I Got a Monster: A Book Review.

I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad

Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg

I take this one somewhat personally because it is the city in which I live; the city that I consider my adopted hometown where I have spent 27 years working and writing and performing and making a life. I am biased for it and enraged at so much of what happens in this truly excellent book.

In 2017, Officer Wayne Jenkins and 6 others members of the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) were arrested by the FBI on multiple charges relating to their work on this special unit of the Baltimore City Police. For years, Jenkins and his men were at the heart of a criminal conspiracy to steal money from citizens, plant evidence on people they wanted to nail, and engage in reckless behavior behind the shield of the law.

This unit operated in response to the violence and gun deaths that have plagued Baltimore for years. The murder rate in this city has topped 300 a year for the past 6 years. In a post-Freddie Gray Baltimore, the Gun Trace Task Force flourished, taking guns off the street, making busts and pocketing cash along the way. And the scatter-shot approach to policing, which often swept up the innocent with the guilty was ripe with corruption and bad arrests.

In this mix is a cast of dirty cops, drug dealers, collaborators, victims and lawyers. One such lawyer, Ivan Bates had tangled with Jenkins on many occasions and in time became determined to do something about the corruption. This whole thing is like real life Bad Lieutenant. Cops ripping off drug dealers, planting evidence, roughing people up. The argument could be made that “oh, who cares? They were just drug dealers?” But the job is not to throw shit against the wall to see what sticks. The job is not to rob “bad” people. The job is to enforce the law and protect the public.

I Got a Monster is an absorbing read. I take note of the fact that the States Attorney comes off terribly. Marilyn Mosby is a peripheral figure in all this. The corrupt Gun Trace Task Force flourished under her. And they were subsequently brought down without her help. She does what is politically expedient: Dropping charges in case brought by dirty officers before investigating; she’s not thoughtful or methodical. All these arguments were initially used by Ivan Bates in his campaign to replace her as State’s Attorney, which is reported in the book. Ultimately, he had to drop that line of attack since he was a defense attorney and going against the GTTF would impact his clients. (the race was spilt three ways and Mosby won).

I Got a Monster is likely to be just one of many books about the GTTF. I know people outside the city love to dump on it (they can kiss my ass). But this book exposes a small sliver of one of the many ways in which local leadership fails the citizens of this city every day.