They told me they were disturbed that he was being portrayed as a "monster". I ask, slightly confused. 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. They said Jenkins instructed them to carry BB guns to plant on suspects to justify their actions if they made a mistake. Jenkins was hired by the Baltimore Police Department in 2003, according to state records obtained by The Baltimore Sun. April 25, 2022 5:45 PM EDT. "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. From 2006 to 2009, Jenkins was the subject of at least four lawsuits alleging misconduct. 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. Sergeant Wayne. "I'm so sorry for what you're going through. While it may seem incongruous that an officer would be hailed as a hero while racking up complaints, in the Baltimore Police Department it was not. The bottles were winged at us. Jenkins was developing a reputation within the department as a cop whose aggressive style brought results. Wayne Jenkins posed as a . I dont know the nuances, what was said, what wasnt. Having taken money before with previous squads, he expected the officers might skim some and submit the rest as cover. One such warning came in 2010 from a Baltimore man caught drug dealing. 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". But the scope of the corruption of Jenkins and his men remains a singular stain on the force. VideoAt the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece, Havana Syndrome unlikely to have hostile cause - US, How 10% of Nigerian registered voters delivered victory, Sake brewers toast big rise in global sales, The Indian-American CEO who wants to be US president, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip. 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. He states flatly that Jenkins is lying to me. 'You say this, you say that, right?' Though Simon says he reported the incident to the police departments Internal Affairs office, he ultimately stopped cooperating on advice from his defense lawyer. What was Jenkins really going to do with the drugs? For the most part, these defendants decided it wasnt in their interest to tell government authorities that. Contact me.". 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. Stepp says Jenkins started bringing over shipments of drugs on an almost daily basis, putting them in a locked shed behind Stepp's house. 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. But Davis, Baltimores police commissioner from 2015 to 2018 and a veteran of two other departments, calls plainclothes units necessary and critical to the crime fight. They go looking for guns and drugs, he said, and often are successful. 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. It was in 2007 that Jenkins became a part of the GTTF, a new unit of plain-clothed officers focused on targeting suspected criminals believed to have big supplies of guns and drugs, in a bid to reduce the city's high murder rate. Wayne Jenkins who was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for years of robberies, drug dealing and other crimes has asked a judge to release him just four . 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. In the annals of the Baltimore Police Department, Wayne Jenkins name was not being associated with wrongdoing. "What chance do we have when you have people like Jenkins and his co-defendants fabricating evidence?". His earliest admitted theft was in 2011. Dan Horgan said his mentality was your typical Marine camaraderie, teamwork. He was serving his sentence at the Edgefield Federal Correctional Facility in South Carolina until 2020. Federal prosecutors displayed the contents of a bag found in the trunk of Sgt. Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department in 2003, first becoming a beat cop and patrolling the streets of Baltimore. They also didnt give chase. Within days, prosecutors issued a letter to police saying they were declining to charge Jenkins with a crime. "I never took nothing from a looter, so help me god. 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". We Own This City airs Mondays at 9 p.m. "I knew the things we were doing were wrong," he said. Wayne Jenkins grew up in Middle River and is a graduate of Eastern Technical High School. Jenkins, indignant, aggressively shot back at questions from OConnors attorney. He and other officers had raided a car wash, recovering more than a kilogram of drugs and $4,000 from a hidden desk compartment which could be opened only using magnets within a fish tank. "I did, yes. Credit: Baltimore Police Department, Its a Viking mentality: You go out into the field among the bad guys, and you bring back a bounty. You didnt catch me in nothing.. Jenkins lied to them, saying he was a federal agent. Prior to this, they'd been lauded as some of the best gun cops in the city - seizing dozens of illegal firearms every month, and demonstrating a "a work ethic that is beyond reproach", in the words of one supervisor. Later in 2015, he took over a new squad of plainclothes officers within the latest rebranding, the Special Enforcement Section. Donald Stepp was released from federal prison back in January of this year. The first 15 minutes are over in a flash. The officers with him hesitated, Ward said. His wife is also depicted earlier in the series when Wayne, in his early days, attends a barbecue with his colleagues from the Baltimore Police Department and is annoyed by how they have more money than him. He says he was told that because these officers were so successful at seizing guns, there was nothing to be done. But thats likely not what triggered the unprovoked beating of OConnor. In federal prison, inmates are only allowed to talk on the phone for 15 minutes before the line is automatically cut. Read about our approach to external linking. I got gangster charges, racketeering charges, things they usually give the mob, who were burying bodies in cement.". 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.. If Wayne Jenkins asked you to come work for him, you felt honored, Ward said. Updated: Mar 1, 2023 / 02:16 PM EST. 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. What if a complaint was made? But most people who worked with him police and prosecutors asserted to The Sun they had no idea he and his officers were involved in criminal behavior. I asked Wayne Jenkins several times why he wanted to do the interview with me. Jenkins tells me he traded some sausages with other inmates in the line, bartering his way to the front. It was billed at the time as the largest cocaine seizure in department history, one of Jenkins many large-scale seizures. 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. It was there that the full extent of the officers' misconduct became public. In the bedroom, Jenkins says he and a veteran supervisor found a suitcase filled with tens of thousands of dollars in cash. 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. He said he started dealing drugs at age 9, selling. Officers in plainclothes units often operate in the shadows of a police department. "And I remember taking the $10,000.". 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. Taxpayers footed the bill. Former Baltimore Police Department Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, currently inmate number 62928-037 at a federal prison in Kentucky, is on the line. 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. This kind of mindset assumes that the victims of the Gun Trace Task Force - many of them black and poor - deserved what happened to them. All seven members were soon in handcuffs. 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. Jenkins was a rising star in the department, because of his ability to regularly bring in huge seizures of drugs and guns. They wanted to tell me that Jenkins was a dedicated father, a good football coach. 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. Yes, I did," he says. Jenkins started calling Stepp to the scenes of arrests, encouraging Stepp to try to get inside drug dealer's hideouts to steal whatever cash or narcotics he could find. The spouse of the third left a message telling me I could take what Jenkins told me and "stuff it". Then they could enter the house and take the money, only later calling county officers to say they were executing the warrant. 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. 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. In May 2014, three Baltimore prosecutors convened a meeting. Former Baltimore Police Sgt. 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 . He reminds me that the US Attorney's office found him more credible than Jenkins. After three weeks of astonishing testimony, the jury found the two remaining officers guilty. Some of the most upsetting conversations I had were with people who felt victimised twice -- by both the officers and by the criminals. 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. The ringleader, former Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, admitted committing multiple armed robberies and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs. The three prosecutors concluded the officer admired Jenkins work even as he may have been trying to protect the sergeant. "I thought it was a winner.". Prosecutors urged the judge to sentence him to the maximum 30 years, adding that the unit's corruption affected 1,700 criminal cases. The message read: "Greetings. 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. Its a Viking mentality: You go out into the field among the bad guys, and you bring back a bounty, Davis said. They drive unmarked vehicles. Jenkins, who had been suspended during the investigation, went back to work, making no fewer than three dozen arrests over the rest of the year, most of them gun cases. "an inmate in a federal prison," the robot finishes. I'm losing a lot of teeth, you know, they used to be nice and pretty.". 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. 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