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Reading "I've got a Monster" really dragged up a lot of bad memories for me. Things I did. Things I saw. Cops I investigated. But what really bothers me still to this day is how the leaders, past and present, of BPD seem to skate through all of this. /1
As cops, especially in a specialized unit, we were always under immense pressure to seize or recover guns. A popular technique was the “gun flip." It worked like this: Arrest someone and get them to exchange a gun for their freedom. /2
Basically, we held people hostage and the gun was ransom. This applied to almost any kind of arrest, but usually something petty and worked best if the person was on parole or probation and backing time. /3
So a person caught smoking weed or with a small amount of heroin who REALLY didn't want to go to jail was presented with this offer, “get me a gun.” Or, “you know someone who can put down a gun?” /4
Then you’d have the person start making phone calls so they could arrange to have someone drop a gun somewhere. Anywhere. An alley. A trashcan in a park. Under a car, etc. After the gun was dropped they’d call your guy back and let him know. /5
Then another set of cops would go confirm the gun was there. Once the gun was “recovered” you’d release whoever you had in custody. Usually. Some cops would doublecross people and still take them to jail. Some cops would hide and arrest the person delivering the gun. /6
One big problem was that flips weren’t an approved practice, but we did them anyway. Most reports for gun flips were written as if a cop just happened to be walking foot in an alley and stumbled upon a gun. /7
Another common way to report it was to invent an “anonymous” citizen who stopped and advised us they saw a gun. I recovered guns that had been left in a trashcan on the outskirts of Patterson Park, under a rug in an alley, in bushes, and inside of a vacant house. /8
Another issue with gun flips was that guns were tested against any open shooting/homicides and if a gun you “recovered” in a flip matched, then your report would come under scrutiny. /9
The biggest clutsterfuck I was involved with happened when my partner and I were the cops tasked with confirming a gun had been dropped. We went to an alley in southeast Baltimore and found it under an old rug. /10
As soon as my partner lifted the rug I saw a Glock with glowing night sights. I knew it belonged to a cop before we even ran the serial number. Sure enough, it belonged to a BPD cop who reported it stolen a few weeks prior. /11
So the cop who had arranged that flip had a long night. This involved transporting the guy who was arrested to HQ to answer questions about the gun and trying to track down the person who dropped it for him. /12
After that, we were told flips were forbidden, but some cops still did them. We were absolutely responsible for this behavior and made a conscious decision to do it, and if the shit hit the fan we were going to be the ones in the jackpot. /13
But command acting like they had no idea this practice was going on or acting like they didn't encourage it is bullshit. They got to brag about the number of guns cops were "taking off the street." And BTW, most of the guns we got in flips were trash. Old. Sometimes broken. /14
Some looked like they were relics inherited from a dead relative. But, it was still a gun stat. The thing that really bothers me about the GTTF story is that Wayne Jenkins started out doing police work the way many of us in BPD were taught. /15
The fact that he turned it into a criminal enterprise is a decision that's on him and him alone, but a lot of the methods he used were taught and encouraged by BPD and were viewed as what "real cops" did. /16
Had Wayne not robbed Oreese Stevenson, but did everything else the same way, that would be a "good arrest" in the eyes of a lot of cops and command. Losing a suppression hearing would be written off as "the system" siding with the criminals. /17
The fucked up thing is a lot of BPD cops (and probably a lot of cops in most cities) didn't consider these tactics illegal or we justified them as a "necessary evil" to get bad guys and guns off the street. /18
Wayne didn't need much pushing to cross over to criminal, but the system of policing in Baltimore and certain BPD commanders and officials in City Hall are just as guilty. /End
