The huge police corruption scandal in Baltimore is unfolding in court

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According to the Baltimore Sun, it started when a 19-year-old woman from New Jersey overdosed in 2011 and authorities began tracing the origin of the drugs. It led them to a Baltimore drug crew and the discovery that a Baltimore police officer was involved. By the time they finished investigating, eight members of the elite Gun Trace Task Force had been charged with crimes ranging from racketeering to robbery.

You want robbery? How about the story of the corrupt squad stopping a drug dealer during a traffic stop and robbing him of $6,500, then going to the man’s home without a warrant and taking another $100,000 out of a safe? Sgt. Wayne Jenkins would ask suspected drug dealers, “If you could put together a crew of guys and rob the biggest drug dealer in town, who would it be?”

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you’re interested in police targeting regular citizens, maybe you should read about how the Maurice Ward had a technique of driving fast at groups of people, slamming on the brakes and chasing whoever ran. Perhaps you hear how Jenkins believed that all young men with backpacks were dope boys. Or people who drove Honda Accords with tinted windows.

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And then there’s the revelation that the supervisor of the unit instructed officers to carry a toy gun just in case they found themselves “in a jam” and needed to plant one. When one of the officers, Marcus Tayor, was arrested, officials couldn’t figure out why he had a toy gun in his glove compartment.

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These revelations aren’t speculation. Six of the eight indicted officers have agreed to cooperate with federal law enforcement agents and are testifying in open court. An officer who was scheduled to offer evidence against the crooked cops won’t get to do so after he was mysteriously shot in the head with his own weapon the day before he was set to testify.

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Ward said the officers used illegal GPS trackers to follow the movements of some targets.

» Jenkins would ask suspected drug dealers, “If you could put together a crew of guys and rob the biggest drug dealer in town, who would it be?” The officers would use the answers to determine who to target, Ward said.

» Ward said the officers kept BB guns in their vehicles “in case we accidentally hit somebody or got into a shootout, so we could plant them.” He did not say whether the officers ever planted a BB gun on anyone.

» In one incident, police took a man’s house keys, ran his name through databases to find his address, went into the home without a warrant and found drugs and a safe. The officers cracked open the safe, which had about $200,000 inside. They took $100,000 out, closed the safe back up, then filmed themselves pretending to open it for the first time. “Nobody touch anything,” Jenkins can be heard saying on the video, which was played for jurors.

» After the man’s arrest, Jenkins listened to the man’s calls made from jail. He was discussing the officers taking his money, and said he wanted to hire a good lawyer to go after them. Ward said Jenkins determined the man’s wife was arranging his legal matters, and wanted to cut her out. They wrote a note purporting to be from another woman, saying the man had gotten her pregnant, and left it in the man’s door, Ward said

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Ward said the unit’s supervisor, Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, instructed the officers to carry replica guns to plant if they found themselves in a jam. Police recovered a replica gun from the glove box of Taylor’s vehicle after he was arrested last year. The gun, shown to jurors, is nearly indistinguishable from Taylor’s service pistol.

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Hendrix said Jenkins showed members of his squad two large black bags — one stuffed with masks and black clothing, the other with tools that included a sledgehammer, a machete, an axe and lock cutters, as well as a grappling hook and rope. He said he carried the items “in case he ran into a ‘monster,’ ” or someone with a lot of money and drugs, according to Hendrix.

» Hendrix testified that overtime abuse and unauthorized paid days off were rampant in the police department.

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