wayne jenkins baltimore

Wayne Jenkins was living a double life. From 2006 to 2009, Jenkins was the subject of at least four lawsuits alleging misconduct. 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. 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. Prosecutors went as far as having witnesses appear before a grand jury, according to records obtained by The Sun. 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. The ringleader, former Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, admitted committing multiple armed robberies and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs. In June 2018, after pleading guilty on charges of. The second declined to comment. Several of the former officers also took the stand - now wearing prison jumpsuits instead of uniforms - and detailed the tactics encouraged by their leader, Jenkins. Because believe me, I'll stand my ground in a second.". They also didnt give chase. Baltimore detectives convicted in shocking corruption trial Stepp grew up in Middle River, where he was friends with Jenkins's older brother. Jenkins explained that hed already tracked the man to Essex, so he thought they could stake out the home, go through the mans trash and find something to parlay into a search warrant. As adults, they ran into each other again at an underground card game frequented by Baltimore Police officers. the dim light of the Baltimore Police Departments downtown nerve center, Sgt. You never know until you get on this side, including me, what you do to families.". Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department in 2003, first becoming a beat cop and patrolling the streets of Baltimore. . The plaintiffs prevailed in three of them, either through a jury verdict or the citys decision to settle the case. 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. Some of his men also have acknowledged stealing well before they came together on the Gun Trace Task Force in 2016. Once it left my shop they had reduced the punishment.. What was Jenkins really going to do with the drugs? . If I could take everything back in my life, I would have been a prosecutor," he says. "Especially because we're short on time, is there anything that you kind of want to just say right off the bat?" Wayne Jenkins, who . A line prosecutor, Molly Webb, had been notified by a defense attorney of the footage footage that the police department hadnt submitted to her. Prosecutors investigated and even presented evidence to a grand jury but concluded they didnt have enough evidence to obtain an indictment. 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". Some of the most upsetting conversations I had were with people who felt victimised twice -- by both the officers and by the criminals. "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. Gillian Whitfield recalled Jenkins as sweet and always willing to lend a hand. At that time, I didnt think they were officers, Simon said. 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. I asked him if he thinks that another scandal is inevitable. 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. Sneed hired an attorney, who obtained footage from a city surveillance camera on the corner. Within days, prosecutors issued a letter to police saying they were declining to charge Jenkins with a crime. Relatives say he liked to visit his high school sweetheart, Kristy, who would become his wife. It was during these games that Stepp heard Jenkins boasting about the large drug stashes he often came across during his work as a plainclothes police officer. Justin Fenton takes listeners inside the investigation on the Roughly Speaking podcast. Have we raised the possibility of a wire? Pineau asked. "I never took nothing from a looter, so help me god. It was a red flag. The jury found against the officer who broke Sneeds jaw but cleared Jenkins. 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 acknowledged that he could tell something was off with Jenkins around the time of the GTTF crime spree. 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. 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. But when I tell him that I've interviewed Wayne Jenkins, his one-time drug partner, Stepp is displeased, to put it mildly. OConnor had been sloppy drunk, they testified, and his friends said they would get him home. I ask, slightly confused. I thought, How is he doing it? In the gloom I see the number of the bureau of prisons light up my cell phone screen. Plainclothes officers must constantly be checked by leadership, Barksdale said, with commanders inquiring about irregularities in their work and excessive overtime pay. Plenty of times he's gone behind me and found them.. Contact me.". The departments Internal Affairs chief at the time says then-Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa intervened to prevent the punishment. 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. 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. No single person was in a position to make unilateral discipline decisions.. Jenkins rushed off to join them. He was serving his sentence at the Edgefield Federal Correctional Facility in South Carolina until 2020. The bag contained masks and other gear he used while stealing drugs and cash from people he and his team targeted. The officers with him hesitated, Ward said. "Everything I tell you, I will take a polygraph," Jenkins says near the beginning of that first phone call. Many plainclothes units would work out of a satellite office inside a trailer in Northwest Baltimore. 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. 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. 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. He started counting the money, $20,000 in all. Jenkins was a rising star in the department, because of his ability to regularly bring in huge seizures of drugs and guns. When I tell this to Stepp, he's angry. Jenkins said hed tried to be nice, but now they were going to jail. "How police act towards people ain't changed," he told me recently. He's even got a clothing line coming out around his defunct bail bond business, Double D Bail Bonds. "It's still hard though, because I get a lot of pain in my mouth at night. Your digital subscription helps pay for The Baltimore Sun's investigative reporting. 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. But the scope and breadth of these allegations were staggering. His supervisors and others either failed to see the red flags or chose to ignore them. By the time his criminal streak was in full swing, it entailed high-stakes robberies and breaking and entering even as he was bringing in paychecks totaling over $170,000 in a year, in part because of overtime fraud. 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. His supplier needed to offload two garbage bags of pharmaceutical drugs stolen from people who had themselves looted pharmacies. I have no idea what he wants to say, or why after four years, he's breaking his silence. Homegrown commanders took pride in being known as having knockers. His eye socket was fractured. I wish I would never have stopped that vehicle," he said. Detective Marcus Taylor on Thursday was sentenced to 18 years in prison on racketeering charges, including robbery and overtime fraud. 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 . "I never took a thing. Wayne Jenkins' police vehicle when he was arrested in 2017. 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. "Life in prison with three small children. They urged his supervisors to get him back to work and focused, according to an internal police department investigation conducted after the indictments. He admitted to knowing . Jenkins did not testify at the trial, but in a way, he was the star of the entire proceeding. The first 15 minutes are over in a flash. 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. Command created the monster, she said, and allowed it to go unchecked.. Back before our interview, Jenkins' representative wanted me to speak to some of his old high school friends. As backup arrived, Jenkins spotted a man named George Sneed across the street. Hill could not be reached by The Sun for comment. Others were raised by defense attorneys and their clients, who said an overzealous Jenkins skirted legal standards in making arrests. No one had called police to complain, but Jenkins and Fries told the men to go inside. 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. Yet another of Jenkins' friends said something I wasn't expecting. As Jenkins is telling me this, he is naming names. One former supervisor never responded. Theres been plenty of times where the suspect has said, The drugs are in the car, and I go and I cant find them. In the annals of the Baltimore Police Department, Wayne Jenkins name was not being associated with wrongdoing. He had a criminal case to fight, and his freedom was more important. Another was to talk about how futile life inside the penal system is. And that is what they want, German said, according to an Internal Affairs report. 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. De Sousa handled the discipline, and they had worked a deal, Hill said, according to a transcript of the interview. But I did call them, and the Baltimore Police Department, to see if anyone would respond to this laundry list of allegations. Sergeants are the eyes and ears of the command, the front-line supervisors trusted to keep close tabs on their officers. 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. Just how long ago Jenkins began stealing isnt clear. 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. His punches came fast Jenkins was a trained boxer and OConnor soon felt the warmth of blood spilling down his cheek. Not all the allegations against Jenkins came from lawsuits. When Jenkins called him to a house the GTTF was investigating, Stepp took pictures of the officers going in and out. The important difference, however, is that the drug dealers never swore an oath to serve and protect. They told me they were disturbed that he was being portrayed as a "monster". It was still daylight, and Jenkins opened a black and red duffel bag. It didn't take long before Stepp began to suspect that Jenkins ratted him out. Jenkins tells me he traded some sausages with other inmates in the line, bartering his way to the front. 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. Hill said in the interview that De Sousa reduced the punishment to verbal counseling in effect, no punishment at all. 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. His police department personnel file shows no punishment related to the case. But he says he was also struggling with a gambling addiction and dealing large amounts of cocaine. We knew he wasn't the straight-and-narrow cop that all cops are supposed to be," he said. It was the perfect crime. Having taken money before with previous squads, he expected the officers might skim some and submit the rest as cover. "We're not stupid. Dan Horgan said his mentality was your typical Marine camaraderie, teamwork. 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. He admitted to knowing . I am Agent and Representative as to Mr Jenkins. It wasn't the first time I've heard that word to describe Jenkins. Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department in 2003, first becoming a beat cop and patrolling the streets of Baltimore. The former ringleader of the Baltimore police Gun Trace Task Force and one of its detectives were sentenced Thursday to federal prison. 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. 2023 BBC. Wayne Jenkins will be played by Jon Bernthal, the same actor who portrayed "The Punisher". 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. Sure enough, no report was ever made. The GTTF was made up of eight officers, all but one of whom were indicted. 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. "I see some police officers harassing people, doing the same little tactics that the Gun Trace Task Force was doing.". Its a Viking mentality: You go out into the field among the bad guys, and you bring back a bounty, Davis said. They can let a suspect go, if they can lead to bigger fish. "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. The longest sentence was handed down to Jenkins: 25 years. And Jenkins says, Did you look in the console? And he pulls the rug back and boom. His fee will be donated to the victims of the Gun Trace Task Force. I asked Wayne Jenkins several times why he wanted to do the interview with me. Here's what the public was led to believe about the Gun Trace Task Force, before the FBI arrested almost every member of the squad: That in a city still reeling from the civil unrest that followed the 2015 death of Freddie Gray in police custody, the GTTF was a bright spot in a department under a dark cloud. The BBC is not naming these three former supervisors, since none of them has been charged with a crime in connection with this case. 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. One afternoon, he took two officers there and they wound up stopping a drug deal in progress. "You have nightmares about police officers harassing you, beating you up, just locking you up, it's just a nightmare that I have and it basically hasn't gone away yet," he said. I did call them, and his freedom was more important minutes are over in a.... 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