In days when Donald Trump inhales and exhales the news media, a lot gets missed.
This story sounds striaight out of a police TV series. Eight members of Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force revealed that a “handful” of the police officers reportedly carried fake guns in their patrol cars to plant on innocent people in case the cops mistakenly shot unarmed suspects. This is something no citizen wants to know, yet many have long-believed. The reveal came on January 23rd, which was Day 1 of the Baltimore police corruption trial. Vicereports.
Detective Maurice Ward, who's already pleaded guilty to corruption charges, testified that he and his partners were told to carry the replicas and BB guns "in case we accidentally hit somebody or got into a shootout, so we could plant them." The directive allegedly came from the team's sergeant, Wayne Jenkins, the Washington Post reports. Though Ward didn't say whether or not the tactic was ever used, Detective Marcus Taylor—another cop swept up in the scandal—was carrying a fake gun almost identical to his service weapon when he was arrested last year, according to the Sun.
This is disturbing on many levels, and one in particular.
But the BB gun testimony is particularly disturbing in light of 12-year-old Tamir Rice's death in 2014, the 13-year-old in Baltimore who was shot twice by cops in 2016 after he allegedly sprinted from them with a replica gun in his hand, and the 86 people fatally shot by police in 2015 and 2016 who were spotted carrying toy guns.
Two of the eight members on trial pleaded not guilty and faced testimonies against them by former partners. I guess when it comes to who has to got to jail the longest, loyal partners can quickly become not-so-loyal.
The task force was originally created to confiscate guns, but besides carrying and planting fake guns on unarmed suspects, other reported crimes include “robbing suspects and innocent people, raiding homes without warrants, and selling confiscated drugs.” To read a stunning timeline of the trial, visit The Baltimore Sun.
There is no doubt that much of this corruption we now see being revealed is due to the relentless power, force and resolve of Black Lives Matter/BLM.
H/T Charlotte Clymer
