Baltimore City Police Department Det. John Clewell is a former U.S. Marine. He is not under investigation. He has not been charged with any crime.
He is the only sole survivor of the carnage left behind in the now-defunct Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) where he worked along side some of what surely will go down in Baltimore history, if not U.S. history, is the most corrupt group of law enforcement officers to ever disgrace the uniform. In a Sept 8, 2017 Sun article, he was called (albeit by his lawyer) the only Boy Scout in the group. GTTF members Dets. Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor, are presumed innocent unless and until found guilty. Files related to this case can be found on this website’s document pages.
A good place to start with Det. John Clewell’s association with the Gun Trace Task force is with a tracking device.
Testimony from two separate cases has shown officers from Baltimore Police Department have no problem purchasing GPS tracking devices using their own cash, even though the department will issue one – if they plan to use them for legal purposes. Leaving one to assume officers who purchase GPS out of their own pockets could be up to no good. Det. John Clewell used his own personal credit card to purchase a GPS device that helped with an armed robbery and was connected to a murder conviction.
The first case was a drug conspiracy and murder trial. A 19-year old woman from Harford County OD’d on heroin. The prosecutors proved that the woman, struggling with addiction, received the drugs from her friend as they planned to “party”. That friend testified in U.S. District Court that he purchased the drugs from his connect in Baltimore. It’s the connect from Baltimore who was linked to a conspiracy with a BPD detective because they were childhood friends. It is the investigation of the death of this 19 year old woman which led to a wire on Det. Monodu Gondo that brought GTTF to its end.
John Clewell, by way of a tracking device is tied to this sordid conspiracy that ended in a not just that woman’s death, but also more directly to another woman being robbed at gun point.
In order to conduct what was supposed to be a burglary, but ended up being an armed robbery, two BPD detectives (Momodu Gondo and Jamell Rayam) and a drug dealer friend needed to make sure no one was at the house. They used a GPS tracking device to put on the man’s car. That device was bought using Det. John Clewell’s personal credit card. Needless to say, the detectives. and the drug dealer were not very lucky, despite their attempts to make sure the house was empty before burglarizing it. This required ingenuity on their part. Once they awakened a startled woman in her bed, they didn’t bolt and run, they pointed a gun, threatened to kill her and stole whatever they could find. At gun point.
This was all able to be carried out because Det. Gondo was monitoring the tracker. “The GPS tracker was bought by John Clewell, of the gun squad. He paid for it with his personal credit card, and paid the monthly fee,” the FBI agent testified, reported by WBAL TV.
The burglary turned robbery was “Plan B” according to Rayam. Initially, the drug dealer who concocted the whole heist idea, simply wanted to murder the man in the car, using the GPS provided by Clewell to track him. Rayam testified, that was going too far and agreed to the burglary instead. It was in this October 2017 trial that Clewell and a tracking device came up in court.
Two weeks of testimony on the second case began on January 23, 2018 spelling out the horrific crimes of the Gun Trace Task Force. It’s commonly referred to as #GTTFTrial on social media. The officers themselves, along with victims alike, described callous and sometime brutal behavior of law enforcement officials behaving like mobsters, leaving residents of sections of the city as if terrorists had free reign.
Through its actions, the GTTF unit showed that it’s pretty easy to skirt the law, when you are the law.
It also became extremely clear to all those watching (except the Mayor and the recently hired commissioner) that the above-the-law attitudes and actions are not exclusive to the small number of officers facing sentencing and charges. No logically-minded person would believe that higher ups at least turned a blind eye to the activity and even more likely, some encouraged it.
Once the indictments were announced on March 1, 2017, members of the task force fell like dominoes: Both squad leaders plead guilty to robbery, extortion and RICO related charges. Sgt. Allers oversaw the team from Summer 2013 to Summer 2016 when Sgt. Wayne Jenkins took over. The pleas fell in this order:
- Det. Maurice Ward and Det. Evodio Hendrix (July 2017)
- Det. Jemell Rayam and Det. Momodu Gondo (October 2017)
- Sgt. Thomas Allers (December 2017)
Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, (January 2018) displaying a flair for the dramatic, held out with his guilty plea mere weeks before his trial was scheduled to commence. It was nearly worth the wait as he plead guilty to expanded charges of dealing drugs and dirt bikes.
In what appears to be divine intervention, the domino not touched is Det. John Clewell, who worked on GTTF under both Allers and Jenkins. So we begin following the path that zigs and zags around Clewell, the only member of the Gun Trace Task Force to not face charges.
Tracing John Clewell Through Tracking Thomas Allers
Clewell joined the department in 2009 and has been suspended since the March arrests of his squad mates. Allers joined in 1996. He became the officer-in-charge GTTF about July 2013.
As reported by Justin Fenton in the Baltimore Sun:
Clewell worked frequently with Allers, the eighth officer charged…Before Clewell and Allers joined the gun trace task force in late 2014, they worked together pursuing illegal guns and drugs on the Southern District operations squad. Both left the gun trace task force in the summer of 2016 to work with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration as city police task force officers. They were working in that role when the first indictments were filed.
Allers has been charged with nine counts of Robbery and Extortion and the indictment alleges that he stole over $90,000.00. Allers faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the conspiracy, the robberies and for racketeering. In contrast, Det. John Clewell, has not been charged with any crime. He is expected to be witness for his squad member, Daniel “Danny Hersl”. The prosecution expects to rest on Tuesday, Feb 6.
Sgt. Thomas Allers is a family man.
In his detainment hearing, Allers family including his wife was present, according to media reports. The government and the defense had differing views on a letter that Allers penned that each side was using as evidence for their respective views on whether he should be released or held in custody. According to The Sun, the prosecution described the four pages addressed to his wife as a “suicide note” while the defense described it as a “love note to Allers’ wife expressing ‘how much and deeply he cares’ for her and reassuring her that no matter what happened to him, she would be fine.” He was held in custody.
Aller’s indictment references a charge of robbery and extortion when he brought his adult son along. One would be hard pressed to believe then his family did not know of his criminal activities.
Davon L. Robinson is dead.
Dominos keep falling: One of Allers’ robbery victims is dead. In April 2016, Sgt. Allers went into the man’s house and stole $10,000 from him. His report claimed that a family member 1. gave him permission to enter and 2. gave him permission to search. No warrant was needed. The man, Davon Robinson, called “Wooda” was given drugs and was expected to sell them and repay for the advance. When he did not have the $10,000 to pay, police believe he was shot and killed. Another man is awaiting trial for killing Robinson.
In 2016, most news recalled his life as a statistic. But he was loved. Wooda’s passion was dirtbikes. Unfortunate for him, Sgt. Allers and Det. Hersl shared a love of (other peoples’) dirt bikes. Robinson’s parents claimed he was constantly harrassed by Baltimore Police officers. With that knowledge, how unlikely is it that the officers’ presence inside of their home was legal? He gripped to his girlfriend that he often was stopped by police without cause, the Sun reported. Money and property were taken without charges.
Mr. Robinson, like countless other city residents, had nowhere to turn when GTTF officers victimized him. That was their power.
See full obituary here. Davon Robinson Obit
John Clewell: A Part of the GTTF Family
Clewell joined the department in 2009. GTTF is only one of dozens of specialized operations units. At one time or another, these same squad members were together under various units: SES or Specialized Enforcement Section, the Pennsylvania Avenue Initiative, and VCIS or Violent Crimes Impact Section.
For some odd reason, the Baltimore Sun routinely identifies these plainclothes operatives as “elite”. It is not clear if they receive any additional training or held to any higher standard that “elite” would suggest. As part of this “family” it appears that all member enjoyed perks, prestige, and a blind eye from most when their decade-long plainclothes abuses went unheeded, especially by The Sun.
In the second trial, Clewell is expected to testify as a defense witness for Det. Danny Hersl, Illegal use of GPS tracking devices have already been discussed.
Donald Stepp, testified as a government witness that he sold drugs that BPD Sgt. Wayne Jenkins sold to him at a dramatically discounted rate. He testified that he bought burglary and surveillance equipment “off the books” to assist the GTTF squad in committing crimes in and around Baltimore City. One such tale included being in a car with Jenkins when he dropped off one such GPS devices to Det. Danny Hersl.
In a July 2016 case, Det. Rayam swore out an affidavit saying he had watched a suspect for a full day, but told jurors that was a lie. The truth, he said, was that he had placed a tracking device on a car and monitored the car’s movements. John Clewell took part in the traffic stop of a couple leaving Home Depot. No drugs, guns or large amounts of case were found in the car.
After interrogation at what’s being called a satellite BPD office that officers call “The Barn” and others call the old Pimlico Middle school, they drove the pair to their Westminster home in Carroll County. After searching that house and finding no drugs or guns, officers seized cash, but made no arrests. The home owners, Ronald and Nancy Hamilton are suing four officers seeking over $900,000 in damages. They also claim $20,000 was stolen from their home during the search. The Hamiltons have named Rayam, Gondo, Jenkins and Hersl in their lawsuit.
John Clewell is expected to testify primarily to benefit Hersl’s defense. The trial is expected to last until about February 12, once defense begins on February 6.
[update, John Clewell did not testify].
In a summary of the opening days, the Washington Post reported:
As squad members, Evodio Hendrix, Rayam and former detective Maurice Ward testified they routinely ignored constitutional protections and entered homes without search warrants, and stopped people without probable cause — then lied about it. It was common practice, Rayam said, to put GPS trackers on cars illegally to make it easier to follow people the squad intended to rob.
“We would create false reports to cover up the robberies we were involved in,” Hendrix testified.
They would also lie to cover up their mistakes.
Keesha Ha Freelance Journalist 