On Friday, both detectives Evodio Hendrix and Maurice Ward were sentenced to seven years in prison. When I saw the video, Webb later told The Sun, it didnt corroborate what was in the statement of probable cause at all.. Jenkins entered a department steeped in zero tolerance a war on crime fueled by arrests for even minor infractions. When one of the men darted into his home, Jenkins rushed in after him. He claims that it was Stepp's idea to start selling drugs together, not the other way around. Barksdale, the former deputy commissioner who crafted department strategies from 2007 to 2012, leaned heavily on plainclothes units. Jenkins' lawyer mentioned that he has been assaulted at least once by another inmate who was targeting him for being a former police officer. A two-year federal investigation into the GTTF resulted in all eight officers, and one Philadelphia officer, getting charged with several offenses, including racketeering, in 2017. The jury found against the officer who broke Sneeds jaw but cleared Jenkins. The officer they talked to didnt seem like a candidate for that, the lawyers said. He resigned and the top spot at the Baltimore Police Department remains vacant. He's opening a consulting service called Stepp Right Consultants, to give guidance and insight to men and women who are about to enter the federal penal system. The GTTF was made up of eight officers, all but one of whom were indicted. 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. Until this point, I'd only heard Jenkins on. Yes, I did," he says. Wayne Jenkins grew up in Middle River and is a graduate of Eastern Technical High School. Please sign up today and help make a difference. "I knew the things we were doing were wrong," he said. While he may not be ready to let go of his animus towards Jenkins, Stepp's strange journey seems - at least for now - to be heading towards a happy ending. Jenkins joined Baltimore's police department in 2003, first becoming a beat cop and patrolling the streets of Baltimore. 'You say this, you say that, right?' "Hi, ma'am," Jenkins says when I pick up. "The largest share of the blame, the largest share of those crimes belongs to him," US attorney Leo Wise told the court. The sergeant took no one else from the flex squad. These units often operated with little supervision. Jenkins got a bronze star for his part in the 2009 recovery of 41 kilograms of cocaine $1 million worth in a mans truck. Later, Jenkins did more than talk about such a theft. "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 line goes dead, and I feel like I've barely gotten anywhere. 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. 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. "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. 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. Sneed's attorney Michael Pulver concluded, per Fenton, that the officers had "fabricated this story to hide the fact that they intentionally assaulted and falsely arrested and imprisoned Mr. Some defense attorneys say their clients told them Jenkins had robbed them. Detectives Maurice Ward, Evodio Hendrix, Momodu Gondo and Jemell Rayam all pleaded guilty. Some of the most upsetting conversations I had were with people who felt victimised twice -- by both the officers and by the criminals. 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. According to the Internal Affairs file, the only times Jenkins had been disciplined by the department was for twice failing to appear in court. Some tried to complain, but were ignored. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. They said he prepared an arsenal of weapons and tools to begin carrying out burglaries. 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. Many Baltimore residents had long distrusted the police, and more so after the death of Freddie Gray. In We Own This City, that dynamic is highlighted through the story of Wayne Jenkins - a star police officer played by The Walking Dead alum Jon Bernthal, with a pretty solid Baltimore accent . Instead, while their cash and drugs were gone, the dealers were free men. Hed grown up in the working class suburb, where his father worked two jobs, including at Bethlehem Steel. He tells me that the first time he ever stole money, he was just a rookie. 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. Arrest him, too, Jenkins yelled at the responding officers. There's no telling how many other people were affected, but were too afraid to come forward. I lived modest, we wasn't enriching ourselves," he answers. Outside on the sidewalk, he saw a bunch of cops and yelled an expletive at one he knew who happened to be Jenkins supervisor. Jenkins had joined the force at 23 after serving three years in the Marines, where he took up boxing. His police department personnel file shows no punishment related to the case. I couldn't help thinking about the many victims of the squad that I'd met over the three years I've been working on this story. A loyal friend. FOX45 looks at the 8 former officers of the Gun Trace Task ForceThe ring leader of the squad Wayne Jenkins is currently serving the longest sentence out of the members federally indicted on . Lets get this done, but were going to do it 100 percent. Nothing was 10 percent.. 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. It turned out that federal agents had the unit under surveillance for months. He woke up on a frigid city street with his jaw shattered, and couldn't eat solid food for months. For the most part, these defendants decided it wasnt in their interest to tell government authorities that. "How police act towards people ain't changed," he told me recently. The tape disputed Jenkins sworn account. He names the veteran he says coached him into stealing for the first time. 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. They tracked other dealers and broke into their houses when no one was home. The ringleader, former Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, admitted committing multiple armed robberies and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs. One former supervisor never responded. The drop-offs included marijuana, cocaine and MDMA, all of which Stepp did his best to sell. As adults, they ran into each other again at an underground card game frequented by Baltimore Police officers. "Life in prison with three small children. Despite the lawsuits and later, video evidence from his squads body cameras Jenkins supervisors failed to scrutinize the arrests he was making. I have to try to untangle his answers as he moves from subject to subject, sometimes so fast I can't keep up. "Wayne is truly sorry for his actions. As Jenkins is telling me this, he is naming names. When Jenkins was on paternity leave, commanders groused that his squads productivity dropped. "So you did take money, ultimately?" A strange back and forth with a man who used to be Jenkins' cell mate ultimately ended up with me in my closet waiting for that call. The three prosecutors concluded the officer admired Jenkins work even as he may have been trying to protect the sergeant. Some of his men also have acknowledged stealing well before they came together on the Gun Trace Task Force in 2016. "I'm here because of greed," he said. It's a depressing fact that this is a viewpoint likely shared by many in Baltimore, and is a part of the reason why the GTTF got away with what they did for so long. "Later on that evening, Gondo did give me money, that means hours later, I'm talking hours later, he gave me money.". Wayne Jenkins will be played by Jon Bernthal, the same actor who portrayed "The Punisher". Wayne Jenkins fist felt like a hammer to Tim OConnors face. It wasn't the first time I've heard that word to describe Jenkins. I got gangster charges, racketeering charges, things they usually give the mob, who were burying bodies in cement.". I never aimed nothing at him . That made it very tempting when, sometime around 2011, Jenkins approached Stepp and suggested they go into business together. Instead, they go out looking for illegal activity people exchanging drugs or displaying bulges under clothing that could be guns. 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. He was also the ringleader of a criminal enterprise of police officers who were robbing people and dealing drugs. "He perverted the criminal justice system.". Your digital subscription helps pay for The Baltimore Sun's investigative reporting. Wayne Jenkins. The departments Internal Affairs chief at the time says then-Deputy Commissioner Darryl De Sousa intervened to prevent the punishment. "I did, yes. Human error to blame for train crash - Greek PM, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. Five years later, Simons claims were confirmed. He told the other officers to leave their cell phones and police vests in the car. Inside was a stack of bills. Its a Viking mentality: You go out into the field among the bad guys, and you bring back a bounty, Davis said. Or harm you or even kill you.". His supplier needed to offload two garbage bags of pharmaceutical drugs stolen from people who had themselves looted pharmacies. He was arrested along with almost every member of the unit in March 2017. One such warning came in 2010 from a Baltimore man caught drug dealing. When the man stopped his car and started to run away, Jenkins drove after him and into someones front yard, where he struck him. Prosecutors investigated and even presented evidence to a grand jury but concluded they didnt have enough evidence to obtain an indictment. 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. I ask. I've been reporting on Jenkins, and the elite Gun Trace Task Force squad he once led, for nearly four years. But he added, All disciplinary decisions were put through the proper consideration by command staff and BPD legal department. The message read: "Greetings. "Seen it done, honest to god, 500 times.". Ward and the other cop followed Jenkins into the woods. The prosecutors characterised both men as having less culpability in the GTTF's schemes and that Ward in particular had provided valuable information that lead to additional charges against other officers. "I never had [theft complaints] because I never took money off individuals. Weeks later, I search these locations myself to see if I can find anything. Sergeants are the eyes and ears of the command, the front-line supervisors trusted to keep close tabs on their officers. 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. In our conversation, Jenkins says that that's not true - members of the squad did steal money that day, but from somewhere else in the house. But in less than a year, Sergeant Jenkins was put in charge of the new plainclothes squad in West Baltimore. "Everything I tell you, I will take a polygraph," Jenkins says near the beginning of that first phone call. Wayne Jenkins eyes darted from screen to screen, taking in the surveillance images. Wayne was a cops cop, local hero kind of guy, said Cirello, the retired officer. During the altercation, a passerby named George Sneed was assaulted by officer Robert Cirello who broke his jaw, leading Sneed to sue. "It was a front for a criminal enterprise," Stepp said of the Gun Trace Task Force. "It's a surreal story. Jenkins was given a 25-year prison sentence on June 7, 2018, which he is currently in the midst of serving at a federal prison in Kentucky. They employed tactics that straddled and sometimes clearly crossed the line that divides aggressive policing and trampling on civil rights. It was nicknamed The Barn an apparent homage to the offices of a corrupt police unit on the television series The Shield. The show, modeled after a 1990s Los Angeles Police Department scandal, featured a strike team that roughed up suspects, lied about their investigations and took a cut of their drug busts. But two pronounced their innocence and went to trial, which I covered for the BBC. In May 2014, three Baltimore prosecutors convened a meeting. Many plainclothes units would work out of a satellite office inside a trailer in Northwest Baltimore. Later in 2015, he took over a new squad of plainclothes officers within the latest rebranding, the Special Enforcement Section. 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. His earliest admitted theft was in 2011. "I still maintain my innocence. The two said Jenkins had found drugs in the ceiling of a mans vehicle. 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