Jenkins posed as a . "I'm grateful, very grateful.". "Life in prison with three small children. And that's what I did.". And in the midst of that investigation, another arose. Lets get this done, but were going to do it 100 percent. Nothing was 10 percent.. He gave me a few reasons. In a recent interview, Simon told The Sun, I never had no BB gun. Wayne Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department way back in 2003 as a beat cop patrolling the streets of Baltimore. I ask this friend why he didn't say anything to anyone. 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. But Jenkins wanted to argue the details in his plea agreement, saying many of them weren't true. But two pronounced their innocence and went to trial, which I covered for the BBC. She described how the unnamed officer talked about Jenkins: Hes probably the best drug detective in the city. In March, HBO announced a new miniseries by David Simon, the creator of the classic Baltimore true crime series, 'The Wire'. 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. 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. 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. In the annals of the Baltimore Police Department, Wayne Jenkins name was not being associated with wrongdoing. He says he was told that because these officers were so successful at seizing guns, there was nothing to be done. The department valued their work too much to end this style of police work. Wayne Jenkins, who led . He resigned and the top spot at the Baltimore Police Department remains vacant. In the bedroom, Jenkins says he and a veteran supervisor found a suitcase filled with tens of thousands of dollars in cash. He says something that I've never heard anyone admit out loud. 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. A former member of the unit, Sergeant Thomas Allers, also pleaded guilty. Jenkins had joined the force at 23 after serving three years in the Marines, where he took up boxing. They'd known one another's families as children. This just begun.". Jenkins admitted that he stole drugs from work and delivered them to Stepp, who would turn around and sell them. His earliest admitted theft was in 2011. He says Stepp pressured him into it. 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. Yes, I did," he says. "I'm finally trying to get my life back on track," he told me. With the investigations behind him, Jenkins seemed emboldened. Today, he's a free man, living without restrictions with his spouse and young daughter in the eastern part of Baltimore County. Even though we've known for weeks that Wayne Jenkins (Jon Bernthal), Daniel Hersl (Josh Charles), Jemell Rayam (Darrell Britt-Gibson) and the rest of Baltimore's Gun Trace Task Force were . In February 2017, Jenkins was charged with two counts of racketeering conspiracy; racketeering, aiding and abetting; racketeering; two counts of robbery and aiding and abetting; and two counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. He tells me that the first time he ever stole money, he was just a rookie. Yet another of Jenkins' friends said something I wasn't expecting. Then they spilled out of the house and onto the sidewalk, struggling. It was still daylight, and Jenkins opened a black and red duffel bag. On the citys west side, officers were being pelted with bricks; some were hurt. She said she found Hersl in particular to be very credible.. 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. "I'm in prison for 25 years, there's no reason to lie.". But the scope and breadth of these allegations were staggering. . All seven now sit in federal prisons scattered across the country. He is very remorseful.". The three prosecutors concluded the officer admired Jenkins work even as he may have been trying to protect the sergeant. Wayne Jenkins grew up in Middle River and is a graduate of Eastern Technical High School. 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. 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. One such warning came in 2010 from a Baltimore man caught drug dealing. A lot of what he told me was much more systematic. He woke up on a frigid city street with his jaw shattered, and couldn't eat solid food for months. He claims that it was Stepp's idea to start selling drugs together, not the other way around. The departments Internal Affairs chief at the time says then-Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa intervened to prevent the punishment. I'm staring at my cell phone in the dark. I have to try to untangle his answers as he moves from subject to subject, sometimes so fast I can't keep up. Jenkins had to affirm under oath in front of a federal judge that what the document said was true. Sgt. When one of the men darted into his home, Jenkins rushed in after him. In the police academy, his peers saw a leader. The officers with him hesitated, Ward said. 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. Investigators recommended Jenkins be demoted and suspended without pay. Wayne was a cops cop, local hero kind of guy, said Cirello, the retired officer. Would they report the incident? It's going to take an almost unimaginable kind of effort to dig out the roots of corruption in the department, and it's much easier to just lock up the cops who get caught, and carry on with business as usual. 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. Stepp and Jenkins' history runs deep. 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. 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. 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. Your digital subscription helps pay for The Baltimore Sun's investigative reporting. He ordered a detective to drive them to the hospital and joined the front lines. the dim light of the Baltimore Police Departments downtown nerve center, Sgt. As adults, they ran into each other again at an underground card game frequented by Baltimore Police officers. 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. Despite the lawsuits and later, video evidence from his squads body cameras Jenkins supervisors failed to scrutinize the arrests he was making. Five of the former officers, including Jenkins, pleaded guilty. I dont know the nuances, what was said, what wasnt. Stepp's moving on with his life - in a sense. The former ringleader of the Baltimore police Gun Trace Task Force and one of its detectives were sentenced Thursday to federal prison. "He always had large sums of money in his pocket. 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. In court, Ward apologised to the victims, to his family and to the Baltimore Police Department, as well as to his co-defendants. 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 tells me he traded some sausages with other inmates in the line, bartering his way to the front. When the man stopped his car and started to run away, Jenkins drove after him and into someones front yard, where he struck him. But thats likely not what triggered the unprovoked beating of OConnor. After three weeks of astonishing testimony, the jury found the two remaining officers guilty. "I'm so sorry to the citizens of Baltimore.". Marcus Taylor split up $20,000 in cash they stole in 2015. Credit: Kevin Richardson / Baltimore Sun, serving a federal sentence for tax evasion. They told me they were disturbed that he was being portrayed as a "monster". I ask, slightly confused. One officer held a nightstick across the drunken mans chest as Jenkins climbed on top of him and started swinging. 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. So I kind of had a mental, like maybe a messed up moral code.". They wanted to tell me that Jenkins was a dedicated father, a good football coach. 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 mean, it had velocity, Jenkins said. The second declined to comment. 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. Can this US city go 72 hours without a murder? He. "I never took a thing. Sneed's attorney Michael Pulver concluded, per Fenton, that the officers had "fabricated this story to hide the fact that they intentionally assaulted and falsely arrested and imprisoned Mr. The tape disputed Jenkins sworn account. Sure enough, no report was ever made. 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. "And I remember taking the $10,000.". Jenkins and Fries would later say in sworn depositions that Sneed had been yelling expletives about police and throwing glass bottles at them. In November 2012, Wayne Jenkins was promoted to the rank of sergeant giving him new authority and freedom. 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). His fee will be donated to the victims of the Gun Trace Task Force. "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. When Jenkins was allowed to speak, he turned first to face the Davis family and apologised repeatedly. "This is Wayne.". For the most part, these defendants decided it wasnt in their interest to tell government authorities that. 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. "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. My hope - maybe a naive one - was that hearing one of these men speak candidly about how he crossed over to the dark side would help the public better understand the casual, day-to-day corruption that can happen in policing. Hill told Al-Jazeera it was because then-Deputy Commissioner De Sousa got involved. But the police departments Internal Affairs office still had an open file on the case. April 25, 2022 5:45 PM EDT. Near Druid Hill Park, amid the shouting, sirens and buzzing choppers overhead, he commandeered a state prison department van and helped pull injured officers inside. Four years after the Gun Trace Task Force officers were arrested, he says he sees no difference on the streets of Baltimore. "I never had [theft complaints] because I never took money off individuals. 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. Justin Fenton takes listeners inside the investigation on the Roughly Speaking podcast. "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.". Detectives Maurice Ward, Evodio Hendrix, Momodu Gondo and Jemell Rayam all pleaded guilty. Jenkins rushed off to join them. It turned out that federal agents had the unit under surveillance for months. 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. 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. Federal prosecutors displayed the contents of a bag found in the trunk of Sgt. As Jenkins is telling me this, he is naming names. He started counting the money, $20,000 in all. "Nobody still knows the truth about what's going on in the city," Taylor told the judge. More than 50 people including current and former police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys and victims were interviewed. De Sousa, who is now serving a federal sentence for tax evasion, said through his attorney that he does not remember the Jenkins case. It wasn't the first time I've heard that word to describe Jenkins. 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 loyal friend. Once it left my shop they had reduced the punishment.. A few months after the OConnor incident, Jenkins was involved in another run-in where his sworn account was contradicted. BALTIMORE (AP) Baltimore leaders agreed Wednesday to pay a $6 million settlement to the family of a driver who was killed during a 2010 police chase . On June 7, 2018, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Wayne Jenkins will be played by Jon Bernthal, the same actor who portrayed "The Punisher". He's due to be released in 2038. He said they were confiscating the cash and 20 pounds of marijuana. 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. 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. I thought, How is he doing it? Because believe me, I'll stand my ground in a second.". Instead, they go out looking for illegal activity people exchanging drugs or displaying bulges under clothing that could be guns. It's no wonder people come out meaner than when they come in.". 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. Jenkins did not testify at the trial, but in a way, he was the star of the entire proceeding. Jenkins was a rising star in the department, because of his ability to regularly bring in huge seizures of drugs and guns. 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. Not long after Stepp flipped on his former friend, Jenkins pled guilty. In June 2018, after pleading guilty on charges of. Jenkins doled out $5,000 to each of the two officers and instructed them not to make any big purchases. Jerry Rodriguez, a career Los Angeles police officer who was a deputy commissioner in Baltimore from 2013 to 2015, said the department was resistant to change. "I'd rather be a prosecutor so I don't overkill people. "Hi, ma'am," Jenkins says when I pick up. "Seen it done, honest to god, 500 times.". One of the most shocking incidents from the plea agreement is an event that Jenkins now unequivocally denies. He was convicted on multiple counts including racketeering, robbery and falsification of records. He said together, they'd sold about $1m worth of narcotics. 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. Credit: Baltimore Police. 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 from Baltimore was sentenced to 25-years-in-prison. 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". There is no love lost between these two former friends. 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. A line prosecutor, Molly Webb, had been notified by a defense attorney of the footage footage that the police department hadnt submitted to her. "The largest share of the blame, the largest share of those crimes belongs to him," US attorney Leo Wise told the court. Have we raised the possibility of a wire? Pineau asked. When Jenkins was on paternity leave, commanders groused that his squads productivity dropped. He said he started dealing drugs at age 9, selling. OConnor had been sloppy drunk, they testified, and his friends said they would get him home. You will not be charged for this call. At OConnors trial, Fries remarked that the others were worthless and didnt meet the standards of the organized crime unit. One member of the task force during Jenkins leadership, Detective John Clewell, was not charged with any crimes. I was a hero," Jenkins says of his activity during the unrest. Fenton joined The Sun as a suburban reporter in 2005. 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. All seven members were soon in handcuffs. In Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago, plainclothes teams have been charged with corruption. 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. 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. Then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake held a news conference to tout one of Jenkins big drug busts. Any attempts to make the force become less of a warrior and more of a guardian was looked at terribly, he said. I never aimed nothing at him . 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. The ringleader, former Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, admitted committing multiple armed robberies and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs. In fact, it's highly likely - if not certain - that many of the people Jenkins' put in prison himself had those tactics used on them by prosecutors. But it's the big man upstairs," he says. But Stepp had an ace up his sleeve - for months, he'd been documenting their crimes on his cell phone. 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. Later, Jenkins came out carrying two kilos of cocaine he tossed in Stepp's vehicle. He told me that frequently, when he or his fellow officers didn't feel like submitting the drugs they seized or doing arrest paperwork, they'd simply confiscate people's drug stashes and let them go. Inside the police department, the Gun Trace Task Force was known for its success in capturing suspected drug dealers, their stashes and their illegal firearms. The two said Jenkins had found drugs in the ceiling of a mans vehicle. "I knew the things we were doing were wrong," he said. The dealers would be sitting in a jail cell. In another man's house, the GTTF broke into a safe and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars. When I tell this to Stepp, he's angry. 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 . Please sign up today and help make a difference. "It's still hard though, because I get a lot of pain in my mouth at night. 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. They claimed they didnt see who did it. They stole drugs and cash, sold seized narcotics and guns back on the street, planted evidence on people, even committed home invasions. They direct their work, approve overtime pay and provide reports to higher-ranking supervisors. Historical Accuracy (Q&A): Is Sgt. Then he said something that struck Ward as bizarre: He said he was going to take the marijuana to his home, and burn it all. 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. 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. 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. "Later on that evening, Gondo did give me money, that means hours later, I'm talking hours later, he gave me money.". This call is from", A human voice breaks in: "Wayne Jenkins.". Then the feds found him. According to testimony from Ward and Hendrix, Jenkins played an outsized role in the schemes. 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 Department's go-to assets in the fight against violent crime.

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