Category: Sean Suiter

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”

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.

BPD and the Art of Planting Evidence: Sean Suiter and the GTTF

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BWC video discovered by a defense attorney captured BPD officer Richard Pinheiro Jr in January 2017 fabricating evidence, a judged found him guilty in a Nov 2018 trial. Staging crime scenes turns out is not a fire-able offense. ScreenGrab CBS Evening News

Pinpointing when the culture of deceit took hold within the halls of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) is not a puzzle worth solving.   Somewhere along the way the department lost all credibility, any moral authority and, at times, even its legitimacy.

No clearer example of BPD’s downfall was when Det Sean Suiter, barely hanging on to life, was transported from the intersection of Bennett Place and Schroeder Street the afternoon of November 15, 2017.  It was that day that the ugliness the city shied away from was thrust squarely in peoples’ faces so no one could continue to ignore the obvious.

Part II : Sean Suiter was accused of unknowingly planting evidence with GTTF; BPD’s coordinated a suppression of liberty and freedoms with aid of a complicit media in the week-long lockdown of Harlem Park.

Rewind the clock back eight months from Suiter’s death to the arrest of seven dirty BPD officers linked to the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF). From March 1, 2017 a series of unfortunate events lead Suiter to Bennett Place reliving a single city block’s horrid history of violence, condemnation, and isolation.

Spring 2017

While in a county holding facility awaiting trial, unit supervisor and ex U.S. Marine Sgt Wayne Jenkins encouraged all members of his unit arrested to maintain their silence.  All had plead not guilty to a variety of RICO charges.

It would be a waiting game of who would crack first. Spoiler: Jenkins was sentenced to 25 years and did not testify.

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Former PC Kevin Davis awarded Wayne Jenkins in 2016 for his heroic efforts during the 2015 uprising – yep the same time he was cashing in on looted pharmaceutical drugs.

July 6, 2017

Additional robbery charges  were levied in a superseding indictment against Jenkins along with Danny Hersl and Marcus Taylor.

July 21, 2017

The blue line of silence snapped when two GTTF officers, Evodio Hendrix and Maurice Ward, plead guilty and agreed to be government witnesses.  Ultimately their sentences of seven years would be the lightest.

Note: Hendrix’s testimony was the most credible. Ward, the first to testify, came across highly intelligent, yet extremely manipulative and opportunistic.

August 22, 2017

On the 900 block of Bennett Place, a 15-year old boy was shot numerous times and died from his injuries.  Police made an arrest in the murder of the teen, Jeffrey Quick but charges were dropped as Baltimore State’s Attorney’s office was crippled by discredited officers and tainted evidence.

August 30, 2017

The eighth GTTF member is indicted, Sgt Thomas Allers.

It was clear to anyone watching that Hendrix, Ward, Rayam and Gondo were cooperating.  Panic had to be setting in for not just the corrupt officers, but those who were protecting them. Allers was sentenced to 15 years.

Escape Routes for Jenkins and His Protectors Closed

Jenkins was known to tell officers who worked in his crew some parts while telling other people in the unit different aspects of his criminal activity.  Hendrix and Ward were in the dirt of GTTF up to their chins, but they didn’t know where the bodies were buried. Feds picked the lowest hanging fruit first.

As long as Gondo and Rayam kept quiet, then Jenkins stood a chance. Hersl and Taylor taking a shot at a jury, proved their checkers game was no match with such high stakes.

September 2017

BPD’s Western District Action Team raided two Heritage Crossing residences, a five minute walk from 900 block of Bennett Place and made two arrests with great fanfare. Officer Zachary Novak, infamous for being with the officers who arrested Freddie Gray, was listed as one of the arresting officers in the raids near Bennett Place just before Sean Suiter was murdered.

Novak seemed to be everywhere and no where as Freddie Gray’s limp body finally arrived at Western District HQ in April 2015, along with another passenger who would give varied accounts of what he heard and saw riding with Gray.

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As of this writing, Damien Cook, is still a housed in the Maryland Department of Correction.  Byron Harris was released the week of his arrest.

October 5, 2017

Kenneth Maddox, 45, was arrested and charged with the shooting death of the teenager Jeffrey Quick by a long list of BPD homicide detectives, including David Bomenka.

October 11, 2017

GTTF officer Momodu  Gondo plead guilty to protecting a heroin ring operated in Baltimore along with criminal conspiracy charges that involved Wayne Jenkins.  Two days prior, on Tuesday October 9, GTTFer Jemell Rayam plead guilty to similar racketeering charges.  Both greed to cooperate and expose crimes within BPD.  Gondo received a 10 year sentence to Rayam got 2.

Only a few chess pieces remained on the board.  Sgts Wayne Jenkins and Thomas Allers had maintained their innocence, along with Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor and the feds prepared for trial.

Suiter Lawyers Up to Cooperate With the Feds

October 24, 2017

Suiter declined the FBI’s request for an interview on the GTTF.  This would lead them to issue a subpoena for him to testify on November 16, 2017.

It’s likely Sean Suiter took whatever he knew about the corruption within BPD to his grave. He was likely going to implicate those involved in framing two men in the death of 86 year old Elbert Davis in April 2010.

Umar Bradley went to prison on the word of members of the GTTF unit who claimed Sean Suiter found drugs in the car he was driving at the end of a high speed chase in Park Heights. He was also convicted of manslaughter because while Jenkins was chasing him, Bradley crashed into a car driven by an elderly couple (the parents of BPD officers no less).

The wrongful conviction of Bradley and his passenger Brent Mathews threatened to expose a higher echelon of criminals working within BPD. Both Sgt. Ryan Guinn and Sgt Keith Gladstone were implicated in the cover up.

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Keith Gladstone outside federal courthouse in May 2019 after pleading guilty to bringing the gun and drugs to the scene used to set up Bradley and Mathews.

Tuesday November 14, 2017

Sean Suiter and Bomenka spent the day investigating leads on Suiter’s the triple murder cold case from December 2016. It was unusual for Suiter to pair up with Bomenka.

Wednesday November 15, 2017

Bomenka and Suiter again spent the entire day together and as their shift was coming to a close, Suiter was fatally shot. His body was recovered on a vacant lot off the 900 block of Bennett Place close to Schroeder St. Witnesses heard about four total shots.

Patrol officers arrived and loaded Suiter into a car.  Leaving the scene, they backed into another patrol car for that day’s first accident.  En route to the hospital the car with Suiter was in an accident with yet another patrol car at the intersection of Martin Luther King Blvd and Baltimore St.

Suiter is moved again to an ambulance that was at the intersection. Bomenka stayed at the scene on Bennett Place.

Countless and undocumented law enforcement officers and notable political figures converged on the scene that night and over the course of the days that followed. The scene was a free-for-all, except media was excluded.

Thursday November 16, 2017

Sean Suiter’s name was released to the public and his death announced. Police gave Bomenka’s description of a person of interest: a black man wearing a black jacket with a white stripe.  PC Kevin Davis said the suspect could be injured as Suiter was shot after a brief struggle.

The narrative was shaped that he was shot with his own gun, which has never been proven.

Baltimore police expanded the perimeter of the crime scene from the block where Suiter’s body was recovered to include an indeterminate number of city square blocks clear up to Gilmor Homes where Freddie Gray was chased and arrested.

Media was also barred from the scene. The shield of secrecy would extend into the daylight hours.

November 17, 2017

The media black out continued and cops took to writing and handing out passes that allowed Harlem Park residents to get into their homes after working or running errands.

WANTED: Eyes and Ears On The Ground

The corner store owner filed a lawsuit against BPD claiming that the department took and destroyed his cameras. The stalwart known for posting wanted signs and cooperating with BPD to halt criminal activity around Bennett Place no longer had footage that included the Suiter.

BPD has never addressed what, if anything, was captured on the store’s cameras that covered Fremont Ave and the community of Heritage Crossing.

Also shielded from public view and scrutiny were the body worn cameras (BWC) of officers involved in locking down the expanded perimeter of Harlem Park for over a week. IRB provided still photos of BWC captured by officers as patrol cars arrived in response to a 911 call, which was also not made public.

The day after the ACLU complained of violations by cordoning off large city blocks and required residents to show ID in order to enter and exit their neighborhoods, BPD relented and pulled back its expansive perimeter, but maintained security around the vacant lot.

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November 22, 2017

Not unlike Pinheiro’s “discovery” of drugs earlier in the year (in a Barney Fife imitation), BPD’s homicide unit also got into the act. The perimeter was pulled back just long enough for  WBAL to film the “discovery” of the kill bullet, buried in dirt – seven full days after a slew of investigators combed the area.  Surprisingly no other bullets were found. It’s like the casings fell out of thin air.

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Lambasted by the IRB report that a crime scene tech wasn’t searching for the errant bullet, a homicide detective acts out the discovery in the few hours that the cordon was removed before it was reinstated. ScreenGrab David Collins WBAL TV Twitter

Frustrations grew over the lockdown.  Police stopped asking people for help finding  the black man wearing the black jacket. Restricted movement remained in the occupied territory of Harlem Park. 

Late afternoon on the day before Thanksgiving, PC Kevin Davis called a press conference and announced Suiter was shot the day before he was scheduled to testify in the highly publicized GTTF case.

The city gasped. Finally a potential motive.

No one had publicly connected Suiter to Jenkins’ crew until this bombshell news. A motive for BPD’s lockdown might have been to pre-emptively thwart rising public discontent over the extent of BPD corruption still not addressed from Freddie Gray’s murder investigation. While the Consent Decree monitoring team and the ACLU both have called for one, no investigation into the police state created in Harlem Park has occurred.

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Up Next

Part III: Whispers of suicide in BPD’s bought and paid for panel of independent experts reviewing the agency’s investigation of Suiter’s death and the unraveling of the IRB report

 

 

A Chronicle of Indifference: Blood Spilled on Baltimore’s Bennett Place

PROLOGUE

Bennett Place in West Baltimore will forever be ingrained in many peoples’ memories because of the blazoned shooting death of Baltimore Police detective Sean Suiter on a cool clear fall afternoon in 2017.

The aftermath of Suiter’s death was felt immediately with a suspension of Habeas Corpus for the entire Harlem Park neighborhood that has yet to be addressed. And also long term as the shadows of suspicion hang darkly over a department desperate to shine itself in a new light.

Outside of the city, what’s incredulous is how BPD easily discounted that Suiter was shot the evening before he was supposed to show up as a federal witness to snitch on a complicated network of dirty cops.

The closer you get to the city, the debate breaks along racial lines and consequently also those who generally have a high opinion of the agency. They are the ones who grapple with whether or not Suiter committed suicide because he was fearful of the “snitch label” that accompanied testifying or if he himself was dirty.

People seriously entertain that Suiter took a partner with him to Bennett Place to kill himself, but stage it as a homicide, so his family could reap the monetary benefits. 

BPD apologists are quick to point out that if the feds believed it was a hit by dirty cops, they would have taken over the case when BPD asked.

Then there are black people and others who are suspicious of LE and more broadly the criminal justice system in general.  Sean Suiter’s widow and children have not been shy pointing the finger directly at BPD (calling it an “inside job“)  for covering up and in some ways being responsible for his death. Screenshot (1192)While there hasn’t been a murder on Bennett Place since Sean Suiter’s, there has been plenty of violent murders prior.

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ScreenGrab Baltimore Sun May 2019

Part I

Historically Bennett Place has suffered from bad press since the 1960s when redlining and later public housing would make the one block stretch a tinder box of discontent. Even today soon as the heat from the national attention from Suiter’s death dissipated, the department for sure and consequently local media seem content to let it fade from memory.

What follows is a timeline of connected activity spurred by politics, hubris, neglect, bias, intimidation and fear. At the center of it all is the Baltimore City Police department (BPD, an illegitimate agency that ought to be disbanded.

Summer 2013

Experimenting with a Police State. Baltimore police under PC Anthony Batts erected metal gates restricting entry and exit to the 900 block of Bennett Place in response to two recent fatal shootings.  A mobile unit was stationed nearby staffed by a dedicated officer. This was presented in news as normal reaction.

The victims were Maurice Taylor, 37 and Joshua Billingsley, 26.  Neither death was reported to be gang related. The corner store, UAC Food Mart, was equipped with 20 video cameras. Store owner Chris Akpala behind bullet proof glass was known to post on his walls “wanted” pictures captured from his cameras of known troublemakers in the neighborhood, according to Baltimore Sun.

gated community

Summer 2015

Chaos Ushers In the Feds. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake fired PC Batts and promoted Kevin Davis in the aftermath of the demonstrations that followed the death of Freddie Gray who lived in the Harlem Park vicinity.

Property damage was minimal save the cable news stations’ looping on a burned CVS store in Penn North. But the DEA said 27 pharmacies ( a staggering one third of ALL pharmacies located in the city) were looted totaling 315,000 doses – nearly half of which were schedule II drugs like opioids, the Sun reported. It was later discovered that a dirty BPD sold looted drugs to return back to the streets

BPD imposed a work slowdown in West Baltimore, in protest to the uprising and the political climate that resulted in six officers being charged with Gray’s homicide.

(Later, the officers’ attorneys challenged the ME’s finding of homicide, preferring instead to to call it an accident resulting from Gray intentionally thrashing himself inside the transport van). This theory has been debunked in a popular Undisclosed podcast.

Nonetheless, signs of life sprung up in Harlem Park in wake of the 2015 death of Freddie Gray after the uprising.

At the request of Mayor Rawlings-Blake, on the heels of the unrest, the Department of Justice (DOJ) began its yearlong investigation into BPD’s patterns and practices regarding claims of civil rights abuses.

Summer 2016

Feds Nab Dirty BPD on a Wiretap. Gun violence and drug overdoes spiked to record numbers.  Fentanyl deaths were up 86% in Maryland.  Baltimore States Attorney dropped all charges on all officers after judge acquitted Lt. Brian Rice of involuntary manslaughter charges. BPD’s work slowdown continued fatally impacting West Baltimore.

In the meantime, feds were listening in on a wiretap and caught a BPD officer discussing using a personal GPS device to make sure a suspected drug dealer wasn’t in his home in order to assist a rival drug dealer in a burglary.  A woman, in bed at the time of the break in,was robbed by a masked BPD officer at gunpoint.

While building the drug case, feds stumbled upon members of a specialized BPD unit called the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) committing and covering up robberies, drug deals and overtime fraud.

Also, the DOJ issued its findings in a scathing report outlined a pattern of constitutional violations which would lead to the city consenting to reform itself under court supervision.

Sunday December 4, 2016

The Triple Murder That Brought Suiter to Bennett Place. Residents in 900 block of Bennett Place called 911 about 3 am to report sounds of gunfire.  Baltimore Police responded and left.

Though concerned all morning, residents of 900 block of Bennett Place waited to call Baltimore Fire Department and someone requested a welfare check. Fire officials found a body and called BPD.

Police located three deceased black males in a boarded up house at 5:45 pm.  Sean Suiter, reportedly the detective assigned to the case, returned to the scene multiple times, the final time was nearly a full year later on the day he was killed.

Monday December 5, 2016

BPD labeled the murder victims as “targeted” (instead of random) and proclaimed them to be Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) gang members (an oft used tactic). Once labeled gang related, the triple murder became less palatable to suburban paid subscribers. The methods LE use to link people to gangs is controversial.

Saturday December 10, 2016

Police publicly identify the victims as Antonio Davis, 23; Howard Banks ,45 and Thomas Carter, 42.  Police’s public outreach to solve this murder was minimal based on the messaging delivered by BPD spokesperson T. J. Smith.

2017 Sean Suiter’s world collides with the fate of GTTF

 

January 2017

Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. The new administration under the leadership of DOJ Secretary Jeff Sessions produced a consent decree to the Baltimore City and the Police Department that mandated sweeping and costly reforms.

Catherine Pugh was also inaugurated as the city’s next mayor. Rawlings-Blake did not seek re-election.

March 1, 2017

Seven Baltimore Police officers, linked to the specialized unit (GTTF), were arrested as feds announced a sordid criminal conspiracy indictment involving crimes that went back at least a decade and some capers as recent as mere days before their actual arrest.

Part II : Accusation Sean Suiter unknowingly planted evidence with GTTF and sent two innocent men to prison; BPD’s coordinated a suppression of liberty and freedoms with aid of a complicit media in the week-long lockdown of Harlem Park

Part III: Whispers of suicide in BPD’s bought and paid for panel of independent experts reviewing the agency’s investigation of Suiter’s death and the unraveling of the IRB report

The Hunting Season: Targeting BPD’s Sean Suiter and Ike Carrington

 

 

BALTIMORE — Reporters pulled at threads to piece together a coherent follow up story today to tidy up loose ends poking out about the near fatal shooting of Baltimore City police detective Isaac “Ike” Carrington.

The city’s newspaper of record, The Baltimore Sun, took pains to distinguish how police “blocked” traffic during Carrington’s transport to the hospital, but didn’t “shut down” streets as reported by sometime rival/sometime media partner television station WBAL. On Thursday, Aug 22 flailing local outlets sought out a second day story after Carrington, 43,  was craftily released from the hospital orchestrated by the department’s public relations team.

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At the center of the patrol vehicles’ “block vs charge” debate is a friend of City Council President Brandon Scott, Ike Carrington, who has not given an interview to the press though the public has gotten to know him from his YouTube appearances.  We’ve learned that Carrington is a family man, fashion entrepreneur and police sergeant with a 22-year career in one of the nation’s most notoriously corrupt law enforcement agencies.

The curtain shielding the extent of corruption was pulled back during a high profile trial of two Baltimore Police department (BPD) officers in a specialized unit named Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) four other BPD unit members testified in early 2018 that the corruption was rampant to the degree that even the Baltimore States Attorney was tipping BPD off about feds poking their noses in. Two sergeants Thomas Allers and Wayne Jenkins did not  testify against the slew of corrupt officers as cooperating witnesses and received harsh penalties.

Even before the cops/fed witnesses held their hands up to swear to tell the truth in fed court early 2018 about their extensive criminal activities,  Det Sgt Sean Suiter was shot in a vacant alley in West Baltimore. The still unsolved murder elevated suspicion that he was targeted for his role in planting evidence along with GTTF’s leader Wayne Jenkins.

Suiter died of a single gunshot wound to the back of his head on the exact same day he was scheduled to be a fed witness against the organized crime run out of BPD HQ by some of its most decorated officers.

Reporters looking at the Aug 8, 2019 attempted murder of Ike Carrington without revisiting the early 2018 GTTF trial and Sean Suiter’s Nov 2017 murder in Harlem Park would be committing the same professional bungling BPD is known for.

Putting a Hit on Officers Isn’t That Far Fetched

Dirty cops come with dirty laundry.  No one wants to keep that stench under wraps than those who thrive on the turnstiles that make up the criminal justice system – law enforcement, judges, and prosecutors.

Whilst the feds were making its case against GTTF’s dirty cops using wiretaps and surveillance, the Department of Justice (DOJ) was also rummaging through BPD HQ in response to the homicide death of Freddie Gray while in police custody.  Jenkins as the supervisor of GTTF, used the unrest to cash in – by selling looted pharmaceutical drugs. Record overdoses and violence immediately followed in the most vulnerable neighborhoods where GTTF tended to prey with lucrative results.

Truth be known, the lack of integrity of BPD officers was simmering under the surface way before the GTTF scandal boiled over.  Arguably, the most noteworthy notch in Carrington’s two decades long career with BPD (that is before being shot in the back running from a gunman while off duty) was his partnership with oft disciplined BPD Officer Thomas Wilson III.

Then federal judge, and now Baltimore City Police solicitor Andre Davis, had a peculiar habit of throwing out drug cases. He also had well publicized scathing remarks about the trustworthiness of drug bust investigations conducted by Wilson and Carrington.

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As a federal judge, Davis routinely reprimanded Baltimore Police and in doing so, undermined the integrity of prosecutors’ cases (when he didn’t out and out dismiss charges against drug kingpins).  It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume notorious drug dealers would delight in seeing Judge Davis handle their case – betting the unconstitutional behavior of BPD would draw his ire enough to toss the charges all together freeing them to carry on.

Ike Carrington Linked to GTTF Through Wilson

As if Judge Davis calling Wilson out on several occasions from 2003 to 2008 wasn’t enough, confessed drug dealer, fence for BPD’s Wayne Jenkins, Donald Stepp testified during the GTTF trial that Wilson worked side hustles for Jenkins and was familiar with Jenkins drug dealing. All local media found the GTTF trial compelling but to have a civilian insider who also worked as a bailbondsman  relay his brash testimony was novel.  A colorful character on the witness stand, Donald Stepp routinely dropped nuggets, like exposing Wilson as an ally of Jenkins, and keeping photos of GTTF shenanigans on his cell phone.

Media Missing The Big Picture

Two weeks after Carrington’s shooting, local established media outlets have not yet made the connection between the shooting of the fashionable sergeant in front of his home and the GTTF probe. Screenshot (1138)

It did pop up on social media when public defender Todd Oppenheim posted a query that no MSM picked up on.  His Tweet is what led to this article. Specifically, Oppenheim called into question the partner history between Wilson and Carrington and wondered publicaly why no reporter had asked BPD officials if that GTTF link could be a possible motive for Carrington getting chased and shot in broad daylight.

It’s likely that the new commissioner Michael Harrison would behave exactly like his predecessor Kevin Davis who proclaimed that while the department had uncovered no motive for Suiter’s murder, his being scheduled to testify in a grand jury against his blue brethren was no way connected to his untimely demise. Zilch. Nada.

Independent journalists have looked closely into the Suiter case to reveal the possibility that the well respected officer was being exposed like a sitting duck. Namely Justine Barron has taken a painstaking look, frame by frame, of the video recovered that captures minutes leading up to his murder and BPD’s response.

Just this time last year, #WestBaltimore residents waited to exhale after holding its collective breath for the “independent” review board (IRB) examination of BPD’s November 2017 murder investigation of husband and father Sean Suiter.

From all appearances Suiter’s killer laid in wait until his partner David Bomenka was out of view before he was able to shoot the veteran homicide detective in the back of the head. Bomenka claimed he never saw anybody.

The IRB concluded there was no  convincing evidence that Suiter was murdered (but they never looked at his partner as being a suspect, only a witness) making suicide the only remaining option.  They also ruled out the shot to the back of the head as an accident.  PC Davis, after he was fired, stood by the decision to investigate Suiter’s death as a homicide and called the suicide theory “absurd.”

Woefully, initial media reports tend to be clumsy and hurried because the situation is fluid and outlets are desperate to not be scooped by their competitors. Add to in the high emotions of when police are investigating one of their own as a crime victim, we can be sure that this department will spin out of control ignoring all policies, protocols and training as it the IRB documented that they did during Suiter homicide almost a year ago.

BPD Shapping Ike’s Narrative

Harrison’s BPD has kept media at bay and orchestrated the messaging about the shooting with a public relations spin that has pushed local reporters to the periphery.

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The wounded officer’s release from the hospital Wednesday was accompanied by a social media maelstrom of photos of salutes from various angles by various first responders provided by BPD. Media was not permitted access to Carrington who has not given a public statement about his attackers.

Earliest Reports Gleaned by Press

Carrington and a neighbor were standing in front of his home where he lived with his family in the Frankford section of Northeast Baltimore when two men wearing masks approached. The neighbor dropped his wallet and phone and ran across the street, he told Fox45 Keith Daniels.  Carrington ran in the opposite direction according to multiple reports.

A neighbor and friend of Carrington (Jabir Pasha) who lives near the corner at Todd Ave heard the shots and then saw the Carrington, prompted him to render aid, reported the Baltimore Sun. Pasha noted a gunshot wound to both arms and also one in the back.

WJZ spoke with neighbors and captured the prerequisite “I’m shocked” interviews from people who claimed the neighborhood is quiet and friendly.

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A total of six shots were fired in Carrington’s direction. A neighbor’s surveillance camera captured the sound of four shots in quick succession. After a 2-3 second silence, two more quick shots.  The “robber” chased only Carrington, who ran away from his home and his friend as his assailant gave chase.

Police quickly notified the public to be on the look out for a blue Acura that was seen fleeing the scene, which in Baltimore is tantamount for searching for a 5 feet 7 inch black man with a goatee – they’re everywhere. A similar non-description description was given for the suspect in Suiter’s murder, a black man wearing a hat and a black jacket – in November.  The reward for Carrington’s shooting is $19,000. Suiter’s broke records at over $200,000 and is still unclaimed.

In a city where anyone’s life could be snuffed out at any minute, having that reality apply to law enforcement officers is extremely unsettling. Add in that they were both black officers should arouse suspicion in an agency noted for its institutional racism.

Carrington was well known in his neighborhood and it was no secret he was an officer with the Baltimore Police department.  He was gunned down steps from his house while the person within arms reach received little attention from the robbers.

Baltimore residents deserve a legislature brave enough to insist that outside independent investigators  look into if anyone connected to LE could be responsible for the shooting of Carrington and the murder of Suiter.  In the upcoming election for mayor, any serious candidate must speak on the need to assure the public that no one from LE is actually targeting BPD.

Until taken off the table, concerned citizens are likely to believe that both Carrington and Suiter were targeted because of their affilitation with crooked cops who have an ongoing operation within BPD.  Just because the snake’s head was cut off when Wayne Jenkins was arrested (and kept his mouth shut) doesn’t mean the body of the snake isn’t slithering around the halls of easily one of the most corrupt police departments in US history.

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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.

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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”.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

Freddie Gray: BPD’s Most Famous Yet Forgotten Victim

Freddie Gray’s painful wails resonate as loud as those who suffered the barbaric Middle Passage.

Instead of a transport from African tribal villages to “The New World” Baltimore Police chained him like a hog. Not in a ship, but in a van,  they circled around between Gilmor projects to McCulloh Homes and back again to the Western precinct – all the time with him shackled.

It was at Western District HQ that EMT’s found him to be unresponsive, surrounded by law enforcement officers already in the throes of denials.

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It took a Constitutional Amendment to abolish slavery (except for punishment of a crime) in the United States.  Academy award winning director Ava DuVernay produced a Netflix documentary on the subject. Regardless, since 1865, law enforcement officers have become judge, jurors and executioners.

Running in the opposite direction at the sight of police isn’t a crime. Chasing people who do, though, ought to be be.  The Baltimore six were either tried, exonerated or had their charges dropped in a court of law.

Freddie Gray was charged with possession of a knife that was hidden in his pants pocket. Police stopped him because he could. He ran because BPD are notorious for robbing people and/or planting evidence. It was an early Sunday spring morning.

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To Know Where You’re Going, Know Where You’ve Been

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Baltimore Police is awash with criminals.  A Department of Justice investigation found that the department rarely follows the supreme law of the land, the U.S. Constitution.  The culture of unconstitutional behavior goes back decades, for generations.

If not for the Freddie Gray investigation, it’s likely that members of the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) would still be driving their cars into groups of unsuspecting citizens.  Sgt Wayne Jenkins and officer Danny Hersl  would likely be planning to burglarize their next luxury condo at the city’s crown jewel, the harbor.

The resulting Consent Decree is a referendum on the actions of BPD and Freddie Gray’s death.  An in depth look at the absurdity of the internal investigation is explored in a podcast, UnDisclosed The Killing of Freddie Gray.

For perhaps underlying racist reasons the courts, the monitors and even the DOJ seem content to allow the BPD to make it about the Gun Trace Task force and not about Freddie Gray.

Gun Trace Tack Force’s Forced Confrontation of What Everybody Already Knew

Sitting in on the GTTF trial was an eye opener for many seasoned reporters.  As each victim under oath recounted how armed Baltimore Police officers cased their homes, held them at under threat of lethal force and stole not just money, jewelry, clothing and for some drugs, a fact could not longer be ignored.

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Baltimore Police Department itself is corrupt. No one  (other than the FOP) will dare say now that the problem is either a few bad apples or rogue officers. It’s an unavoidable certainty that the systems in place at BPD produced, cultivated and unleashed emboldened criminals to prey on primarily the weakest and most vulnerable of the city’s residents. For this, there is no redemption.

The barrel that holds together the law enforcement agency for Baltimore City is a putrid vessel carrying despicable and deplorable individuals. Anyone after listening to GTTF and still believes  BPD can be reformed instead of destroyed.

Freddie Gray’s Death Cloaked BPD in Feelings of Invincibility

How rotten is BPD?   GTTF robberies occurred while the feds were in cruisers doing ride alongs, knee deep scouring IAD files, and listening to wiretaps.  A (still yet identified) snitch within the State’s Attorney’s office leaked to the BPD gang that indictments were likely. Jenkins, his crew, and ilk continued to plant evidence and sell drugs.

It’s easy to see why GTTF felt emboldened. Freddie Gray died from  painful and pronounced injuries while police custody. His death was  likely the result of excessive force by multiple officers.  Even with charges filed, trials held, and exoneration handed down, there’s been no accounting for his untimely death.

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The federal government was closing in.  The indicted BPD officers (low level) were weeks away from trial.  Some were looking to cut a deal or change their pleas.  Next, a former member of their team was scheduled to testify the next day.  Before he could name names and point fingers, Det. Sean Suiter ended up with a bullet in the back of his head in an abandoned lot with only another BPD officer present.

In this environment, the likely suspect would seem to be connected to Freddie Gray and/or the GTTF crew.  Instead, BPD hired an “outside” and “independent” panel which arrived at an incredulous finding of suicide.

Keeping One’s Eyes on the Prize

In a 20 minute opening statement on Thursday January 24, 2019 in the U.S. Courthouse, Judge James K. Bredar who is overseeing the implementation of the Consent Decree spoke of several matters. Not one time did he mention Freddie Gray.  A synopsis of his major points are as follows:

  1. The BPD’s training facility is really cold and unimpressive. The state should fund a new state of the art building/campus to lure good cops to Baltimore.
  2. Michael S. Harrison, New Orleans’ top cop is the best hope Baltimore can ask for considering its last commissioner was arrested for tax evasion.
  3. If BPD doesn’t reform itself, the violence and crime will skyrocket.
  4. Feds find themselves in “deplorable circumstances” having (during a shut-down) to represent the government without being paid.
  5. 23 murders by the 24th of the month is a “shocking statistic”
  6. The department’s only hope now is Michael S. Harrison.
  7. Community engagement efforts are lagging.
  8. BPD has written new policies.
  9. CRB is all but in the trash bin.
  10. Mayor Pugh didn’t show at all and Tuggle didn’t return after the lunch break to attend to a “family emergency.”

Once the meeting was winding down and some thought levity was appropriate, Judge Bredar made a quip. Bredar said he couldn’t wait to read the book interim commissioner Gary Tuggle is likely to write after his stint with BPD.

That, my dear, is the Baltimore way.

 

 

 

 

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.”

Top 10 (Known) Crimes by ex Baltimore City Police Det. Danny Hersl

Warning: Do Not Proceed Unless You Believe (Some) Baltimore Police Straight Up Rob People on the Regular

Veteran cop, Daniel T. Hersl, 49, infamous for his abusive rants and provocations of Baltimore’s citizens, awaits sentencing Friday June 22 in U.S. District Court. He faces up to 60 years  after a jury found him guilty of racketeering, fraud and robbery charges as a member of the violence-prone street gang with badges, – otherwise known as the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF).

Using RICO statutes, originally crafted as a way to bust open impenetrable crime syndicates like the Mafia, the feds pursued eight cops who as employees of Baltimore City Police department created a criminal enterprise while working as BPD officers that included robbery and drug dealing.

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ex BPD Det. Jemell Rayam. During trial accused Danny Hersl of stealing $3k cash from the $20k cash they stole during a robbery — proving there is no honor among BPD thieves. The robbery victims currently have a civil lawsuit against the city.

During closing arguments in a February 2018 trial, federal prosecutors reminded jurors that Hersl, who joined BPD in 1999, and other veterans in the Baltimore City Police department were acting as both cops and robbers for years, some even before they joined the GTTF.  The victims were believable; the crimes were brazen; the sentences are historical.

A timeline to assist with understanding the “Top 10” Crimes by Daniel T. “Danny” Hersl

  • April 2015      Freddie Gray in-custody homicide
  • April 2015  Civil unrest in West Baltimore’s to protest F.G’s violent death
  • Summer 2015 Jenkins sells looted pharma drugs, sparking opioid crisis
  • July 2016 Feds tap BPD vehicle in the Shropshire drug organization investigation
  • August 2016   Department of Justice scathing report on BPD systematic abuses
  • March 2017    Federal indictments announced against BPD’s GTTF squad
  • April 2017   City enters into a Consent Decree to reform BPD’s racists practices
  • Oct 2017 Rayam and Gondo testify as gov’t witness against A. Shropshire
  • Nov 2017   Det. Sean Suiter murdered the day before scheduled witness testimony
  • Jan 2018 Four ex GTTF cops testify to a 4+ year crime spree while police officers
  • Feb 2018 Jury find Danny Hersl and Marcus Taylor guilty using RICO

To recap, the Gun Trace Task Force was one of many special units within the BPD that operated with little oversight and under various acronyms through different administrations over decades.

As plainclothes detectives, they have untold (and undocumented) interactions with a plethora of drugs, guns, and cash.  Such units are ripe for corruption, according to the the federal government, even in the best of departments.  One member of GTTF, Det. Thomas Clewell who worked along side of each of the members has not been charged.

 

GUN TRACE TASK FORCE

In closing arguments, federal prosecutors implored the mostly white jury to see the parade of unlikely victims, some drug dealers, others with a criminal background as not worthy of protection of the United States Constitution.

Hersl’s co-defendant Marcus Taylor, who joined BPD in 2009,  was sentenced to 18 years earlier this month and is planning an appeal.  Judge Catherine Blake will hear motions related to Hersl’s conviction, but is expected to proceed with his sentencing.  Others who plead guilty thus sparing taxpayers the expense of trial or the complete farce of proclaiming innocence are:

Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, now serving  25 years, joined BPD in 2003. Was the ranking officer in charge of the Special Enforcement Section (SES) with Taylor along with officers Evodio Hendrix and Maruice Ward before taking over GTTF.  Robberies by Jenkins, Hendrix, Ward and Taylor began as early as 2013 as members of the SES squad.

Sgt. Thomas Allers, now serving 15 years, joined BPD in 1996. Headed up GTTF from its origin to 2016 before handing the reigns over to Jenkins and leaving to join a joint DEA task force.

Two other Baltimore Police detectives who plead guilty, did not go to trial and also served as cooperating witnesses (presumably are still doing so in ongoing investigations) include ex detectives Jemell Rayam and Momodu Gondo.

ex Det. Danny Hersl’s Top 10 Crimes and Lawsuits

10 Gave a slip of paper with the date written on it as a warning to H.T. after searching his mouth and down his pants not to let him see him again – only to arrest him a few days later in Nov 2015. Hersl stole $314 from a check he had just cashed. Guilty of robbery and extortion.

9  Stole narcotics and $1700 cash from A.F. and let him go. Guilty of robbery and extortion in Aug. 2016.

8 Stole $2000 from a sock in a homeless man’s storage unit. Threatened the business’ clerk when he would not hand over the surveillance video that captured the theft.

7 Took about $8000 from glove compartment of D.A. who was caught after fleeing scene tossing cocaine out of the window.

6 Nearly doubling his $75k annual salary with false claims of overtime and wire fraud.

5 Breaking the jaw of fleeing suspect until he passed out in 2010. City paid $49k.

4 Breaking the arm of a 19-year old girl in a carry out restaurant in 2007. City paid  $50k

3 Dropped charges by prosecutors in a 2006 case when jurors were notified that complaints against him to Internal Affairs were in the double digits.  This was 10 years before he was promoted to the GTTF.

“Misconduct, sometimes when it’s frequent enough, it indicates a lack of desire to tell the truth” (the late) Circuit Court Judge John Prevas is quoted as saying after reviewing Hersl’s IAD file, in a 2014 Baltimore Sun story

 

2 The double cross. Robbery of the Hamiltons in July 2016. Hersl reportedly stole $3k while the GTTF crew wasn’t looking and before BPD stole $20K from the family.

1 The depraved indifference.  Instead of rending aid, Hersl sits with other GTTF cops  in a nearby police car after an illegal high speed chase that resulted in an Aug 2016 car crash.  Hersl is heard on the wire tap suggesting ways to cover up the fact that they were working at all by altering documents to avoid discipline or prosecution.

Hersl bike
Danny Hersl, convict and former “elite” Baltimore Police officer

Within the Constitutionally-adverse BPD, these units became known as “elite” by the media as well as up and down previous and existing names in command. Both would hype the arrests as a measure of crime fighting.

But for the citizens they were sworn to protect and serve, these units became the living, breathing, gun-toting, badge wearing symbol of why no one would ever willingly call or cooperate with the police even in the most dire of  circumstances.

Hersl’s (Dis) Hornable mentions:

  • Harassing dirt bike enthusiasts.
  • Harassing local rapper Young Moose chronicled by CityPaper.
  • Pepper spraying demonstrators in the wake of of Freddie Gray’s death.

“Detective Hersl, he a bitch, I swear to God he ain’t right/ Heard about my rap career, he trying to fuck up my life/ That nigga fuck me over once, he ain’t getting another,” Moose raps on the song ‘Tired,’ off 2014’s “OTM 3” mixtape. “That racist bitch had the nerve to put the cuffs on my mother/ Put the cuffs on my father, then put the cuffs on my brother/ He think about me every day, that nigga mind in the gutter/ Looking for some information bitch that ain’t how I rock/ Throwing dirt on my name because I’m going to the top/ The warrant wasn’t even right when they ran in my spot.” – Young Moose interview by Brandon Soderberg