Allegations shade officers’ careers
Credibility of indicted unit members questioned
Baltimore Police Detective Jemell Rayam appeared in court in November 2015 to answer questions over one of his arrests. The defendant’s attorney said Rayam’s account didn’t add up. Moreover, the resident of the home where police said they found drugs said the officers had entered and searched without a warrant — and said they put a gun to her head when she tried to call 911.
Circuit Judge Barry Williams called Rayam’s testimony “incredible,” and suppressed all evidence in the case. Prosecutors dropped the charges.
“There may come a time when I would take [Rayam’s] word,” Williams said from the bench. “But based on the way he presented himself today, this court is unable to take his word for anything.”
But Rayam continued to work on the Police Department’s elite Gun Trace Task Force, a key component of Police Commissioner Kevin Davis’ strategy to fight a historic spike in violence.
Now Rayam and six other officers — the entirety of the task force — face federal racketeering charges. Federal prosecutors say the officers were shaking down citizens, searching their property without warrants, and shutting off body cameras to hide their wrongdoing.
The officers were indicted by a federal grand jury and arrested Wednesday. All have pleaded not guilty. They have been ordered held pending trials.
The charges have rocked a department trying to contain a surging homicide rate
while facing a court-enforced consent decree to reform its policing methods. Justice Department investigators reported last summer that the department routinely violated individuals’ constitutional rights by conducting unlawful stops and using excessive force, among other problems.
Staci Pipkin, the defendant’s lawyer in the November 2015 case, is one of several criminal defense attorneys who say police internal affairs records and questions raised in courtrooms about the gun unit’s investigations should have been red flags for prosecutors and police long ago.
“My case was so egregious,” Pipkin said. “And [prosecutors] kept using the officers as witnesses.”
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby was asked Thursday whether her office should have been aware of concerns raised about the officers.
“Absolutely not,” she said. She noted that the task force had earned praise for its work against violence in the city.
“We prosecute 50,000 cases in Baltimore City a year,” she said. “Time and time again, this particular task force was heralded for the number of guns they were able to take off the streets.
“We, like everyone else, follow the legal protocols necessary when we proceed on cases.”
Davis said misconduct can be difficult to detect and investigate.
An allegation against an officer “doesn’t give me the authority to remove them from the organization right away,” he said. “You have to go through due process. Sometimes that due process is administrative, sometimes it is criminal investigations.”
If Davis were to suspend or put on desk duty every officer under administrative investigation — which can focus on anything from a failure to appear in court or not being in uniform to serious misconduct — he said he would “have to shut down significant portions” of the department.
“If every police officer who was the subject of an administrative investigation were to automatically have their duty status altered, that would be impossible for the organization,” he said.
But police have long been criticized for not flagging problem officers. Commanders have insisted over the years that they are improving the department’s internal affairs processes. Most recently, they have touted a new system for flagging potentially problematic patterns in officers’ behavior, and adopting an “accelerated disposition” process for certain cases.
Hersl at the time denied any sort of grudge. Evans eventually pleaded guilty to a gun charge and is currently on home detention.
Moose’s father, Kevin Evans Sr., was charged and acquitted. He told The Sun last week that Hersl took $1,500 from his pockets after the Police Department executed search warrants.