Category: FreeWestBaltimore

David Simon is a Cop

David Simon is what Baltimoreans gleefully call a wannabe from the Dee Em Vee.

The Montgomery County native, 61, is mostly known as the creator of HBO’s The Wire, a fictional cop drama set and filmed on location in Baltimore. Credited for its realistic portrayal, Simon and his collaborator Ed Burns, a former city police detective captured the distinctive voice of the streets of Baltimore.

When the series debuted in June 2002, The Wire was applauded for its nuanced characters not often found in Hollywood. Simon’s narrative storytelling of Baltimore’s intricacies was compelling and layered. After its fifth and final season wrapped, the set was broken down, and the lights dimmed, all that was left behind were the tragic lives of the real people whose stories were told for profit by outsiders.

Twenty years after The Wire, Simon is back at it again with HBO, this time as the creator of We Own This City (WOTC), a fictionalized portrayal of a 2021 true crime book written by then Baltimore Sun newspaper reporter Justin Fenton also set in Baltimore. Similarly, critical acclaim was bestowed on the dialect and scenery that captures the small city with a big heart. But what is different from years that preceded The Wire are two major factors:

  • the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement (that includes the city’s uprising after the in-custody death of Freddie Gray in 2015)
  • the relevancy of social media in swaying public opinion (and subsequent cancel culture)

The lives of Blacks in the country mattered decidedly less when The Wire was greenlit, yet David Simon has not changed with the times. It is Simon’s continued public and unapologetic use of the word “nigger”, that has found the white man from the DMV himself way down deep in a hole since The Wire wrapped. When WOTC‘s controversial final episode aired on May 20, 2022, it was totally on brand that Simon dismissed concerns about his role in the post George Floyd era of policing.

Simon embeds himself within the ranks of BPD as its “intern”

Gaining access to police sources takes talent, trust, and time on the part of journalists. As does all institutions with something to hide (Catholic church, NCAA, NRA, political parties, and law enforcement come to mind), its caretakers are wary of members of the press for fear of what could be revealed. By the early 1980s the skeletons in Baltimore Police department’s closet had spilled onto the floor and were piling up in all the corners. An astute observationist like David Simon would have to be blind not to see it. Unless his promised proximity to police culture to gain their trust shaded his objectivity.

David Simon was a cop. After a few years on his journalist job, Simon took a leave of absence from The Sun and became a “police intern” at Baltimore City’s police department (BPD). He spent a year embedded within BPD learning their language and meeting their families. History has revealed that while his decision served neither journalism nor the general public of Baltimore very well, it was a huge “come up” for the beat reporter. In a book, Simon chronicled his experiences as a cop using the voice of what he called “the communal homicide detective.” Gaining unfettered access to police would prove that loss of objectivity was the price he would pay.

David Simon’s 1991 book promotion tour for “Homicide: Life on the Killing Streets” which set his path to Hollywood. The photo highlights him being “embedded” within BPD for a year to gain access to LE.

Simon looks to have made a deal with the devil. The violence against Black lives predates “police intern” Simon’s illegal stop and frisk days at BPD. The historic systemic racism that permeates BPD was documented in a scathing 2016 report by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) that includes empirical evidence of its patterns and practices of civil rights violations against Blacks. The very institution of policing is the villain in the sage of Black lives, not Simon and certainly not “drug wars”.

People who have lived in the city for generations have long memories. In the case of David Simon, people have not distinguished him from other cops when he was embedded along side them. BPD Commissioner David DeSousa in 2018 apologized at a rap concert for 200 years of racialized policing in Baltimore. Even the staid institution of The Baltimore Sun recognized its contribution to stoking racial discord when its editorial board issued an apology early this year. BPD, on the other hand unapologetically maintains its status as the most funded agency in the city at over a half a billion dollars annually.

Associated Press, Aug 1991

BPD’s historical occupation over the city’s Black citizens on horrific display in Harlem Park in 2017 is in some measure owed to a young and ambitious cub reporter from the DMV who chose to be a big city cop for a year in 1988. When Freddie Gray was brutalized by officers which led to his death, Simon chided BPD for breaking the code. The resulting uprising was in Simon’s view because of failed policies he told the Marshal Project in a 2015 interview.

“I’m talking in the vernacular of cops, not my own — but even in the vernacular of what cops secretly think is fair, this is bullshit, this is a horror show. There doesn’t seem to be much code anymore.”

David Simon, on why Freddie Gray who didn’t meet the criteria should not have been beaten by BPD.

Simon’s latest venture documenting BPD culture excluded the obliteration of the code on display with the death of a Baltimore cop two years after Freddie Gray’s death. In an overtly illegal and brutal show of force, BPD locked down of over 10 square blocks in West Baltimore. The week-long occupation was covered in Fenton’s WOTC book, but quizzically excluded from Simon’s Hollywood portrayal of the GTTF.

Why Simon chose to omit actual evidence of BPD “owning the city” instead of settling for mere hyperbole has not yet been addressed. Albeit, it is not too surprising in hindsight since the police action prompting cries of #FreeWestBaltimore received precious little journalistic interest in real time. Since both the FBI and the DOJ were on site during the “lockdown” it served the feds well not to be eager to discuss BPD’s wanton display of police power. The Harlem Park lockdown is what happens when “police say” journalism takes precedent for fear of losing access.

During the lockdown/occupation, over one hundred Black residents of Harlem Park were routinely stopped by police, without any individualized suspicion of wrongdoing when they came and went from their homes. Instead in the Simon-orchestrated HBO version of history, GTTF chose to illuminate the failures and flaws of individuals like Wayne Jenkins.

The departments’ abusive actions on that day were so atrocious against residents living near the crime scene that it in response to a lawsuit, the commissioner issued a rare public apology.

[Black residents] were required to identify themselves, and their names were run through law enforcement databases. Police officers were posted at each block, alleyway, and corner, and police checkpoints were at each intersection.

ACLU Maryland

Leaving the tragedy and aftermath of the Harlem Park lockdown on the cutting room floor is one of the most cop-like acts David Simon could have ever done.

Sean Suiter as a Casualty of Simon’s Blind Spot

Lately, much of the ire directed at Simon on social media #BaltimoreTwitter centers on his depiction of the shooting death of a Black homicide detective in the line of duty that occurred in November 2017 in the Harlem Park neighborhood that preceded the lockdown. It is a case that remains unsolved. The detective, Sean Suiter, was killed the day before he was scheduled to testify as a federal witness in a corruption case involving multiple members of the department’s Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) plain clothes unit.

To Fenton’s credit, his reporting in WOTC depicts with clarity the extent of the BPD’s propensity for criminality and coverups, if only anecdotally. To Simon’s chagrin, because Fenton’s book maintains objectivity, but Simon’s decided to deviate from the book and go full bore just to echo a BPD’s narrative is quite telling.

Screengrab Twitter. David Simon @AoDespair

In the dramatization, Simon took creative license to underscore the scenario of suicide, a hypothesis that embraces BPD culture and dismisses journalistic responsibility. It is also in contrast to the Medical Examiner’s determination of homicide.

Fenton’s book chronicles the federal court cases involving the specialized unit he previously referred to as “elite” within the BPD which for years operated a robbery and drug ring while on duty. Before becoming a homicide detective Suiter, a native of Washington DC, was a member of GTTF.

A timeline of events that preceded Suiter’s death could be construed that he felt building pressure to snitch against his brothers in blue or that higher up in LE were seeking eliminate remaining potential threats. In October 2017, a key defendant ex-GTTFer Jemell Rayam plead guilty for his involvement in the department’s criminal conspiracy and became a witness for the prosecution. Suiter, died from a bullet wound to the head the day before he was scheduled to testify (presumably to corroborate details what Rayam offered in exchange for his cooperation).

Two weeks after Suiter’s death in early December 2017, Sgt. Thomas Allers pleaded guilty and declined to cooperate with the government. All the while Harlem Park was under police guard. The lone holdout, Wayne Jenkins finally entered his guilty plea in January 2018, the same month the trial began for two members who did not take a deal, Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor (who both were found guilty).

The circumstances involving Suiter’s death are as improbable as they are disturbing. The family man who had a reputation for professionalism was murdered in broad daylight – with what they have indicated was a department issued handgun. Suiter was discovered in a vacant lot near an alley in a section of Baltimore known for being a bastion for unsolved violent crimes. The single bullet to the head occurred while he was accompanied by another officer, who was not his usual partner.

The changing statements from that day’s partner, David Bomenka, provided the context for the collection of police evidence and the interpretation of same that followed. It is at this point the elements of a cover up (if not a conspiracy) takes root.

Screengrab WMAR TV 2019 broadcast

One independent journalist has persistently taken local media to task for merely parroting the narratives spoon-fed by BPD about proposed evidence without consideration of BPD’s history of lying and manipulation. “The media has largely accepted these prevailing myths, in part because there was a battle inside BPD over what happened to Suiter, what the Sun called the “two conflicting theories,” wrote Justine Baron on her website TheSuiterFiles.com.

Violations of Journalism 101 are many when it comes to covering Sean Suiter:

  • Journalists ceased amplifying the fact that when medical transport arrived, Suiter had been carried and placed inside of a patrol car (and dropped in the process) by BPD officers first to the scene. BPD said that the delay had no relevancy to the investigation.
  • No further investigation was made of the patrol car carrying Suiter (the driver has not been publicly identified) got into two accidents en route to the hospital.
  • No ownership of the decision to disturb the crime scene (and perhaps cause additional injury) and move Suiter from the lot.
  • Suiter’s gun, later proclaimed to be the murder weapon, was removed from the scene and recovered in a patrol car’s trunk – at some undisclosed time later, with zero explanation by BPD.
  • When officers responded, it was to an “active shooter” scene, in accordance with the information given by the only eyewitness, Suiter’s partner that day.

Jamie Hector’s performance as Sean Suiter earned the character a tragic figure moniker. In an episode guide, it surmises that “faced with the prospect of testifying against his fellow cops, and losing the job that he loves, he tragically commits suicide.” The suicide narrative championed by Simon and BPD has been engrained in the annals of television.

“Suiter is cynical and hopeless, faced with rejection from his colleagues if he chooses to testify and possible prosecution if he doesn’t. He also risks losing his job if, in testifying, he reveals to the FBI that he witnessed, and did nothing about, the GTTF’s crimes.”

Rebecca Bihn-Wallace, June 12, 2022 MSN.com

David Simon Crosses the Line

Simon may have left journalism, but it did not stop journalists (and others) from coming for him. Simon told the “Twitterverse” that he believed the cops when it came to the unsolved case of Sean Suiter’s death. Surveillance video of the moments that lead up to the shooting was stolen and (likely destroyed by BPD). A second camera provided grainy footage that generates more questions and the answers that it provides. Some see this action as further indication of a cover-up.

The barrage of criticism against the once-BPD “intern” turned Hollywood showrunner was swift. Suiter’s friend and attorney drew first blood:

Nice reminder that facts don’t matter when they get in the way of dramatizing crime in Baltimore

Jeremy Eldridge, Sean Suiter’s Attorney, Twitter May 30, 2022

In classic Simon fashion, he defended his position against Suiter’s attorney with the bluntness of a chainsaw in a pillow factory: “Your client took his life in advance of his grand jury testimony….he would likely lose his job as a result of the revelations forthcoming. This is regrettable. It is also entirely true,” Simon posted on Twitter.

It’s not known whether Simon intentionally tried to sound like the verbalization of a cop’s internal dialogue, but he succeeded. What Simon says is very much in line with how cops think: Suiter felt so strongly about the remote possibility of losing his job that he chose a risky attempt to portray his death as a line of duty homicide. Cops (and Simon) believe Suiter took a less than 50/50 gamble in order to provide for his family financially by hoping Bomenka fell for him staging his suicide to look like a homicide.

By any calculation a staged homicide was an unfathomable risk given that recent history has shown that many LE come out the other side of prosecutions largely unscathed. Even if after testifying Suiter ended up a disgraced former LE, he could find gainful employment as a media analyst or Baltimore drive time talk show host if not a professional police review panel member.

There’s no debate that the central evidence in the Suiter cold case is the lone eyewitness, Det. David Bomenka. He is the man that Simon has placed the utmost trust in. Simon has more faith in Bomenka than Suiter ever did. Suiter was leery enough about helping Bomenka on his case that Suiter grabbed a police radio before venturing out with the man he barely knew.

Screengrab, BWC footage of Bomenka’s approach to a felled Sean Suiter, Source IRB Report.

Homicide detectives rarely take a police issue radio, preferring to use their cell phones while in the field. If a detective wanted extra assurance when paired with a person they did not trust, then that would be a reason for carrying a radio. Sean Suiter’s last words were captured on his radio transmission. Although it’s not conclusive, it sounds as if Suiter is saying to ease someone else’s concern that he was close to: “Don’t worry about it.”

Screengrab Twitter David Simon May 31, 2022

Activist Leslie Mac asked Simon on Twitter how a former beat reporter responsible for covering BPD for years still gives credence to the version of facts presented by BPD and the FBI. Mac suggested that Simon’s white privilege clouds his judgement, Simon responded in typical fashion:

Moron, the FBI broke open the entire scandal of the GTTF. They uncovered the corruption. And the evidence of the suicide comes not from the BPD but from an independent investigator. So basically you only with to credit your own unevidenced imaginings. Got it. Christ Almighty.

David Simon @AoDespair R/T of Leslie Mac June 4, 2022 ,Twitter

Barely anyone in the city trusted BPD to investigate Suiter’s death with the exception of David Simon. Certainly no one did who was familiar with the failed prosecution the year prior of the officers present when Freddie Gray was fatally injured while in custody trusted that BPD would be respectful of West Baltimore residents. With no public confidence and lacking in overall legitimacy due to the DOJ, BPD’s leadership asked the FBI to take over the investigation and it declined, making national news.

Simon has often evoked the Independent Review Board (IRB) conclusion of suicide, without mentioning much how the IRB was bought and paid for by BPD and that members included two former BPD officers. The IRB was commissioned to look into the Harlem Park lockdown, but it failed to do so.

The DOJ’s Consent Decree’s monitoring team soon after the lockdown indicated that its job was not to investigate the lockdown: “… it is not appropriate for the Monitoring Team to interject itself into an active crime scene investigation or to assume the role of BPD command staff by intervening in BPD actions.” However, nine months later the IRB punted.

“The IRB has not analyzed this [lockdown of Harlem Park], and incorporates by reference the work of the BPD Monitoring Team,”

Report to the Commissioner of the Police Department of Baltimore City Concerning an Independent Review of the November 15,2017 Incident and Its Aftermath, August 2018

In the months that followed Suiter’s violent and suspicious death, the city was in extreme turmoil: The top cop was fired by the mayor. The person the mayor promoted to the position (Darryl DeSousa) was forced to resign after being charged for federal tax evasion. (These events depicting the dysfunction were included in the HBO portrayal). The city was failing to meet demands of the consent decree to reform its police department that it entered into after the 2015 death in police custody by Freddie Gray.

With political pressure mounting, BPD hired a panel to provide the public with an explanation of the innerworkings of their investigation. They called the panel the Independent Review Board IRB). The IRB’s processes and deliberations were conducted in private; their members were selected by BPD and they were paid by the department.

A year later, citing flaws in the IRB report (no one from the family was questioned in the process), Suiter’s family publicly decried the BPD investigation (and IRB’s review of same) as corrupt. It seemed that the thin blue line left the grieving officer’s family on the outside looking in. Suiter’s wife and children said what most of Baltimore was thinking: that whoever is responsible for the murder was within the department.

“It’s just too much of a coincidence — the day before he was due to testify. It looks like an inside job,” Sean Suiter’s eldest child, Damira, 27, said Tuesday night.

Justin Fenton, Baltimore Sun, May 1, 2019.

The medical examiner’s ruling in Suiter’s death is and always has been homicide. The state’s attorney called the case “open and pending” after BPD prematurely announced that it was closed in November 2019. Simon blames most of BPD’s abuses (but not its systemic racist practices) on the failings of drug war era policies.

In response to the backlash, David Simon has promised to outline his rationale for believing the cops’ theory of suicide in an essay.

From a white boy from the DMV to a Wannabe BPD-er

Simon’s road to Baltimore began in Silver Spring, MD and traversed through his admittedly mediocre years as a University of Maryland student in College Park. Upon graduation, he took a journalist job reporting for the Baltimore Sun and worked there for nearly 13 years before a parting of the ways in 1995.

Simon described his departure from The Sun as a result of his growing frustration of corporate influence along with editors stifling his burgeoningly creative narrative voice. As a young reporter, Simon’s strength was storytelling. He took a year leave in order to be embedded with Baltimore Police in search of more stories to tell. It was a gamble though that paid off. Director Barry Levinson (a true Baltimorean) optioned his book for a $10,000 pay day for Simon and turned it into a hit television show for NBC.

Buoyed by the success of his 1993 book Homicide: Life on The Killing Streets Simon’s request for a raise in pay at the paper was rebuffed. The Sun newspaper had had enough of David Simon. Before taking a buyout and leaving journalism for good, Simon thought the Sun would be his first and only job, he told Chicago Tribune in a 2008 article.

The then-owners of the Sun likened Simon’s hold onto a decades-old grudge to a character flaw. His anger issues, Simon said, are not directed at individuals, but towards the decline in journalism, they said in the same article. Not to worry, in 2012 Simon joined Twitter and his penchant for harvesting grudges would be on the world stage and undeniable.

Cashing in on Baltimore

David Simon’s year embedded as a reporter shadowing BPD homicide detectives was recounted in his 1991 book “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.” Director Barry Levinson (also from Baltimore) optioned the book for $10,000 and it became an award-winning television show, earning him a best director Emmy in 1993 and Andre Braugher an Emmy for best actor in 1998.

HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET — Sleuth Series — Pictured: (back row l-r) Reed Diamond as Detective Mike Kellerman, Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch, Clark Johnson as Detective Meldrick Lewis, Michelle Forbes as Dr. Julianna Cox, Kyle Secor as Detective Tim Bayliss, Yaphet Kotto as Lieutenant Al Giardello, (front row l-r): Max Perlich as J. H. Brodie, Melissa Leo as Detective/Sergeant Kay Howard, Andre Braugher as Detective Frank Pembleton — Sleuth Photo

The Baltimore-based Hollywood successes linked to Simon’s stint as what amounts to a junior cop is as follows:

  • Homicide Life on The Streets (1993)
  • The Corner (2000)
  • The Wire (2002)
  • We Own This City (2022)

Like The Wire, WOTC is just a television show. Where they differ is that The Wire was loosely based on real people but was clearly a fictionalized representation. WOTC is a true story. Real people, suffering families, and the ongoing trauma of Blacks in the city, especially West Baltimore is not a figment of anyone’s imagination.

The Trouble With Outsiders

Granted, a great amount of not liking Simon is strictly personal, and not about his business at all. Objectively, Simon is largely viewed as a disagreeable and crass human being. (Simon was banned from Twitter for a death threat in 2018). His delight is visceral when he blocks people from viewing his Twitter account while insulting their intelligence for disagreeing with him. His admitted favorite insults lobbied at people are asshole, idiot, moron, scrotesniff, fuckbonnet, taintlick, and gibbering submoron.

Simon, in the post Trump years, still also manages to squeeze in an occasional motherfucker or nigger (more on Simon’s use of “nigger” in this series’ next installment).

That Simon is from the DMV instead of from Baltimore some may believe is at the crux of the disdain he evokes from locals. They would be wrong, mostly. People are growing weary of Simon because he has not atoned for having some of the city’s most dangerous cops as friends.

One such case highlighted in the book that launched Simon’s career stemmed from when he had extraordinary access to LE. It included the conviction of three Black teenagers for killing Dewitt Duckett over a Georgetown basketball jacket inside of Harlem Park Junior High in 1983. All three teens were exonerated in November 2019 after serving 36 years in prison, aided by the MidAtlantic Innocence Project which found the BPD coerced witnesses into testifying that they saw the three boys fighting with Duckett. If Simon knew about this coercion, he never spoke of it.

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Charles J. Peters declared Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart (pictured below) all innocent and issued an apology on behalf of the entire criminal justice system.

No one would be surprised at all if Simon purchased the rights to the story of the three Black teens from Harlem Park wrongfully arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated before being exonerated. According to HBO, David Simon is the preeminent voice suited to tell the most tragic of Baltimore’s stories.

BALTIMORE, MD – NOVEMBER 25: Mary Stewart, left, walks with her son, Andrew Stewart and her daughter, Ulonda Stewart, Andrew’s sister after he along with Alfred Chestnut and Ransom Watkins were released and exonerated for the 1983 murder they were convicted of on Monday November 25, 2019 in Baltimore, MD. The three were given life sentences for the murder of DeWitt Duckett. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

NEXT UP IN THIS SERIES: David Simon’s Love of the “N-Word”

The Making of an Abolitionist

To say Baltimore’s wealthiest financier Johns Hopkins has been the beneficiary of good press for over 200 years would be like saying there was some media curiosity in the OJ Simpson verdict.

For over 200 years Maryland’s native son Johns Hopkins absolutely could do no wrong, that is if you are to believe the local papers.  Acknowledgement of the man’s moral failures came 147 years after his death when Johns Hopkins University finally got around to announcing that they looked at documents in the public sphere for well over a century.

The University’s president in December 2020 to much fanfare announced publicly that its founder was an enslaver, and not likely the exalted abolitionist as he was often hailed by the university. 

Baltimore Sun, a collaborator on the PR campaign that cast Hopkins as an abolitionist, here publishes a retrospective on the man and his institutions upon the centennial occasion of the university. 22 February 1976.

Aloof indeed. Hopkins has enjoyed all the gravitas that a port town with a steady loss in population could muster. A combination of blood memory and a dedication to the oral tradition have kept Blacks ever vigilant against the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

One would be hard pressed to find a Black Baltimorean who was caught off guard when the University announced in December 2020 that the eccentric millionaire Johns Hopkins, who died in 1873, enslaved people for financial benefit over a large span of his lifetime.  

Moreover, with JHU’s confession about Hopkins’ active participation in the slave trade, one could safely assume that fellow Marylanders Benjamin Banneker, Frederick Douglass and Harriett Tubman began to rest a little more peacefully. The risks and efforts of all three Black abolitionists should have never been aligned with the caustic millionaire and railroad baron’s name as fellow abolitionists to begin with.

Had Hopkins really been a “friend to Blacks,” as the preeminent financier of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, with minimal effort he could have single-handedly usurped the dangers (or need for) the life-threatening trek that necessitated the underground railroad.

In order to dispel the rumor and confirm facts regarding Hopkins’ stance, settling on the definition of abolitionist, beyond a person who supported an end to slavery, is paramount. Noted abolitionist and fellow Marylander Frederick Douglass traveled and gave speeches in support of emancipation before the war (Hopkins gave no speeches and very few of his letters have been archived).  After the war and during reconstruction, abolitionists sought federal legislation to ensure equal rights regardless of race or gender as women’s suffrage movement took on steam. Hopkins provided no public testimony on pivotal Constitutional Amendments or provided a published stance on women’s rights.

If Johns Hopkins were an abolitionist, he must have proclaimed his allegiance to freedom and humanity ever so quietly under his breath in an overly ornate room (that would make a Quaker blush) in one of his multiple Baltimore mansions in a toast to himself with wine poured into the finest crystal by one of his many Black servants at his beck and call whom he had previously enslaved before emancipation.

The Darkies Were Happily Working Hard, Then They Were Gone

Much of what is known about Hopkins’ personal life and political leanings is through the sole definitive biography written by his brother’s granddaughter Helen Hopkins Thom and published in 1929 to little fanfare. It this book that planted the seed out of which the myth of Hopkins as a sympathetic abolitionist would grow.

In the introduction to the 2009 edition of Thom’s book, James Stimpert, Archivist of Johns Hopkins’ Sheridan Libraries warns that personal bias drips from her pages. “The historian will recognize that a narrative based on personal recollection may be suspect, both from a factual as well as an interpretive standpoint,” he wrote. No other definitive biography exists. Hopkins left no “paper trail” for historians to affirm or refute Thoms’ tales.

Advertisement. The Evening Sun. Baltimore 15 October 1929

Stimpert makes a couple of corrections with the benefit of hindsight and technology to Thoms’ account mostly concerned about the impetus for Hopkins’ idea to fund the university and hospital. Stimpert when given the the opportunity to delve deeper, he gave no insight or mention to the veracity of Thom’s abolitionist claim. In 2009, Stimpert had the opportunity to correct the record, point out the census data, and verify Hopkins’ allegiances to the union. What Stimpert displays is the “generational institutional ignorance” according to the Washington Post that runs rampant within the hallowed halls of the country’s first research institution that led up to its “stunning admission.”

1820 U S Census; Census Place: District 2, Baltimore, Maryland From Ancestry.com

Never in dispute to the origin story was that Johns Hopkins was raised on a Maryland tobacco plantation where his father carried on the family business as a multi-generational enslaver. Considering that the reverberations from the abolitionist movement drastically upended the young innocent life of an adolescent Johns Hopkins, as his biographer wrote, one would find it difficult to believe that he would make the same decision to manumit his slave as his father, if given the chance.

“Free the slaves? Terrible would be the consequences of such and act! Boys taken from school to work on the plantations! Hard physical labor for the entire families accustomed to ease and leisure! To manumit the slaves in whom large sums of money had been invested, and let them go without compensation -that way lay Ruin!”

Helen Hopkins Thom, on the “hard and perplexing problem” the Hopkins family faced in her book Johns Hopkins, A Silhouette, 1929

Most curious is how the story persists that Johns’ alleged abolitionist leanings supposedly stemmed from his faith.  No documents have been presented that indicate Johns gave two hoots about the Quakers.  He mentioned nothing in his will about them. Instead, Thom goes to great length in describing how Johns looked down on people who cited their faith when declining wine or drink that he offered. Often he bullied guests into submission. More evidence exists that he had animosity towards the church and his father’s moral compass rather than what exists to support he sought its guidance or echoed the beliefs.

At the threat of being separated from their church, Johns’s father Samuel acquiesced to the edict that their Quaker faith no longer condoned slavery. Samuel manumitted many of the people he enslaved, but only after he could not delay the decision any longer.  Samuel feared being ostracized by many of his parents’ friends and neighbors who ran tobacco plantations and household with enslaved labor and he worried day and night over the decision.

“Who would till the fields and harvest the crops when the slaves were gone? Who would card the wool and the cotton, do the weaving in the weaving-house, and keep the spinning wheels humming with the gentle burr that daily filled the air?”

Helen Hopkins Thom, author of Johns Hopkins A Silhouette

While no actual number has been provided, Thom noted that Johns’ parents Samuel and Hannah owned “plenty of slaves” and their labor was not just in the tobacco fields. The subjugation of people based on their skin color was also necessary in order for the most pious of Quakers to receive round-the-clock care for their 11 children. Thom embraces the pastoral imagery of forced labor plantations and evokes nostalgia for days gone by:


“Five hundred acres of long green tobacco plants formed the background for the unpretentious bring house, the large bards, and the laves’ quarters, a group of log cabins, usually surrounded by pickaninnies and old mammies while the more able-bodied negroes were busy in the fields.”

Helen Hopkins Thom, author of Johns Hopkins A Silhouette

Johns’ father Samuel died at age 55, about five years after penning the manumissions. Even though, his adult sons became enslavers. According to the 1840 census both his older brother Joseph Janney Hopkins (Thoms’ grandfather) enslaved 31 people and Johns’ younger brother Philip H Hopkins enslaved 29. Another brother Samuel S Hopkins Jr inherited slaves from his father, who he later manumitted.

Johnsey Hopkins, as he was known, is depicted on 1820 census as the enslaver of four people. As Johnse on the 1830 census he is documented as as enslaving two people while having three free Black males in his household. On the 1840 census in Baltimore, he is shown as an enslaver of three males. On the 1850 census, he had one enslaved individual. It would be difficult sell marketing oneself as abolitionist over the course of three decades of enslaving bodies, best to let others do the heavy lifting.

The Making of a Myth

The Washington Post admitted that the mythology surround Johns Hopkins being an abolitionist was built on “scant evidence” then fails to elaborate much further.

Equally incredulous, JHU president Ron Daniels acknowledged that a research institution with the motto of “The Truth Will Set You Free” failed to closely examine at evidence that had for over a century been in plain view: “How did we embrace this so readily?” Daniels said as reported by the Post.

Asking the protectors of the fourth estate to conduct a postmortem on how such easily obtainable facts escaped their watchful eye is not unlike what one would get after asking law enforcement to suggest ways to reform police. This independent journalist’s obligation is only towards the ancestors and is guided by what’s in the record, what’s been left out and a questioning of the gatekeepers. Historical whitewashing by higher education and journalistic institutions under the guise of a a narrow definition of scholarship and free speech must end without delay.

Historians are not faring that much better when it comes to fence-sitting. Dr. Martha Jones, a Black woman heading Hopkins’ initiative to finally speak truth to power says about Hopkins in the Post article:

“He may have been a critic of slavery,” Jones said. “My initial observation is that more than one thing can be true at the same time, and was true for many individuals in the early United States.”

Martha Jones, PhD From Washington Post in Dec 2020 on whether Hopkins was both an abolitionist and an enslaver. She’s spearheading the “reckoning” and in 2022 admits her perspective is evolving.

Overreliance upon Thoms’ book provided cover for the abolitionist myth to thrive in the public domain. Dr. Jones’ curiously-named Hard Histories Project vows to examine “the role that racism and discrimination have played at Johns Hopkins” by engaging communities “in a frank and informed exploration of how racism has been produced and permitted to persist as part of our structure and our practice.”

Not uncoincidentally, the public relations use of Hopkins as an abolitionist has undoubtedly provided cover for Hopkins’ running roughshod over Black neighborhoods and scores of Black bodies like Henrietta Lacks. Maintaining a facade of being a friend to Blacks in the city was crucial in maintaining the steady from of obscene dollar amounts of government funding for research, not to mention how attractive it looked when seeking endowment contributions.

Dr. Jones’s leadership is needed on the manner in which the prolonged public relations campaign that feigned Hopkins’ abolitionist roots served the University financially if the reckoning includes a necessary and larger discussion about reparations for the community it exploited.

What follows below is a synopsis of what may be considered kernels of truth from Thom’s book that later morphed into a mythological creature that has financially benefited the institutions named in his honor:

MYTH: Hopkins as a confirmed bachelor forever mourning the love that was denied him by his uncle’s devotion to his faith never again looked for love. His love for the institutions would take over that place in his heart.

THOM: Hopkins had “affairs” of the heart and enjoyed the company of several women, but although he came close to a proposal, he never married. He feared failure and worried if he could remain faithful. Instead, he focused his on a maniacal quest to accumulate money, real estate, power, and to create an institutional legacy that would not fail him.  Admittedly, his first love was his cousin, an ill-fated relationship that he often lamented its demise due to his uncle’s disapproval.

MYTH:  Johns Hopkins was a friend to Black Marylanders. Hopkins’ proximity to the economic struggles of suffering Baltimoreans has provided them with a steady stream of government funding.

THOM:  Jim, the “faithful darkey” who often brought Johns his slippers and dressing gown was remembered in Johns’ will with a house on French St and $5, 000.  A Black servant Charles was left $2000 while a third, Chloe, the cook, was left $1000.

REALITY: Johns Hopkins was friendly to a few Blacks, most of those he owned as their enslaver at one point.

MYTH:  Johns Hopkins was an abolitionist.

THOM: The days of “ease and plenty” came to an abrupt end for him; Johns, barely 10 years old was called to work on the farm and care for his younger sibling.  The family’s loss of slave labor when he was a child wore heavily on Johns throughout his adult life.

THOM (also): [Johns Hopkins’] stood by the union, was a strong Abilitionist [sic] and his outspoken principles made him many enemies…]

REALITY: If Johns Hopkins ever thought fondly about the abolitionist movement that was in full swing over much of his adult life, he thought it best to take it with him to his grave.

When Fact Checking is a Bridge Too Far

Finding when a rumor starts is not always as important as who and when it was repeated. In the Post article, no blame or shame was expressed on how (or why) corporate journalists parroted the abolitionist fable for centuries.  Outside of Thom’s sentimental remembrances, the earliest mention of Johns Hopkins being anything close to an abolitionist was a portrayal of someone who favored Lincoln’s desire to preserve the union, which is not identical to being an abolitionist.

What might be the first published echoing on a sentiment that went unfactchecked could be an Associated Press article published in the Washington Post.

(1973) During the Richard Nixon administration, the Post published an obituary of Hopkins’ great niece from the Associated Press wire who called her great uncle: “an ardent abolitionist and assisted many blacks.”

(1989) When Maryland’s Light Rail System was being planned, Evening Sun columnist Peter Kumpa wrote hardly anything is known about Johns Hopkins, but wrote that during the Civil War Hopkins “remained a strong Unionist and abolitionist”. On the same day, the same paper’s editorial on “Medical centennial” refers to the hospital’s founder as a “intellectually unsophisticated man” refraining from bestowing any greatness to him personally other than achieving wealth.

The erroneous mentioning’s are numerous, and the effects are far reaching:

Sam Mollin, student body president at Hopkins from Washington Post Dec 9, 2020

The 200 years that Johns Hopkins, the man, has gone without scrutiny pales in comparison to the laissez-fairer approach local papers have had towards the institutions that bear his name. Much of the destruction Johns Hopkins Hospital has been able to inflict upon Blacks in Baltimore can be directly attributed to the exalted press not willing to ask the obvious questions.

Blacks have had only themselves to carry on the caution against exploitation of Black bodies that occurred within the hallowed halls of Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical School. Now that the hood has been lifted, might the sun’s rays reach into the private institutions’ documentation of medical experimentation?

RESOURCES

1820 United States Federal Census. Johnsey Hopkins. 1820 U S Census; Census Place: District 2, Baltimore, Maryland; Page: 234; NARA Roll: M33_41; Image: 121. Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 2010.

1830 United States Federal Census. Johnse Hopkins. 1830 Census Place: District 2, Baltimore, Maryland; Series: M19; Roll: 55; Page: 64; Family History Library Film: 0013178. Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 2010.

1840 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Joseph Hopkins. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

Anderson, Nick, Lauren Lumpkin and Susan Svrluga. Johns Hopkins, benefactor of namesake hospital and university, was an enslaver. Washington Post. 9 Dec 2020 . Link


Bready, James H. Spirited search for the ultimate Maryland bottle. Baltimore Sun. 7 March 2004. Newspapers.com


Brown George W. Letter to John A. Andrew, Gov of Massachusetts. Delaware State Journal. 23 April 1861. Newspapers. com


“Century One at Johns Hopkins.” Editorial. The Evening Sun. 19 Feb 1976. Newspapers.com
Dibell, Kathie. Associated Press. Johns Hopkins Marks Its 75th Anniversary. The Daily Times. 15 May 1964. Newspapers.com

Kumpa, Peter. “He put us on the map, but we hardly know him. The Evening Sun.5 June 1989.

Thom, Helen Hopkins. “Johns Hopkins A Silhouette.” The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1929.

When you can’t trust the police…

Prologue: In a city where the tally of unsolved murders reach the triple digits each year, it is still surprising when a homicide detective’s murder becomes a cold case in Baltimore City.

The November 2017 broad daylight shooting death of detective Sean Suiter in a residential neighborhood has reached its third anniversary. The one sketchy suspect description was quickly recanted by the one eyewitness (also a detective).

With each passing year, it looks more probable (and not just possible) that Suiter was lured to Bennett Place, trapped in the alley, put down like a dog in the street, and the crime scene (held by police for an abnormally extended time period) was staged to look like a suicide.

A bombshell press conference by Suiter’s grieving family broke through the typical blue wall of silence in May 2019 when they claimed that the 39-year old’s murder was an inside job. This occurred on the heels of the department pledging to investigate itself when it brought in a panel called the “Independent Review Board” (IRB) to review their casefiles and in their 2018 report arrived at a manner of death different that the coroner (suicide versus homicide).

To be clear, the Suiter family believes Baltimore police was involved in the murder of one of their own, and they are not alone.

Cops controlled the narrative and the neighborhood

Controlling the narrative about the possibility of Suiter being shot with his own service weapon that allegedly was found under his body was equally as important as controlling movement in and around the crime scene around the clock for days on end.

A sober look at the case reveals much of what local media outlets have “reported” is merely a regurgitation of Baltimore Police spin. Consider the source: maybe, just maybe, the department could be frantically covering up a murder, making it prudent for professional journalists to take what law enforcement said (and probably more important what they haven’t said) with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Coverage of the Sean Suiter homicide began with widely reported misinformation that he was shot as he knocked on doors following up on a year old triple murder in the west Baltimore community of Harlem Park. The public later learned that he was likely confronted in the alley (and not the lot) and that he was assisting another junior homicide detective (David Bomenka) with his murder case that happened just weeks prior.

Unfounded Accusation #1: Suiter was shot with his own gun.

Truth: That is pure speculation on four crucial fronts:

  1. BPD (poorly) reenacted the “discovery” of the bullet that they said killed him. This happened in front of cameras by members of the homicide unit after the crime scene unit had released the area coming up empty after digging in the exact same spot looking for other missing bullets. NOTE: The “evidence” was too damaged to run ballistics tests to try and determine if Suiter’s gun fired that bullet. All that can be proven is that the bullet dramatically “discovered” at the scene is the same type that is used by BPD. It is not hyperbole to state that Baltimore Police have made an artform out of planting evidence.
Screengrab of a local television station’s cameras that captured BPD “discovery” of the bullet that killed Det. Sean Suiter just after ending the weeklong lockdown “securing the crime scene” ie media blackout – only to have reporters camera’s booted out again.

2. Suiter’s gun has a serial number. The public has have not been shown if the weapon tested has the same serial number as the Glock service weapon that was assigned to him.

3. The public should be comfortable assuming only that the bullet that killed Suiter likely came from one of the thousands of similar weapons issued by the Baltimore Police department.

4. Suiter may not have ever fired a gun that day. His hand were wiped clean by an overzealous (unidentified) hospital employee, police said. While the report spends an inordinate amount of time discussing the blood on his sleeve, no mention was made of whether gunshot residue (GSR) tests were performed on his shirt or his jacket. Also curious is that BPD originally reported that blood was recovered on his suit jacket and was later changed to his sleeve for no apparent reason once the suicide theory took hold. No explanation is provided for the absence of any photographs on either Suiter’s jacket or his shirt before the IRB became involved a whole year after the shooting.

Unfounded Accusation #2 : Suiter fell on his gun.

Truth: No one has come forward saying they saw Suiter fall or can definitively say where his gun was before he was moved into the patrol car:

At best, the detective with Suiter is an unreliable witness (also a tradition at BPD) and at worse he saw who killed the detective, manipulated the crime scene and/or took part in the cover up. Only photos grabbed from body worn cameras (BWC) of responding officers were provided to the press and there have been no statements attributed to any specific individual saying he or she saw the gun under his body.

It’s not out of the realm of possibility that BPD planted a gun at the scene, removed it and submitted one into evidence and claimed it to be Suiter’s. Ironically, Suiter was scheduled to testify about how multiple Baltimore police officers conspired to hide an illegal fatal car chase by planting evidence that sent two innocent Black men to prison rather than admit they were merely speeding.

NOTE: BPD was reprimanded by the IRB for the contaminated crime scene and “recovery” of a service weapon from the trunk of a patrol car belonging to an unidentified officer at some unspecified time that was logged into evidence as Suiter’s gun.

Baltimore Police’s “Independent Review Board Report. Page 37
  1. In his official interviews, according to the IRB report, homicide detective David Bomenka changed his version of what he saw: included seeing a. Suiter in the act of falling, b. having just collapsed to the ground and c. having had already fallen. But he was was steadfast that he didn’t see a gun in his hand; he only said that he saw gun smoke near Suiter.
  2. Most surprisingly, we don’t know if Bomenka saw or heard Suiter on his departmental radio. There was a transmission of Suiter sounding like he was in distress just as he was shot, according to officials. That would be a question worth knowing the answer to.
  3. When back up officers arrived once Bomenka (or someone) called 911 (the public has not heard the recording either), the photo from the BWC and presented in the IRB report is out of focus and unclear. The peculiar wording indicates the officers “could see” the gun, not that they did see or even that said that they saw the gun. It’s a crucial distinction.

The newspaper of record in March 2018 reported as fact that Suiter’s gun, “freshly fired” was underneath his body when responding officers arrived. It’s important for responsible journalists to distinguish what police said and attribute their claims to the source as opposed to offering up speculation as factual information to a trusting public that journalists have not independently verified or obtained similar statements from multiple sources on the record.

Out of many, the most absurd claim is IRB’s determination that Suiter’s weapon undisputedly fired the fatal shot as it defies logic. First, they tested the blood on the gun BPD found in the patrol car of an unnamed officer who presented it as the same gun that was “freshly fired” that no one saw under his body. Voila, the blood tested on the gun gift wrapped to them matched Suiter’s DNA. Mind you Suiter was transported in a patrol car to the hospital bleeding from a head wound. Whoever removed the gun from the crime scene had ample opportunity to place blood on a service weapon – either a random service weapon or actually the one that belonged to Suiter.

IRB’s suicide theory would have been a more convincing claim had the IRB report included:

  • the serial numbers of Suiter’s assigned weapon showing they matched the gun tested
  • the gun tested was the exact same one was recovered at the crime scene (instead of a car trunk), but there are no crime scene photographs of where the gun was found making this impossible
  • BWC that clearly captured arriving officer’s discovery of the gun under his body as he was rolled over that may or may not be available
  • crime scene photos of the location of the gun and the bullet that no one thought to take
  • whether or not Suiter’s DNA was found on the “recovered” bullet
  • if bullets and casings didn’t just magically disappear from the scene after Suiter died

Confusingly, IRB depicts in a photo the bullet that was not tested for ballistics, have no DNA on them (presumably), and have zero evidentiary value. What should be pictured is Suiter’s firearm circling where the blood splatter was located that actually tested positive for his DNA. Page 42 of IRB report.

Missing from the report is exact amount of blood splatter reportedly on the gun that IRB tested for DNA recovered and tested from the barrel and gun surface. An assessment should be made about whether Suiter’s blood found on the weapon is consistent with someone adding blood to it, or if it is likely that the blood was from a single shot being fired at close range near someone’s head. The IRB made a similar splatter determination with blood photographed on the sleeve, but did not do so with the “smoking gun.”

The problems with a complicit media

So many questions remain unanswered about the investigation, despite the IRB. Last year, a second review of the case by Maryland State Police (MSP) was conducted, but to date no report was released to the public. Unlike the IRB, MSP did not conduct a press conference leaving media outlets to get the finding from Commissioner Michael Harrison. Without any scrutiny from the public, MSP concluded that Suiter shot himself in the head after firing three or more shots into the air before shooting himself.

Neither panel brought in by Baltimore Police department to “investigate” their investigation reported on the lockdown of Harlem Park and BPD certainly didn’t request that either group look into whether it was possible that anyone manipulated the crime scene as part of a wider cover up.

As long as the case remains open, public access to documents remain shielded. Harrison, the fourth commissioner since the shooting, had called the investigation closed after MSP’s findings, only walk it back once the State’s Attorney’s office countered him by calling it an open and pending matter last year as the second anniversary of Suiter’s death approached.

Even with what little is known, it should be at least clear that beyond statements attributed to David Bomenka, nothing reliable has been presented that 1. Suiter was shot with his own service weapon or 2. that his body fell on a smoking gun. Such reporting is far from fact and closer to fable. What is discernable from the reporting is that members of the media were not able to view BWC, did not hear the 911 call for help, have not spoken with any investigators on the record, or even been given witness statements to read.

In advance of the August 2018 IRB report the Baltimore Sun used unnamed and anonymous sources to float out the idea that Suiter shot himself in the head and then fell on his “freshly fired” gun as “new details”.

More from Baltimore Sun’s story by Justin Fenton from March 2018 just before the announcement that an IRB panel would be reviewing the methods BPD used to investigate the homicide.

Residents in the community heard between four and five gunshots according to news reports. Miraculously, after occupying the neighborhood for a week, the crime scene unit was unable to recover a single bullet, although they did retrieve three casings near where he lay dying in the lot. There’s no definitive proof offered that the recovered casings in any way matched Suiter’s weapon, yet the IRB said without hesitancy that they came from his gun, presumably because they were recovered near his body. The leaps in this reasoning might not be judged as too far fetched- had they found the other missing bullets that went into the air but didn’t come down where they could be easily found even after a week of looking for them.

Regrettably, mainstream media in real time shrugged at the occupation of West Baltimore during this entire process, arguably because of the nature of the crime makes them sympathetic to the dangers of law enforcement and more subtlety because the color of the skin of the people complaining about overreach made their claims less newsworthy. Although in November 2019 the ACLU heard the complaints and filed a lawsuit against BPD which did gain media attention.

To any casual observer, the unprecedented 24/7 lockdown of the neighborhood had nothing to do with looking for a shooter, or finding bullets (since they came up empty on both fronts) but served to manipulate the scene and make sure any concocted story would match witness accounts prompting a social media hashtag #FreeWestBaltimore.

The “Confession” Tape: The Death of Baltimore County Police Officer Amy Caprio

Towson, MD – Once 16-year old Dawnta Harris made a u-turn in the cul-de-sac, officer Amy Caprio, 29, exited her patrol car. She walked in front of the 2016 off road Jeep Wrangler as it was moving, gun drawn.

The Jeep came to a stop. What happened next took probably less than a minute. Harris told Baltimore County homicide detective Alvin Barton the whole story during a 14 hour interrogation captured on video tape.

Caprio died from blunt force injuries in June 2018 when responding to a suspicious vehicle call in a residential neighborhood in the Baltimore suburb of White Marsh, MD.

The young, slightly built Baltimore County officer aimed her service weapon at driver window and ordered Dawnta out of the vehicle.  She stood directly in front of the Jeep with her gun pointed at him, blocking his only escape path.

“Get out of the fucking car” she yelled.

“I was too scared to get out,” he said during interrogation later that same day.

Dawnta said he only saw the officer once, a brief glance.  He saw the gun pointed at him.

A condensed version (three hours) of the 9+ hour video taped statement was played in a packed Towson courtroom Friday, April 26.

“Once I seen the gun I put my head down. For about 5 seconds.”

dawnta
Dawnta Harris, a 9th grader and resident of West Baltimore’s Gilmor Homes in an undated photo.

Dawnta kept his eyes closed tight and his head ducked, in fear of the officer with the gun. His heart and mind were racing.

He opened the door slowly. The body worn camera showed Caprio slowing moving sideways as the door opened.  She had just called in the license plate. She died not knowing the Jeep was stolen or that three of  the occupants earlier that day had committed a burglary.

Caprio stood behind her car, with cover, and with a better view of the door as it opened, no longer in the path of the Jeep.  Dawnta told Det. Alvin Barton that the officer was yelling something, but he couldn’t understand what exactly.

“I put my hands on the steering wheel,” is what he did next when asked.

“I was asking myself, what should I do? What should I do?” Dawnta said kind of frantically.

With a heavy sigh, he told the seasoned investigator, “Nothing came up.”

He repeated despondently, “Nothing came up.”

He closed the driver’s side door, still crouched down and with his eyes closed. The opening and closing of the door as he stated was seen on the officer’s recovered body worn camera video.

Then Caprio moved from behind her car back to her original position directly in front of the Jeep, as seen in the video.

Dawnta told Det. Barton he didn’t want to get arrested for the burglaries that he didn’t take part in.  He had been trying to avoid trouble all day with people he barely knew.

Barton told him he seemed like a good kid. In court he testified that the teen seemed intelligent and calm.

Without warning, a gunshot whizzed over the 16 year old’s head. Glass shattered around him.

Startled, Dawnta, put his foot on the gas. He was driving blindly. The car moved slowly.  On the BWC video, the car didn’t jerk, or burn rubber at a high rate of speed.

With his eyes closed he took a chance, Dawnta said. He was stuck with no good options for the 16 year old.

“I didn’t know if I was going to crash, hit her or get shot.”

After he got out of the cul-de-sac he didn’t look back.  “I didn’t know I hit her.”

The 5′ 7″ 120 pound soft spoken kid abandoned the Jeep about five minutes away from where Caprio was last seen standing. He shook the glass from the shattered rear window from his hair and tried calling other three boys on his cell phone.  Then he did the improbable.

In about 15 minutes, he was back to the same street, this time on foot with police cars swirling around.  He was stopped, questioned, and taken into custody.

Media coverage was racially-tinged common once mugshots of the four black teens are released.  Predictably, the arrest of the four boys evoked vitriol on media outlets’ online publications and across social media platforms.

The jury deliberated on Monday April 30th in the afternoon on felony murder charges. It’s the catchall charge when prosecutors fear that the bar of premeditation that comes with  first degree murder is way to high.

It’s a controversial charge. Many defendants have had their convictions of felony murder overturned. In short, prosecutors are not focused on the elements of the murder, but the accompanying burglary.

So, if the jury of three black men find that a property crime occurred (a felony, but not nearly as serious as a crime against a person), then a person can be sent to prison for any homicide that is associated with that related felony.

 

Getting to Know GTTF’s Silent Sergeant: Thomas Allers

GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS: Robbery, Attempted Robbery and Extortion

Sgt. Thomas Allers’ name didn’t often come up during the corruption trial of Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor from Baltimore Police’s Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF).  It’s certainly not because his crimes are any less egregious. The argument could be made that in many ways, his was worse.

Because the grandfather and veteran did not cooperate with the feds or profess his innocence to a jury, we are left piecing together Allers’ sordid crimes as head of GTTF for three years.

“Allers’ supporters tell [Judge Catherine Blake] he was an upstanding person and officer. The letters come from family members, former colleagues,” wrote Sun reporter Justin Fenton.

The 15-year sentence dropped on Allers showed that the judge was not moved by the pleas for leniency. Not even with an actual BPD detective writing on his behalf.  Det. John Clewell, a GTTF squad member also wrote a letter of support, the Sun reported. His son, Trent Allers also wrote an impassioned plea on his father’s behalf, according to the reporter Justin Fenton.

Allers is a tragic figure, his defense attorney would have people believe. Especially dealing with the likes of ex BPD detectives Momodu Gondo and Jemell Rayam, as reported by Baltimore Sun. The attorney claimed Allers became an “alcoholic and developed mental health problems as a result of his experiences as an officer, ” Fenton reported.

None of which ever seemed to be a problem in the eight months between the arrests of the GTTF squad and when the feds came knocking on his door.

For those unconvinced, here are four solid reasons why Allers is in some ways worse than Gondo (seven year sentence)  and Rayam (not yet sentenced). Fifteen years is getting off easy when examining the timeline below of his career at BPD.

What’s almost laughable is Allers’ claim that he was tainted by the bad apples around him and only proves that he just might be the one who is rotten to the core.

  1. He was the supervisor. The detectives can’t repeatedly steal money and have Allers sign off on what was seized if their supervisor didn’t take part in the scheme (or organize it to begin with.
  2. It was his squad. He could have pushed to transfer Gondo and/or Rayam.
  3. He tipped off Gondo and Rayam that the feds were snooping, even though he himself was no longer a part of GTTF.
  4. He isn’t cooperating (as far as we know) to weed out all of the corruption that remains within BPD.

We are left guessing as to why Allers brought his son along with him as he met up with Rayam and Gondo to burglarize a house. The BPD officers plead guilty to stealing about $8000 each. Furthermore, in pleading guilty, all three agreed that Trent Allers, who was present, took cash as well. No charges have been filed for the younger Allers in the Baltimore County jurisdiction where the robbery/extortion occurred.

allers family_LI (2)
Trent Allers (L) and his father (R) ex BPD veteran and GTTF supervisor Thomas Allers

Trent Allers has had troubles with the law himself.  The younger Allers has a history of DUI, traffic charges as well as a burglary charge in 2016, according to online records.

A TIMELINE FOR THOMAS ALLERS

1996 – Rookie

Thomas Allers joined BPD in July 1996 when Thomas C. Frazier was commissioner. His son Trent was 5 years old.

1997 – He Shot and Killed a Man

As a rookie, Allers, 28,  shot and killed an unarmed man when he responded to a domestic dispute.  Neighbors on the scene of the April 1997 shooting said the victim Nelson West, 40, was “a good man” and that he “didn’t deserve to die”.

Screenshot (2075)_LI
Excerpt April 21, 1997 Baltimore Sun. Retrieved from Newspapers.com

2000-2004 BPD and the Wild Wild West

Stopping black men for walking became the norm.  So much so that when DOJ was investigating in 2016, no one even tried to shield the unconstitutional practice. No surprise then It didn’t take long before strip searching men in public and stealing their money and personal property became routine. West Baltimore received the brunt of such wide spread abuses of power.

The brutality on display by plainclothes police was a perfect example of the saying” The cure being much more worse than the disease.

Tumultuous BPD leadership with three commissioners over four years could not have been good for morale or oversight within BPD. Commissioners faced accusations of domestic violence and criminal charges lead them to resigning or being forced out. See the 2004 article below.

The_Baltimore_Sun_Sun__May_23__2004_3 commissioners zero tolerance
Excerpt from Baltimore Sun archives from Newspapers.com May 23, 2004.

2000-2008 Zero Tolerance Policing

Allers was a young officer and among the rank and file tasked with enforcing the “zero tolerance” tactics employed by Mayor Martin O’Malley.

The 1999 death of Larry J Hubbard, shot and killed while unarmed, and settled in 2002 ignited protests against zero tolerance policing. While preparing for trial against the officers involved in shooting the 21-year old in the back of the head, Barry W. Hamilton and Robert J. Quick, the city settled with his family for an undisclosed amount.

A DOJ investigation cited the O’Malley era’s policy of “zero tolerance” as a racist and violent assault upon the city’s most vulnerable citizens, namely black males in Baltimore akin to Freddie Gray.

2013 –  Squad Leader

Allers became the sergeant in charge of GTTF. He would serve in that capacity for three years. His son Trent was about 22 years old.

2014 – Wildin’ Out

Not only had in custody deaths piqued peoples’ interest and the community’s concern, the failure to hold any officer responsible for complaints of excessive force fell on deaf ears. It would be a mistake to say that the lack of transparency and accountability served only to embolden “rogue” officers.  By 2014, the culture of “anything goes” had firmly taken root throughout the department and some might argue also spread to the city’s legislative and judicial arms as well.

  • March – Allers, along with Rayam and Gondo and the younger Allers executed a search warrant on a home in Baltimore County where about $420k in cash was discovered. They each took about $8,000. Trent Allers was not charged.
  • October – Allers along with his GTTF squad stole $3,000 from a store owner in Baltimore City.

2015 Freddie Gray death and Citizen Uprising Against Police Brutality

  • April – Thomas Allers and his GTTF squad rob a family of $5700 taken from their home.
  • May – Trent Allers takes a shot at being his father’s PR guy.  When Freddie Gray was killed and the city exploded in protest, the younger Allers sought media attention to his father by contacting Joe Flacco, The Washington Post and the local Fox news station via a social media account.

  • July – After stealing $8,900 from a home in Anne Arundel County and before AAPD showed up, Allers, Gondo and Rayam when to a bar to split up the money, which was their usual protocol.

2016  Allers’ Promotion from GTTF to DEA

Thomas Allers left GTTF for a  joint DEA operation and Wayne Jenkins took over leadership of the squad.  Commissioner Kevin Davis took over the helm in the summer of 2015 from Anthony W. Batts who was fired for his handling of the uprising. Testimony showed Jenkins was some ways worse than Allers in that he was ruthless with citizens they encountered, brash about the drug dealing, and acted as if he had protection from higher ups.

Never “remorseful” , Allers claimed he was sullied by the likes of Gondo and Rayam over the course of three years. Yet once free of GTTF , Aller’s doesn’t run to the feds about the sordid crimes Rayam or Gondo had committed.

Instead, Allers tipped them off that they were being watched. Feds had a wire in Gondo’s car and on his phone as of July 2016. The brashness was contagious as GTTF crimes extended nearly up until the very day they were arrested.

Meanwhile, the younger Allers posted how hyped he was for the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

Screenshot (2077)

2017 – Dominos Fall and a Homicide Detective is Downed

February – seven members of GTTF were arrested on federal RICO charges, including the Sgt Wayne Jenkins. The indictment spelled out an organized crime operation that spawned at least a decade using Baltimore Police HQ as little more than a front.

The first to plead guilty and cooperate were Hendrix and Ward, followed closely by Rayam and then Gondo. They all four would become government witnesses. The trial was set for January 20

  • August – Thomas Allers was arrested, nearly 8 months after mass arrests of GTTF squad. He might have thought he was safe. The court denied bail when he pleaded not guilty. A discussion over whether a 12 page letter was a suicide note or not cemented the judge’s decision to keep Allers in custody
  • August – Momodu Gondo  testified in open court that he along with Rayam committed an armed robbery of a drug dealer. A GPS tracking device purchased by fellow GTTF Det. John Clewell was used as a way to make sure the home would be unoccupied.  It wasn’t. The ski-masked wearing bandits held a frightened woman at gunpoint  while stealing money, jewelry, drugs and a gun.
  • November – BPD Det Sean Suiter was murdered and died the day he was scheduled to testify against members of the GTTF squad in front of a grand jury.
  • December – Allers changed his plea to guilty. He was later sentenced to 15 years. He was last known as being held in a minimum security prison in Florida. His release date is Sept 2030. He will be 61 years old.

2018

  • January – Wayne Jenkins plead guilty. He told the court he was “ashamed”, according the Sun.
  • Late January – The GTTF trial began.
  • February – Both Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor were found guilty Gondo, Rayam, Ward and Hendrix would each testify against them.
  • August – A review panel paid for by BPD concluded that Det Sean Suiter shot himself in the back of the head fooling even his partner who had been by his side for 2 days. His wife, Nicole Suiter, all of West Baltimore, and maybe half of the rest of the city disbelieve that the panel’s conclusion of suicide. 
  • November – The one year anniversary of Sean Suiter’s death came and went without any new official suspects or evidence presented to the public.
  • December – The medical examiner after reading the panel’s findings has kept its ruling: Homicide. Sean Suiter was murdered.

EPILOGUE

No one has been held accountable for the unprecedented and unconstitutional lockdown of Harlem Park by BPD in the aftermath/coverup of the fatal shooting of Det. Sean Suiter.

 

 

Cops as Criminals: It’s Not Black and White

All crooked cops aren’t created equally.

Some are born crooked. Some are led astray. Still others, like Momodo Gondo, has crookedness thrust upon him.

No one can pinpoint exactly when Baltimore Police became a hotbed of corruption. More importantly though, no one alive today can honestly remember when it wasn’t.

Screenshot (1982)

Above: Momodu Gondo points to former BPD commander Dean Palmere (Below) who helped orchestrate the cover up of a murder carried out by a GTTF member. Palmere is the subject of a lawsuit that claims it was his command that permitted abuses by GTTF.

Screenshot (2022)

Gondo and his closest Baltimore Police Department (BPD) buddy Jemell Rayam set the federal courthouse on fire last year as cooperating witnesses against two officers standing trial, Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor. The testimony was explosive pointing fingers at higher ups and eventually one another as members of the media darlings: Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF).

Gondo is scheduled for sentencing Tuesday February 12th. The month-long trial left a lasting impression:  corruption is rampant throughout BPD and everybody knows it.  The most influential media types have coddled the likes of former BPD commissioner and WBAL guest talk show host Kevin Davis who as points to a few bad apples tarnishing an otherwise stellar organization.

The world (not an exaggeration) took notice of BPD’s level of corruption after what happened to 25-year old Freddie Gray.  A bystander’s  video of Gray, wounded and howling, sickened all with a conscience who heard it.  People still cringe watching the previously healthy and strapping young man being helped into the back of a van by a cadre of white officers.

So there’s that.

Even before Gray’s fatal injuries in police custody, in 2014, the Baltimore Sun chronicled the exorbitant payouts in taxpayer dollars to silence citizens who suffered mightily at the hands of a small, but growing and increasingly violent cadre of police officers.

If Baltimore didn’t invent Walking While Black, it sure did its damnest to perfect it. Screenshot (2023)

West Baltimore is where the long arm of constitutional protections simply does not reach.  Never did. Generations of families suffer from substandard housing, lack of health care, poor nutrition, high drop out rates and low income with precious few escapes.

Heavily reliant upon mass transits, West Baltimore is where BPD members hone their racist practices disguised as stops, searches, and seizures.  Sadly, two decades into the new millennium, some blacks believe that over policing is what is needed to make their communities safe.

The lack of concern for West Baltimore was never more evident that during the uprising when Douglass High School students were dismissed early from school, only to have the MTA refuse them service at the Mondawmin Metro stop, forcing them to walk home, only to be confronted with grown as police men (mostly) in riot gear hurling chunks of brick at the children.

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After a yearlong investigation, the Department of Justice (called in after the Freddie Gray homicide), released its findings in an August 2016 scathing report. To no one’s surprise, the DOJ found that systemic racist practices were embedded so deep into the culture that BPD had not shed even a layer of its  history cloaked with KKK sympathizers.

The corruption was inescapable in 2016. Even so, when black homicide detective Sean Suiter was shot in the back of his head in November 2017 on a vacant lot in broad daylight with a white partner in tow, no one hardly blinked when BPD treated residents of Harlem Park like it was Fullujah.

Parallels to the Iraq War and BPD training are eerily similar.  Evidence of mistreatment of women recruits was captured as a “trophy”.

Arguably, Momodo Gondo, as an eager recruit didn’t join BPD with plans of using his badge and glock as a literal license to kill, maim, intimidate and harass.  The kid came from a “good family” of immigrants in a two parent household of professionals.

His father, Albert Gondo, a native of Sierra Leonne (as is his wife), worked for 20 years as a teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools. He died in December 2016 after a lengthy battle with Cancer.  According to his family, he was known a a principled man, a devoted husband and father.

When emotions ran high during the GTTF trial, Gondo would take to swearing on the memory of his dead father to repudiate fellow detective Jemelle Rayam’s claim about why Gondo was shot shoon after leaving the Academy. Rayam has yet to be sentenced.

If Gondo wasn’t born bad, when did it all go wrong?

The Academy – 2005

Gondo @22 years old

Gondo and his academy brother  Rayam are the final two government witnesses awaiting sentencing.  Gondo – under oath accused Rayam of cold-blooded murder (explored further in Part II) that was covered up by Palmere.

Academy training has more in common with military training than the most of the public may know. The enemy are the people on the street, the community members and the only ones cops trust are themselves.  The creed is to make it home safe. It rarely has anything to do with protecting and serving the public. Especially if the public is black, male and doubly so if he lives in West Baltimore.

Indoctrination and training are the two major components of the trainee’s experiences.  Like the military, the BPD academy experience is designed to break down a person, and build them up. Not coincidentally, it also serves as a loyalty demand. Recruits early on learn to depend on the brotherhood as if their life depended on it.

Gondo graduated in October 2006.

Screenshots from a 2004 era video of a training exercise where a trainee exits a gas house puking with her skin burning reliant upon BPD to carry her to safety. The level of depravity at BPD seemingly knows no bounds.

3 Shots in the Back – 2006

Gondo @23 years old

Then-Officer Gondo was shot three times in the back in December 2006, barely two months after graduating the academy.  Using a photo array, Gondo fingered the shooter as 24-year old Collin Hawkins (with a long history of drug dealing offenses on his record).  The feds, not the Baltimore States Attorney’s office made the case.

The particular moment that turned Gondo into a career criminal cannot be exact, but the same cannot be said for determining when BPD failed him and the community he was allowed to stalk.

Attempted Murder Trial – 2008

Gondo @25 years old

A case of He said vs He said.

The jury returned a not guilty verdict for the man charged with pumping 3 bullets into the back of a bullet proof vest Gondo was wearing as he got out of his car near his home in East Baltimore.

As the victim (and a cop to boot) Gondo pointed out for the jury,  a young black man Collin Hawkins as the person he fired 13 rounds at in a street shoot out. Gondo told the jury that he he and Hawkins struggled as he tried to thwart a carjacking. No dice. The jury decided not to believe Gondo.

Hawkins’ defense attorney claimed that Gondo simply chose the wrong guy. The defense pointed to the State’s Attorney’s Office’s extremely weak case with no gun, no DNA from the reported struggle. It was just the rookie’s word,  and it wasn’t enough.

Next Up: in Part II Fed Witness Testimony and The Sentencing

Judge says Baltimore Police Too Big to Fail, But that Ship Might Not Hold Water

Baltimore.

Not quite Charm City.

Far from Bodymore, Murderland.

A town with an abundance of big city problems – much more like, Small-timore.

Members of AFSCME Local 1195 Baltimore, Maryland Police Union strike in 1969.
BPD walked off the job in 1974 even after gaining widespread protections in passage of the state’s Law Enforcement Bill of Rights (LEOBR) in 1972.  Pushback prevented collective bargaining until 1982 leading to today’s FOP3.

Baltimore is big on grit, tenacity, history, humor all blended together to make for a special brand of what some call charm.  Tinged by the threatening cloud hovering over the major sports stadiums and scaring away any potential corporate growth is the city’s biggest budget item: The Baltimore Police Department.

The Problem

Baltimore’s Police Department is too big – to fail.  Yeah, just like the banks that suckered people into mortgages they could not afford, made a ca-billion dollars by packaging the loans together, disguising their value, and getting taxpayers to bail them out when their balance sheets couldn’t add up.

Chief U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar in his remarks Thursday during the second quarterly update by the parties involved in Consent Decree declared (Small-timore) Police Department too big to fail.  The analogies didn’t stop there.

Judge Bredar was clearly no fan of BPD at any point while negotiating the Consent Decree between the feds and the city and then selecting a monitoring team to oversee the process.  Furthermore, he is set to spend the next 5-10 years enforcing the decree to fix the ails (Monitoring Team points to “decades of neglect and mismanagement”) that DOJ uncovered when it pulled back the covers of BPD following the in custody death of Freddie Gray.

Still after witnessing all the ugliness festering inside a racist institution with little challenge for generations, Bredar then was subjected to a month long trial with sordid tales of murder, drug dealing, robberies, and the efforts to cover up the crimes while working as special unit detectives with the Baltimore Police dept.  Bredar spits out each letter of the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) like he’s ridding himself of the bad taste of a rotten peanut at an Orioles game.

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Judge James K. Bredar. Undated Photo. Presumably 10 year old. caption

Even this judge, with all that he has seen, is not in favor of disbanding BPD and starting over.  This city is not Camden, New Jersey he said.

“It’s not going to happen” said Bredar. There will be no fourth quarter “hail Mary pass” by way of a magical fix to the dept’s woes.  Anything other than sticking to the course set forward by the Monitoring Team is an “infeasible concept.”

At times the Judge appeared at a lost, but nonetheless compelled to dole out some measure of encouragement. For instance, he liked Solicitor Andre Davis’ oratory skills. Maybe how his forced sincerity bounced off the portraits hanging on the chamber walls.

With a proverbial pat on his head, Judge acknowledged how interim BPD Commissioner Gary Tuggle is pressing forward meeting deadline after deadline in drafting  policies that most likely eventually be tossed in the trash. Bredar expects whoever eventually takes over the helm, and rightfully so, would want his or her stamp on the process. Mayor Catherine Pugh did not attend this day long hearing. At the first hearing she and DeSousa left immediately after giving their opening remarks.

“BPD is the only police department that going to police the city of Baltimore – especially in my lifetime,” said Bredar.

Even with his commitment to the institution, the the judge ticks off significant if not insurmountable wrongs with BPD namely:

BPD has no commissioner. It’s had three in first six months of the year. Depending on the analogy of the day, the department lacks a construction foreman, compass on a barn, rudder on a ship, architect with blueprints, pilot with a flight plan,  foundation to a skyscraper – it’s become quite comical as new ones crop up.

City Solicitor Andre Davis said 10 resumes have been submitted after a nationwide posting and efforts were being made to replace former Commissioner Darryl DeSousa chosen by Pugh, who resigned  four months into the job after admitting to failing to file his taxes for multiple years.  Davis  attempted to assure the judge that the “flight plan” that the city has put forth using the Police Research Forum to aid in selection of the next commissioner will have one in place by Halloween.

Judge Bredar’s concerns were not assuaged.  “Sooner than that I hope,” he said. Everyday there is one or two negative things in the press.  He pointed to the officer arrested that week in Baltimore County county on charges of selling prescription narcotics.

“I’m not afraid to make the tough decisions” the Judge said. And then slightly under his breath,  “I don’t always make the popular decision.”

While claiming BPD is too big to fail in his eyes, Bredar had little difficulty often pointing out the department’s numerous and substantial umm, failures:

  • Staffing shortages
  • Stalled union negotiations
  • Fiscal constraints
  • Void in technology infrastructure
  • Lack of leadership
  • Deft of public trust

The Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) which houses Internal Affairs Department (IAD) is a revolving door of people in command with no policy to implement and not captain to steer the ship.  The department said the judge is an “essential organ in a healthy police body.”

“I suggest there are no more critical questions than one, who will be the next commissioner and two does that person have what it takes to lead the department out of the wilderness.”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) chimed in with its own concerns of the “capacity” the department has to make any changes. Along with being the “complainant” in the Consent Decree urging reform, the DOJ is participating with other federal agencies on four ongoing investigations of BPD:

  1. The death of Det. Sean Suiter
  2. Accusations of rushing recruits through the Academy
  3. BPD’s role in revelations uncovered by the GTTF trial
  4. Allegations that an officer lied on the stand in a criminal matter

Problems to Come

Suffering from a back ailment, Judge Bredar often looked uncomfortable at the bench. He said he is bracing himself on the results of the full investigation of BPD’s actions during last year’s Harlem Park lock down.  Citizens implored government intervention to no avail with pleas of #FreeWestBaltimore.  After Det. Sean Suiter was shot on in Nov 15, 2017, BPD all but suspended the Constitution by erecting an expanded perimeter that kept innocent people virtually prisoners in their homes.  Then commissioner Kevin Davis swatted away concerns of violations excusing them in favor of a pressing murder investigation.

Judge Bredar took particular exception to command’s reaction.  Noting it is in exactly times of stress and upheaval that training, adherence to policy and procedure is needed and must be adhered to. Baltimore failed.

The media and others did not recognize that it wasn’t just Harlem Park who suffered when then Commissioner Kevin Davis displayed a utter breakdown in his failure to lead, the entire department and therefore all of the citizens experienced a rip in the very fabric of what holds a civilization together. “The fix is at the top of the organization. Right now we don’t have a top,” said Bredar.

Stops and searches went on for nearly a week after Suiter’s murder. People were detained, some where brought into police station, most without their consent and questioned. One officer out of the multitude that ascended to 900 block of Bennett Place had activated her body worn camera capturing two hours of footage.

Children were kept out of school. Some were even given written passes permitting their travel in and around certain neighborhoods.

“The verdict’s not in” but in talks with the monitoring team “My suspicion is that it’s going to be disturbing.”

Trumped Up Charges: Convincing the Public Det Suiter’s Death Was Suicide

A vacant lot in West Baltimore is the absolute last place a Baltimore City Police officer would choose to die. Ask any of them.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s focus on both the how and why the Baltimore Police would suggest otherwise.  A review of several notable events will show that BPD has everything to gain and very little to lose if Det. Sean Suiter’s shooting death was changed from a homicide to a suicide.

sean suiter headshot
Det. Sean Suiter

The Evidence As We Know It

BPD has been extraordinarily tight lipped about the investigation from day one.  We’ve been lead to believe not much exists to help solve the case.  A lack of forensic evidence: no DNA lifted from Suiter’s clothing. Nothing recovered from the gun used to shoot him and an eyewitness description of the assailant that should no longer be considered as viable.

Murder Weapon

What is not in dispute is that the 18-year veteran suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head.  Three (or four) shots were fired, with at one to the head, occurring in a garbage-strewn lot where a vacant building used to stand.  While BPD insists the shot came from his own service weapon, no evidence has been put forth to substantiate this claim.  Suiter’s hands were wiped clean.

No tests exists to prove that the bullet “found” a week after the shooting was the one that killed Suiter.  Nor is there any proof that the gun found under his body once patrol arrived is the same gun that fired the bullet that killed him. The gun was retrieved in a patrol car some hours later after the Suiter was removed from the scene/

Reportedly, Suiter and his partner were on Bennett Place following up on a year-old homicide. He was shot at about 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday November 15, 2017 with no witnesses to the shooting.  If we are to believe his partner Det. David Bomenka (and there’s not reason anyone should) and his recollection of seeing a suspicious person about 20 minutes before the shooting, we can put them scene since as early as 4 pm.

suiter 2 cadets
Police cadets canvass neighborhoods seeking assistance in solving Suiter’s murder.

The maddeningly vague description by a seasoned police homicide detective still has watchers scratching their heads.  The suspect (of course) is a black man, wearing a black jacket with a white stripe. A description, presumably provided by the one eyewitness, so vague that it makes one wonder why Commissioner Kevin Davis shared it with the public in the first place.  The suspect description has been fertile ground for conspiracy theorists to sow wild beliefs from day one.  This “description” given by BPD while all other helpful information was withheld from the public is the primary reason BPD has only itself to blame for even why #SuiterTheories is a thing.

black man suspect
Ever ready black male suspect sought.

No age, no height, no weight, was observable by – not just any run-of-the-mill “shook” witness, but a trained  law enforcement officer came up empty on crucial description elements.  However, Bomenka mustered enough cop parlance to say he saw Stuiter struggle with a”black man” who he observed earlier and was “acting suspiciously.”

It’s crucial to also note that  this “description” was not provided to cops responding immediately to the scene.  They were told that there was no suspect description at all!  The next day, a “description” was ultimately provided to the public, and within days, BPD quickly did a re-shuffle and  instructed the public not to consider the black man and black jacket at all because he probably took it off.  Sigh.

Still there was a reward amount, a record high of $215,000.  But we were not asked to look for anyone other than a black man, no age, no height, no build.  Peoples’ suspicion grew.  The eyes of the nation were once again on Baltimore Police Department.

The Timeline

Inexplicably, a timeline of Suiter’s activities for that day was never given.  Maybe he cut someone off  driving and this was a delayed road rage incident.  Someone might have witnessed that. Perhaps someone spotted Suiter at a store he was at earlier, followed him to that location which led to a confrontation or some type of retaliation. Maybe he was sought out by someone who encountered him for a previous arrest or run-in. We’ll never know.  The police have not given any details about what has been ruled out.

Homicide investigations 101 include a timeline of the victim’s activities.  The detectives could have gotten there as early as noon or as late at 4 pm.  But cast that in the huge empty bucket of unknowns. It’s also unknown if they arrived at the same time or in the same car even. Remember, an enticing reward was dangled, but nothing to aid the public to claim it.  BPD never gave the public anything close to a timeline of Suiter’s movements that day to help solve his death as a murder.  It’s almost like it was the city’s first and only murder.

Pretty much everything else has been tainted by innuendo, cloaked in secrecy, and of course, some details Suiter has taken with him to his grave.

Suiter’s Staged “Homicide”

To sell the murder as a suicide, and a staged one at that, BPD will  likely combine a “reasonable motive” along with a description of how Suiter had both the opportunity and skill to pull off a staged homicide.  The theory will center around Suiter’s  apprehension to testify and his desire to leave his five children financially secure. When this is done (with the assistance of compliant media partners), BPD believes it can slam the lid shut on the Det. Suiter death and move forward with the city’s business.  Narrative changed!

The Location

The day before he was set to testify in a federal grand jury case involving corruption in a gun unit at BPD, Suiter along with Det. Bomenka, not his regular partner, set out to West Baltimore.  Bennett Place is a one way westbound residential street that runs parallel to Franklin St and Route 40, which is a major east/west thoroughfare. Schroeder St intersects Franklin St to the north and Fremont Ave crosses it to the south.

It was early in the afternoon a comfortable 45 degrees and cloudy.  People would be walking to and from the neighborhood store, and kids would be coming home from school.

The bustling environment seemed perfect for the why the detectives were out and about  looking for witnesses in order to close a 2016 triple murder case.  The location might not be the best fit for the optimal place to commit a public suicide, but the very next day Suiter was scheduled to give testimony to the grand jury, time was running out.

The Plan

Keeping with the theory, Suiter is there to plan his own death (We assume unbeknownst to Bomenka). With all the activity, Suiter will have to have a series of fortunate events go his way.   BPD has a stake in selling the world on this theory that Suiter’s plan was to die in a urine soaked lot filled with broken bottles and small patches of grass.

The motive they will say is the thing.  Suiter fits the profile (more on this later).

Suicides, accurately and commonly perceived, most likely occurs in isolation. This requires some distance. So (again if Bomeka does not participate in this wildly imaginative concoction of a story), Suiter invents a reason to go behind the wall, perhaps telling Bomenka he has to go relieve himself. When fully out of view, Suiter pops off 2-3 rounds and yells, telling Bomenka to get down or stay back as a ruse.  With no one around to see him,  Suiter pulls on his own clothes to give the impression of a violent struggle. He’s a seasoned cop.  If anyone can stage a crime scene, he can.

Counting on his partner to follow the order, Suiter then takes his gun and reaches behind his head with his right hand and shoots himself, once. He survives the gunshot and is placed on life support until the next day when he is declared dead as a result of his injuries. The medical examiner discounts any speculation that the car accident en route contributed to his death.

NOTE: It’s possible if BPD goes hard with the scenario, Bomenka will be trotted out with new disturbing details that support the suicide theory.

The Motive

Selling the public on the “why” behind concocting such an elaborate hoax will be at the center of scenario of any farce BPD might trot out.  With fancy graphs, data and experts, they will insist that Det. Suiter attempted to stage his death to economically provide for his family.  There won’t be any evidence of this because they would have shared it by now.  Most likely they will point to how Suiter’s situation cozily fits with nationally recognized experts and studies on officers’ suicides.  They’ll talk about PTSD not just for the urban stresses, but they’ll link it back to his tour in Iraq.  It’ll make perfect sense they’ll argue because Suiter will check each of the boxes below:

  • The average age is 42 years old at time of suicide
  • The average time on job was 16 years of service
  • 91% of suicides were by male officers
  • Time on the job when most are most at risk was 15 to 19 years of service
  • Firearms were used in 91.5% of police suicides
  • In 83% of cases, personal problems appear prevalent prior to the suicide

The rationale will be reminiscent of the catch all predictions of a carnival fortune teller: You are seeking the love of your life.  Recently you lost someone close to you.  Something you lost will turn up soon. Yada yada yada.

The conspiracy was fed by the now infamous Thanksgiving holiday  news dump. Davis dropped a bombshell as preparation was underway for Suiter’s funeral. The day of his death, Suiter was supposed to be a federal witness against Baltimore City Police officers.  The video below for the first time discloses Suiter was scheduled to pointing the finger squarely at criminal activity within BPD.  Davis knew this, but here he said he only just found out. Once the feds he been knew, he later said he mis-remembered. This video is a beauty in  diminishing what little credibility and sympathy people were eking our for the department.

Transparency and Accountability

Up until now, first hand accounts are evasive.  Those on the scene have not provided any statements to the public.  Zero statements have been provided by officers who responded to Bomenka’s 9-1-1 call.  We haven’t even heard the call!  Some details has been provided through the media relations person and from the commissioner at the time, Kevin Davis. And even that information has not been reliable.

Dispatch audio notifying officers of the emergency was released and provides the most insight.  Other primary source material promised has not materialized like the audio of Suiter’s voice on radio. Baltimore residents aren’t likely to fall for the okey-doke.  They will demand that information be provided, especially the Body Worn Camera (BWC) footage of responding officers and the full autopsy results.

Remaining Puzzle Pieces

  • Dispatch sent officers to Bennett and Fremont and had difficulty finding the crime scene.
  • Early reports indicate that the male suspect was probably injured.
  • Medical units were advised of a second victim at the scene and aware that Suiter had been transported.
  • No details on Suiter’s accompaniment, a driver, a companion, etc when transported by car to University of Maryland Shock Trauma
  • No details on the car accident encountered en route to hospital.
  • No details on whether Suiter was conscious or if CPR or any medical performed during transport.
  • Officer’s gun and officer’s radio is back in the alley where he got hit, but Suiter gone.
  • Davis in discarded suicide altogether when asking FBI to take over the investigation
  • No shell casings observed at the scene by first responders.

The most crucial element to supporting suicide is that evidence must prove Suiter fired all the shots and there was no struggle for his gun.  This will be the complete opposite of what says said to be known facts for much of the investigation.  Davis has repeated often that  confusion reigned because officers were unsure the direction of the shots. Bomenka was delayed in providing aid because he was seeking shelter across the street.   Also, Davis insisted Suiter was involved in a violent struggle and that possibly the suspect was injured.

They have to explain why they thought the suspect was initially injured, but the casings are key.  Davis took deliberate pains to explain how the return to the scene after the autopsy gave him additional insight. Conveniently when the media cordon was lifted, officers “discovered” a shell casing in clear view of a television camera, completed with mime-quality acting.

Next Man Up – Commissioner Darryl De Sousa

Mayor Catherine Pugh announced she was terminating Kevin Davis from BPD on January 19, citing escalating violence, namely murders in the city.  She never mentioned Davis’ handling of Suiter’s case for cause or even presiding over the department during the FBI investigation that landed an entire special operations unit in the pokey. Instead, she left taxpayers on the hook for his $150,000 severence.

pugh and de sousa
Body language of Mayor Catherine Pugh speaks volumes in announcing her appointment to the city’s top cop.

In promoting De Sousa, Mayor Pugh admittedly has not had any lengthy or repetitive conversations with then Commissioner Davis about the investigation into Det. Suiter’s death.  Instead, she cited her impatience with “getting the numbers down.” However,  when she did  view of grainy video prompted her support of the request for the FBI to take over the investigation. The FBI declined.

In the lead up to his eventual confirmation, Commissioner De Sousa told Brian Kuebler in an exclusive interview his plans to have a new set of eyes. The independent agency is a secret, too.  When the reporter asked, very comfortably De Sousa refused to disclose any details without much pushback from the reporter.

As for his views on the death of Suiter, Commissioner Darryl De Sousa said, “I have an idea, but I’m not going to share right now.”

Showing that the more things change, the more they stay really the same.

Bennett SkyView

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