The video opens with a group of Baltimore police officers prying open a safe, revealing thick stacks of cash held together by two rubber bands each.
They call to their sergeant, Wayne Jenkins, who instructs the group not to touch anything and to keep the camera rolling — he wanted this one done by the book.
Except, Detective Maurice Ward testified Tuesday, the officers already had pocketed half the $200,000 they found inside the safe before the recording started, after taking a man’s keys during a traffic stop and entering his home without a warrant. It was one of many illegal tactics Ward saidthe officers used as they chased guns and drugs across the city while skimming proceeds for themselves.
Ward is one of four detectives from the police department’s defunct Gun Trace Task Force who have pleaded guilty and are expected to testify at the trial of two fellow officers, Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor, which began with opening statements Tuesday.
Ward’s testimony outlined astonishing, everyday misconduct: The officers would drive up on groups of men, slam on the brakes and pop open their doors, for no reason other than to see if anyone would run. Those who fled were pursued, detained and searched. Jenkins profiled so-called “dope boy cars” — cars he believed were likely to be driven by drug dealers — and pulled them over under invented circumstances.
“The Gun Trace Task Force wasn’t a unit that went rogue,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Wise told jurors Tuesday morning. “It was a unit of officers who had already gone rogue.”
Wise, holding up the badges and guns that belonged to Hersl and Taylor, said the officers’ success in the police department was judged by their ability to get drugs and guns. Within that work, which often included cutting corners, they took advantage of “crimes of opportunity,” Wise said.
“They were, simply put, both cops and robbers at the same time,” Wise said.
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Ward’s testimony portrayed Jenkins, his supervisor, as the key to most of the bad behavior. Jenkins, who also pleaded guilty in the case, authorized large sums of unearned overtime pay, with officers often starting their shifts after their scheduled ones ended, then racking up a dozen hours’ overtime. At Jenkins’ instruction, Ward said, they kept BB guns on hand in case they hit someone or got into a shootout and needed to plant one on someone. He did not say whether that ever occurred.
As a squad, they roamed the city conducting “door pops,” which involved driving at groups to see who would run, Ward testified. Jenkins drove the wrong way down one-way streets, hoping to catch people off guard, and instructed officers to stop men over the age of 18 who had backpacks. Ward said Jenkins surmised that men that age were likely to have no reason to carry a backpack other than to transport illicit items.
In his opening statement, Wise acknowledged that some of the victims were admitted drug dealers. He said that doesn’t matter: “Police can’t rob drug dealers.”
Purpura said some officers charged in the case had committed robberies, breaking into homes and pointing guns at people. He said Hersl’s crimes were different, “crime of dishonesty, and of stealth.”
He said the officers’ overtime “was given with a wink and a nod, right up the chain of command, as long as we can say you’re getting guns off the streets of Baltimore City.”
“We’re here because the U.S. government, the ‘twin towers’ of justice, overcharged in this case,” said Purpura, referring to a nickname given to Wise and Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Hines due to their height. “The government lumped Daniel Hersl’s wrong conduct — there’s no excuse for it — into a racketeering enterprise where other officers actually did commit robberies, drug trafficking and extortion.”
