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Speaker 2: Previously on Bad Cops, an elite unit of police officers
Speaker 2: has gone rogue in the city of Baltimore. They're called
Speaker 2: the Gun Trace Task Force and their leader is Sergeant
Speaker 2: Wayne Jenkins. Their job is to get illegal guns off
Speaker 2: the streets, but they've also been planting evidence, framing people
Speaker 2: stealing money and drugs.
Speaker 3: I was robbed bow Baltimore City Police, you know, rob
Speaker 3: with gun on robbery.
Speaker 2: FBI Special Agent Erica Jensen has been on their tail
Speaker 2: for months. In an attempt to catch them red handed.
Speaker 2: She set a trap a motor home stuffed full of cash.
Speaker 2: She was hoping the cops would steal the money, but
Speaker 2: they didn't fall for it. They seemed to smell a
Speaker 2: rat and Agent Jensen was forced to pull the plug.
Speaker 4: I knew if we got discovered that we might lose
Speaker 4: the whole case. Ole case, my fall apart.
Speaker 2: But despite her disappointment, Agent Jensen can now see just
Speaker 2: how jumpy these officers in the unit have become. I'm
Speaker 2: Jessica Lewson Hopp, and you're listening to Bad Cops on
Speaker 2: the BBC World Service. The True Story of Baltimore's Gun
Speaker 2: Trace Task Force, Part five, The Takedown. FBI Agent Erica
Speaker 2: Jensen has been investigating the Gun Trace Task Force, an
Speaker 2: elite plain clothes unit of the Baltimore Police Department that
Speaker 2: she knows is deeply corrupt. On wire taps, She's heard
Speaker 2: them talking about how they might be under investigation, and
Speaker 2: as their suspicions grow, Agent Jensen has to tread carefully.
Speaker 2: She's still got the wire tap running on one of
Speaker 2: the cops cell phones, and she's hearing the task Force
Speaker 2: officers say a lot of stuff that they shouldn't be.
Speaker 2: That's Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, leader of the Gun Trace Task Force,
Speaker 2: calling one of his officers, Detective Mama du Gondo got
Speaker 2: the package. We got the package? Gondo means the guy
Speaker 2: he's got handcuffed in the backseat of his car. Earlier
Speaker 2: that evening, Gondo and his partner Jamel Raham were secretly
Speaker 2: watching the man and his wife as they shopped for
Speaker 2: blinds at a home depot in northwest Baltimore. The couple
Speaker 2: were on their way home when the task force officers
Speaker 2: stopped them.
Speaker 4: Okay, hey, lodge anything.
Speaker 2: At all well, Jenkins tells Gondo He's on his way,
Speaker 2: and then down.
Speaker 4: You got a way for the US attorneys would be like, hey,
Speaker 4: how were you? We got on a bargain a potis
Speaker 4: and they got introduced me at the US attorney.
Speaker 5: I got you by don You guys got talking.
Speaker 2: When I get there, introduce me as the US attorney.
Speaker 2: That's another Jenkins ploy, claiming to be a prosecutor or
Speaker 2: a DEA agent. The idea is to intimidate a suspect,
Speaker 2: make them think they're in much bigger trouble than they
Speaker 2: really are, and using this tactic, Jenkins is planning to
Speaker 2: lean on the guy handcuffed along with his wife in
Speaker 2: the back of Gondo's car. His name's Ronald Hamilton, and
Speaker 2: the unit's been why for a while. He served time
Speaker 2: for drug dealing and he's been out of prison a
Speaker 2: couple of years. But according to an informant, Ronald Hamilton
Speaker 2: is back dealing drugs and if he is, he could
Speaker 2: be what Jenkins calls a monster, a big time dealer
Speaker 2: sitting on a pile of cash and drugs, the perfect
Speaker 2: target for the unit to rip off. When Jenkins arrives
Speaker 2: minutes later, he grills Hamilton, but the whole US attorney
Speaker 2: act it doesn't work. Hamilton is adamant he doesn't sell
Speaker 2: drugs anymore. He sells used cars, and he's got the
Speaker 2: receipts to prove it. Jenkins doesn't believe him, so he
Speaker 2: sticks the Hamilton's in the backseat of his car and
Speaker 2: the whole unit heads for their house in the suburbs.
Speaker 2: When they arrive, they find the Hamilton's children in the house.
Speaker 2: They order them out, then Jenkins and his officers go inside.
Speaker 2: In a bedroom, they find seventy thousand dollars in cash,
Speaker 2: and they take twenty thousand dollars of it. They also
Speaker 2: pocket a super high end wristwatch, but they found nothing illegal.
Speaker 2: Rayam walks out the front door with the twenty thousand
Speaker 2: in a bag and slips Hamilton his business card. Hamilton
Speaker 2: is flabbergasted, and later, once he discovers his money is missing,
Speaker 2: he texts Ram, you robbed me. A few hours later,
Speaker 2: Ram realizes he's also missing some of Hamilton's money, he's
Speaker 2: just counted it and they're three thousand dollars short. So
Speaker 2: he calls his partner and buddy, Mama du gondo, Yo,
Speaker 2: we'll talk. I don't count no negative.
Speaker 5: I'll come on. Man, Hey, I'm accounting.
Speaker 3: I'll never let you know me.
Speaker 2: Hey.
Speaker 6: Well, well, I'm just let you know.
Speaker 4: It's a mistake that money.
Speaker 3: I'm letting you know it.
Speaker 5: Man, I'm in the car. All.
Speaker 2: I haven't got no reason, lot man, let you know.
Speaker 2: This is something Agent Jensen hasn't heard before. It seems
Speaker 2: the task Force officers now can't even trust each other.
Speaker 4: Someone skimmed some money off the top of that twenty
Speaker 4: thousand dollars and it just wasn't how we thought that
Speaker 4: they were with each other, Like they wouldn't have taken
Speaker 4: money from each other like that, because when they go
Speaker 4: to split it now, the split is less.
Speaker 2: FBI Special Agent Jensen has been piecing together the crimes
Speaker 2: of the gun traced Task Force from wire taps, but
Speaker 2: also from listening to the jail calls of people the
Speaker 2: unit's been arresting. She's hoping to identify victims without approaching
Speaker 2: them directly, as another precaution against leaks, but despite Jensen's
Speaker 2: best efforts, there's a suspicion creeping through the squad a
Speaker 2: few that they're being watched, and it's around this time
Speaker 2: that the unit's leader, Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, steps away. He
Speaker 2: takes three months of paternity leave. It's good timing for Jenkins.
Speaker 2: It gives him an opportunity to let things cool off,
Speaker 2: and without him, the rest of the crew seems to
Speaker 2: slow down. The kind of criminal activity Agent Jensen is
Speaker 2: used to hearing almost stops. She knows there's no point
Speaker 2: in waiting any longer. It's time to pull the trigger.
Speaker 2: It's also now time, finally to brief the Baltimore Police
Speaker 2: Department's top brass on what their Golden Boys have really
Speaker 2: been up to and to start plotting their takedown. Arresting
Speaker 2: police officers is a potentially deadly task. Agent Jensen doesn't
Speaker 2: know what the officers might be capable of. If they're
Speaker 2: backed into a corner, they're armed, and they've all got
Speaker 2: a lot to lose. What if they try to make
Speaker 2: a run for it, or turn their weapons on themselves
Speaker 2: or even on others.
Speaker 4: We were concerned about things like suicide by police or
Speaker 4: other reactions.
Speaker 2: Age Jensen is hoping she can avoid the worst case scenario. So,
Speaker 2: working with the Baltimore Police Department leadership for the first time,
Speaker 2: they come up with a ruse. Soon after Wayne Jenkins
Speaker 2: is back from paternity leave, he gets a call. It's
Speaker 2: from the Department of Internal Affairs, the division of the
Speaker 2: Baltimore Police Department that investigates its own officers. He's told
Speaker 2: there's a complaint against him. It's something trivial, nothing to
Speaker 2: worry about. They've found some damage on one of the
Speaker 2: unmarked cars he's been using. They just need Jenkins and
Speaker 2: the rest of his unit to give an explanation for
Speaker 2: the damage so they can close the case. He'll be
Speaker 2: motivated to sort it out. He's been gunning for promotion
Speaker 2: to lieutenant and he won't get it with a complaint
Speaker 2: hanging over him. But it's a trap. It's early morning,
Speaker 2: March first, twenty seventeen. The sky is still pitch black
Speaker 2: when the FBI swat team sneaks into Internal Affairs headquarters.
Speaker 2: This is it the day FBI Special Agent Erica Jensen
Speaker 2: and her team have been working towards all these months.
Speaker 2: It's also one of the most precarious moments the whole investigation.
Speaker 2: She's nervous, worried that the task force officers might scent something.
Speaker 4: I don't know that we all thought everyone would show up,
Speaker 4: but we were certainly concerned that.
Speaker 2: They had advanced notice. To her frustration, Erica is not
Speaker 2: where the action is.
Speaker 4: My role was to be at the command post. It's
Speaker 4: not the most desirable place to be, but that's where
Speaker 4: the case agent ends up.
Speaker 2: She's at the FBI base outside the city, monitoring all
Speaker 2: the moving parts of the operation, feeding information back to
Speaker 2: her colleagues at the Internal Affairs building. It's eight forty five.
Speaker 2: Wayne Jenkins pulls into the Internal Affairs parking lot. He's
Speaker 2: right on time. He enters the lobby, checks his gun.
Speaker 2: He's then escorted to the elevator, where he takes it
Speaker 2: up to the second floor. The door's open. Before he
Speaker 2: can even take a step, he's met by the site
Speaker 2: of a heavily armed FBI SWAT team. They scream at
Speaker 2: him to get his hands up and handcuff him. He's
Speaker 2: hauled off into a side room. Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, leader
Speaker 2: of the Gun Trace Task Force, is now in custody.
Speaker 2: Detective Jamel Raam is the next to arrive. He enters
Speaker 2: the lobby, checks his weapon, and goes up to the
Speaker 2: second floor. One after the other, the officers are taken down.
Speaker 2: Detective Mama Dugondo arrives last. He's almost forty minutes late.
Speaker 2: He strolls into the building dressed in a crisp maroon shirt.
Speaker 2: He checks in his gun and enters the elevator. Seven
Speaker 2: officers from the Elite Gun Trace Task Force, one of
Speaker 2: the crown jewels of the Baltimore Police Department, are now
Speaker 2: in custody, held in separate rooms, but at the FBI
Speaker 2: command post outside the city, Agent Jensen doesn't feel like
Speaker 2: it's a time to celebrate.
Speaker 4: You know, you're relieved that all of them showed up,
Speaker 4: but then we still had lots more.
Speaker 2: Work ahead of us. With her at the command post
Speaker 2: is the Baltimore Police Department's top cop, Commissioner Kevin Davis.
Speaker 2: He's been watching the operation unfold alongside her. With all
Speaker 2: of the unit now under arrest, Commissioner Davis makes his
Speaker 2: way to the Internal Affairs building.
Speaker 6: I told the FBI that I want us to look
Speaker 6: each and every one of these guys INBI. I wanted
Speaker 6: them to see the discussed and disappointment and frankly that
Speaker 6: anger and outrage on my face.
Speaker 2: He goes from room to room say nothing. The officers
Speaker 2: either drop their eyes or look away. Finally he gets
Speaker 2: to the room where Sergeant Wayne Jenkins is being held.
Speaker 2: It's less than a year since he awarded Jenkins the
Speaker 2: Bronze Star for bravery.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget it.
Speaker 5: He's a big guy.
Speaker 6: So they used two sets of handcuffs, and I remember
Speaker 6: taking two or three steps into the room. I was
Speaker 6: probably five or six feet away from Wayne Jenkins, and
Speaker 6: I stared at him right in the eye. And he
Speaker 6: didn't do what the other detectives did. He didn't look away,
Speaker 6: he didn't look at his feet. He looked right back
Speaker 6: at me, raighting in my eyes, right through me, as
Speaker 6: if to say fu.
Speaker 2: Now to a shocking corruption scandal in Baltimore. Seven police
Speaker 2: officers indicted on federal One sergeant.
Speaker 6: And six detectives, all at some point assigned to the
Speaker 6: department's Gun Trace Task Force, aren't handcuffs today.
Speaker 2: They were arrested and photographed by the police department before
Speaker 2: taken to federal court. This case started a year ago
Speaker 2: after digging into a separate drug conspiracy investigation involving one
Speaker 2: of those accused officers.
Speaker 3: Turns out that was just the tip of this criminalizedburt They.
Speaker 2: Were even wired tapped by the FBI.
Speaker 4: The US attorney involved is calling this a major abuse
Speaker 4: of power. This kind of conduct by police officers.
Speaker 2: Tarnishes the reputation of all police officers.
Speaker 4: Commissioner Kevin Davis calls them the lowest of the low.
Speaker 6: These officers, they're nineteen thirty style gangsters as far as
Speaker 6: I'm concerned.
Speaker 2: At the time the news breaks, Gary Brown is sitting
Speaker 2: at home watching TV. It's been eight years since he
Speaker 2: went to Internal Affairs to complain that he'd been robbed
Speaker 2: by a bunch of cops, one of them Detective Jamel
Speaker 2: Ram from the Gun Trace Task Force. Now, eight years later,
Speaker 2: he's watching the news and learning that the same cop
Speaker 2: that robbed him has been arrested.
Speaker 3: And his face popped up and I said, that's him,
Speaker 3: That's the guy that took my money. You know, you're
Speaker 3: telling people that the police took some money from you.
Speaker 3: They likee man, you talking on the side of yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, nobody you know believe me. You know, this
Speaker 3: guy was working under Ball City for yeas.
Speaker 2: Nearly two thousand kilometers away in Oklahoma, a man named
Speaker 2: Umar Burley is also watching TV sitting in the wreck
Speaker 2: room of a federal prison. He's serving a fifteen year
Speaker 2: sentence after he was arrested by Sergeant Wayne Jenkins. When
Speaker 2: the news flashes up on the screen, Burley, or Little
Speaker 2: Baltimore as he's known inside, isn't really paying attention until
Speaker 2: the other inmates call him over.
Speaker 5: The guys in there, said, Lord Baltimore, a bunch of
Speaker 5: police officers from the Task Force just got arrested for
Speaker 5: doing a lot of crazy stuff. You should check that out.
Speaker 2: On the screen, he sees the man who helped put
Speaker 2: him away. Burley tries not to get his hopes up.
Speaker 2: He's told his story about Jenkins many times, but no
Speaker 2: one has ever believed him.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to get to you excited because this
Speaker 5: thing and going on for a while, and I didn't
Speaker 5: know if he is real or not.
Speaker 2: Until he was shipped off to a federal prison. Umar
Speaker 2: Burley spent his whole life in Baltimore.
Speaker 5: At first, I was an all A student, and then
Speaker 5: I would say it was my high school years. Street
Speaker 5: and Florence became a bigger part of my life. The
Speaker 5: girls trying to be the popular guy. So I began
Speaker 5: to hang with the brown crowd, and I began to
Speaker 5: cut school and get into other things, and that's when
Speaker 5: it all started.
Speaker 2: Burley says he got caught up in a drug case
Speaker 2: involving his uncle and spent years in juvenile detention. As
Speaker 2: an adult, he got deeper into the drug game and
Speaker 2: was arrested multiple times. But it was an incident in
Speaker 2: April twenty ten that would land Umar Burley in federal prison.
Speaker 2: He was sitting in his car with his cousin when
Speaker 2: an unmarked car pulled up in front of him, and
Speaker 2: then a second vehicle tried to block him in. Behind
Speaker 2: the wheel of one of the cars was Wayne Jenkins.
Speaker 2: The officers jumped out of guns drawn. Burley insists he
Speaker 2: had no idea they were cops.
Speaker 5: I didn't know who it was. I panicked and I
Speaker 5: just took off.
Speaker 2: And the other two cars gave chase. He was flying
Speaker 2: through a stop sign when at the last second he
Speaker 2: saw another car pull into his path.
Speaker 5: So I tries to turn away from the car, and
Speaker 5: the car actually turned the same way I'm turning, so boom.
Speaker 2: The other driver was eighty six year old Albert Davis
Speaker 2: on his way home from visiting one of his children.
Speaker 2: His wife was sitting alongside him. Albert Davis was killed
Speaker 2: and his wife was badly injured. The paramedics were trying
Speaker 2: to save the couple. Wayne Jenkins and the other officers
Speaker 2: at the scene were busy searching the wreckage of Burley's car.
Speaker 2: They pulled out thirty two grams of heroin and.
Speaker 5: I was like, man, I had thirty two grands or
Speaker 5: nothing in my car. I didn't have anything in my car.
Speaker 2: From the moment he was arrested, Umer Burley insisted the
Speaker 2: drugs were not his. They were planted. But that's the
Speaker 2: kind of story that gets little sympathy from prosecutors. They've
Speaker 2: heard it a thousand times before. Burley had no proof,
Speaker 2: and he was a repeat offender who had just killed
Speaker 2: someone while trying to outrun the cops. The best option,
Speaker 2: the prosecutor told him, was to plead guilty and hope
Speaker 2: for a short sentence. If he pled not guilty at
Speaker 2: trial and lost, he might spend the rest of his
Speaker 2: life behind bars.
Speaker 5: She said, you will be old and great, probably not
Speaker 5: even able to walk before you get out if you.
Speaker 2: Come up so Umar Burley pled guilty to manslaughter and
Speaker 2: drug charges. He was sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison.
Speaker 2: What was it like to say that, To have to
Speaker 2: stand in front of a courtroom and say that you
Speaker 2: did those things?
Speaker 5: It was hard, but it was a muss because I
Speaker 5: know if I didn't do it, then I would never
Speaker 5: see the light of day. You know, I would never
Speaker 5: walk the streets again, So you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: It was a hurtful and a painful thing, but I
Speaker 5: knew there was nothing I could do and no one
Speaker 5: to help me to get out of it.
Speaker 2: With the officers from the Gun Tray's Task Force now
Speaker 2: in custody, the work for investigators and prosecutors is only
Speaker 2: just getting started. Similar cases in the past collapsed because
Speaker 2: the officers simply stuck together, refusing to admit anything. And
Speaker 2: that's what some of the Task Force officers vow to
Speaker 2: do that first night after their arrest, locked up together
Speaker 2: in a jail outside Baltimore City. But as they learn
Speaker 2: just how much evidence the prosecution has against them, some
Speaker 2: of the officers begin to crack and they start cooperating.
Speaker 2: They meet with federal prosecutors, offering up any information they
Speaker 2: think might help them get more favorable treatment, and one
Speaker 2: of the first stories offered up is about a car crash,
Speaker 2: the death of an elderly driver, and thirty two grams
Speaker 2: of planted heroin. Six months after Burley saw Wayne Jenkins's
Speaker 2: face on the prison TV, prosecutors pay him a visit.
Speaker 2: It's not the kind of meeting he's expecting. When they
Speaker 2: walk in, they tell him right away, we believe you.
Speaker 5: We already know that the drugs is planning in your car,
Speaker 5: and all we want you to do is tell your
Speaker 5: side of what happened.
Speaker 2: But even as his former crew is turning against him,
Speaker 2: Wayne Jenkins denies that he was the one who planted
Speaker 2: the drugs in Burley's car that day, So the prosecutors
Speaker 2: reach out to the other cops at the scene of
Speaker 2: the fatal accident. One of them is a homicide detective,
Speaker 2: Sean Suitor. At the time of the Burley crash in
Speaker 2: twenty ten, Suitor was a plain closed drug detective like Jenkins.
Speaker 2: Then he'd gone over to homicide, where he gained a
Speaker 2: pretty stellar reputation. Defense lawyers and even drug dealers say
Speaker 2: he was respectful, trustworthy, the kind of cop who didn't
Speaker 2: harass the neighborhood kids for no reason. He seemed to
Speaker 2: genuinely care about his job. The FBI reaches out to Suitor.
Speaker 2: They ask him to testify about what he knows in
Speaker 2: the Umar Burley case. But within a month, Shawn Suitor
Speaker 2: will be dead, shot with his own weapon in a
Speaker 2: dusty vacant lot in West Baltimore.
Speaker 1: He was killed the day before he was scheduled to
Speaker 1: testify in a case against indicted Baltimore officers.
Speaker 2: The revelation sends the city of Baltimore into a frenzy
Speaker 2: of rumor and speculation.
Speaker 6: We killed Detective Shawn Suitor remains an open question for police,
Speaker 6: prosecutors and the medical examiner.
Speaker 2: Was the timing of Shawn Suter's death a coincidence? Was
Speaker 2: someone trying to stop him from testifying?
Speaker 4: Or was this.
Speaker 2: Tragedy something else altogether? That's next time You've been listening
Speaker 2: to Bad Cops on the BBC World Service with me
Speaker 2: Jessica Lawson Hoot. The program was mixed by Neil Churchill
Speaker 2: additional mixing by James Beard. The producer is Ben Crichton
Speaker 2: and the editor is Richard.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying Bad Cops, make sure to check out
Speaker 1: Season one of The Burden, you'll meet the greatest detective
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn history. He takes on the worst criminals until
Speaker 1: one day, the criminals take him on.