During hia time in the department, Jenkins was involved in numerous arrests . BALTIMORE The Baltimore City Board of Estimates paid out a $6 million settlement Wednesday to the family of a bystander who died during a police chase by the . His supplier needed to offload two garbage bags of pharmaceutical drugs stolen from people who had themselves looted pharmacies. "Right off the bat, we wasn't living lavishly. "I swear, I wish I would have known before I ever put anyone in here I wish I would have known the other side," he says at one point. He said they were confiscating the cash and 20 pounds of marijuana. The bondsman would take care of selling them, then split the profits with the police sergeant. When the phone rings, I put the call on speaker and hear a robotic, pre-recorded female voice: "You have a prepaid call. The daughters of 86-year-old Elbert Davis also told the court about the 2010 car crash Jenkins caused while he was pursuing a man named Umar Burley. Prosecutors investigated and even presented evidence to a grand jury but concluded they didnt have enough evidence to obtain an indictment. Stepp testified that the arrangement was so lucrative, he stuck with it for years before getting arrested himself in December 2017. "There was cameras everywhere, so I would never have took a dollar," he tells me. 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. Contact Justin Fenton at jfenton@baltsun.com. Im feeling a lot of remorse for my actions I have led through my life, Oakley said at his sentencing. In the gloom I see the number of the bureau of prisons light up my cell phone screen. I'm staring at my cell phone in the dark. I asked Wayne Jenkins several times why he wanted to do the interview with me. Wayne Jenkins grew up in Middle River and is a graduate of Eastern Technical High School. 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. Yes. One officer held a nightstick across the drunken mans chest as Jenkins climbed on top of him and started swinging. Read about our approach to external linking. A plea agreement is a document that lists specific criminal acts that the defendant is agreeing to plead guilty to. "Later on that evening, Gondo did give me money, that means hours later, I'm talking hours later, he gave me money.". 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. It didn't take long before Stepp began to suspect that Jenkins ratted him out. In March, HBO announced a new miniseries by David Simon, the creator of the classic Baltimore true crime series, 'The Wire'. 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. "I still maintain my innocence. 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. They said Jenkins instructed them to carry BB guns to plant on suspects to justify their actions if they made a mistake. They claimed they didnt see who did it. None of the cases led to any police department discipline for Jenkins, his personnel records show. Investigators recommended Jenkins be demoted and suspended without pay. Jenkins was stationed in North Carolina but often made the long trip back home to Middle River. I never heard back from the Baltimore Police Department. Later that year, the mayor held a news conference for another of Jenkins busts. 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. 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. This series was supported by the Pulitzer Center. That made it very tempting when, sometime around 2011, Jenkins approached Stepp and suggested they go into business together. All seven now sit in federal prisons scattered across the country. At trial, Jenkins and his boss denied any knowledge of who attacked OConnor. "It's that simple.". For the most part, these defendants decided it wasnt in their interest to tell government authorities that. His punches came fast Jenkins was a trained boxer and OConnor soon felt the warmth of blood spilling down his cheek. But nothing more. Jenkins names two specific locations where he says the drugs get tossed: a train bridge near the Eastern District police station, and a wooded highway off-ramp on the way to the Northern District police station. "Now we're going to burn it down. From 2006 to 2009, Jenkins was the subject of at least four lawsuits alleging misconduct. 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. Wayne Jenkins, who led . When I point out he already pleaded guilty to all these incidents, Jenkins tells me he only signed the agreement because he feared that if he went forward to trial, he could've wound up behind bars for life. I wish I would never have stopped that vehicle," he said. "Obviously I'm in here now, so I see both sides. But two pronounced their innocence and went to trial, which I covered for the BBC. Human error to blame for train crash - Greek PM, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. "Life in prison with three small children. In his plea deal, Jenkins admitted he planted heroin on Burley to try to justify the fatal collision. He reviewed hours of body camera footage from their arrests, watched tapes of their courtroom appearances, reviewed several thousand pages of documents, including internal police department files, and interviewed dozens of people including two of the convicted officers, some of the gun unit's victims, other current and former Baltimore police officers and commanders, defense attorneys and prosecutors. 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 . 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. Credit: Baltimore Police. The message read: "Greetings. 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. 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. 49 . Jenkins was given a 25-year prison sentence on June 7, 2018, which he is currently in the midst of serving at a federal prison in Kentucky. "It was a front for a criminal enterprise," Stepp said of the Gun Trace Task Force. "We said, 'You know, he's robbin' the pieces of shit of Baltimore that are the reason that me and my kids can't walk down the street and feel safe," he says. Jenkins was hired by the Baltimore Police Department in 2003, according to state records obtained by The Baltimore Sun. 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. 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. The sergeant took no one else from the flex squad. 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. This just begun.". Jenkins entered a department steeped in zero tolerance a war on crime fueled by arrests for even minor infractions. The ringleader, former Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, admitted committing multiple armed robberies and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs. Just how long ago Jenkins began stealing isnt clear. Though Simon says he reported the incident to the police departments Internal Affairs office, he ultimately stopped cooperating on advice from his defense lawyer. 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. "I'm wrong, God knows I'm wrong," the 37-year-old said. "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. It was billed at the time as the largest cocaine seizure in department history, one of Jenkins many large-scale seizures. Baltimore can be a complicated and dangerous place, and the men and women the officers targeted and abused may have caused harm and abuse themselves. So I kind of had a mental, like maybe a messed up moral code.". While no one should forget for an instant that Jenkins and his officers caused untold harm to Baltimore citizens, I don't find it helpful to try to write him off as a "monster". Wayne Jenkins, who . 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. 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. In fact, Fries went on to promote Jenkins in June 2006 into a high-profile plainclothes unit called the Organized Crime Division. 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. The important difference, however, is that the drug dealers never swore an oath to serve and protect. 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. "This was a great abuse of the public trust," said Judge Blake. Two officers said he spoke openly about doing home invasions on high-level drug dealers that he called "monsters", because of the amount of drugs and cash he hoped they'd have stashed in their houses. The jury was shown axes, machetes and pry bars, as well as black masks that were found in Jenkins' van after his arrest. They ordered us to f--- them up; we f---ed them up, one of the responding officers, Robert Cirello, now retired, said later in an interview with The Sun. 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). In an incident to which Jenkins would later plead guilty, the officers handcuffed two men. He thought Jenkins and Frieman might have been impersonating police. Oakley took the rare step of getting onto the witness stand to rebut the officers, as did an independent witness who backed his account. Now, the recommended punishment was significant: a demotion, a transfer and suspension for 15 to 20 days, including a period without pay, Hill told the television network Al-Jazeera. 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. In reality, he says, they were making arrests by any means necessary. 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. They urged his supervisors to get him back to work and focused, according to an internal police department investigation conducted after the indictments. 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. "I just go through this on a daily basis, scared of police, wondering when they gonna stop you, trying to plant drugs on you or something like that. Wayne Jenkins eyes darted from screen to screen, taking in the surveillance images. "I knew the things we were doing were wrong," he said. These officers often operate with a great deal of independence. According to testimony from Ward and Hendrix, Jenkins played an outsized role in the schemes. Jenkins had joined the force at 23 after serving three years in the Marines, where he took up boxing. Jenkins tells me he traded some sausages with other inmates in the line, bartering his way to the front. Victims like Bumgardner and Whiting had the courage to speak out. Wayne Jenkins. Jenkins was developing a reputation within the department as a cop whose aggressive style brought results. Wayne Jenkins' police vehicle when he was arrested in 2017. He is very remorseful.". He also acknowledged stealing the man's $4,000 (2,956) watch, which he gave to Stepp to sell. Ignoring warning signs of misconduct, Baltimore Police praised and promoted Gun Trace Task Force leader. Arrest him, too, Jenkins yelled at the responding officers. He woke up on a frigid city street with his jaw shattered, and couldn't eat solid food for months. Former Baltimore Police Department Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, currently inmate number 62928-037 at a federal prison in Kentucky, is on the line. 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. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Later, Jenkins came out carrying two kilos of cocaine he tossed in Stepp's vehicle. More than 50 people including current and former police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys and victims were interviewed. 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. "It shows what a committed, sophisticated, devious person can do," Mr Wise said. the dim light of the Baltimore Police Departments downtown nerve center, Sgt. In federal prison, inmates are only allowed to talk on the phone for 15 minutes before the line is automatically cut. In June 2018, after pleading guilty on charges of. The bottles were winged at us. This is his senior portrait from 1998. On the off-ramp, I find four empty dime bags scattered along a section of sidewalk with no foot traffic. Plainclothes officers made the most arrests, they seized the most drugs and money, assets, former Police Commissioner Kevin Davis told The Sun. Jenkins got a bronze star for his part in the 2009 recovery of 41 kilograms of cocaine $1 million worth in a mans truck. Jenkins was a rising star in the department, because of his ability to regularly bring in huge seizures of drugs and guns. When the man stopped his car and started to run away, Jenkins drove after him and into someones front yard, where he struck him. . The BBC is not naming these three former supervisors, since none of them has been charged with a crime in connection with this case. There's no telling how many other people were affected, but were too afraid to come forward. If Wayne Jenkins asked you to come work for him, you felt honored, Ward said. I was a hero," Jenkins says of his activity during the unrest. The first 15 minutes are over in a flash. On the citys west side, officers were being pelted with bricks; some were hurt. Jenkins, who is serving a 25-year sentence in a federal prison in South Carolina, declined to speak with The Sun. Jenkins earned praise outside the department, too. "Nobody still knows the truth about what's going on in the city," Taylor told the judge. He is working on a book about the Gun Trace Task Force, to be published by Random House. The plaintiffs prevailed in three of them, either through a jury verdict or the citys decision to settle the case. He counters that the units helped bring down crime, and says he made it a point to scrutinize their conduct. 2023 BBC. 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. 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. The drop-offs included marijuana, cocaine and MDMA, all of which Stepp did his best to sell. "It's a surreal story. It turned out that federal agents had the unit under surveillance for months. "He drew first blood," Stepp says of Jenkins. I wasnt privy. He started to worry. You're taught that - the second someone gets in trouble we meet up, and we talk face to face," he says. 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. No one believed Oakley. There is no love lost between these two former friends. Some tried to complain, but were ignored. "I fear nothing he knows or anything. Another was to talk about how futile life inside the penal system is. "He's never been a true friend," Stepp says. Reflecting on the revelations of his misconduct, Lt. Marjorie German concluded that department leaders gave Jenkins too much leeway because they were enamored of his results. 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. "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. He has covered the Baltimore Police Department and crime in Baltimore since 2008. All this happened over nothing, one of the brothers, Charles Lee, recalled recently. Jenkins pleaded guilty in court on January 5, 2018, for numerous counts of four of these charges. ET on HBO. He tells me that the first time he ever stole money, he was just a rookie. 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. This past summer, as I was wrapping up work on "Bad Cops", a strange email appeared in my inbox. He says something that I've never heard anyone admit out loud. Read about our approach to external linking. "This is Wayne.". 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. "Hi, ma'am," Jenkins says when I pick up. He's due to be released in 2038. Jenkins says that the veteran goaded him into taking money. . 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. "How police act towards people ain't changed," he told me recently. He claims that he was told early on to lie on police reports and warrant applications in order to make their arrests sound like they were done with proper probable cause, meaning a legal reason to stop someone. "He always had large sums of money in his pocket. Then they spilled out of the house and onto the sidewalk, struggling. And were not getting Jenkins.. Later in 2015, he took over a new squad of plainclothes officers within the latest rebranding, the Special Enforcement Section. They are not typically tethered to specific posts, or burdened by responding to 911 calls. I never aimed nothing at him . The spouse of the third left a message telling me I could take what Jenkins told me and "stuff it". 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