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.