The actions of former Baltimore police Sergeant Wayne Jenkins and his team of plain-clothed officers in the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) are explored in We Own This City. As backup arrived, Jenkins spotted a man named George Sneed across the street. Here is everything you need to know about the real Jenkins and where he is now. Stepp and Jenkins' history runs deep. 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. Four years after the Gun Trace Task Force officers were arrested, he says he sees no difference on the streets of Baltimore. It was the perfect crime. "an inmate in a federal prison," the robot finishes. In Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago, plainclothes teams have been charged with corruption. The man, Demetric Simon, 31, said he did have drugs on him and knew someone was following. 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. 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. Former Baltimore Police Department Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, currently inmate number 62928-037 at a federal prison in Kentucky, is on the line. In part due to his cooperation in the case, he received a much shorter sentence than the officers of the GTTF. "He is no more than a common criminal," Davis' daughter, Shirley Johnson, said of Jenkins. Jenkins doled out $5,000 to each of the two officers and instructed them not to make any big purchases. He's even got a clothing line coming out around his defunct bail bond business, Double D Bail Bonds. The sergeant took no one else from the flex squad. They urged his supervisors to get him back to work and focused, according to an internal police department investigation conducted after the indictments. The GTTF did not hold a monopoly on harm, of course. Sneed. This partnership lasted for five years. OConnor had been sloppy drunk, they testified, and his friends said they would get him home. He also names two former supervisors who he says he complained to about his former subordinate officers, Momodu Gondo and Jemell Rayam, saying they had bad reputations for stealing money. But it's the big man upstairs," he says. If Wayne Jenkins asked you to come work for him, you felt honored, Ward said. ET on HBO. He states flatly that Jenkins is lying to me. He said he started dealing drugs at age 9, selling. Not all the allegations against Jenkins came from lawsuits. "And I remember taking the $10,000.". In March, HBO announced a new miniseries by David Simon, the creator of the classic Baltimore true crime series, 'The Wire'. Jenkins is currently in prison. I have to try to untangle his answers as he moves from subject to subject, sometimes so fast I can't keep up. 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. But the video captured by closed-circuit TV showed the officers searching the car extensively and never appearing to make a discovery. The conversation with Jenkins gets more complicated when we turn specifically to the crimes of the Gun Trace Task Force. A line prosecutor, Molly Webb, had been notified by a defense attorney of the footage footage that the police department hadnt submitted to her. Jenkins tells me he traded some sausages with other inmates in the line, bartering his way to the front. One member of the task force during Jenkins leadership, Detective John Clewell, was not charged with any crimes. He counters that the units helped bring down crime, and says he made it a point to scrutinize their conduct. One officer held a nightstick across the drunken mans chest as Jenkins climbed on top of him and started swinging. If I could take everything back in my life, I would have been a prosecutor," he says. 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 topic: Can we get Wayne Jenkins? . Today, he's a free man, living without restrictions with his spouse and young daughter in the eastern part of Baltimore County. Sergeants are the eyes and ears of the command, the front-line supervisors trusted to keep close tabs on their officers. In the gloom I see the number of the bureau of prisons light up my cell phone screen. "I'm finally trying to get my life back on track," he told me. "It's a surreal story. Wayne Jenkins was living a double life. Homegrown commanders took pride in being known as having knockers. Jenkins admitted that he stole drugs from work and delivered them to Stepp, who would turn around and sell them. Can this US city go 72 hours without a murder? The spouse of the third left a message telling me I could take what Jenkins told me and "stuff it". But nothing more. Jenkins winced as the handcuffs were placed on his wrists, and US Marshals led him out of a back door of the courtroom. You're taught that - the second someone gets in trouble we meet up, and we talk face to face," he says. Officers in plainclothes units often operate in the shadows of a police department. 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. 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. They had the autonomy to catch and release suspects and develop informants. I asked him if he thinks that another scandal is inevitable. 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. Former Baltimore Police Department Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, currently inmate number 62928-037 at a federal prison in Kentucky, is on the line. Wayne Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department way back in 2003 as a beat cop patrolling the streets of Baltimore. One of the most shocking incidents from the plea agreement is an event that Jenkins now unequivocally denies. 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. Why cant I be like this guy?. Had the officers done things by the book, the cash and drugs would be registered with evidence control. "I deserve to be punished. But he added, All disciplinary decisions were put through the proper consideration by command staff and BPD legal department. Nobody said yes or no, instead expressing ambivalence. Detective Marcus Taylor on Thursday was sentenced to 18 years in prison on racketeering charges, including robbery and overtime fraud. No one took anything, but Jenkins later mused about the possibilities. Read about our approach to external linking. After three weeks of astonishing testimony, the jury found the two remaining officers guilty. Jenkins, who is serving a 25-year sentence in a federal prison in South Carolina, declined to speak with The Sun. Not likely, Ward thought. 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. From 2006 to 2009, Jenkins was the subject of at least four lawsuits alleging misconduct. Sgt. Having taken money before with previous squads, he expected the officers might skim some and submit the rest as cover. Credit: Baltimore Police. By Josiah Bates. Im feeling a lot of remorse for my actions I have led through my life, Oakley said at his sentencing. 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. "It's nothing I've ever imagined. It wasn't the first time I've heard that word to describe Jenkins. 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". They wanted to tell me that Jenkins was a dedicated father, a good football coach. But when the sun came up on 1 March 2017, the city awoke to a vastly different reality. Instead, they go out looking for illegal activity people exchanging drugs or displaying bulges under clothing that could be guns. The departments Internal Affairs chief at the time says then-Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa intervened to prevent the punishment. I will continue to fight to prove my innocence.". It was a red flag. The two police officers came over because they had nothing else to do.. He says Stepp pressured him into it. Former Baltimore Police Sgt. ", Paul Schiraldi/Baltimore Police Department/HBO, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. They said he prepared an arsenal of weapons and tools to begin carrying out burglaries. Wayne Jenkins will be played by Jon Bernthal, the same actor who portrayed "The Punisher". "He drew first blood," Stepp says of Jenkins. It's propped up on top of a suitcase sitting on top of a plastic tub, and I'm holding my recorder and microphone at the ready. They said that while they had their backs turned, someone had clocked OConnor and taken off. His fee will be donated to the victims of the Gun Trace Task Force. Washington (AFP) - A police officer described as perhaps the most corrupt in the history of the Baltimore police department was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday. 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. "I never took nothing from a looter, so help me god. Detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor went forward to trial and a jury found them guilty of robbery, extortion and fraud in February. "I'd rather be a prosecutor so I don't overkill people. Your digital subscription helps pay for The Baltimore Sun's investigative reporting. "Everything I tell you, I will take a polygraph," Jenkins says near the beginning of that first phone call. Contact me.". The BBC is not naming these three former supervisors, since none of them has been charged with a crime in connection with this case. In my conversation with Jenkins, he spent a lot of time disputing Stepp's account of their partnership. On June 7, 2018, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Attorneys in the integrity unit had approached another officer involved in the arrest, asking him pointed questions about whether Jenkins had lied about the drugs. The ringleader, former Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, admitted committing multiple armed robberies and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs. You never know until you get on this side, including me, what you do to families.". He ordered a detective to drive them to the hospital and joined the front lines. "It's still hard though, because I get a lot of pain in my mouth at night. Sergeant Wayne. I was a hero," Jenkins says of his activity during the unrest. In a recent interview, Simon told The Sun, I never had no BB gun. "Especially because we're short on time, is there anything that you kind of want to just say right off the bat?" 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.. She described how the unnamed officer talked about Jenkins: Hes probably the best drug detective in the city. I never heard back, and he didn't seem to be responding to anyone else, either. 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