We Own This City (2022) s01e05 Episode Script

That was Jenkins, though.
He just didn't care if he saw another sunrise.
Okay.
Let's shift back over to you.
You You joined the force '05.
Started in the Northwest.
And you told us that you were doing small robberies, places like Belvedere Towers back then.
That was around '08.
And, just laying into some people, like I said.
Not any big stuff.
If I may, you sustained a gunshot wound in 2006.
What was that about? I caught a hot one when some dude tried to rob me and he got shot.
It's in the reports.
You said that I'm sure you got all that.
Actually, we have conflicting info on that incident.
Conflicting? One source indicated that that shooting was actually drug related.
A retaliation for some trafficking you were involved with.
Who told you that, Rayam? Shoot.
It's Jemell just trying to shine the teacher's apple if he's laying stuff like that off on me.
I mean, that ain't even credible.
What is what is that? I mean, he's my boy, but he always had his own problems.
- What kind of problems? - He likes women, for one.
I'm just saying, this man sets his watch to pussy.
Excuse me, Miss Jensen.
This shit goes way back to when he was in uniform.
He was lined up with the underworld from the beginning.
Jemell was married but, you know, - he had this girlfriend, Crystal Ferguson.
- What's up? You want You want me to All right.
See ya.
She knew all the players west of M.
L.
K.
When they'd be at their cribs, when they wouldn't.
She'd tell Jemell when they could be got.
Fucking G-Money said that shit? Oh, wow.
That's fucking funny.
He he's acting like he's all pure now.
Okay.
- This fucking guy.
- Did Crystal Ferguson provide you with robbery targets? She mighta.
I don't recall, exactly.
This was when you and Detective Gondo were on the Violent Crime Impact Division together? No.
We went there later on.
And we weren't on VCID together.
But we were doing our thing, for sure.
But separate.
In 2009, you fatally shot a citizen, Shawn Cannady, in an alley off Pimlico Road.
Self-defense.
Uh-uh.
No, no, not just the one.
No, Jemell shot three people that year.
Three.
Get out of the car.
Get out of the car, now! Now, Rayam told me he did the thing.
I mean he never denied it.
Made it like the driver of a Lexus was using his vehicle as a weapon, claimed the Lex had clipped Giordano.
Jemell got off on that one.
Palmere was right there on the scene, coaching my man.
Palmere, the deputy commissioner? Yeah.
Colonel back then, but yeah.
EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES BALTIMORE CITY FIRE DEPARTMEN Colonel.
POLICE You felt that your life was in danger.
Got it? The Cannady shooting was justified.
And you were subsequently suspended for two years.
Yeah, while they investigated the thug from the Gary Brown stop.
You lied to IAD investigators regarding that one.
- Right.
- Suspended with pay.
I guess, you could say I was in limbo.
Yeah.
And when you came off suspension in 2012 Yeah.
I went to the Gun Trace Task Force.
What am I paying you 500 dollars an hour for? TRAYVON MARTIN - FREDDIE GRAY - MIKE BROWN I AM HERE BECAUSE ITS HOME POLICE BALTIMORE POLICE 2.
7 KILO'S, $100,000.
00 - Back up.
- Back up.
DOUBLE D BAIL BONDS EVERYONE LOVES DOUBLE D'S Baltimore is a poster child for the basic failure to stop lawlessness.
No justice, no peace! I've heard your calls for no justice, no peace.
No justice, no peace! MAGIC POLICE DEPARTMENT - BALTIMORE, MARYLAND INDIVIDUAL OVERTIME REPOR MONDAY Where there's smoke, there's fire.
These officers, they're 1930s-style gangsters.
WE OWN THIS CITY Detective Gondo, you joined the GTTF 2010.
Two years before Rayam.
He got bounced around for a couple of years.
He was battling an Internal Affairs investigation.
Before Rayam joined the GTTF, what was going on within the squad? Nothing inappropriate.
Nothing criminal.
Not really.
And then after he came back from his suspension and rejoined? I mean, this shit just seemed to go downhill.
That's all for now.
All right, man, come on.
Gondo doesn't have a problem talking about a guy he says was his boy.
Some friend.
Man, it's hard to believe Rayam has all those shootings, lies to the investigators, gets caught on those lies, and and when he comes off suspension, they reward him by dropping him in one of the most elite squads in the BPD.
Cream rises to the top.
MAY 2016 TWELVE MONTHS EARLIER Copy, turning 11 around.
Fifteen blocks away.
Can I get a No ID? Nothing on him.
Rigor says he's been there a while.
I'll start knocking on doors.
You all right? Just a moment of your time.
All right? That's all I need.
How you doin' today, sir? Detective Sean Suiter.
- You are? - I'm not inclined to give my name.
Do you live around here? I stay up on Bond, near Preston.
I was wondering if you saw or heard anything related to this, probably last night.
By any chance, do you recognize the victim? Look, let me be straight with you, Detective, to save you some time.
I don't talk to police.
- I'm Homicide.
- Make no difference to me.
Ain't nobody born Homicide.
Were you one of those jump-out boys? I did that for a while, yes.
Some of y'all rob people.
Hell, I got robbed my damn self.
Look, nothing personal.
But I've been living in Baltimore all my life.
I know.
I know.
Just a moment.
Something comes to you please call.
Hey, Sean.
These houses are vacant here.
So what else we got, Charlie? What do you want? I got Fourth Amendment violations, warrantless searches You know what people are gonna say out in the suburbs? Hell, you know what half the country would say if they were to read this stuff? "They might not have been guilty of something on the day they got pulled over or jacked up, but they damn sure were guilty of something.
" So? So I'm saying, in the minds of Wonder Bread Americans, these people aren't really victims.
They deserved it.
Ahmed's right about the optics.
Look, we dug up instances where Baltimore police came down on people who weren't drug dealers, who weren't doing anything dirty.
These folks had no previous charges whatsoever outside of simple marijuana possession or traffic violations.
I've got claims that cops flat-out robbed straight citizens.
Hold on.
Let's see Here it is.
Guy's name is James Otis.
You should talk to him.
He ran afoul of a guy we know and love.
Our old friend.
All right.
I'll go and talk to him.
We have a little time to add the finishing touches to the decree.
There's Gondo.
Be advised, the subject has gone to ground.
We'll wait to be sure he's in for the night, then move.
Copy that.
Okay.
Hey, I can do this for you.
You can do this for me? I mean, you know, in case In case what? I'm just saying.
You know, I mean, it's dark, - you're crawling around in there.
- It's dark and I can't find my way around the interior of a Chevrolet? I guess that didn't sound right.
How did you want it to sound? Like a middle-aged White guy from 1974.
No, you pretty much nailed that.
We are a go.
Copy that.
We see her on the move.
Come on, come on, come on.
Testing.
Can you hear me? Okay.
She's out.
Copy.
We hear it.
Picked you up as soon as you got in.
Clear as a bell.
Sound activated.
So as soon as you open that door, it kicked in.
Okay, we're set.
All clear.
Oh, man.
Oh, no.
I think I messed my hair up.
- Oh, Johnny, how's my hair look? - Okay.
Enough.
Thank you.
No casings anywhere around the body.
Could be he got done with a revolver.
Or the casings got picked up.
Well Autopsy will tell us tomorrow.
We're not gonna get much help from the residents.
Man you spoke to earlier was rough on you, huh? Well, he's right about some things.
He had his truth.
I had my path.
I took it to get here.
I like what I'm doing now.
I'm not gonna get all dramatic about it, say it's my calling.
But being in Homicide, doing this kind of work, it feels right.
But working drugs, that wasn't my finest hour.
I mean, that shit was pointless, really.
And I saw some things.
That was a long time ago.
You want another? I'm buying.
In that case, let me get something off the top shelf.
- James Otis? - That's right.
Nicole Steele, DOJ.
Thank you.
It's quiet in here.
We got three kids, so that's unusual.
Two of 'em are in school today.
And my wife took the youngest one out so we could talk.
Are you currently employed? Not currently.
I was a HVAC repairman, you know, heating and air? I'll get to that.
Tell me about the incident.
You mean, when I got pulled over.
I had just grabbed some pizza for me and my family, at that Ledo's they got behind Hopkins.
And I was headed home on a street off of North Avenue, near Green Mount Cemetery.
It was Hersl and two others.
And this wasn't the first time I got stopped by Officer Hersl.
He had a thing about my car, I guess.
Anyway, they said my taillight was out.
Was it? Yeah, it was.
I got this classic car, an Impala SS.
I bought on time.
I knew my light was out, but I was waiting on the bulb to come in.
Not easy to get parts on older cars.
Homer Avenue.
Still in Lower Park Heights? That's a nice neighborhood.
If you're gonna give me a citation for that taillight, give me one.
I'm trying to get home to my family.
Oh, you see that? Assaulting a police officer.
Cuff his ass.
Motherfucker.
What'd you say? Oh, shit.
You know what? That reminds me, I almost forgot to search your vehicle.
Man, you got no cause for that.
Yes, I do.
Could it be that sweet, sickening smell? You know, the one they told us about in middle school? Middle school about as far as you got, too.
- Yeah, keep talking.
- Sit down, asshole.
Had you been smoking weed? I mean, everybody got that smell on them these days.
You catch it just walking down the street.
Cops use that as an excuse to toss your car all the time.
Okay.
What happened next? Hersl robbed me.
I had just cashed my paycheck at the M-and-T on Fayette.
Six hundred and fifty-eight dollars.
All right, come on.
On your feet.
Let's go, up, up, up.
You take my money? You take my money, Hersl? You ain't right, man.
- That's some bullshit.
- Get up there, let's go.
I was jail side for two days before anyone got to me.
Otis.
Never even spoke to a public defender.
A state prosecutor they had there interviewed me, and when I told him what happened, he had me sign a form that waived my right to sue the city for false arrest, in exchange for them throwing out the charges on the spot.
They knew what they had on me was bullshit and wouldn't stick.
So it never went to court.
That's a good thing, right? Let me finish.
Come on, man.
Give me a break.
- On account of the days I was locked up - I got a family.
my calls went unserviced, and we lost a couple customers.
- Sorry, James.
- My employer told me he had to let me go.
You had no recourse? I already signed away my right to a lawsuit, I told you that.
But I did file a complaint, on principle.
Did you get your money back, at least? Shit.
Of the 658 dollars he took? Hersl submitted 50 to Evidence Control.
- He pocketed the rest.
- You surprised? He probably drank my money away.
Hell yeah.
- About to take all your money.
- Or had himself a good old time with it.
Let's see what you got.
Goddamn! Some shit like that.
Come on.
I'll spot ya, I'll spot ya.
Come on.
It was nothing to him.
- Later.
- You go ahead.
That money meant something to me.
I earned it.
My wife and me, we got no cushion, for real.
When I cash my paycheck, every penny goes to my mortgage, groceries, stuff for my kids.
This set me back.
Bank's about to repo my car.
If I do get a job now, how am I supposed to get to work? Everyone who lives here knows what time it is.
Police treating all of us like criminals, people like me, my family.
Detective Rayam, your partner, Gondo, says that when you joined GTTF, things, in his words, "Began to go downhill.
" Yo, Gondo was in the mix from the start.
All right? It wasn't me who cultivated a relationship with Brill.
You mean, Antonio Shropshire.
Right.
That goes back to when they were kids, long before Gondo knew me.
And honestly, neither one of us supervised the squad.
We just followed the leader.
You're talking about Wayne Jenkins? And Allers before him, too.
Shit.
Oh, fuck.
You know There was this one robbery back in Allers got the tip from a CI he'd been working with.
Out in West Edmondale? That's it.
Fifty-four-54.
One with the white bars on the door.
Sergeant Allers brought his son with us on that one.
I reckon it was a "Bring your Kid to Work Day.
" - Husband and wife team.
- Yes, sir.
George Williams and Yolanda Paige-Williams.
G, this shit could be big, man.
Yeah, seen his photo.
Bigger than a motherfucker.
Are we gonna call the county boys in on this? After we see what we got.
Come on, y'all ready to do this? - Let's go.
You ready? - Let's go, man.
- Wake your ass us up, motherfucker.
- Let's go.
All right, son, you fall back right here.
- Police! - What do you want? Police! - Stand back.
Get down! - Stand back, motherfucker.
That house was hot.
We cleaned the fuck up.
Wife shit.
Hey.
Don't play with me.
Seventy, 80, 90, 100.
Look at this shit, baby.
That's a hundred grand right there.
There was 416,000 dollars in that bedroom.
- Forty, fifty, sixty, seventy - When the county police showed up, they found three-fifty.
You believe this shit? - Shit.
Stop playing with me.
- Detective Ward, when Wayne Jenkins took over the supervision of the GTTF from Sergeant Allers, what was the biggest change? Well, I came after Allers, but from what I heard, it wasn't like he didn't know how to steal.
It was just Jenks, man, he he was something else.
Tell us.
Well, you gotta remember, it was like a new squad.
Me, Taylor, Hendrix, and Jenkins had just come on.
And later on, Jenkins added this new kid, Kost-o-please.
James Kostoplis.
K-Stop.
Yeah, his people are from one of them countries over there.
But Jenkins knew him from when he was a patrol sergeant in the Northeast.
K-Stop was in his squad over there.
I make big money, I drive big cars Everybody know me This kid adored Jenkins.
I mean, he really looked up to him.
I feel I'm being tailed By the same sucker's head lights And also when he came, Jenkins told us new guys that Gondo and Rayam were under federal investigation for selling drugs.
Were Gondo and Rayam Did they seem concerned? Not really.
I mean, when Jenks came in, everybody was excited about the money.
To be honest with you, nobody really thought too hard on anything else.
The money? The overtime pay.
With Jenkins, it was like we had permission to rob that fund.
The faucet was on, full force.
I don't know Jenkins.
Not like you.
All right.
Let me tell you how this boy be.
He'll come in late every day.
So we don't come in till 10:00, 11:00.
And depending on how he feel, we might roll out on regular time.
That's how he gets down, man.
We got that green light.
Some supervisor told Jenks the overtime budget is wide open.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- "Work as much as you want.
" Bet.
Ain't no thing, man.
You gonna like him, you gonna like Jenks.
Matter of fact last night, Jenkins tells us to put in slips for six OT hours.
We ain't even work a full shift.
Then we banging We like this.
Banging that OT, G.
- Hey.
Yeah, hit me with that.
- You know what I'm saying? - He cool.
- I'm with that.
- Yeah.
- He crazy, but he cool.
The summary reads like butter.
Got it all done.
Mayor Rawlings-Blake asked for it.
And she'll get her copy just in time for her to make her exit.
"The Baltimore Police Department engages in a practice or pattern of making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests.
" Here we go.
"Disparities in the rates of stops, searches, and arrests of African Americans," and, "Driven by systemic deficiencies of BPD policies, training, supervision, and accountability structures.
" This is incendiary shit.
I would hope so.
But it's not a directive.
We still have to get the consent decree signed.
- Right.
- So we drop that on Pugh - as soon as she puts on the crown.
- We moving pretty fast now.
We gotta get the consent decree out there before the new administration comes in, in January.
Hilary's AG, whoever that is, should be a little bit sympathetic to police reform.
Assuming How is your friend, the police commissioner, gonna like this? Have you read this? - I read enough.
- We're doing our jobs.
What do people want, for us to stop policing? They want us to do it in a better way, without the collateral damage.
But how? How do you keep control with this much violence without being aggressive? It doesn't help that shit like this gets everyone all ginned up.
These popped up all over the city.
Idiots misspelled "loiterers".
It does make a point.
Is that all? Hey, G, what up? What up? Look, Jemell, I know Jenkins do some crazy shit.
You don't gotta tell me.
You know, Jenks is code-motherfucking-red.
All right, but look, this last paycheck I just got from the city? Eight thousand dollars.
When I looked at it, I was like, "Oh, my God, who did this?" "This is a lie.
" Telling you, there's a method to Jenkins' madness.
He Yeah.
Yeah, that motherfucker off the chain, G.
Look, like I said, let's go at this shit hard.
Let's enjoy this shit while we can 'cause all good things come to an end.
For real.
But Jenks, man, he off the fucking chain, yo.
He off the motherfucking chain, B.
He off the fucking chain, B.
I swear, that nigga off the chain, G.
All this bogus overtime they're banking, we'll get every one of 'em on wire fraud.
Bring in the IRS and we got tax evasion too.
The old-fashioned way.
I'm starting to love me some Wayne Jenkins.
He off the chain, yo.
I read most of your book, Mr.
Grabler.
And sure enough, you write about many of the same issues that we at the DOJ are trying to address.
Thank you.
You know, there's an old joke that inside of every old cop is a book.
And that's exactly where it should stay.
Well, you certainly wrote from experience.
Oh, I did.
I did.
I came on in '72.
Walking foot up in the Northwest, and then plainclothes ops, after that, narcotics.
And I did my longest stint in Homicide.
After my retirement, I ended up back here, at the Academy, teaching.
Sounds like a rewarding career.
It was, it was.
I loved being a cop, you know.
I loved it when the job meant something, when you could make an arrest for a street robbery, or a rapist, or put down a murderer.
There was nothing finer.
Nothing finer.
But people had to talk to you, and once upon a time, they did.
Well, of course, not all of them.
There is a street code for snitching.
But there were always enough people on the post that would talk to you.
That trust is broken.
Yeah, well, you can't you can't get information out of somebody while you're beating on 'em, or you got your hand in their pocket.
- And then lying about it in court.
- Yeah.
You know everything changed when they came up with that expression, "The War on Drugs.
" What an idiotic fucking thing to say.
What the hell is a war on drugs? What does that mean? Waging a war against citizens by definition is separating us into two opposing camps.
The colonizer and the colonized.
Albert Memmi, very good.
Yes.
And with the war comes police militarization.
SWAT teams, tactical squads, stop-and-frisk, strip searches, a complete gutting of the Fourth Amendment.
And it's like we're, we're fighting terrorists on foreign soil.
And you can't just blame the cops.
We serve the politicians, who thrive on being tough on crime.
Zero tolerance.
Zero tolerance, quality of life arrests.
Having a beer on your own stoop.
Loitering, spitting on the sidewalk, existing.
Existing.
In 2005, I think it was, when O'Malley was still mayor, they made 100,000 arrests, most of them Black, most of them poor.
That's almost one arrest for every six Baltimoreans in one year.
They jacked up people six, seven times, maybe 12 times.
And many of those arrests were illegal, never made it to court.
But they got their stats.
What do you teach here? I teach the law to cadets who are about to hit the streets.
Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments.
A cop can't uphold the law unless he understands the law.
I teach these young kids to be good, honest cops.
The rest is up to them.
You've given a lot of thought to this.
Yeah.
I come off as angry sometimes.
Aren't you angry? So at some point, Jenkins told you that you were under investigation? We knew.
By that time we had a sense y'all was on us.
There wasn't no charade about the fact Jenkins was in the shit, too.
There was this one night where we pulled over a suspect, then followed him to his house.
Took him off for like a pound of marijuana to sell.
Jenkins told me to off it.
Did you? No.
I had Gondo sell it through his friend, Glen Wells.
Yeah, but you must have had your own connect to sell the drugs that you've been confiscating.
That was my boy up in Philadelphia.
Let's come back to that.
On July 15 of 2016, you and other GTTF, detained a Ronald and Nancy Hamilton.
Oh, shit.
Y'all remember that? The f That's fuckin' impressive.
We have you and Gondo on tape, discussing it.
Right.
Well, yeah, we got the tip on Hamilton from a sergeant in the Southwestern.
We got a warrant from a judge.
I put a tracker on the car.
He had a big old house out in Carroll County with a pool.
Motherfucker was a monster.
Shit.
You had authority for the tracker? Hell, no.
Did that on my own.
Anyway, after we decided to do, you know, the thing, we followed the Hamiltons to Reisterstown Road.
- Where's your money at, Hoss? - Jacked 'em up.
Let's see what you got here.
Is that a cellphone? Now, where that money at? I found a roll of cash on Hamilton right there.
Put your hands down.
Go over there.
Yo, go over there.
Shit had to be drug money, so I knew we had the right dude.
Don't talk to her.
Sergeant Jenkins there? No.
He was at the barn.
You see, the plan was to bring them there, and then to introduce Jenks as a US Attorney.
Oh, shit, fucking Jenkins as a US Attorney.
Oh, no offense intended there.
Sir, I can see from your file here that you are a smart individual and as a federal prosecutor, I have been dealing with these kinda cases for quite a while, I'm just gonna tell you, full candor, Mr.
Hamilton, you are looking at a serious amount of years unless you start giving us the right answers.
Now, look, we have you on three separate controlled buys.
- Now, we - Man, get the fuck out of here.
Okay, first off, I'm not "man," okay? So, let's just do that again.
- I'm a US Attorney, okay? - Whatever.
And I don't sell no drugs.
Man, what are you doing? You have multiple federal drug convictions.
You did six years because of those convictions.
This says that right there.
What do you think you gonna do? You think you gonna outsmart me? Now, let's try this shit again.
You currently own this home in in Westminster, correct? Do you currently have quantities of drugs at that home? - Man, he don't like talking much, huh? - No.
I'm sorry, you're you're hearing what I'm saying, right? - I'm hearing you perfectly fucking clear.
- Am I not talking loud enough? What is it? You want me to be slower? - What is it? Is it is it pronunciation? - No, I heard you just fine.
- What do you fuckin' think the deal is? - Yeah.
I heard you good.
Do you currently have quantities of drugs at your home in Westminster? Well, shit.
Guess we're just gonna have to go out there and find out.
Hamilton's house was nice.
Boom! Yahtzee.
Hey, yo! I see money.
- Come on.
- Bump that shit.
- Hersl and Gondo found money.
- Into it.
- But no drugs.
- Look at that.
All right, man.
- Yep! - Hell, yeah! He left Hersl in the room, which was a mistake.
We were downstairs, waiting on the State Police to arrive.
Fifty K.
Where the rest of it at? How you gonna take my money? I earned that gambling, selling cars I get at auctions.
We're seizing this under forfeiture laws.
You'll have a chance to account for it later.
That's some bullshit.
Appreciate it, fellas.
You all get home safe, all right? You left after that? Jenkins wasn't done.
Man, this a nice ass crib, man.
I tell you.
Is that what you call it? It's your crib? Goddamn.
This was a long-ass drive, man, so we gonna need something.
Come on, man.
Where the drugs at, man? What, you got one of those safes? - Ain't no fucking drugs.
- Okay, but you do know people, right? You know drug dealers.
Where's your plug, man? I know you know somebody.
Give us a name, baby.
Look, here's the bottom line.
You take care of us, we're gonna take care of you, 'cause here's the crazy part One morning, you could wake up with ten kilos in the backyard.
You split up the Hamilton money? Yeah, later that night at a bar.
When Gondo went back to the bedroom for the cash, there was the 50, then there was the loose 20,000.
I mean, I had counted more.
You know, Hersl must have taken a few thousand when he was up there alone.
Of course, I lifted the 3,500 off of Hamilton when we pulled him over.
That What I'm sayin' is, we weren't just stealing, all right? We were stealing from each other.
Jenkins more than most, though.
At that point in time, we was all in it for ourselves, to be honest.
But all this while you knew we were looking at you.
You knew there was a federal investigation.
Oh, my God.
Keisha.
Last night.
This girl got a big old ass.
I call her Bonanza, 'cause she got them wide open spaces.
What the fuck is Bonanza? Like some show out west, B, I don't know.
My father used to watch that shit.
Yeah, bet.
Look, women gonna get you in trouble.
The females is just You know, who needs an extra complication? You know the big boys are looking at us.
"Looking at us"? They looking at you.
Jenks said that we was under investigation, and you in particular The way you be flashing money, you could be the biggest drug dealer - in the whole goddamn department.
- Fuck you, man.
- Look.
- That's some bullshit.
Look, look, if it is the feds who are on this, the case could go on for years.
What case? This ain't no Pablo Escobar.
It's the police.
I'm just saying, you doing a lot of flashing of shit, - you know, like, silk - You finished, or you done? silk robes.
And you like the king of Zamunda in Anne Arundel County.
If you're gonna get it, you gonna spend it.
I mean, we in Baltimore.
It's not Houston, all right? All right, look here.
When the shit ends, it ends.
In the meantime, we keep bangin'.
Yeah.
Guess we keep bangin', then.
So, Detective, what you're saying, everyone in the squad knew they were being investigated.
The way Jenks put it, Ryan Guinn had hipped him to the fact that y'all were looking into Gondo and Rayam.
Like, Guinn thought Jenkins was clean, and he was just warning him about Gondo and Rayam.
Still, into the fall of 2016, the GTTF continued to operate as a rogue unit? Until Jenkins went on leave.
And then Jenkins went on leave in October.
Yeah, maternity.
Paternity? His his wife had a baby.
Is Jenkins a family man? He said.
You know, I mean we all went to titty bars, and watched girls dance, and stuff, so He had stayed married a long time.
He he met his girl in high school.
And they had a crib out in Middle River where Wayne grew up.
So, yeah, he took a couple months off when they had their new kid.
- Singing to him? He loves it.
- Bedtime.
Yeah.
He had a better day, huh? Yeah, we went for a walk and everything.
- You gonna come next time? - Yeah.
Jenkins was a proud father.
But he had his other life too.
- Baby's down.
- Hey, baby.
I guess I'll make dinner.
You okay if we just boil some pasta tonight? Baby, you so pretty.
Yeah, gorgeous.
You make whatever you want as long as I get to kiss you later.
You too.
Downstairs.
In twenty.
- Love you, baby.
- Love you.
You kiss my nose? Jenkins spent time down in Harbor East on his own, at those fancy hotels there.
He had money, so why not? Look at you, baby.
He liked those big rooms they had upstairs, too.
He had this one chick on the regular.
Jenkins never really copped to it directly.
You know what they say, "If it's eatin', it ain't cheating.
" He wasn't a family man, exactly.
Oh, fuck! - Get - More like - Fuck.
Come on.
- just a man.
Motherfuck What happened with Officer Kostoplis? K-Stop.
Jenkins was grooming that boy, but it didn't go the way he planned.
Quiet tonight.
This cold keeps the natives indoors.
- Yeah.
- Tough to make money on a night like this.
All right.
Should be here.
Cut the engine.
Hey, K-Stop.
Why don't you go on and leave your phone in the van, all right? Don't worry, Danny's not gonna make out with you, man.
This is good.
What's up? You've been doing a hell of a job, K-Stop.
- Thank you.
- Yeah, man.
I just I guess, we wanna yeah, we wanna run a little little hypothetical by you.
- You know, like, a "What if?" - Right? - Okay.
- Yeah.
Say, we're on an investigation, following a big-time drug dealer.
A real fucking monster, right? We Yeah, we get wind on where he's keeping his cash.
And then we actually come upon that cash.
It's right there in front of us, and we just you know, we take it.
What would you think about that? I think that's a terrible fucking idea.
You can't have a badge on your chest, do things like that.
We don't do that shit.
We don't.
Hey, man.
- Exactly the answer we're looking for.
- There you go.
Come on.
Good shit, K-Stop.
I like it.
All right.
Let's get something to eat.
I wanna go to Matthew's.
You always wanna go there, man.
Yeah, 'cause it's fucking good.
It wasn't too long after that, Wayne Jenkins transferred K-Stop to a new squad.
Jenkins forgot there was still straight police on the job.
K-Stop.
- These are the attendees? - According to the email we received.
Andre Davis.
I know this name, from the Fourth Circuit.
He's been a federal appeals court judge going back to the Clinton years.
Yeah, I hear that Pugh's gonna make him city solicitor.
Now, my impression is that he'll be on our side.
And the police commissioner, he's gonna be an ally, too, for the most part.
But the two that we have to look out for are Tisha Edwards and Jim Smith.
They both have Mayor Pugh's ear.
We better get over there.
All right.
I'm ready.
I'm sure you'll understand with all the hustle and bustle in my first month in office, I have to study up on this cassette decree.
I've read it, of course, but I wanna confer with my people about the details.
We do understand, and we appreciate your attention to this.
But in light of the outcome of the presidential election, and Trump's impending installation of Jeff Sessions as attorney general Simply put, Sessions is not going to support any consent decree anywhere.
We need to get this done before Trump is inaugurated on January 20th.
I agree.
Due to the unforeseen circumstances of the national election, time is of the essence.
This is not something to rush.
Of course not.
But with my team, Jason and Ganesha, I can iron out the finer points of the decree with Nicole, Vanita Gupta, and the DOJ.
We do have concerns.
But let me be clear, Madam Mayor, I support this initiative.
It's not a cure-all, but it is a tool for reform.
Mayor Pugh, may I jump in? Please.
I've looked at what this has cost in other cities.
You're gonna have to hire monitoring teams.
You're gonna have to purchase new equipment, new technologies, body cameras for all officers on the street.
Are you aware of the expenditure on those items? The money has to come from somewhere, or rather, it will be taken from somewhere else.
I'm all for police reform.
But not at the expense of social programs.
I'm especially concerned that this decree could siphon off funds earmarked for young Black boys who have been historically marginalized here.
That's right.
We can't forget about my babies.
No one's suggesting this is an either-or proposition.
The consent decree is designed to protect citizens, including those young men you're talking about.
But we can't ignore the expense of it.
And frankly, a report is not gonna be a cure for bad leadership within the department, present company excepted, Chief Davis.
I mean, how many police commissioners have we had in the last ten years? Three, four? You can't keep throwing money at a management problem.
These are dollars that would be better spent enticing business interest and development in Baltimore.
We have to do something.
Well, I would not in good conscience recommend to our mayor that we increase the police budget to accommodate this decree.
In my opinion, Chief Davis, you're gonna have to find the money within your existing budget.
And that means making significant cuts to the department in advance of the decree being implemented.
I wanna know if we're ready.
Well, we can always get more evidence to shore up our case.
I'd really like to see how far up the chain this goes.
We're fighting time here.
I'm worried about leaks.
None of the brass know about us.
We've even managed to keep the commissioner out of the loop.
But the fact is, we have enough.
We have taped conversations where the subjects discuss robberies they committed resulting in the illegal seizure of cash and drugs.
We've recorded jail calls where the inmates talk about being robbed of drugs and money by those same subjects.
That's enough for a racketeering conspiracy.
Will the victims testify in court? Not all of them, no.
Some of them don't trust us, and to some, snitching on a cop is still snitching.
But we've got a couple of people that I'm pretty certain will stand up.
What about wire fraud? Rock solid.
We have multiple conversations on the wire with massive overtime theft being discussed.
I've used my departmental access to pull their timecards.
It wasn't just others clocking in for 'em.
Taylor was pulling O when he was in the Dominican Republic.
Jenkins was collecting overtime when he was on on vacation with his family in Myrtle Beach.
It's time to go.
We're on the indictments.
You handle the logistics of the arrests and keep us apprised.
And we'll tell the police commissioner at the last moment.
As for the dog and pony, the US Attorney will wanna be at the podium.
Rosenstein? Yeah, he's getting bumped up in the Trump administration, and this will be a nice send-off for him.
- Okay.
- All right.
MARCH 1, 2017 Wow.
What is that from? Debussy's "Prélude.
" I feel like I heard that on an episode of Star Trek.
You know how to play some you know, some other stuff? Classical mostly.
Like Jethro Tull? Aqualung, I mean that's some classical shit right there, right? Someday, John, you're gonna surprise me.
Maybe.
You sleep in that shirt? I don't think I slept at all.
You? Not much.
The details kept me up.
So many things can go wrong.
Your people are monitoring the GPS on their phones, right? Yeah, as of this morning, they're all in the Baltimore area.
And they all got their orders to report to IAD.
They all confirmed their appointments.
Jensen.
Hey.
He's on the move.
Stand by.
Copy that.
Jenkins just left his house.
Let's go.
BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMEN Look at you, Steve.
Getting that good police work in, huh? You know, committing suicide by cigarette.
- Got a date with IAD? - Yeah, some nuisance shit.
You know, vehicular.
- What's good? - What's up, man? Passed out.
RESERVED FOR LIEUTENAN Seven officers from the plainclothes unit known as the Gun Trace Task Force have been arrested and charged with racketeering conspiracy and racketeering-related charges, including robbery, extortion, and overtime fraud.
These officers have been involved in a pernicious conspiracy scheme that included abuse of power.
Commissioner Davis.
Commissioner Davis, in light of these arrests, what are your thoughts on the deeper implications for the department? These officers, I have no sympathy for them.
They are like 1930s gangsters as far as I'm concerned.
As for the department, I'll act swiftly and decisively to address the problem areas.
I'll immediately disband select plainclothes units and order those officers back into uniformed patrol.
This is the absolute, final dismantling of VCID.
Officers Gondo, Hendrix, Hersl, Jenkins, Rayam, Taylor, and Ward are now in FBI custody after being arrested this morning - Oh, sh - at the Internal Affairs Department on Kirk Avenue.
Officials say that some of these officers are named in prior complaints - Holy shit.
- have been previously accused of using excessive force or of other wrongdoing.
- Hey, Sean.
- In fact, the city has paid out more You used to work with Jenkins, didn't you? than half a million in settlements related to the actions - of some of these officers.
- What was that guy like? A long-time public defender we spoke with had this to say accountability issues for many years.
We have worked tirelessly to highlight the issues on the force, but much of our efforts were ignored by the department.
What message does that send to the criticism - You all right, man? - Yeah, I I just gotta hit the head.
- As recently as late last year - This is some fucked up shit.
Commissioner Davis praised the Gun Trace unit in a departmental newsletter.
Sergeant Wayne Jenkins was to be seen as an example for getting guns The Gun Trace Task Force made more than 110 gun arrests in 2016.
Here's Davis responding at the briefing earlier today.
Why don't you do me a favor, man? Just go and toss the car one more time, you know, in case we missed something.
Man, you fucking planted that shit.
Get off me, man! Y'all cruddy as hell! Man, you got it now, dawg.
That was some serious police work, man.
to describe this rogue plainclothes unit of the Baltimore Police Department.
- Danny Hersl.
- These brazen officers - allegedly stopped innocent victims - Our poster boy got caught up in this.
without cause, robbing them of large quantities of cash and guns.
The defendants are accused of racketeering.
The way I was raised, there wasn't any way I wasn't gonna be a lawyer.
Oh, I know how that works.
Your father was a He was a judge, right? US District Court.
So, I guess it was preordained that you would go into law.
I have a sibling named James, and he had no interest in going to college.
So someone in our house was going to law school.
Fell on me.
Got it.
But I I made a wrong turn for a while.
How so? Well, early on, I was a Trial Team AUSA in DC, prosecuting mostly drug cases.
And it got to me.
Day in, day out, in courtrooms, sending young Black men to prison.
But I guess, I needed to go through that to make the next step, and pivot to Civil Rights, so You grew up in D.
C.
? Outside the city.
Bethesda.
It's high-income, mostly White.
You know, not a very diverse area to say the least.
My parents knew we'd lose a little something growing up there, but they figured the benefits outweighed the bad, and they were right.
I have been very fortunate.
You know, my kid brother, he got a a lot worse than I ever did.
He's a tile man.
He does high-end bathrooms.
A real craftsman.
So, you know, he has his hair braided.
He wears workman's clothes, jeans, hoodies.
When he was in his teens, he'd be standing outside our house, and this happened more than once, the Montgomery County Police would stop and ask him, "What are you doing here?" He'd point back at the house that we grew up in, and he'd say, "I live here.
" They couldn't see a Bethesda kid.
When they looked at James, all they could see was a nigger.
Yeah.
Yeah, I get that.
One time, he was coming home from work, driving down our street, and a couple cop cars followed him into our driveway.
When James got out of the car, I don't know, maybe he got out too fast, but they cuffed him.
Said that he made a threatening move.
And on the report, to justify the stop, they lied.
They said that he was speeding down our street.
All he was saying was, "Why are you doing me like this? I just worked a 12-hour day, and all I was doing was driving to my house.
" I came outside, and so did my father.
And there was a Black cop, and he wouldn't answer any of our questions.
And the other cop, the one who cuffed him, the White dude, he threatened my dad.
And it was all for nothing.
None of the cops showed up in court.
The damage was done.
Where's your brother now? After that last incident, he moved to Atlanta.
I don't hate the police, but it's fair to say that my brother has no love for them at all, and never will.
I don't know if what we're doing is gonna change a thing, Ahmed.
But shit You ready for another? I gotta go home.
We have work to do.