Baltimore To Pay $6M Settlement Related To Gun Trace Task Force

BALTIMORE, MD — The city of Baltimore will pay $6 million to the family of a man killed during a 2010 police chase involving Gun Trace Task Force officers, according to an Associated Press report.

Baltimore has spent $22.2 million to settle nearly 40 cases involving the rogue law enforcement unit created to get illegal guns off the streets. Instead, members robbed drug dealers, planted narcotics and firearms on innocent people, and assaulted random civilians.

More than a dozen officers have been convicted in the scandal since 2017. At least five other cases are pending in various stages of litigation, and hundreds of cases that hinged on their testimony were later dropped.

"This is what happened when we didn't have the oversight, when we didn't have the training when we didn't go above and beyond to make sure … those people that were sworn to protect and serve hadn't turned themselves into the biggest gang in Baltimore," Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said.

This week's settlement resolves a 2018 federal lawsuit filed by Shirley Johnson after her father, Elbert Davis Sr., was killed and her mother was seriously injured during a 2010 police chase.

Davis and his lifelong partner, Phosa Cain, were both in their 80s at the time of the crash.

Task force members were pursuing Umar Burley and Brent Matthews at the time of the crash. The two men had encountered task force members during an illegal traffic stop that led to a high-speed chase.

The officers initially claimed they witnessed a suspected drug transaction involving Burley and Matthews. Officers found no narcotics in a search of their vehicle, so an officer planted heroin inside the car and both men were arrested, according to court records.

Burley — who was driving during the chase and was later charged with vehicular manslaughter — spent seven years in prison, while Matthews served more than two. Their convictions were vacated in 2017 after officers cooperating with federal investigators admitted that the drugs were planted.

In 2020, city officials approved an $8 million settlement for Burley and Matthews, which included $1.8 million for Davis' estate.

In 2018, Sgt. Wayne Earl Jenkins, who headed the task force, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy; one count of racketeering; two counts of robbery; one count of destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in a federal investigation; and four counts of deprivation of rights under color of law.

Jenkins was the highest ranking of seven officers who pleaded guilty for their roles in a racketeering conspiracy.

In 2019, Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison and then-City Solicitor Andre Davis commissioned an independent investigation into the systemic and structural issues that contributed to the Gun Trace Task Force scandal after several members were indicted on charges such as racketeering.

Following the two-year investigation, a D.C. law firm released a damning 600-page report that detailed misconduct among Gun Trace Task Force members.

According to the report, officers were involved in corrupt behaviors before being on the squad and the culture within the department did not expose them.

"Over time, BPD developed and perpetuated a culture in which productivity — as measured at various times by some combination of the number of arrests, volume of narcotics seizures, and a number of gun seizures — was enshrined as the most important yardstick for measuring success and failure, for the Department as a whole, for its police commissioners, and for individual squads and members," according to the executive summary of the report. "As a result, other important institutional needs and imperatives — such as training, supervision, and accountability — were never given adequate attention or supplied with adequate resources."

Since then, city leaders, including Scott, have taken significant steps to reform the Baltimore Police Department, which remains under a federal consent decree because Justice Department investigators found a pattern of unconstitutional and discriminatory policing practices, especially against Black residents.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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