Last week, a corruption trial involving eight officers of Baltimore's elite Gun Trace Task Force began. Six of the eight cops plead guilty to racketeering charges. Through the course of the trial, it has been revealed that some police in Baltimore would keep fake guns on them to plant on innocent people, as a way to save themselves if they shot an unarmed suspect, this reported by the Baltimore Sun.
One officer, detective Maurice Ward, who pled guilty to corruption charges, took the stand and testified that they carried BB guns and replicas "in case we accidentally hit somebody or got into a shootout, so we could plant them." He also asserted that the squad was instructed to do so by sergeant Wayne Jenkins. Another cop involved in the scandal, Detective Marcus Taylor, was arrested last year carrying a fake gun eerily similar to his service weapon. There has not been any confirmation on when or if the tactic was used.
However, the BB gun testimony shines a dark light on many of the deaths that happened in Baltimore where children were gunned down after reports of them being seen with replica guns, like a 13-year-old who was shot twice by police in 2016 or the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. In 2015 and 2016 about 86 people were gunned down by Baltimore police who they allege were spotted carrying toy guns
The Gun Trace Task Force was responsible for cleaning the streets of illegal firearms, but prosecutors are saying that the squad used its power as leverage to rob suspects and innocent people in the neighborhoods they patrolled. They also claim that the officers took the law into their own hands and raided homes without warrants, sold confiscated drugs and many other crimes and abuses were uncovered in the trial. The Baltimore Sun is calling this scandal the city's "biggest police corruption scandal in memory."
Source: Baltimore Sun
