Baltimore Cops Carried Toy Guns to Plant on People They Shot, Trial Reveals

Last week, the beginning of an explosive corruption trial involving eight members of Baltimore's elite Gun Trace Task Force revealed that a handful of Baltimore cops allegedly kept fake guns in their patrol cars to plant on innocent people—a failsafe they could use if they happened to shoot an unarmed suspect, the Baltimore Sunreports.

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." 

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.

Vice.com
These are the people that we are supposed tell our kids to trust.
I hope they root out all of the bad apples, but I have my doubts that will happen.
They had a sergeant telling their team to do this.
The Baltimore Sun reports that the elite unit was selling drugs that they had taken off the streets.

That led authorities to Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force — and the federal indictment of eight members of the elite unit on racketeering charges. They were accused of executing searches without warrants, invading private homes, robbing suspects and innocent citizens of cash and reselling drugs on the street.

Baltimore Sun
This bunch was worse than the people that they are supposed to be arresting.

a reply to: butcherguy

I think these police should be charged with multiple counts of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, terrorism, and corruption. Throw in impersonating an officer in there, because this isn't real policing.

a reply to: sine.nomine

This also does damage to the good cops that are out there every day risking their lives... the right way, not breaking the law.

As a young service member in AIT to become an MP, we were roused during what was supposed to be free time for a class that wasn't on any schedule.

The Sgt. giving the class came in with a briefcase that contained a few items and explained their use. One was the "throwaway" and he showed us how he carried his.

Cops do have a tough job and the intent didn't seem to be to train us how to be "goons" but to mitigate the risks one takes to do the job. That didn't make it right and it didn't sit well with me.

Between your report and my experience, I'm guessing this is replicated fairly far and wide.

a reply to: The GUT

A police officer that I listened to personally talking about these guns called them 'droppers', because you drop them at the crime scene. He too, looked at them as an insurance policy of sorts. A way of taking any doubts away about a shooting that they were involved with.

a reply to: butcherguy

Not saying all LEOs are bad...

But damn these guys made LEOs look worse than I remember. It's corruption by the very guys who are supposed to be rooting out the bad guys. What runs through my mind is that scene in "Training day" where Denzel Washington says "King Kong ain't got nothing on me."

It's just sad that none of their fellow cops ratted them out. Screw the code boys. Report things like this if you're an LEO.

But it begs the question: where does an innocent bystander report obvious corruption? The station won't believe it. IA won't believe it. The Mayor won't believe it...after all, a scandal in the PD reflects badly upon the mayor's office, right?
So do we have to wait until gangsters in blue are arrested???

"Throwaways" fit in perfectly with beating the Sh1t out of you while handcuffed and yelling "quit resisting" or tasering you as a instrument of torture.

The "shield"....

(Badge + Brotherhood)

a reply to: butcherguy

Do they expect us to believe that all of the cops in that department weren’t in on this?

This is a horrible revelation.

By and large, I'm on good terms with all the officers who routinely patrol my area.

Smile and nod.

It's important for people to be polite and respectful of officers, because they do see a lot of the worst of human behavior out there. I worry that stories like this will destroy the perception on Officer Friendly far more than the damage already done.

The more people who get angry at Cops, the worse things have the potential to get out there.

a reply to: butcherguy

What scumbags, frigging evil pricks to be able to do this.im not surprised just disgusted.

Aholes
I wonder how many times they have gotten away with manslaughter.

a reply to: butcherguy

My first thoughts after reading your OP;

We will always have a percentage of bad/crooked cops. And it's these same cops who would control our safety and security if the gun grabbers ever got their way.

Sorry if I went off-topic, but these are my thoughts.

originally posted by: The GUT
Between your report and my experience, I'm guessing this is replicated fairly far and wide.

If it's replicated far & wide, then that means it's systemic. Systemic corruption obliterates any notion of it only being "a few bad apples" that do this stuff.

The Baltimore PD has a lot to answer for.

Between this story and what happened in Broward County, I feel my faith in the institution of law enforcement beginning to wane again.

You can't have this kind of crap going on and then trash movements like BLM for being mad at exactly this. Something I am guilty of doing

I know that if I had a force of armed men and women targeting me like the cops in Baltimore target people, I'd be a little defensive too.

This doesn't mean I agree with BLM or anti-cop groups. It means, simply, that I will be far more critical of police institutions going forward.

a reply to: butcherguy

over 50 years of democrat mayors!

Ugh, wouldn't they have to then submit that plastic gun as evidence?

What would they do then?

a reply to: Tempter

Claim they thought it was a real gun..obviously, just like Tamir Rice, and it will be a successful defence as it has many times I'm sure.

So no one is ever safe under any circumstance. You can be as innocent as possible and get gunned down and your murderer will walk free,wow what a time to be alive.

I guess that's why we only ever see edited snips from the body and dash cams in the questionable cases.

a reply to: butcherguy

originally posted by: vonclod
a reply to: Tempter

Claim they thought it was a real gun..obviously, just like Tamir Rice, and it will be a successful defence as it has many times I'm sure.

Whoah. So not only were they planning on planting a gun but now it's suspected planned murder?

Better hope they have evidence to prove that.