I'm staring at my cell phone in the dark. "I'm here because of greed," he said. He admitted to knowing . It was his first public appearance since he was arrested along with six other officers last year. Over the course of four phone calls (courtesy of some traded bags of crisps), Jenkins paints a picture of the Baltimore Police Department as a place where indoctrination into corruption starts almost immediately. 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. The departments Internal Affairs chief at the time says then-Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa intervened to prevent the punishment. He calls Stepp "the biggest exaggerator I've ever met in my life". He had a criminal case to fight, and his freedom was more important. Image Credit: Baltimore Police Department. He said he started dealing drugs at age 9, selling. The Parkville American Legion Post named him its Officer of the Year. Far from it. 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. It was billed at the time as the largest cocaine seizure in department history, one of Jenkins many large-scale seizures. When Jenkins called him to a house the GTTF was investigating, Stepp took pictures of the officers going in and out. But when the sun came up on 1 March 2017, the city awoke to a vastly different reality. It took place as Jenkins and other officers were searching an apartment. 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. 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. 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. I have no idea what he wants to say, or why after four years, he's breaking his silence. He said they were confiscating the cash and 20 pounds of marijuana. 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. The courtroom was also packed with Jenkins' family and friends. The plaintiffs prevailed in three of them, either through a jury verdict or the citys decision to settle the case. 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. Jenkins, who later led the GTTF, pleaded guilty to civil rights violations for participating in the coverup and is serving 25 years in prison for crimes including robberies and selling drugs. 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. Used to tell me he won it playing poker.". But I think he also spoke to me because he doesn't like the image of himself that's been in the media - as a sociopath, as someone almost inhumanly evil. "I have no respect for him.". Maurice Ward, a former detective now serving a seven-year prison term for committing crimes with Jenkins, said he and other officers jockeyed to get on his team. Sneed hired an attorney, who obtained footage from a city surveillance camera on the corner. If I could take everything back in my life, I would have been a prosecutor," he says. "I could have spoken up.". "Especially because we're short on time, is there anything that you kind of want to just say right off the bat?" In his plea deal, Jenkins admitted he planted heroin on Burley to try to justify the fatal collision. "I'm wrong, God knows I'm wrong," the 37-year-old said. Four years after the Gun Trace Task Force officers were arrested, he says he sees no difference on the streets of Baltimore. He gave me a few reasons. He points to the plea agreement, in which Jenkins agreed that his cut of their drug sales came to roughly $250,000. Had the officers done things by the book, the cash and drugs would be registered with evidence control. In March, HBO announced a new miniseries by David Simon, the creator of the classic Baltimore true crime series, 'The Wire'. He. But when the officers exited the elevators on the building's second floor, they were met by an FBI SWAT team. "Wayne is truly sorry for his actions. Wayne Jenkins and former Det. OConnor had been sloppy drunk, they testified, and his friends said they would get him home. In Baltimore, theyre often referred to as knockers, a reference to their historically aggressive tactics. Until this point, I'd only heard Jenkins on. 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. But the Baltimore states attorneys office continued to use Jenkins. Jenkins winced as the handcuffs were placed on his wrists, and US Marshals led him out of a back door of the courtroom. According to testimony from Ward and Hendrix, Jenkins played an outsized role in the schemes. At OConnors trial, Fries remarked that the others were worthless and didnt meet the standards of the organized crime unit. It feels a little bit like splitting hairs. Wayne Jenkins, ex-police sergeant, leading the Gun Trace Task Force Sergeant Wayne Jenkins was a decorated leader of the corrupt plain-clothes police unit in Baltimore whose detectives robbed . 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. The tape disputed Jenkins sworn account. At the time, Stepp was running his own bail bond company, Double D Bail Bonds. Hed grown up in the working class suburb, where his father worked two jobs, including at Bethlehem Steel. And that is what they want, German said, according to an Internal Affairs report. 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. The important difference, however, is that the drug dealers never swore an oath to serve and protect. They said he prepared an arsenal of weapons and tools to begin carrying out burglaries. 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. "I'm grateful, very grateful.". ", Paul Schiraldi/Baltimore Police Department/HBO, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Now, the lawyers were sitting with Paul Pineau, chief of staff to then Baltimore States Attorney Gregg Bernstein, according to an account of the meeting obtained by The 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. Wayne Jenkins was living a double life. In the gloom I see the number of the bureau of prisons light up my cell phone screen. In the years since his arrest, he'd never given a public interview. When one of the men darted into his home, Jenkins rushed in after him. But Jenkins wanted to argue the details in his plea agreement, saying many of them weren't true. I got gangster charges, racketeering charges, things they usually give the mob, who were burying bodies in cement.". I ask. The message read: "Greetings. Weeks later, I search these locations myself to see if I can find anything. He resigned and the top spot at the Baltimore Police Department remains vacant. The drop-offs included marijuana, cocaine and MDMA, all of which Stepp did his best to sell. Jenkins was a decorated cop and had a reputation for his role in several high-profile drug busts. "It's nothing I've ever imagined. When Jenkins was allowed to speak, he turned first to face the Davis family and apologised repeatedly. Ward and the other cop followed Jenkins into the woods. Back then, Jenkins escaped scrutiny again. ', "If you've got to lie about what you've seen or what you heard or what you witnessed, as long as he's dirty, he's got the drugs and he's got the guns and he did the crimejust get him.". In a recent interview, Simon told The Sun, I never had no BB gun. Dan Horgan said his mentality was your typical Marine camaraderie, teamwork. My thoughts return to Kenneth Bumgardner, a hard-working father who was chased by the squad when they suspected him of having marijuana. Detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor went forward to trial and a jury found them guilty of robbery, extortion and fraud in February. He told the other officers to leave their cell phones and police vests in the car. It's going to happen again," he said. As backup arrived, Jenkins spotted a man named George Sneed across the street. During hia time in the department, Jenkins was involved in numerous arrests . The officers with him hesitated, Ward said. 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. Instead, while their cash and drugs were gone, the dealers were free men. 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. Officers in plainclothes units often operate in the shadows of a police department. Burley's vehicle struck another, killing Mr Davis. It showed Sneed calmly standing across the street looking on, never even raising his arms. And while searching the area, Jenkins claimed, he found a BB gun under a nearby car. 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. Jenkins was hired by the Baltimore Police Department in 2003, according to state records obtained by The Baltimore Sun. Others were raised by defense attorneys and their clients, who said an overzealous Jenkins skirted legal standards in making arrests. View all articles on the Gun Trace Task Force on The Baltimore Sun. In September 2021, Jenkins spoke with BBC journalist Jessica Lussenhop from behind bars, and he claimed he never took money from Baltimore citizens. You guys willing to go kick in the dudes door and take the money? But I did call them, and the Baltimore Police Department, to see if anyone would respond to this laundry list of allegations. 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. Having taken money before with previous squads, he expected the officers might skim some and submit the rest as cover. 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". Over his tenure, he was. He is very remorseful.". Contact me.". Jenkins admitted that he stole drugs from work and delivered them to Stepp, who would turn around and sell them. "Seen it done, honest to god, 500 times.". 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. "I thought it was a winner.". Contact Justin Fenton at jfenton@baltsun.com. 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. 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 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. But when I tell him that I've interviewed Wayne Jenkins, his one-time drug partner, Stepp is displeased, to put it mildly. I did give drugs to Donny [Stepp, who testified he and Jenkins sold $1 million worth of narcotics] 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. In the bedroom, Jenkins says he and a veteran supervisor found a suitcase filled with tens of thousands of dollars in cash. His supplier needed to offload two garbage bags of pharmaceutical drugs stolen from people who had themselves looted pharmacies. "Nobody still knows the truth about what's going on in the city," Taylor told the judge. 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 . 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. In May 2014, three Baltimore prosecutors convened a meeting. "I've tarnished the badge," he said through tears. The ringleader, former Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, admitted committing multiple armed robberies and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. The apartment complex had a camera in the parking lot. What if one of the men who was robbed turned out to be a federal informant? "I still maintain my innocence. Jenkins lied to them, saying he was a federal agent. Jenkins doled out $5,000 to each of the two officers and instructed them not to make any big purchases. It was still daylight, and Jenkins opened a black and red duffel bag. The two police officers came over because they had nothing else to do.. But the video captured by closed-circuit TV showed the officers searching the car extensively and never appearing to make a discovery. No one took anything, but Jenkins later mused about the possibilities. Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department in 2003, first becoming a beat cop and patrolling the streets of Baltimore. The second declined to comment. Wayne Jenkins Image Credit: Baltimore Police Department/Associated Press.