I Got a Monster, Baynard Woods
I Got a Monster, Baynard Woods
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I Got a Monster
The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad

Author: Baynard Woods, Brandon Soderberg

Narrator: Ryan Vincent Anderson

Unabridged: 7 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/21/2020


Synopsis

The explosive true story of America's most corrupt police unit, the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), which terrorized the city of Baltimore for half a decade.

When Baltimore police sergeant Wayne Jenkins said he had a monster, he meant he had found a big-time drug dealer—one that he wanted to rob. This is the story of Jenkins and the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), a super group of dirty detectives who exploited some of America’s greatest problems: guns, drugs, toxic masculinity, and hypersegregation.

In the upside-down world of the GTTF, cops were robbers and drug dealers were the perfect victims, because no one believed them. When the federal government finally arrested the GTTF for robbery and racketeering in 2017, the stories of victims began to come out, revealing a vast criminal enterprise operating within the Baltimore Police Department.

Cops planted heroin to cover up a fatal crash that resulted from a botched robbery. They stole hundreds of thousands of dollars, faked video evidence, and forged a letter trying to break up the marriage of one of their victims to keep his wife from paying a lawyer. And a homicide detective was killed the day before he was scheduled to testify against the crooked cops.

I Got a Monster is the shocking history of the rise and fall of the most corrupt cops in America from Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

About Baynard Woods

BAYNARD WOODS is a freelance writer living in Baltimore. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and many other publications. He is coauthor, with Brandon Soderberg, of I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad.

About Brandon Soderberg

BRANDON SODERBERG is a reporter living Baltimore and was previously the Editor in Chief of the Baltimore City Paper and a contributing writer to SPIN. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Vice, The Village Voice and many other publications. He is coauthor, with Baynard Woods, of I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul

A true crime thriller for the age of Defund; if you're at all wondering why so many Americans think we'd be better off starting from scratch with public safety, this case study of a squad of officers who used the Baltimore Police Department as, essentially, an organized-crime syndicate should prove......more

Goodreads review by Jake

This is one where the story itself is more compelling than the writing. Being a Baltimore native, I was looking forward to this as I only know the broad strokes of the Gun Trace Task Force case. I really like Baynard Woods' work. But the telling of the story is dull, leaning hard on recorded dialogu......more


Quotes

"At once a page-turning account of the dramatic rise and fall of a criminal enterprise disguised as a police squad and a portrait of a city struggling against entrenched corruption. Woods and Soderberg's meticulous, gripping narrative moves from high-end waterfront condos to the vacant rowhouses of West Baltimore to police headquarters as it unspools a story of extravagant criminality, greed, and betrayal. —Rachel Monroe, author of Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime and Obsession



"A masterpiece of reporting" —Laura Wexler, author Fire in a Canebrake