Bad Cops | 3. The Warning Signs

Summary

The Burden
Season 7: Bad Cops | Episode 3: The Warning Signs
Host: Orbit Media | Air Date: July 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode of “The Burden: Bad Cops” examines the hidden rot in the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force. Through real voices and firsthand accounts, the episode exposes the warning signs that pointed to systemic corruption—focusing particularly on Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, the so-called “Golden Boy,” and his plainclothes crew. Listeners are drawn into a high-stakes environment where protectors become predators, and where those seeking justice face uphill battles against disbelief and indifference.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Video Bust: False Heroics (03:23 – 08:36)

• Breakdown of a Big Bust: The episode opens in a basement with the Gun Trace Task Force breaking open a drug dealer’s safe, all while filming themselves “by the book."
  • Jenkins is seen ordering:
    • “A picture of it or record it. Nobody touches. You understand me?” — Sergeant Wayne Jenkins (04:05)
• The Setup: The supposed bust turns out to be staged for the camera; earlier, officers had entered without a warrant, taken much more cash for themselves, then re-filmed the scene, pretending to find $100,000 (08:36).
  • “This whole recording, it’s a lie. This is what really happened…” — Jessica Lussenhop (Narrator) (07:21)
• Victim’s Position: The actual drug dealer, Oris Stevenson, faced trumped-up charges while the officers ran off with the lion’s share of illegal gains.

Patterns of Abuse: Profiling, Robbery, and Lies (09:39 – 11:21)

• Policing by Profile: Jenkins routinely targeted “dope boy cars” and used minor violations for pretext stops, manufacturing reasons for searches.
• Defense Attorney’s View: Ivan Bates, a defense lawyer, describes Jenkins’ methods as a “big game”—improvising justifications, writing false reports, and lying in court:
  • “Where this smoke is, eventually there’s gonna be fire.” — Ivan Bates (11:08)
• Judicial Response: Judges sometimes threw out tainted cases but rarely scrutinized the broader pattern of misconduct.

Testimonies of Victims: Unanswered Complaints (11:31 – 20:38)

• Gary Brown’s Account: Pulled over for a trumped-up seatbelt violation, Brown was handcuffed while the officers took $11,000 and walked away—no report filed, no charges, just theft, recounted in vivid, stunned detail (12:40 – 13:20).
  • “I was robbed by Baltimore City Police…with a gun…armed robbery.” — Gary Brown (13:09)
• Internal Affairs Fails: Brown complained, passed a polygraph. Officer Jamel Ram failed the polygraph and was suspended, not fired. There was no record of the stolen money returned to evidence (14:27 – 14:51).
• Other Victims Echo: Shawn Whiting describes his house being raided, large sums of cash and drugs stolen, and complaints to police and federal authorities going nowhere (16:09 – 17:33).
• Barriers to Justice: Victims are often dismissed or disbelieved, especially those with criminal records, as Ivan Bates notes.

Internal Obstacles and Self-Advocacy (18:38 – 20:38)

• Kenneth Baumgartner’s Ordeal: Injured and robbed, Baumgartner is first rebuffed by Internal Affairs and then left homeless and indebted—the absence of evidence undermines his pleas until he knocks on countless doors and finally finds a witness.
  • “You done broke my jaw, and you left me on the ground for dead. I’m not leaving it alone. You know, something needs to be done about that.” — Kenneth Baumgartner (19:18)
• Systemic Secrecy: Maryland law masks disciplinary records, keeping patterns like these out of public view.

FBI Investigation: Raising the Stakes (20:38 – 25:22)

• Scaling the Case: FBI Agent Erica Jensen tracks patterns of false reports and theft and wants to catch officers red-handed.
• The Failed Sting: Jensen arranges a sting with a motorhome filled with bait money and surveillance (22:01 – 24:13). Task Force officers Gondo and Ram are suspicious of the setup, speculate it’s an Internal Affairs trap, and back off, nearly blowing the investigation.
  • “Decisions you make in these cases have a lot of repercussions. You could blow a case by making a bad choice.” — Erica Jensen (21:52)
  • “…We learned a lot about them and how they think that day. For sure, it was not a complete waste.” — Erica Jensen (25:12)
• Growing Mistrust: The episode suggests that some officers’ paranoia itself is a sign of how deep their corruption runs.

Setting Up the Next Episode (25:22 – End)

• Conspirators and Insiders: Hint at the emergence of an outsider deeply entangled in the Task Force’s double life, promising further revelations about Jenkins, Gondo, and the shadow network surrounding them.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Jenkins’ Staged Bust:
  • “It’s quite a performance. Once you know it’s fake, the video is almost funny. But things just got very real for the twice-convicted drug dealer they just robbed.” — Jessica Lussenhop (08:36)
• On Police Impunity:
  • “Wayne Jenkins… it was just like a big game in his mind.” — Ivan Bates (10:27)
• On Victims Standing Up:
  • “A lot of times people don’t want to be a witness when police do things because bad things happen to people that see things.” — Kenneth Baumgartner (20:10)
• On Investigating Cops:
  • “They’re doing things that I did not anticipate.” — Erica Jensen (24:11)
  • “If we got discovered, we might lose the whole case. The whole case might fall apart.” — Erica Jensen (24:26)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• 03:23 – Jenkins’ task force filmed “bust” in drug dealer’s basement
• 08:36 – Reveal: staged video, illegal entry, theft by officers
• 09:39 – Profiling and phony traffic stops described
• 10:06 – Defense attorney Ivan Bates questions systemic trust
• 11:31 – More GTTF cops revealed as career predators
• 12:40 – Gary Brown’s robbery by police (victim testimony)
• 14:27 – Internal Affairs probes and failures
• 16:09 – Shawn Whiting: Raid and theft story
• 18:38 – Kenneth Baumgartner: Assault, robbery, struggle for justice
• 21:52 – Erica Jensen weighs risks in the FBI investigation
• 23:33 – The failed motorhome sting operation
• 25:22 – Hints at new informant and coming revelations

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Conclusion

This episode of “The Burden: Bad Cops” takes listeners deep into the rot of a celebrated police unit, laying out case after case of brazen illegal acts covered by a blue wall of silence and weak accountability. Through dogged victims, candid investigators, and the detailed narration of Jessica Lussenhop, the warning signs of a corrupt force come into stark relief. The tension rises as the FBI inches closer to exposing the full scope of the scandal—setting the stage for bigger revelations to come.

Transcript

[Ben Nadifaffri]

Thirty years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City.

[Narrator/Promoter]

Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Who will you trust? The people five miles overseas.

[Ben Nadifaffri]

This is a story about neighbors turning on each other and what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

But we're not stopping, are we?

[Ben Nadifaffri]

Listen to revisionist history. The Staten island problem. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, you've always

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[Steve Fishman]

This is Steve Fishman from Orbit Media. Just a quick word. This is one of my favorite episodes. You're going to love Donnie, Sergeant Jenkins, buddy from childhood, who will come to think of himself as Rambo. 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.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

Previously on Bad Cops. A secret investigation is underway into an elite plainclothes police unit, the Gun Trace Task Force. On a wiretap, FBI agent Erica Jensen learns that one of the squad's detectives is pretty close to a Baltimore heroin dealer. It's suspicious, but she needs more than that. And then an incriminating call.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

Definitely somebody's been tracking you.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

You're definitely gonna get rid of

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

was

[Erica Jensen]

what we would call, like the dirty call, the criminal call.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

And later, listening to a bug hidden in the cop's car, Agent Jensen hears a group of the task force officers start a car chase that ends in a massive wreck. But the officers do nothing to help. Instead, they flee the scene and they plot how to cover it up.

[Erica Jensen]

To me, it was just the dereliction of duty, the way they hid, you know, and stood by, but yet didn't assist. It just bothered me a lot, and I was angry about it.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

Instead of a couple of dirty cops, she's now thinking most of the unit is rotten, and the guy giving the orders is the Baltimore Police Department's golden boy, Sergeant Wayne Jenkins. I'm Jessica Lessenhob, and this is is Bad Cops from the BBC World Service. The true story of Baltimore's Gun Trace Task Force. Part three, the warning signs.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

Hey, y', all. Y' all get that open yet? Hold on.

[Ivan Bates]

We all get that.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

Hey, sarge. Hey, come downstairs right quick.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

This is the gun trace task force making a big bust. One of the officers is filming it on his mobile phone. They're in a dim basement of a twice convicted drug dealer. He's been out of prison for a while. Everybody get it open. Hold on, hold on. Two of the officers are hunched over a small safe. They're trying to pry it open with a crowbar. Suddenly, the lock cracks.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

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

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

Take him out. Take him out.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

Inside, bundles and bundles of ca.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

A picture of it or record it.

[Narrator/Promoter]

Right now.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

Nobody touches. You understand me?

[Ivan Bates]

Right now.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

The voice giving the orders.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

Don't touch it. Stand next to it. We're calling out the fence.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

That's the leader of the unit, Sergeant Wayne Jenkins. He's known for getting guns off the streets, seizing money and drugs, and taking down the city's dealers with high profile busts like this one.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

Keep recording. No one's touching this money.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

Yes, sir.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

It's the kind of bus Jenkins is famous for.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

Situation.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

It's why his superiors love him. It makes his bosses look good in front of their bosses. But let's stop right there, because this video, something's not quite right with it. Let's rewind to earlier that day. Jenkins is out driving around with some of the other officers from the task force. He's on the lookout, scanning the streets for signs of suspicious activity. And what Jenkins considers suspicious is subjective. Like there are certain makes or models of cars that he calls dope boy cars. In his mind, they're the kind of cars only drug dealers drive. Just being behind the wheel of one of these is enough to get you pulled over. Another word for this is profiling. And when it comes to writing the arrest report, he'll just make something up. Maybe you weren't wearing a seatbelt or your taillight was out. He's going to use any excuse to stop you, yank you out of the driver's seat and start digging through your car. So earlier that day, Jenkins is out cruising in his car in northwest Baltimore when he spots a guy walking down the street carrying a backpack. To Jenkins, this is another tell. A guy with a backpack can mean only one thing. He's holding drugs or guns. The guy with the backpack climbs into the passenger seat of a minivan. Jenkins drives up the wrong way of a one way street and boxes the vehicle in. There are two men inside, and the officers haul them both out. And it turns out in this case, Jenkins instincts were correct. When they search the van, they find half a kilo of cocaine and some cash. There's something about the guy in the driver's seat that interests Jenkins. He thinks he's got what he calls a monster. That's his name for a dealer who might be sitting on a pile of drugs and cash at home. And Jenkins wants to get into this particular monster's house, so he arrests him. And just before the man's driven away to be booked, Jenkins takes his house keys.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

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

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

Take him out. Take him out.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

That's how Jenkins and the others wind up in the man's basement, trying to force open the safe. On the video, you can see them open it and find close to $100,000 in cash inside.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

Nobody touches. You understand me?

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

Right now, that's Jenkins telling his crew not to touch the money.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

Don't touch it. Stand next to it. We're calling it out of the fence.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

It's an impressive bust. Here's the thing, though. This whole recording, it's a lie. This is what really happened

[Ben Nadifaffri]

30 years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City.

[Narrator/Promoter]

Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Who will you trust? The people five miles overseas.

[Ben Nadifaffri]

This is a story about neighbors turning on each other and what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

We reached for a feeling that exists in this city, but we're not stopping, are we?

[Ben Nadifaffri]

I'm Ben nadifafry, and for my new series on revisionist history, I took a deep dive into Staten island's attempt to secede from New York city in the 1990s, and what it all has to do with the politics of resentment that dominate America today. Listen to revisionist, the Staten island problem on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

When the squad first arrived at the dealer's home, they entered without a warrant. They call it a sneak and peek, and it's totally illegal. They wandered around the dealer's house, helping themselves to a few kilos of cocaine and a $4,000 wristwatch, and then they headed for the basement. The first time they broke into the safe when they weren't filming, they found $200,000, and they took half for themselves, stuffing the bundles of cash into a bag. And then minutes later, they act out the whole scene again for the camera, gasping in disbelief at their discovery of a hundred thousand dollars. Oh, it's quite a performance. Once you know it's fake. The video is almost funny, but things just got very real for the twice convicted drug dealer they just robbed. His name's Oris Stevenson, and he's now sitting in a jail cell downtown. The task force officers bring enough of his cocaine and cash back to the Baltimore Police Department evidence room so they can charge him. They figure they're safe. It's not like arise Stevenson's going to complain. I mean, who's going to admit to having even more cocaine than they were caught with?

[Ivan Bates]

If you're a drug dealer and you have two prior drug convictions and the police come and take your money and rob you, is anyone gonna believe you?

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

This is Ivan Bates, a well known Baltimore defense lawyer. And he's got a good enough reputation that when Oree Stevenson calls his wife from jail, he basically tells her, get Bates.

[Ivan Bates]

Wayne Jenkins. I knew who he was. I. I knew what he did. You know, it was just like a big game in his mind.

[Kenneth Baumgartner]

Ha ha ha.

[Ivan Bates]

I got the power. You never really gonna touch me.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

Bates argues his client's car stop was unconstitutional, and the judge agrees. The case is thrown out and Stephenson's off the hook. But it revealed something interesting about the Jenkins MO he's fluid with the truth when he writes his arrest reports. He's always eager to get inside people's houses with or without a warrant. And he'll lie even in front of a judge to try to cover it up.

[Ivan Bates]

Your clients will tell you really what's happening. And you hear the same story time after time, over and over and over again. You kind of say, you know what? Where this smoke is, eventually there's gonna be fire.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

Ivan Bates had heard rumors for years that Jenkins was up to no good. But he's not the only officer in the gun trace task force with skeletons in his closet.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

I can't do this no more, yo.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

It's either we get it or we

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

don't, or we come close to something.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

But that's Jamel Ram a lot.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

You know what I mean?

Right?

[Steve Fishman]

So.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

So I know we could get something.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

But he's one of the task force detectives, and his partner in the unit is Mamadou Gondo, the cop with the wiretap on his phone and the hidden in his car. Rahm joined the police back in 2005. Early on in his career, he made headlines after he shot three people in 20 months, one of them fatally. All three shootings were later deemed justified. He even received the citation of valor and silver Star for one of them. Ram was a tough guy, and he wasn't afraid to use his police badge to shake down unsuspecting members of the public. In June 2009, a guy named Gary Brown was driving near downtown Baltimore on his way to the bank. A friend had asked him to deposit a bunch of cash. Suddenly, Brown saw flashing lights in his rearview mirror. It was Ram and a couple of other cops.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

He pulled me over with some dumb excuse, Something about a seat belt. Get me out the car. Sit me on the ground. Handcuff me. Search the car.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

In the trunk, the officers found $11,000 in a paper bag.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

He said something to the effect of, yeah, we found this money. We taking it? It's mine. I'm going to the casino with this money. He took it. He put it in his pocket. He said, all right, I'll see you later. And he pulled off.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

He was left there, standing by the side of the road.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

I was in shock. I didn't really know what was going on. I know I didn't have my money. I was robbed by Baltimore city police. You know, robbed with a gun.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

Armed robbery. I still find this particular story so crazy. It's not like Gary Brown had drugs or guns. Ram and his colleagues didn't even bother writing a police report. They just robbed the guy in broad daylight. The next morning, after the shock had worn off, Gary Brown did something Detective Ram was not expecting. He made a complaint.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

Banged on the door. The police took my money.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

The door he's talking about is the entrance to internal affairs. It's a special division of the the Baltimore police Department that investigates its own officers. The internal affairs division doesn't enjoy a particularly great reputation or a strong track record of rooting out dirty cops. But this time, they do manage to identify detective Jamel Ram as one of the officers in the Gary Brown incident. Brown agrees to take a lie detector test.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

I passed it.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

And detective Ram, he failed it. Internal affairs investigators find that Ram lied to them about the robbery, but he's not fired. Instead, he's slapped with a misconduct charge and suspended for two years. But there's no record of Gary Brown's $11,000 ever making it to the Baltimore police department evidence room.

[Sergeant Wayne Jenkins]

You know, the months went by, the year when Biden just really kind of fell back and let it go.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

Police misconduct investigations are secret, and an officer's disciplinary record is not made public in Maryland. So Gary Brown had no idea that Ram was actually suspended following his complaint. But it's not like it did any real damage to Detective Ram's career. When he returned, he was asked to join an elite, powerful and largely unsupervised plainclothes unit. The gun trace task force. But Ram is not the only cop who was stealing money before joining the unit. It's early morning, January 2014. Shawn Whiting is fast asleep in his skinny row house in west Baltimore. He's got thousands of dollars stashed in his bedroom, Some in his closet, some in a bedside table, and still more inside of a vest. There's $8,000 from his job as a house painter and nearly 16,000 from selling heroin. Suddenly, he's jolted awake.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

I heard my daughter screaming. I jumped out of my bed. I took maybe one to two steps, had a gun pointed in my face and told me, get on the ground, get on the ground. And that's what I did. And he cuffed me and took me downstairs.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

A trio of plain clothes cops sit Whiting down in his living room and hold up a bag of cash from his closet. They ask him if there's more upstairs. He says there is and then immediately regrets it.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

Once I said that, it kind of like took me out the house.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

As well as the cash, Whiting's also got four and a half kilos of heroin in the house. The plainclothes cops arrest him, and later, in jail, he gets a letter detailing what was seized.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

And I was like, it was way more than that.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

The letter says that less than $8,000 were found in and just three kilos of heroin. Whiting's missing more than $16,000 and a kilo and a half of heroin. He's in jail on a drug charge. But Sean Whiting is mad. He complains to anyone he can think of. The Baltimore police department, the FBI. He even tells the judge in his case, I was robbed. The judge assures him it'll be properly investigated, but it won't be.

[Ben Nadifaffri]

Thirty years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City.

[Narrator/Promoter]

Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Or will you trust the people five miles overseas?

[Ben Nadifaffri]

This is a story about neighbors turning on each other and what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

We reached for a feeling that exists in this city. But we're not stopping, are we?

[Ben Nadifaffri]

I'm Ben Nadifaffri, and for my new series on revisionist history, I took a deep dive into Staten Island's attempt to secede from New York city in the 1990s and what it all has to do with the politics of resentment that dominate America today. Listen to revisionist history. The Staten island problem on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

We met Kenneth baumgartner in part one of this story. In 2016, he was out driving in his old neighborhood. Officers from the gun trace task force chased him, including Sergeant Wayne Jenkins. Kenneth says the officers robbed him and broke his jaw. A couple of days later, Kenneth has the operation to wire his jaw shut because he thinks the officers must have assaulted him and taken his money. He goes to internal affairs, but the officer who takes his complaint is aggressive and dismissive and tries to convince him to drop it.

[Kenneth Baumgartner]

I was like, no, y' all done towed in my car. You done broke my jaw, and you left me on the ground for dead. I'm not leaving it alone. You know, something needs to be done about that.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

There's a lot at stake because on the night that Kenneth got his injury, his rent money was stolen and he's now been evicted. And on top of all that, he's got a bill for $67,000 for the smashed up rental car. He tries his luck with a lawyer and then another. But each time he's turned away, they all tell him the same thing. Without some kind of evidence, there's little they can do for Kenneth. There's just one option left. To turn detective himself. He goes back to the neighborhood where he believes he was assaulted. He's desperate to find someone who saw what happened to him. He starts knocking on doors.

[Kenneth Baumgartner]

It was a lot of footwork, a lot of footwork, a lot of walking, a lot of, oh, I hope somebody wants to step up and be a witness. Because, you know, a lot of times people don't want to be a witness when police do things because bad things happen to people that see things.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

He keeps going back day after day.

[Kenneth Baumgartner]

It took me like a week and a half of knocking on different doors to like, actually find a guy that actually seen it. So that was a blessing, I guess.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

And with this new witness on board, he now gets a lawyer and starts legal action against the police. Kenneth's not alone. Alongside him, Sean Whiting, Gary Brown, or Reese Stevenson. It's impossible to tell how many other men and women were unlucky enough to come across the officer of the gun trace task force. Over the years, FBI Special agent Erica Jensen is starting to understand the scale of the misconduct and just how many victims the case might have. She pulls the files of people who the squad have arrested over the years and starts combing through them for anything strange. She uncovers evidence that the officers have been lying on their arrest reports. On top of stealing money, the wiretap on Detective Gondo's phone and the hidden bug in his car have revealed some pretty damning behavior. But she really wants to catch the officers in the act, committing a crime. She's got a few more tricks up her sleeve. She could send another cop into the unit undercover to spy on them. But she decides it's too risky. And so is having the officer followed.

[Erica Jensen]

Decisions you make in these cases have a lot of repercussions. You could blow a case by making a bad choice.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

So she tries something else. Sometime during the summer of 2016, task force partners Mamadou Gondo and Jamel Ram get a call from county office outside the city. Would they be willing to check out a suspicious vehicle for them? Gando and Ram say sure. It's fairly standard practice for different police agencies to collaborate in this way, so a request like this shouldn't raise any red flags. They're given the address of a rest stop off the side of I95, a major highway that runs through Southeast Baltimore. Gondo and Ram are told that there in the parking lot, they'll find a motorhome. It's a 10 year old Ford Yellowstone. The FBI agents have already installed a hidden camera inside. They've scattered stuff around, tried to make it look a little lived in. And crucially, they've planted $4,500 in marked bills. Bait money. The money's hidden, but not well hidden. FBI special agent Erica Jensen is hoping that Ram and Gondo will find the cash and take it all. On camera, with everyone in position, she gives the go ahead for the county officers to make the call to the task force asking for assistance. She's miles away in the FBI war room listening in.

[Erica Jensen]

Pretty much as soon as they got the call. Mr. Rayan was suspicious, super suspicious. I think he even said, could this be internal Affairs? You know, I could hear the sound of their voices. I could hear how concerned they were. It was as if they didn't trust what they were being told.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

Instead of approaching the vehicle, they drew drive around the rest stop checking it out. It's as if they're casing the place. Not exactly the behavior of a couple of friendly city cops trying to help out their county colleagues.

[Erica Jensen]

They're doing things that I did not anticipate.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

Then Erica hears something that makes her heart skip a beat. Instead of entering the motorhome, Gondo and Ram are now saying they're going to go check out security cameras footage of the parking lot.

[Erica Jensen]

You know, we realized that if they started checking Footage that they were going to realize it was a setup. Oh, boy. These guys are going to go and look at these cameras. I knew if we got discovered that we might lose the whole case. The whole case might fall apart.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

She picks up the phone.

[Erica Jensen]

I made the call that we needed to pull the plug.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

She has her contacts in the county. Call Gondo and Ram and tell them, hey, never mind. We actually don't need your help after all. Thanks. It's all good.

[Erica Jensen]

It seemed like absolutely the only choice at the time.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

Gondo and Ram back off. It's not the result Agent Jensen was hoping for, but she tries to put a brave face on it.

[Erica Jensen]

We learned a lot that day, and we learned a lot about them and how they think that day. For sure, it was not a complete waste.

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

One thing she's learned is just how mistrustful some of the task force officers have become. And those officers aren't the only ones looking over their shoulders in the summer of 2016. They're someone else. And this guy's more tangled up in the crimes of the Gun Trace task force than anyone realizes. He's not a member of the task force. He's not even a cop. But he's going to take us down a rabbit hole. Deep into the double life of Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, into a conspiracy within a conspiracy.

[Ivan Bates]

I'm Donnie Stepp. Just an interesting guy that unfortunately found

[Narrator / Jessica Lussenhop]

myself in a pretty bad situation. 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.

[Steve Fishman]

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.

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[Task Force Officer / Detective]

All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher and the Mango Pineapple Refresher with popping Boba to Kraftin sodas to like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire six? All new drinks are here now at McDonald's.

[Ben Nadifaffri]

Refreshers contain caffeine. Thirty years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City.

[Narrator/Promoter]

Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Who will you trust? The people five miles overseas.

[Ben Nadifaffri]

This is a story about neighbors turning on each other and what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough.

[Task Force Officer / Detective]

But we're not stopping, are we?

[Ben Nadifaffri]

Listen to revisionist history. The Staten island problem on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.