But DAT’s specialized units are a pillar of Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS), a community-oriented approach to gun violence launched in late 2021. The strategy pairs arrests of violent offenders with outreach in the form of social services and counseling. GVRS is what some call a “carrot and stick” approach to violence reduction based on the popular program of focused deterrence: people identified as committing gun violence are offered assistance such as social services (carrot) or they are threatened with arrest and incarceration (stick).
GVRS services offered include counseling, life coaching, employment and housing assistance, and emergency relocation. In 2022, 71 people accepted GVRS services.
Critics of focused deterrence, like Philip McHarris, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of African American Studies and the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab at Princeton University, say that the program is “framed as an alternative to mass incarceration because of its purportedly more precise approach to violence, but is instead part of the same criminal legal system that wreaks havoc on Black, Latinx, and other criminalized communities.”
The Gun Violence Reduction Strategy, which has significant support via $50 million in American Rescue Plan funding and philanthropy, is part of the city’s Comprehensive Violence Reduction Plan, in effect through 2026. The plan was launched because since 2015, Baltimore has seen more than 300 homicides per year—the overwhelming majority of which were gun-related.
“As soon as [these ‘anti-crime units’] get negative press . . .they’re often rebranded, repackaged, and then sold back to the public under a different name, but still engaging in the same egregious practices.”
While Scott’s goal to reduce murders and shootings by 15 percent each year starting in 2021 was not met, homicides and nonfatal shootings have declined in the Western District where GVRS was piloted in 2022.
Based on those one-year results, Scott announced the expansion of the Gun Violence Reduction Strategy to other districts. With that expansion comes more involvement from DAT squads, which are considered a GVRS “resource.”
In an email to The Garrison Project and Baltimore magazine, Baltimore Police Director of Public Affairs and Community Outreach Lindsey Eldridge said the purpose of the District Action Teams is to assist the BPD’s Gun Violence Unit (GVU) under its broader Group Violence Reduction Strategy. “This includes working alongside GVU on investigations, intelligence-gathering, and serving as a force multiplier following violent incidents,” Eldridge said. “While DAT and GVU work hand-in-hand, the DATs remain under the control of the District Commanders and will not be assumed into GVU.”
The members of DAT have another similarity with the members of the disbanded Gun Trace Task Force: DAT officers have frequently engaged in misconduct. The Baltimore Office of the Public Defender (OPD) has identified more than two dozen current or former DAT officers they consider having significant discipline histories or excessive force settlements.
“The data that OPD is analyzing and relying upon came from BPD itself, so either the agency is not checking their own data, or they simply don’t care,” Levi said. “It should not be the job of the Public Defender to hold watch over a police department, particularly a police department under a consent decree.”
Many current or former DAT members are on former State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s 90-person “do not call” list. Officers on that list were not called to testify in court because past conduct makes them unreliable.
The Baltimore Office of the Public Defender has identified more than two dozen current or former DAT officers they consider having significant discipline histories or excessive force settlements.
DAT members also appear on Mosby’s broader list of 301 officers highlighting “integrity issues.” That list, however, did not exclude them from testifying.
While on DAT, three officers have been indicted by the State’s Attorney’s Office: Charles Baugher (for assault and misconduct), as well as former officers Michael O’Sullivan (for perjury) and Leon Riley (for two assaults).
DAT squads have been involved in at least two fatal police shootings (in 2018 and 2020) and a car crash that killed a 17–year-old in 2022.
Levi added that “unlike the GTTF, which was comprised of only a small number of officers, there are many more DAT team members throughout Baltimore engaging in what we suspect to be unconstitutional policing. That DAT team members have significant misconduct histories and civil settlements, should be a red flag for BPD.”
Levi cited the example of former DAT member Valentine Nagovich. Nagovich was a member of a proto-DAT “flex squad,” whose lockers were searched in 2005, revealing drugs “stashed” in their lockers. In 2010, Nagovich took part in a warrantless search a federal judge called “unacceptable.” In 2011, he hit a teen hard enough that the teen required surgery (the teen later received a $75,000 settlement). Nagovich is on the SAO “integrity issues” list.
Former DAT officer Luke Shelley’s Internal Affairs files were described by The Real News in 2022. The files detail complaints of biased policing, brutality, and an incident in which seized drugs were found in the trunk of his police vehicle. Shelley is on the “integrity issues” list.
Sergeant Jorge Omar Bernardez-Ruiz currently oversees the Northeast DAT. In 2013, Bernardez-Ruiz was one of the officers who beat, tased, and pepper-sprayed Tyrone West, who died in police custody. Weeks before West’s death, Bernardez-Ruiz beat Abdul Salaam during a traffic stop. The city later paid out $70,000 to Salaam and $1 million to the West family.
Bernardez-Ruiz is on the SAO “integrity issues” list.
James Craig, a current member of DAT, was one of many officers sued after the Baltimore Uprising for excessive force. On April 28, 2015, Craig chased Myreq Williams onto a bus because he believed Williams had a gun. In 2018, a jury ruled that Craig had used excessive force when he broke Williams’ arm and Williams was awarded $130,000.
Craig is also on the SAO “integrity issues list.”
According to an Internal Affairs file summary for Craig obtained by the Garrison Project and Baltimore magazine, there is a sustained allegation against Craig for choking a man in April 2018. The file also contains allegations from last year against Craig for improper search during a car stop and improper search and excessive force during another car stop.
The Northwest DAT officers who arrested Washington have also been involved in misconduct and excessive force complaints.
Detective Israel Lopez was one of four cops who fired more than 30 shots at Keith Davis Jr. in 2015, hitting him three times. Davis, who was arrested and charged with a handgun possession after the shooting, was later charged with a murder connected to that handgun. After being tried four times for murder, Davis was exonerated earlier this year.
On July 14, 2020, video of Northwest DAT’s Drake Winkey tackling a man outside of a shopping center was posted to the popular Baltimore Instagram account @BaltimoreMurderInk.
The irony is, the brand of proactive gun policing pursued by units like DAT has had little to no effect on crime reduction in Baltimore and other cities across the country.
According to an Internal Affairs Summary obtained in reporting this story, in August 2020, Winkey had an excessive force allegation lodged against him for shoving a man to the ground after the man stopped running. The allegation was sustained.
“Due to their role and enforcement function, we understand that our DATs are subject to a greater number of complaints in the execution of their duties,” Eldridge, the Baltimore Police Director of Public Affairs and Community Outreach, wrote in an email to the Garrison Project and Baltimore magazine regarding allegations of DAT misconduct. “When we notice problems, those issues are flagged to the Chief of Patrol’s Office and other Command Staff for proper course correction and disciplinary action.”
Of the officers mentioned in this article, two are no longer with BPD—Riley was fired and O’Sullivan resigned—and Baugher, while still on the force, currently has his police powers suspended.
Other officers mentioned are no longer in DAT, though they are still with Baltimore Police: Lopez, Nagovich, and Shelley are now on patrol; Noesi and Rodriguez are part of Criminal Investigations.
“Moving from one unit to another does not necessarily denote a disciplinary action of a BPD member,” Baltimore Police’s Eldridge wrote.
The Mayor and the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) declined to comment about DAT’s involvement in GVRS for this story and directed all questions to Baltimore Police.
The irony is, the brand of proactive gun policing pursued by units like DAT has had little to no effect on crime reduction in Baltimore and other cities across the country, according to academic research and studies commissioned by major cities. In Philadelphia, for example, a 2022 report examining 2,000 shootings noted that increased gun arrests have not resulted in reducing or solving homicides or nonfatal shootings. “The current intense focus on illegal gun possession without a license is having no effect on the gun violence crisis,” the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office wrote in the report.
For District Action Team units, making gun arrests means not only pushing the boundaries of probable cause, but allegedly manufacturing it on occasion. The Garrison Project and Baltimore magazine viewed a 2022 video of a DAT officer telling a man he arrested that the man could “get paid” $500 if he pointed DAT toward a person with a gun. The officer explained that the man can text DAT the location of a person with a gun and they’ll arrive to make an arrest and leave the informant out of it altogether. “Say, ‘this the dude,’” the DAT member tells the man. “We establish our own probable cause.”
