Charges against cops ‘a nightmare’
Officers used their position to terrorize the community, say federal prosecutors
BALTIMORE (AP) — They were just seven officers on a police force of more than 3,000, but the Baltimore detectives charged with theft, fraud and conspiracy had an outsized crime-fighting role in a city plagued by violence.
The sweeping federal indictment calls into question each and every case touched by these men, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the city’s already fragile criminal justice system.
“It’s a nightmare,” said Natalie Finegar, Baltimore’s deputy public defender. “There’s going to be hundreds, and we’ll sort through every story.”
They were members of the Gun Trace Task Force, a unit dedicated to getting illegal guns off the streets of Baltimore, and were involved in hundreds of cases in the past two years. Federal prosecutors say they used their position to terrorize the community.
The indictment announced by U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein describes them threatening the innocent, detaining people on false pretenses, stealing their money, faking police reports, lying to investigators, defrauding their department and flagrantly disregarding reform efforts by turning off their body cameras.
The fallout had begun even before Finegar arrived at her office Thursday morning. Less than 24 hours after their surrender, a man waiting for her in the lobby said he’d been wrongfully arrested by one of the officers.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Wise also said one witness the detectives dealt with testified that she didn’t even realize they were police: “She said she thought they were ‘thugs who were going to rape and kill’ her,” Wise said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephanie Gallagher ordered six of the officers to remain jailed pending trial due to the “egregious breach of public trust.” The seventh will have his detention hearing today.