Police Commissioner Announces Gun Trace Task Force Investigation

BALTIMORE, MD — How did criminal behavior discovered on the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force come to be, and how did it continue?

An independent probe will seek to answer those and other questions that emerged after a federal racketeering scandal came to light, sending several police officers to prison and resulting in the exoneration of two men who served prison time for drugs task force members planted on them.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison announced the launch of the investigation Wednesday into the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), a unit that no longer exists within the city's police department that was disbanded after seven members were indicted on federal racketeering charges in March 2017. All have been convicted and are serving sentences up to 25 years. A former Baltimore officer who had moved on to the Philadelphia Police Department was also convicted after he admitted to selling cocaine the GTTF had seized.

"Since my very first day on the job," Harrison said, "I recognized how vitally important it is to the department and to the court to understand the circumstances that allowed the GTTF's activities to take place and to go on for so long."

Harrison, who was sworn into office March 12, is responsible for implementing the consent decree, a federal document that is a legally binding plan for police reform, overseen by a judge.

"Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. We must and we will learn everything we can about the terrible chapter in the BPD's history," Harrison said.

"The department needs answers," he said, adding that Baltimore residents deserve them. "Getting the answers is a vital part of the reform process and our culture change, which is our mandate."

Leading the investigation into the GTTF will be Michael Bromwich, former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Justice and an attorney who has reviewed other police departments and agencies.

Selected by Harrison and the judge overseeing the consent decree, Bromwich will determine the scope and have "full autonomy" to conduct the review "as he sees fit, without interference from police, Harrison said. His department's role was only to provide information that was requested.

"We will examine the questions of not only what happened but why and how and which people, which aspects of the culture, which institutional structures facilitated it and failed to stop it," Bromwich said.

"We will go where the facts lead us," Bromwich said. "We're hopeful, truly hopeful, that a full and complete airing of the facts with absolutely no punches pulled will promote the healing process that this city and this police department so badly need."

Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby said earlier this month that she was requesting the dismissal of hundreds of cases that involved "corrupt police officers" in the aftermath of the GTTF. She also said there were "hundreds" of police on a list she considered not credible, according to The Baltimore Sun. The Baltimore Police Department confirmed it had a list of 183 officers it was investigating after her office flagged them, according to the newspaper, which said Mosby's office could not account for the disparity between that and her assertion of "hundreds."

SEE ALSO: Mosby Asks For 790 'Tainted' Criminal Cases To Be Thrown Out

On Wednesday at the press conference announcing the GTTF probe, City Solicitor Andre Davis called it an "important day" for both the police department and city residents.

"The unfolding of the GTTF story, through the voices of community members and press accounts and in sworn testimony, has disclosed a cancer in the BPD that is profoundly disturbing and wholly contrary to the department's values and its commitment to fair and impartial and ethical law enforcement," Davis said. "We can burn off the stink of this horrific scandal only through the use of the disinfectant of full disclosure."

There were frustrations that it took so long "to expose the malignancy that grew in this department," Davis said, but it was in part it was due to "the unsettled leadership."

When Harrison took over in March, he followed three people who had headed up the Baltimore Police Department since 2018.

Former commissioner Kevin Davis was fired in January 2018 after then-Mayor Catherine Pugh said the city was "not achieving the pace of progress" after "nearly a record year for homicides." Former Commissioner Darryl De Sousa assumed the role but resigned following charges that he failed to pay taxes. Interim Commissioner Garry Tuggle led the Baltimore Police Department from May to January.

Council President Brandon Scott, who introduced a resolution that passed unanimously earlier this month calling for a full, transparent and independent investigation into the GTTF, said the council would also be overseeing the probe.

"Per my legislation, the Baltimore Police Department and investigators will come before the City Council to discuss their findings," Scott said in a statement Wednesday."Until we know how the Violent Crime Impact Section and Gun Trace Task Force were able to operate in such a flagrantly corrupt manner for so long, we will never be able to rebuild trust between the Baltimore Police Department and our communities."

Scott commended the commissioner for announcing the investigation and stated: "It is critical that this independent, top-to-bottom investigation happens and that it is done with integrity."

SEE ALSO:

• Gun Trace Task Force Leader Sgt. Wayne Jenkins To Serve 25 Years In Federal Prison
• Corrupt Former BPD Detective Momodu Gondo Sentenced To 10 Years
• BPD Sgt. Thomas Allers Sentenced To 15 Years For Racketeering
• Baltimore Detective Marcus Taylor Pleads Not Guilty, Gets 18 Years In Prison
• BPD Detective Thomas Hersl To Serve 18-Year Sentence
• Detectives Evodio Hendrix, Maurice Ward Sentenced To 7 Years Each