The three prosecutors concluded the officer admired Jenkins work even as he may have been trying to protect the sergeant. 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. 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. In Baltimores recent history, the police department has consistently relied on such units, even though the conduct of many of their officers would draw criticism from city residents. It was surreal hearing his voice, talking to me. And were not getting Jenkins.. 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 June 2018, after pleading guilty on charges of. Hill said in the interview that De Sousa reduced the punishment to verbal counseling in effect, no punishment at all. To single him out as a flawed individual in an otherwise perfectly functioning system is a way to avoid change in the police department, to shirk the responsibility of actually preventing this from happening again. Some of his men also have acknowledged stealing well before they came together on the Gun Trace Task Force in 2016. But the Baltimore states attorneys office continued to use Jenkins. In November 2012, Wayne Jenkins was promoted to the rank of sergeant giving him new authority and freedom. A few months after the OConnor incident, Jenkins was involved in another run-in where his sworn account was contradicted. At the time, Stepp was running his own bail bond company, Double D Bail Bonds. There's no telling how many other people were affected, but were too afraid to come forward. 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. On an oddly balmy January night, Jenkins and Fries were working the McElderry Park neighborhood in East Baltimore when they noticed two brothers drinking Steel Reserve beers on the sidewalk outside their rowhouse. "an inmate in a federal prison," the robot finishes. 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. Jenkins said: "I never had [theft complaints] because I never took money off individuals. 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. Former Baltimore Police Sgt. And that is what they want, German said, according to an Internal Affairs report. 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. You never know until you get on this side, including me, what you do to families.". I was a hero," Jenkins says of his activity during the unrest. Wayne was a cops cop, local hero kind of guy, said Cirello, the retired officer. This just begun.". "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. His drill sergeant described him as having the utmost flawless character Ive seen in two decades of service. Many plainclothes units would work out of a satellite office inside a trailer in Northwest Baltimore. Jenkins and members of his squad were praised for their work getting guns off the streets in an October 2016 police department newsletter. Jenkins signed a plea agreement in 2017 that detailed seven robberies that he participated in along with other members of the unit, as well as his drug dealing partnership with Donald Stepp, the former bail bondsman and cocaine dealer who testified at trial. 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. But the police departments Internal Affairs office still had an open file on the case. He. "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. That creates a culture its not unique to Baltimore, but its pronounced here that those guys should be given a pass, Davis said. Detectives Maurice Ward, Evodio Hendrix, Momodu Gondo and Jemell Rayam all pleaded guilty. According to the Internal Affairs file, the only times Jenkins had been disciplined by the department was for twice failing to appear in court. His eye socket was fractured. 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. 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. What had he gotten himself into? Wayne Jenkins, who . 2023 BBC. "I have no respect for him.". If his arrest was stunning, the depiction of his civil rights violations, robberies and more wasnt news to everyone certainly not to people who had been in Jenkins sights, fairly or not, over the years. ET on HBO. April 25, 2022 5:45 PM EDT. In fact, Fries went on to promote Jenkins in June 2006 into a high-profile plainclothes unit called the Organized Crime Division. 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. During hia time in the department, Jenkins was involved in numerous arrests . 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. I deserve to go to jail.". I will continue to fight to prove my innocence.". 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. From 2006 to 2009, Jenkins was the subject of at least four lawsuits alleging misconduct. However, he was also sued for misconduct before his arrest in 2017. I wasnt privy. Until this point, I'd only heard Jenkins on. Oakley took the rare step of getting onto the witness stand to rebut the officers, as did an independent witness who backed his account. Wayne Jenkins grew up in Middle River and is a graduate of Eastern Technical High School. Read about our approach to external linking. 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". He says something that I've never heard anyone admit out loud. That's because in June 2018, Jenkins was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The leaked case file doesnt say why. 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. Here is everything you need to know about the real Jenkins and where he is now. "This was a great abuse of the public trust," said Judge Blake. Sgt. Become a subscriber today to support investigative reporting like this. He claims that it was Stepp's idea to start selling drugs together, not the other way around. 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. They can let a suspect go, if they can lead to bigger fish. Credit: Baltimore Police. Later, Jenkins did more than talk about such a theft. But thats likely not what triggered the unprovoked beating of OConnor. 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 . The bottles were winged at us. By Justin Fenton June 12, 2019 More in the series Part 1 The rise of Wayne. One former supervisor never responded. He points to the plea agreement, in which Jenkins agreed that his cut of their drug sales came to roughly $250,000. They wanted to tell me that Jenkins was a dedicated father, a good football coach. Jenkins was developing a reputation within the department as a cop whose aggressive style brought results. He couldn't get anyone to believe him at the time, and to this day, he fears law enforcement. Just how long ago Jenkins began stealing isnt clear. "Especially because we're short on time, is there anything that you kind of want to just say right off the bat?" 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. He is very remorseful.". Although she did not address the court, in a letter to Judge Catherine Blake, Jenkins' wife Kristy asked for leniency. His punches came fast Jenkins was a trained boxer and OConnor soon felt the warmth of blood spilling down his cheek. And of course, Jenkins is also hoping for a sentenced reduction of some kind. Stepp's moving on with his life - in a sense. He calls Stepp "the biggest exaggerator I've ever met in my life". 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. 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. 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. But Jenkins wanted to argue the details in his plea agreement, saying many of them weren't true. 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. The drop-offs included marijuana, cocaine and MDMA, all of which Stepp did his best to sell. It was a red flag. The ringleader, former Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, admitted committing multiple armed robberies and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs. Jenkins released the men and told them hed follow up with them later. At trial, Jenkins and his boss denied any knowledge of who attacked OConnor. He served 20 months of a five year sentence in connection with the Gun Trace Task Force case, before being granted a compassionate release. Lets get this done, but were going to do it 100 percent. Nothing was 10 percent.. But I did call them, and the Baltimore Police Department, to see if anyone would respond to this laundry list of allegations. His earliest admitted theft was in 2011. And Jenkins says, Did you look in the console? And he pulls the rug back and boom. 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. A line prosecutor, Molly Webb, had been notified by a defense attorney of the footage footage that the police department hadnt submitted to her. 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. 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. OConnor, a house painter who missed weeks of work because of his injuries, sued Jenkins and put forward witnesses who backed his account: After OConnor yelled at Fries, officers had pulled him to the ground, and Jenkins walloped him. "So you did take money, ultimately?" Back then, Jenkins escaped scrutiny again. Fenton joined The Sun as a suburban reporter in 2005. 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. When one of the men darted into his home, Jenkins rushed in after him. What was Jenkins really going to do with the drugs? 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. Their work is not to be confused with undercover operations, in which police officers assume a different identity and worm their way into a criminal organization. Today, he's a free man, living without restrictions with his spouse and young daughter in the eastern part of Baltimore County. ", Paul Schiraldi/Baltimore Police Department/HBO, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. You will not be charged for this call. 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. A former member of the unit, Sergeant Thomas Allers, also pleaded guilty. BALTIMORE, MD A Baltimore police sergeant has admitted to robbing citizens, selling stolen drugs and putting innocent men behind bars, among other offenses. "He's a pathological liar," Stepp says. The outfit change is designed to allow them to blend in. So he gave up and entered a guilty plea. Jenkins is currently in prison. Then they spilled out of the house and onto the sidewalk, struggling. 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. 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