Book Review: We Own This City

Justin Fenton, We Own This City: a True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption. New York: Random House, 2021.  ISBN: 9780593133668.

 

Genre: nonfiction

Subgenre: true crime, police, corruption, Baltimore City

Format: hardcover

Source: Berea branch of the Madison County (KY) Public Library

 

 

This book tells the story in gory details of one of the largest police corruption and crime scandals of the 21st century. Baltimore Police Department Sergeant Wayne Jenkins and his elite Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) were hailed as heroes for, supposedly, helping get illegal guns and drugs off Baltimore streets. In reality, Jenkins and his crew were nothing more than thugs and thieves with badges who robbed people, stole drugs from drug dealers, which they then resold for profit, planted fake evidence to send innocent people to jail, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. For years, they committed their crimes with impunity, protected by neglectful and at times incompetent supervisors who either should have known better or just turned a blind eye. 

The author brings together extensive research, interviews, court documents, video footage to present the narrative of the rise and fall of the elite GTTF. What police commanders saw as good, yet aggressive, police work turned out to be a unit of thugs and thieves using their badges to do extortion, robberies, theft, and many other crimes. Using their badges, they basically did racial profiling as well as targeting drug dealers and innocent people alike for one main reason: money and greed. The author takes us through GTTF's rise, the investigations on the unit, and the eventual capture and convictions. By the way, a large part of the crimes happened during the Freddie Gray case and trials. 

For the most part, the author presents an interesting and compelling narrative. However, somewhere around 2/3 into the book it can get a bit overwhelming. The author catalogs crime after crime after crime done by the GTTF, and we have to wonder just how low and evil they can go. Turns out very low and very evil. After a while, it gets tiring to read crime after crime. True, they eventually get caught, but it is an arduous journey. The chapters on Freddie Gray were hard to read because Jenkins, while pretending to be a hero during the riots at the time, was really stealing drugs looted from a pharmacy to resell. If you are a decent human being, this book should make you angry. 

The sad part is that, while the thieves eventually get caught and convicted, you get a feeling of hopelessness. Given how the system is structured where the cops do "own this city," it's a matter of time until another group of rogue cops takes the place of Jenkins's crew. It's a terrifying story overall. Yes, it is well researched and written. No, this is not an optimistic book. It's documenting outrageous crimes, and leave us with the feeling that such crimes are not over. 

Overall, a good and well written book, but also horrifying and depressing at times. If readers need convincing that the phrase "all cops are bastards" is true, this book will do it. Because it was not just Jenkins and company. It was their supervisors who either should have known or turned a blind eye. It was the higher ups including deputy police commissioners Jenkins basically had in his pocket. It was colleagues who saw the signs and chose silence. This book is an indictment not just on the Baltimore Police Department but of policing at larage. 

I liked it, but it was a tough read. 

3 out of 5 stars. 

 

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On a side note, this is the second recent book on this topic. Previous to this was I Got a Monster: the Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad.  The public library also had this one, and I thought about reading it. Seeing Fenton's book was more recent, that's what I read. 

 

What is often is often define as "good" police work: 

 

"In the tool kit of a police officer, such 'measurables' are field interviews, car stops, and use of any violation of the law to try to flip people for information. The more people you make contact with, the more chances to squeeze someone. This is considered good police work, and there are countless examples of it leading to a break in a case. But in hyperpoliced areas it also promotes harassment and profiling, and when people are scared of police every interaction has the potential to combust" (62). 

Jenkins and his crew, like many police officers in Baltimore and nationally, took the hyperpolicing and profiling into overdrive both to appear productive to their superiors as well as to further their own greed and crimes. 

Detective Maurice Ward justifies his crimes with one of the oldest excuses: everyone else was doing it: 

"I can say that I stole money before Jenkins not because I was poor, struggling-- just because everybody else was doing it and I want to feel accepted and trusted to get into a specialized unit and out of patrol. To go from patrol to any specialized unit, it's  not how qualified you are, it's can you be trusted and who you know. There's a lot of men and women in patrol who deserve a spot in drugs, shootings, and other divisions, but if you don't know somebody, you're stuck. The trust factor comes in knowing about extra overtime, witnessing police brutality, or working in the 'gray area'" (87).

In essence, cops are another boys' fraternity (they are mostly male) and trust is given to those willing to commit crimes too, turn a blind eye where needed, and knowing when to keep their mouths shut. (See also the 2 rules from the film Goodfellas: "Never rat out on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut). 

 

The term "monster" defined: 

 

"Monster was Jenkins's term for the heavyweight dealers, the kind who trafficked in brick-shaped kilogram packages worth tens of thousands of dollars apiece. A dealer at that level was likely to have a fortune in money and drugs at home-- wads of bills and stacks of powder tucked away in ceiling cavities, under mattresses, and in basement vaults" (128). 

Those were the big dealers Jenkins and his crew sought to rip off, steal their money, and resell their drugs to make even more money. 

 

The BPD was a corrupt, bullying, racist clusterfuck, and that was not including their other crimes and thefts. In August 10, 2016, the U.S. Justice Department delivered their report on BPD civil rights violations after Freddie Gray's death. This includes: 

"The report did find that the BPD had problems with unconstitutional stops and searches, disproportionately targeting Black people with minimal supervision and accountability" (165). 

and. . . 

"From the department's outdated technology, to its mishandling of sexual assault cases, to officers' excessive force and First Amendment violations, the report painted a picture of an agency in disarray, one that was regularly trampling on the rights of its city residents" (166). 

By the way, you can find the press release of the report and the report itself online at the Department of Justice website.

Jenkins and his crew got a lot of praise for being oh so productive in making arrests and taking guns off streets. The reality was that the crew were mostly hype, and superiors never checked the reality nor really cared to know: 

"No one seemed to care much about how the cases were faring in court: From 2012 to 2016, 40 percent of Jenkins's gun cases were dropped by prosecutors, higher than the department average, even as he was winning praise for his skill. Despite police and prosecutors' stated priority of holding people caught carrying guns accountable, officials would later acknowledge that no one was circling back to check or improve the outcomes" (174). 

Oh, and in case things like illegal searches and robbery were not enough: 

"In addition to the illegal searches, extortion, and robberies, federal investigators had uncovered the massive overtime theft committed by the officers" (190). 

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Book qualifies for this 2021 Reading Challenge: