the story of the corruption in the Baltimore Police Department and the people who came forward to testify and put an end to it. the damage was done already to innocent people. The stories that you follow are almost too true to believe but sadly are all true. A well-written and researched book.

I regret waiting so long to pick up this book. I knew very little about the stories covered in this book, which focuses on corrupt cops in Baltimore, Maryland. It's meticulously reported and incredibly well-written.

I just realized that I did not review this book. I was very interested in reading this book as Balt8more was still echoing the death of Freddie Gray. Baltimore is well known to many people wading associated with many negative stereotypes. A lot has been said about corruption in many areas in Baltimore, and some have tried to bring various issues to light, but one man cannot move a mountain. The Baltimore PD have always been subject to corruption theories but, to no avail. It was refreshing to see someone delve into the subject matter of this book and bring it to light. You only received what the higher ups wanted out there. This book takes you deeper. After reading this book, I had one question. How can a city respect and think well of the ones who took an oath to “protect and serve”; when one cannot trust they will do that? A must read. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on my review.

Absolutely fantastic read. I remember hearing a little bit about this but living on the opposite coast means we don't have the same news.

3.5 "detailed, fast paced, disillusioning" stars !!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and both Faber & Faber as well as Random House Publishing for an ecopy of this book. This was released February 2021. I am providing an honest review.

I am going to keep this review relatively short. This was a very good to excellent compiling of events in 2010's Baltimore about an elite group of plainclothes officers that got away with many years of racketeering, false arrests, corruption and led to the ruining of many lives as well as the loss of others. This group was brought down by the FBI and most culprits have been locked away for 12 to 25 years. The focus is on Wayne Jenkins who appeared to mastermind and bring colleagues into the fray as well as protect some friends and family to sell the drugs of all the drug busts he had committed.

The writing is precise and logical and you can see in your mind's eye all that transpires over the years. The clear prose allows the reader to keep all the many subjects relatively clear in your mind.
This is absolutely excellent and impartial investigative journalism. HBO has also produced a six part series docudrama based on these events. If I see it...I will report back as an addendum in this review.

What would have made this a four or 4.5 star book is some collaboration with experts. I would have loved some in depth analysis of the psychology of the rogue cops (forensic and/or clinical psychologist), how a police force could allow this to go unchecked for so very long (organizational or political sociologist) and some historical context of how all these events were brought to the forefront by a local historian with a focus on race relations.

All in all, an eye-opening and truly sad reflection on Baltimore. Kudos to the author for presenting such a cohesive look at the sequential events that brought these criminal cops down.

The Baltimore Police Department (as opposed to the Baltimore County Sheriff) was being buried under an avalanche of murders. Since most of the murders were perpetrated with guns, the BPD created the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) in 2007. Their remit was to get guns off the street, pretty much any way they could. Members of the force knew that drug dealers were the biggest problem.

What started as a good idea, led to a force that spent most of their time shaking down drug dealers and street peddlers. It got to the point where they would stop people who were driving without seat belts and other misdemeanors, then searched the cars (illegally) and took some perpetrators to their houses and illegally searched the premises. The ones they caught with guns or drugs in their cars couldn't complain to anyone that a lot of the money and drugs disappeared between the arrest and their arrangement. As on drug dealer said, what was I supposed to do, tell the judge that the cops stole my money and my drugs?

When in 2015 Freddy Gray was died while in the back of a Police bus, set-up a Federal undercover force to see if this was a one time thing or a systemic problem. While wiretapping one of the Cops involved with the Gray matter, they heard rumors of the robberies that the GTTF was making a fortune by selling the drugs they confiscated during their drug busts. The FBI and Baltimore County Sheriffs were brought in to work with the Internal Affairs division to watch the GTTF.

Not only did they find that the group of cops was arresting drug dealers, the then turned the drugs over to other dealers to sell the drugs for them. During this time they were also running an overtime scam on the BPD. GTTF members were getting paid overtime when they were on vacation, working on properties they bought and shaking down drug dealers.

In the end, most of these cops ended up being tried for theft and drug dealing. Many of them pleaded guilty, those that didn't were found guilty, and many of them are still serving time.

A well researched and detailed exposé. It is sad, scary and infuriating that this kind of corruption happens within the justice system. Living in a city where we don't have anywhere near this level of crime made this a real eye opening and compelling read.
Thank you Random House and Netgalley for this ARC.

It's surreal to read a book about news you both watched unfold in real time and at times covered as one of the throng of journalists. Justin and I sometimes sat next to each other in court at some of the described hearings! He has pulled together a stunningly detailed and well-researched piece of context for events that we often treated as distinct occurrences in the moment but would later find out were part of a larger web of corruption, lies, and ruthless self-interest among members of the Baltimore Police Department.

We Own This City will make you sad, furious, frustrated, and downright vengeful on behalf of the citizens of Baltimore, who deserve so much better than the law enforcement they've been given. City leadership needs to understand the full context of how we got to April 2015 and beyond before significant progress is even possible. I hope stories like this help them learn.

We Own This City by Justin Fenton is a superb and engrossing read which will keep you reading until the end. Well worth the read!

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

Justin Fenton, Pulitzer Prize-nominated crime and police accountability reporter for the Baltimore Sun, covered protests following Freddie Gray's 2015 death in police custody. Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, was arrested though he had committed no crime, and his murder was an indicator of a nauseating pattern of police malfeasance in Baltimore. We Own This City is Fenton's explosive recounting of years of cover-ups and lies by hard-charging officers handpicked to combat poor crime statistics by targeting violent repeat offenders. A blind eye was turned to these "knockers," whose expanded independence was abused in the most abhorrent of ways, further damaging an already drug-and-violence-weary city.

Authorities struggled to reduce violent crime, leading to desperation and breakdown of discipline that allowed officers to run amok. "The message from up on high was clear. Do whatever it took to stem the tide of violence. Whatever. It. Took." Some officers carried this edict to incredulous extremes, stopping and searching without justification, planting evidence, searching homes, and seizing money and drugs that they would then sell back into the community they were sworn to protect. Perhaps none were more egregious than Sergeant Wayne Jenkins.

Fenton zeroes in on hard-driver Jenkins and the Gun Trace Task Force, meticulously laying out the years they ran roughshod, garnering acclaim for results stemming from their own misdeeds. Tracking Jenkins's history and the FBI investigation into the GTTF, Fenton details the lives ruined and damage caused by both under- and over-policing of Black communities. For anyone who fails to understand why Freddie Gray ran, the Wayne Jenkinses of the world provide a life-or-death rationale.

One of my all-time favorite TV shows is The Wire, for which David Simon was the creator, show runner, executive producer and head writer. Between that show and the podcast Serial and subsequent book Adnan’s Story, I was fairly well convinced that Baltimore had just about the most corrupt law enforcement and city/county government around. Then I picked up Justin Fenton’s book We Own This City (thanks to Random House and NetGallley for a copy in exchange for this honest review), and realized I could not even imagine the extent to which crime ran rampant throughout Baltimore, among both criminals and the law enforcement officers who were supposed to be protecting the citizens.

Mr. Fenton is a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun, David Simon’s early home as a reporter. It was Simon who suggested the idea for a book that would tell the story of what happened in Baltimore up to and including cases such as Freddy Gray, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd. The book is superb, with a title taken from a quote by one of Fenton’s primary sources, a member of the Crips gang. Speaking about the city, the gangs, and the police: “We still run this shit…as a police officer, you can literally only do what we allow you to do. We–as far as the community itself, even the drug dealers–we run this city.””

In Baltimore, in 2015, riots broke out across the city following the death of Freddie Gray, a twenty-five-year-old Black man who died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. Baltimore police commanders turned to a “rank-and-file hero,” Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, and his elite plainclothes unit, the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), to get things under control.

Instead of taking down the bad guys, members of the Gun Trace Task Force did the opposite. They took drugs they would sell themselves, pocketed cash rather than turn it in, and planted evidence to get the convictions they wanted and to divert attention away from themselves. As a result, wrongful convictions were the norm, innocent civilians died, and one officer was shot in the head one day before he was scheduled to testify against the GTTF.

An incredible amount of research went into this book, including extensive reviewing of court transcripts and interviewing people on both sides of the law. He succeeds in presenting the victims of the GTTF as sympathetic, despite them clearly being less than squeaky clean when it comes to following the law. He shows how they realized that it was futile to pursue justice, as the police would ALWAYS be believed. Just as in The Wire, the police and city officials were under orders to reduce their crime stats. As it turned out, some officers were complicit and many were willing to look the other way when it came to officer conduct. As long as the numbers were improving, everything was fine. Fenton gets this across without drowning the reader with numbers and data. In the end, it is disgusting, sad, and eye-opening. The one ray of sunshine is the fact that investigative journalism still exists, in this case at a very high level. Mr. Fenton has done an amazing job. Five stars.

An amazing shocking account of police corruption. A book that is well written takes us step by step through the layers of criminal activity a department that was rotten from the top.The world of corruption ,,drugs and its effect on an American city.A book I will be recommending.#netgalley #randomhouse

Justin Fenton's We Own This City is an illuminating journey of corruption within Baltimore's police force, specifically a small cast of characters within the Gun Trace Task Force. The novel reads fairly quickly and would be a good choice for anyone interested in Baltimore's criminal justice scene.

As someone who lived in Baltimore during the timeline of the book, I liked that Fenton was able to provide information about the trials of the members of the GTTF while also putting it in context with the other events going on in the city during the past decade. He doesn't treat readers like they're dumb nor that they should already have background information on anything going on. Everything is easily laid out with compelling, but not overwritten, detail. You can tell that Fenton comes from a long journalistic background when the accounts are fairly unbiased without mentions of what he was observing as a reporter or what was going on in the background.

I received an ARC of this book through Penguin Randomhouse in exchange for my honest review.

This book is a coming out party of sorts for Justin Fenton as he proves to be a worth successor to David Simon as the chronicler of Baltimore crime and police stories. This book is essential reading for every American so that they can understand the many ways the War on Drugs has been lost while, at the same time, every sane person should be infuriated by the stories of criminality and depravity by the very people that are supposed to protect us (and, in fact, are lauded for the work they are supposed to be doing).

A fascinating and well written account about a group of corrupt Baltimore cops. It never ceased to amaze me how power hungry and brazen they became. Highly recommend for any fan of true crime or mysteries.

Justin Fenton’s We Own This City is an enthralling chronicle of shameful and shocking police corruption in modern-day Baltimore, Maryland. A band of police officers runs criminally rampant, with criminal investigations taking years before their eventual downfall.

We Own This City starts out slowly, but after gaining its hold, the book unfolds like a relentless, well-crafted fictional police procedural. Only this time, the police are the villains and this is a true story.

The main focus is on plainclothed street detectives and the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) unit led by a detective sergeant named Wayne Jenkins. Jenkins and those he supervises are tasked with tackling gun crime and investigating the most dangerous of criminals in the city of Baltimore. In police jargon, Jenkins is best described as being a “cop’s cop” and roams wild in the city producing favorable results envied by many. Almost by design, the criminal behavior of Jenkins, and those like him, mainly goes unnoticed because to most, success is indicated by putting drug, gun, and money statistics up on the board. Results by these supposed cream-of-the-crop police officers are looked at in awe and celebration by not only peers outside of this working group, but by their supervisors and department administrators as well. Unfortunately, what all those outside of Jenkins’ working crew do not know is during all of this time, Jenkins and the other officers have been committing just as many crimes as those they are supposed to be jailing.

Fenton especially excels at the telling of a complex, exciting story based on voluminous research without the depiction of overwhelming statistics and data dragging into the storytelling. Fenton is also successful at portraying those targeted by Jenkins and his fellow police officers in a sympathetic manner even though they themselves are clearly not angels. While these patrons of the streets are committing criminal acts themselves, Fenton is still able to place a human face upon them. He also points out, as victims of robberies, home invasions, or planted or fabricated evidence, these targets realize it is futile to report such incidents because they know whose word will be believed.

On top of the excellent research, Fenton also aptly explains just how Jenkins and other police officers were able to commit these acts for so long. In his explanation, under the political demands and pressure for lower violent crime in Baltimore, too many (especially supervisors and administrators) turned a blind eye to misbehavior if such aggressive law enforcement tactics brought the promise of lower violent crime. In other words, too few were willing to dig too deep or even pay much attention to officer conduct as long as crime rates started to decline.

I will not be surprised if We Own This City is quickly snatched up for movie adaptation.

NetGalley provided an ARC for the promise of a fair review. This review was originally published at MysteryandSuspense.com.

Well written account of the corruption that plagued the Baltimore Police Department. The book is engaging from page one. Though it’s a first timer author, he is actually a highly accomplished reporter who won a Pulitzer for his investigative research.

The author weaves characters and events together with mastery and paints the accurate picture of how a group of officers went rogue for years, acting more as criminals than cops.

If you like mystery, if you like true life crime, pick this baby up.

#netgalley #weownthiscity

This book grips you from the first page and does NOT let up till the very last page. This book is exhaustive in its sources, reporting, and reads like a movie plot.
All of the book is fact and is shocking. Its a story of a police department with no oversight, dirty cops, terrified citizens, and the destruction of a city.
The author writes with heart, passion, and clarity. I really appreciated the way in which the author wrote the story.
There was several times that I had to put down the book and just wrap my head around all of the corruption that had touched so many cops, citizens, and how far reaching it was.
I hope that Baltimore is finally on the mend.


Thank you to the netgalley and to the publisher for this ARC for my honest review.

We Own This City is the story of rampant corruption within the Baltimore Police Department. Pieced together from interviews, testimony, tape recordings and official records, this is an exhaustive narrative of several police officers who falsified testimony, stole money and drugs, and committed crime after crime. In their aftermath, hundreds of cases had to be dismissed, and numerous police officers were jailed for lengthy sentences. While their actions are appalling, even more so was the lack of oversight by commanding officers, who either knew or should have known what was going on under their noses. A truly shocking story with absolutely no winners. I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through @NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.