About
The GTTF Scandal
In March 2017, eight members of the Gun Trace Task Force (“GTTF”), a unit within the Baltimore City Police Department (“BPD”), were indicted and arrested on federal charges of robbery, extortion, overtime fraud, and selling drugs seized during police operations. The charges rocked BPD and the city of Baltimore. Six of the eight indicted BPD members—Sergeants Wayne Jenkins and Thomas Allers, and Detectives Momodu Gondo, Jemell Rayam, Maurice Ward, and Evodio Hendrix—pleaded guilty to the charges. Four of them—Gondo, Rayam, Ward, and Hendrix, agreed to cooperate with the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and testified against the remaining two officers—Detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor. Hersl and Taylor were convicted on February 12, 2018 after a jury trial in United States District Court in Baltimore. The defendants were sentenced at various times in 2018 and 2019 to lengthy terms of imprisonment, ranging from 7 years (Ward and Hendrix) to 25 years (Jenkins). Three other BPD members—Keith Gladstone, Carmine Vignola, and Robert Hankard—who were not members of the GTTF but who assisted Jenkins in planting a BB gun at the scene of an incident, lied about it, and covered it up, have pleaded guilty as recently as January 2020. None of the three has yet been sentenced.
The GTTF scandal was one of the most shocking corruption scandals in Baltimore’s history, and dealt a further blow to a Department still reeling from the damage caused by the 2015 BPD in-custody death of Freddie Gray and a highly critical report issued in August 2016 by the DOJ that led to a comprehensive police reform consent decree in April 2017.
Court Oversight of BPD Reform
In August 2016, the DOJ issued a report on its civil right pattern or practice investigation of the BPD. The report found that BPD had engaged in a pattern or practice of civil rights violations through, among other things, unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests; the excessive use of force; and other unconstitutional practices. [Link to Report]. In April 2017, the City of Baltimore and DOJ entered into a consent decree that requires BPD to adopt a comprehensive set of reforms in the areas of policy, training, supervision, and accountability, among others, which are designed to prevent future constitutional violations. United States District Judge James K. Bredar oversees the implementation of the consent decree, and he has appointed an Independent Monitor and Monitoring Team to act as agents of the Court to determine compliance with its terms.
On October 29, 2019, Judge Bredar issued an Order approving BPD’s proposal for an independent investigation of the systemic and structural issues that contributed to the GTTF scandal. BPD has engaged Steptoe & Johnson LLP to conduct the investigation. The investigation is led by Michael R. Bromwich, a former federal prosecutor and former DOJ Inspector General.