In 2017, eight members of the Gun Trace Task Force (“GTTF”), a unit within the Baltimore City Police Department (“BPD”), were indicted and arrested on charges of robbery, extortion, overtime fraud, and selling drugs seized during police operations. 

Six of the eight BPD members —Sergeants Wayne Jenkins and Thomas Allers, and Detectives Momodu Gondo, Jemell Rayam, Maurice Ward, and Evodio Hendrix—pleaded guilty to the charges. The remaining two officers—Detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor—were convicted on February 12, 2018 after a jury trial in United States District Court in Baltimore . 

The GTTF scandal, as it is now commonly known, was one of the most shocking corruption scandals in Baltimore’s history, and dealt a further blow to a Department that was still reeling from a series of recent events that had severely damaged relations between BPD and the Baltimore community.  Those events included the 2015 death of Freddie Gray after he was arrested by BPD officers, and the determination by the United States Department of Justice, in August 2016, that BPD had engaged in an historic pattern or practice of civil rights violations, findings that resulted in the negotiation of a sweeping consent decree that was entered in federal court in April 2017.  

The arrests, guilty pleas, trials, and convictions of the GTTF personnel have raised questions about how such lawless conduct by BPD members sworn to protect the residents of Baltimore could have continued over a period of many years and led to calls for an investigation of the origins of the scandal and a full exploration of its contributing factors.    

On October 23, 2019, BPD Commissioner Michael Harrison and City Solicitor Andre Davis announced the initiation of an independent investigation of the GTTF.  On October 29, the Honorable James K. Bredar, the United States District Judge presiding over the BPD consent decree, issued an Order approving BPD’s proposal for an independent investigation of the systemic and structural issues that contributed to the GTTF scandal.  

BPD has engaged Steptoe & Johnson LLP to conduct the investigation, which is led by Michael R. Bromwich, a former prosecutor and former DOJ Inspector General.  Mr. Bromwich is an experienced investigator with an extensive background in police reform issues.  

This is the GTTF Independent Investigation’s website. It is designed to provide information and resources that relate to the investigation, and to provide a channel for residents of the greater Baltimore community to provide relevant information to the investigative team.