Bad Cops | 1. The Tracker

Summary

Podcast Summary:

The Burden – Bad Cops | 1. The Tracker
Host: Jessica Lussenhop (BBC World Service)
Date: June 30, 2026
Presented via Orbit Media

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Overview

The inaugural episode of “Bad Cops” dives into the notorious case of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF)—a plainclothes unit tasked with getting guns off the street that instead became a criminal enterprise themselves. Journalist Jessica Lussenhop lays out how a shocking police corruption scandal unfolded, starting with an innocent man’s life unraveled by a brutal encounter, and a series of investigative threads that revealed the true scope of the corruption. The narrative blends personal accounts, investigation, and systemic critique, always centered on Baltimore’s unique, troubled environment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to the Scandal (01:12–02:31)

• Brief, intense courtroom exchanges with ex-Detective Momodu Gondo establish early the reality: “Because I’m guilty.” (C, 01:44)
• “I’m charged with a racketeering conspiracy which consists of robbing citizens, falsifying documents.” (C, 01:49)
• News reports—seven police officers indicted, all assigned at some point to the elite Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF).

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2. The GTTF’s Double Life (02:32–05:29)

• Host Jessica Lussenhop sets the scene: a specialized squad expected to protect Baltimore’s streets, which instead preyed on its residents—particularly targeting “poor Black neighborhoods.”
• “They were both cops and robbers, and they’ve been doing it for years...Their job, to make the city of Baltimore a safer place…instead they acted like a criminal gang.” (D, 02:32–02:47)
• “Hundreds of criminal cases dropped, and thousands are now under review.” (D, 03:52)

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3. Baltimore as a Character (03:52–05:29)

• Described as both vibrant and deeply scarred by segregation, economic decline, and the war on drugs.
• “It’s a place that loves street parties and cookouts at stoplights…It’s also a city with another side. Old racist laws carved Baltimore into segregated neighborhoods…” (D, 04:14–05:02)

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4. Kenneth Baumgartner’s Story: Victim of the System (05:29–09:13)

• Kenneth, a hardworking family man, is violently assaulted and robbed of his rent money while driving through his old neighborhood.
• Quote:
  • “My adrenaline was pumping 100 miles an hour... I didn’t know what was going to happen or who they was. And I jumped out the car and I ran.” (F, 06:50)
  • After being knocked unconscious, he awakes to find his money gone—later discovers his jaw is “completely fractured” & remains wired shut for five months (08:05).
  • Forced to blend cheeseburgers just to eat—“I tried to suck it through a straw... I wound up choking on it. And it choked me so bad… because it almost killed me.” (F, 08:32)
  • Evicted and in debt to the car rental company: “I’ll be paying the rest of my life. Maybe.” (F, 09:03)

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5. The Collision of Police and Community (09:13–13:26)

• The tragic Freddie Gray incident (2015) becomes a watershed: caught on video, Gray dies in police custody, spurring massive unrest and pledges of reform.
• Quote:
  • “What I think the people of Baltimore want more than anything else is the truth.” (E, 11:18)
  • Mayor’s promise: “There is no place in the Baltimore City Police Department for you.” (E, 12:11)
• Initial hope (“maybe things would be different this time”) gives way to disillusionment; police pull back, homicides spike, and all accused officers are ultimately acquitted.

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6. The Rise of Wayne Jenkins & the GTTF (12:27–14:23)

• Jenkins, celebrated for bravery during the riots, is promoted to lead GTTF—seen as “super cops” due to their high volume of gun seizures.
• Live tape: Jenkins instructs his team during a bust: “Nobody touches. You understand me?...Don’t touch it... Keep recording.” (G, 14:11)
• But beneath the headlines, the opioid crisis rages, complicating the line between cop and criminal further.

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7. Detective David McDougall: The Tracker (15:03–17:10)

• McDougall, a Harford County narcotics detective, conducts methodical surveillance to trace heroin supply and arrest major dealer Aaron Anderson.
• Quote:
  • “You could be in your car for more than a day… that, and pee bottles. Make sure you have pee bottles.” (H, 15:38)
• He notes with alarm that Anderson operates fearlessly—drug deals happen in full view of patrol cars: “Nobody else seemed to care. I’m like, I just don’t understand this.” (H, 16:54)

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8. The Mysterious Second Tracker (17:10–22:08)

• After Anderson’s arrest at a motel (where he’s hid out after a home invasion), McDougall’s team discovers a second GPS tracker under Anderson’s car.
• It is privately owned—“He’s never been arrested. Instead, he’s the one doing the arresting because the owner of that mystery tracker…He’s a cop. A Baltimore city police officer.” (H, 21:38)
• McDougall’s suspicion grows: “There’s no way that a police officer is going to pay for his own tracker. That really wasn’t adding up.” (H, 22:01)

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9. The Dark Realization (22:08–22:49)

• McDougall hypothesizes the true, chilling purpose: “What if a police officer put the tracker on Anderson’s car to track his movement to conduct the home invasion?...It sounded crazy as I was saying it, but I was saying it.” (H, 22:22)

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10. Cliffhanger & Next Steps (22:49–23:57)

• The implication: the GTTF wasn’t just accepting bribes or fabricating evidence, but directly robbing drug dealers using police resources.
• Lussenhop teases the unraveling of a wider web of corruption: “Because that cop, he’s no ordinary cop. He’s one of the golden boys from the Gun Trace Task Force. And maybe they’re not quite as golden as everybody thinks.” (D, 22:56)

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Notable Quotes and Moments (with Timestamps)

• “Because I’m guilty.” — Detective Momodu Gondo (C, 01:44)
• “They were both cops and robbers, and they’ve been doing it for years.” — Jessica Lussenhop (D, 02:36)
• “My adrenaline was pumping 100 miles an hour...I was scared for my life.” — Kenneth Baumgartner (F, 06:50)
• “I checked it and it was gone.” — Kenneth on his stolen rent money (F, 07:27)
• “What I think the people of Baltimore want more than anything else is the truth.” — President Obama (E, 11:18)
• “There is no place in the Baltimore City Police Department for you.” — Baltimore Mayor (E, 12:11)
• “Nobody touches. You understand me?...Don’t touch it. Keep recording.” — Wayne Jenkins (G, 14:11)
• “There’s no way that a police officer is going to pay for his own tracker. That really wasn’t adding up.” — Detective McDougall (H, 22:01)
• “What if a police officer put the tracker on Anderson’s car to track his movement to conduct the home invasion?...It sounded crazy as I was saying it, but I was saying it.” — Detective McDougall (H, 22:22)

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Episode Timeline

• 01:12 – 02:47: Courtroom confession, news coverage, and setup of the corruption.
• 03:52 – 05:29: Baltimore’s character—beauty and systemic trauma.
• 05:29 – 09:13: Kenneth’s story of assault, injury, and personal fallout.
• 09:13 – 13:26: The Freddie Gray case—community vs. police, hope and disappointment.
• 13:26 – 14:23: Promotion and rise of Wayne Jenkins and the task force.
• 15:03 – 17:10: Detective McDougall introduces surveillance and investigation into Anderson.
• 17:10 – 22:08: The discovery of the second GPS tracker; suspicions arise.
• 22:08 – 22:49: McDougall’s theory of police-led burglary.
• 22:49 – 23:57: Foreshadowing the wider scandal; episode closes.

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Tone and Delivery

Jessica Lussenhop intertwines narrative suspense with investigative rigor, maintaining respect, empathy, and an unflinching eye for injustice. Personal testimonies blend with sharp systemic critique, always rooted in lived experience.

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Conclusion

“The Tracker” sets up the rest of the “Bad Cops” series by demonstrating just how blurred the line became between protector and predator in Baltimore. Through firsthand accounts, court audio, and investigative reporting, the darkness behind the badge begins to surface—leaving the listener primed for the further unraveling of the GTTF scandal in upcoming episodes.

Transcript

[A]

This is Steve Fishman from Orbit Media and I want to introduce you to our new series, the Bad Cops, produced by BBC. It's a series I really love and we're proud to re release it as part of our anthology of great true crime series. One thing I really value in podcasts is journalistic excellence. And as a BBC specialty, Jessica Lucenhap is the host reporter who who spent three years on this story. And it shows. All the characters talk, secrets are revealed. Even the villain speaks to her. You won't believe what he says. The burden Bad Cops takes us into another world, a very frightening one. A world where you can't tell the protectors from the predators. A quick reminder, all episodes are available now with a subscription. To subscribe, go to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple podcasts. It's just $2.99 a month, half the price of a cafe latte. Please follow us on Instagram TikTok and YouTube @OrbitMediaFM.

[B]

Mr. Gondo, are you formally a Baltimore Police department detective?

[C]

Yes, that's correct.

[B]

And are you a defendant in this case?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

What have you pled guilty now to?

[D]

A shocking corruption scandal in Baltimore. Seven police officers indicted on federal charges.

[E]

Accused.

[D]

Now these real life officers have been charged with abusing their badges of being corrupt to the core.

[B]

And why did you plead guilty?

[C]

Because I'm guilty.

[B]

What are you charged with in this case?

[C]

I'm charged with a racketeering conspiracy which consists of robbing citizens, falsifying documents.

[F]

One sergeant and six detectives, all at some point assigned to the department's gun trace task force, are in handcuffs.

[B]

And when did you rob people? When did you rob citizens?

[C]

Working.

[B]

And what did you steal from them?

[D]

Money.

[B]

Did you also steal drugs?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And what did you do with the drugs that you stole from people?

[C]

Sold them.

[B]

And what did you do with the money you stole from people?

[C]

Kept it.

[D]

The indictment reads like the script for a gangster film. A lot of people say this, that this case sounds more like the plot of a movie, but it all really happened. At the heart of this scandal is a small unit of plainclothes police, the Gun Trace Task Force. Their job, to make the city of Baltimore a safer place by getting illegal guns off the streets. Instead, they acted like a criminal gang operating in the shadows, mostly in poor black neighborhoods. They robbed residents, broke into houses, stole drugs, and planted evidence. They were both cops and robbers, and they've been doing it for years. The fallout is huge. Hundreds of criminal cases dropped, and thousands are now under review. So how did this happen? That's what I've been trying to figure out. I'm Jessica Lessenhop and this is Bad Cops from the BBC World. The true story of Baltimore's Gun Trace Task Force, Part one. The Tracker. Baltimore is as much a character as any other in this story. It's an old city, a seaport city famous for crabs, for a style of music called Baltimore Club, and yes, famous for the TV show the Wire. It's blocks of row houses and brick buildings made from the clay that the city was built on. It's a place that loves street parties and cookouts at stoplights. Kids run up to your car and wash your windshield for tips. You can still buy fruit from horse drawn carts in the street. It sounds cheesy, but some of the prettiest sunsets I've ever seen have been in Baltimore. It's also a city with another side. Old racist laws carved Baltimore into segregated neighborhoods. Job losses and white flight left a lot of those beautiful row homes boarded up. Drugs devastated communities. And then the war on drugs emptied those neighborhoods and filled prisons. Guns are everywhere. And in amongst all of that, most people are just trying to get by. But minding your own business is no guarantee that you'll be safe.

[F]

My name's Kenneth Baumgartner, live in Baltimore, Maryland.

[D]

Kenneth is in his early 40s. He's a family guy.

[F]

I have a wife, two daughters, three step kids, four grandkids.

[D]

He does general maintenance for a property management company.

[F]

I do apartment checks, fixing like refrigerators, dishwashers, make sure people got hot water, cleaning up, taking the trash out. Just basically maintenance, you know.

[D]

In early 2016, Kenneth rents a brand new BMW. It's a surprise for his son's birthday. And on this particular evening, he's feeling good, cruising behind the wheel of this flashy ride in his jacket pocket. He's got a month's rent money, plus the extra that he still owes his landlord.

[F]

I was riding through, like my old neighborhood, then the next thing I know, I see two cars pull down on me, all black and guys jump out.

[D]

It's dark. Kenneth thinks he's about to be robbed and he's not about to hang around to find out.

[F]

Soon as I put my car in reverse and went to hit the gas, they start ramming my car backwards.

[D]

His vehicle's forced back up onto the curb. He's stuck.

[F]

My adrenaline was pumping 100 miles an hour, you know, like I was scared for my life, you know, like I didn't know what was going to happen or who they was. And I jumped out the car And I ran.

[D]

He only manages to get a few feet. And then

[F]

everything went black. Completely black. I was out. Lights was out and I was out, you know?

[D]

Kenneth is left lying on the street. When he finally comes to, he feels in his jacket pocket for his rent money.

[F]

I checked it and it was gone.

[D]

He's been robbed and he's badly hurt, but he somehow makes it back home and passes out.

[F]

The next morning I woke up and my wife was like, I think you need to go to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, they was like, yeah, well, your jaw is completely fractured. The next day I came back in for the operation and they wired my jaw shut.

[D]

Kenneth's teeth are in pieces and his jaw stays wired shut. For the next five months. He loses £50. All he can have are meal replacement shakes and pretty soon he's sick of them.

[F]

I was desperate, man. I wanted some fast food bad.

[D]

He goes to the closest place and orders a double cheeseburger with fries. Back home, he sticks it all in a blender.

[F]

I blended it all up and I tried to suck it through a straw through one of the little gaps in my teeth, and I wound up choking on it. And it choked me so bad that my wife had to get a pitcher of water and pour it down my mouth to stop it from choking because it almost killed me.

[D]

Because his money's been stolen, he can't pay his landlord. Kenneth and his family get evicted. The car rental company sends a bill for $67,000 for the Smash BMW.

[F]

Yes, it's a lot. They actually had to take it out of my check every month. I'll be paying the rest of my life. Maybe

[D]

that's what it can be like in parts of Baltimore. People live right on the edge. A single misfortune can send your whole life off course. But there's more to Kenneth's story than meets the eye. Baltimoreans are tired of being defined by this kind of violence. And they say that the reality is they're caught between two sides, the criminals and the police. In 2015, 25 year old Freddie Gray is chased and arrested by a group of cops. Bystanders film on their phones as three officers lift him off the ground in handcuffs. A word of warning. I've seen this video many times and the audio is really hard to listen to. His legs are limp as the cops drag him towards the back of a police van. A week later, Gray dies in hospital from a spinal cord injury. It's as if he dove head first into shallow water. There's speculation that he'd been taken on a rough ride. It's where police purposefully drive crazy to throw the passenger in the back around, bang him up for being mouthy or uncooperative in the back of that police van. Gray's hands and feet were shackled, and he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. After his death, thousands take to the streets. It's mostly peaceful, but on the day of his funeral, things turn very ugly. Fighting breaks out. Bricks start flying, glass bottles. It's pure chaos. Looting, fires and violence spread across the city. A state of emergency is declared. Even the president wades in.

[E]

What I think the people of Baltimore want more than anything else is the truth. That's what people around the country expect.

[D]

Gray's death is declared a homicide.

[E]

Six officers are under arrest tonight on criminal charges. This evening, Gray's family called this a first step toward justice.

[D]

I remember thinking this felt like a huge deal at the time. People were dancing in the streets. For Baltimoreans who complained for years about deaths in police custody, rough rides, assaults. Maybe things would be different this time. The city's mayor promises the police will be held accountable.

[E]

To those of you who wish to engage in brutality, misconduct, racism and corruption, let me be clear. There is no place in the Baltimore City Police Department for you.

[D]

But that optimism soon fades. Either out of fear or in protest. The police pull back. Arrests plummet. 2015 will end up one of the deadliest in the city's history. 342 homicides the third highest on record. None of the officers in the Freddie Gray case will be convicted. And those promises of reform will soon feel distant and improbable. For one officer on duty that day, the protests even present an opportunity. Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, golden boy of the Baltimore Police Department. During the violence, he commandeers a van and drives it through a crowd to rescue injured officers. For that, he's awarded the Bronze Star for bravery. And the following year, his bosses give Jenkins command of an elite unit of cops, the Gun Trace Task Force.

[G]

I'm Sergeant Wayne Jenkins of Gun Trace Task Force. I'm assigned to Baltimore City Police Department.

[F]

Park.

[G]

I'm Sergeant Wayne Jenkins of the Gun Trace Task Force. Wayne Jenkins of Gun Trace Task Force.

[D]

The task force are super cops. They get results. While other cops might recover an illegal gun, once a week or every two weeks, these guys are bringing in three, sometimes four guns in a single night.

[F]

All right, hold up, hold up, hold up.

[G]

Take it out. Take it out.

[F]

Oh, there.

[G]

Stop. Take a picture of it.

[D]

Here's Jenkins leading his task force team in a Bust. They've found bundles of cash stashed in a drug dealer's basement.

[G]

Nobody touches. You understand me? Right now. How much you think it is? Yeah. Keep the camera on. Don't touch it. Stand next to it. We're calling out the fence. Don't touch it. Keep. Keep recording. No one's touching this much.

[D]

It's busts like this that make the city bosses look good, for now, at least. But while Jenkins and his task force are out on the street tackling illegal guns, there's another deadly threat rippling through Baltimore. The opioid crisis. Dealers have fled, flooded the city with heroin, and it's killing a lot of people. The cops are trying to fight back. One of those cops is Detective David McDougall from the neighboring Harford county sheriff's office.

[H]

I've been doing drug investigations like this most of my career, so I'm just used to sitting in the car. I'm comfortable sitting in the car. That's what I do almost every day.

[D]

McDougal does a lot of surveillance from his vehicle, trying to trace the source of the heroin.

[H]

Yeah, it's stressful at times when you're sitting in one place for a long time, and you're the one that can't miss this, like, one thing happening. So you're watching, watching, watching like I can't. You almost like you can't look away because it gives you that split second where it happens, whatever it is that you're watching for.

[D]

Tell us some of your tricks of the trade.

[H]

The key is always have enough food. You know, you could be in your car for more than a day. So that. And pee bottles. Make sure you have pee bottles. That's definitely a key, because there's often times where you can't get out of the car, and, you know, you got to do what you got to do.

[D]

When he's not in his car, McDougal is looking through the phones of overdose victims to see who they were last in touch with. He's checking the texts or calls for the names of dealers. And there's this one name that keeps popping up over and over. Aaron Anderson. Anderson is a pretty big heroin dealer. He runs his operation from the parking lot of a shopping center in northeast Baltimore.

[H]

I started doing lengthy surveillances and following him, trying to piece together his organization. It would sell large amounts, hundreds of grams, and then they would sell small amounts, 1 gram or half gram. They utilized different vehicles and kind of did a lot of sales on the move, Window to window, car to car.

[D]

McDougal's rattled by how brazen this all is. The dealers operating in plain sight, even in front of the cops.

[H]

There's marked patrol cars driving through the area. And these guys are openly dealing drugs. And for days, same thing every day. And nobody else seemed to care. I'm like, I just don't understand this.

[D]

It's almost as if Anderson's being protected somehow. In his 10 years on the force, Detective McDougal's never seen anything quite like this. He's shaken, but he continues watching the dealer and collecting evidence. When he gets worried about being spotted, he puts a GPS tracker on Anderson's car. This way he can follow him from a distance. Finally, McDougal thinks he's got enough to take Anderson down. His plan is to arrest the dealer at his apartment, and he's just about to do that. But then

[H]

his pattern changes. He stops going home.

[D]

The tracker he's put on Anderson's car shows that at the end of every day, Anderson is winding up someplace else. McDougal follows the signal, and it leads him to a Red Roof Inn. It's a two star motel perched on a busy intersection a short drive north of the city. I've read the online reviews and, well, they're a little mixed. They do allow pets, though, and it's cheap and anonymous. The perfect place to hide out. The Red Roof Inn is a three, three story building with a pitched roof. The doors on the second and third floors open onto a long balcony that wraps around the building. Detective McDougal is hunched down in his truck, staring up at room 207 on the second floor. He and his team are waiting for that door to open. When Anderson and his girlfriend finally step out, the cops surround them and place them under arrest. Still, McDougal's curious. Why has Anderson been staying in this motel?

[H]

That's one of the first questions I asked him. He told me about the home invasion.

[D]

The home invasion. A week earlier, Anderson was out of town. His girlfriend was home alone. Two men in Mass kicked down the front door and threatened her with a gun. They made off with jewelry and cash. When Anderson returned, his girlfriend told him what happened and the couple were scared. They didn't know if the masked men would be back, so they decided to hide out in the Red Roof Inn. It's not unusual for rival dealers to rob one another, and for the moment, McDougal doesn't think much of it. But it's the first clue that something's not quite right. The next clue comes just moments later, as they're preparing to drive Anderson off To jail. One of McDougal's men is under the dealer's car, removing the tracker they've been using to tail him, and he calls McDougal over.

[H]

He then asked me if we had two trackers on the car, and I told him no. When he pulls it off and shows me the second tracker,

[D]

They've found another tracker under Anderson's car. McDougal's standing there with this GPS device in his hand. Is it one of theirs? He doesn't recognize it. He asks the rest of his team if they do, and nobody did.

[H]

So I was kind of upset because I'm thinking somebody else was on my guy and didn't tell me.

[D]

McDougal's checked already, and no one else is supposed to. Supposed to be investigating Anderson. So who else has been on his tail? It's way too weird to let go. He contacts the tracker company to find out who owns this thing, and the next day, he's got a name, but it's not a name he recognizes. He runs it through the system to see if the guy's got a record. Dozens of results come back, but it's not because the guy's got a long rap sheet. He's never been arrested. Instead, he's the one doing the arresting because the owner of that mystery tracker. He's a cop.

[H]

A Baltimore city police officer.

[D]

McDougal starts spinning all kinds of theories. Could this officer be involved in some kind of secret investigation that's been kept off the books? You know, cops cut corners sometimes. But then McDougall discovers that this guy's paid for the tracker himself with his own credit card.

[H]

There's no way that a police officer is going to pay for his own tracker. That really wasn't adding up.

[D]

McDougal's struggling to make any sense of this. Why would a Baltimore cop buy one of these things for himself? And then he has a darker thought.

[H]

At the time the home invasion happened, Anderson's far away from his apartment. That is a great time to try to steal his drugs and money, because he's not there. What if a police officer put the tracker on Anderson's car to track his movement to conduct the home invasion?

[D]

A copy of robbing a dealer.

[H]

It sounded crazy as I was saying it, but I was saying it. I could look around and see people looking at me like, come on, man.

[D]

What McDougal doesn't know yet is that he's tugged on a thread. It's a thread that will unravel a web of corruption right at the heart of the Baltimore police department. Because that cop, he's no ordinary cop. He's one of the Google golden boys from the Gun Trace Task Force. And maybe they're not quite as golden as everybody thinks. That's next time. You've been listening to Bad Cops from the BBC World Service with me, Jessica Lussenhop. The program was mixed by Neil Churchill, additional mixing by James Beard. The producer is Ben Crichton, and the editor is Richard Varden.

[A]

If you're enjoying Bad Cops, make sure to check out season one of the Burden. You'll meet the greatest detective in Brooklyn history. He takes on the worst criminals until one day the criminals take him on.

[I]

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[J]

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