Detective Sean Suiter /// Part 1 /// 276 | Forensic Files

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around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime now been a full week a full week
since Sean sudor was murdered and still the crime scene at schroer and Bennett places in West Baltimore it remains
taped off at this hour ABC 2 News investigative reporter Brian cubbler has been on the story and joins us live
right now from Baltimore Police Headquarters tonight with a continued search for suitors killer and those
inside and outside the department mourning his loss Brian yeah Jamie Shan Suter was only in the homicide unit of
the police department for about two years but in that short time victims families became friends and Friends
became families exactly a week later now in this part of Harlem Park in West Baltimore remains a crime scene an
active one as forensics were called back out just today but while technicians Revisited sudor scene he was more than
um police officer Kevin Fenwick felt compelled to meet us at his son's crime scene Kendall Fenwick you might recall
was murdered two years ago after erecting a fence around his Northwest Baltimore home to keep the drug dealers
out a good hardworking honest family man his killing lingers just a little longer
in The Barrage of what can be Baltimore's violent crime statistics a cold-blooded killing that would fall to
a brand new homicide detective at the time Kendall Fenwick was detective Shan suter's first ever case and first ever
closure he brought Comfort to my family knowing that we had this person behind bars
and he always told me I will be there for you and he has and he has a true friend he has but it didn't stop there
through the next two years sudor became family to Fenwick in all of his relationships that was just simply the
detectives emmo he was a special very very special man my brother and I I love him forever
his colleagues say much the same thing detective Eric Perez came up in the department with suitor yesterday telling
us it's all that he can do from falling apart balancing such pain with the drive
for justice I have to battle um the emotion while sticking to to to the mission which is which is finding who
who killed sea so you have to really um know when to turn that switch on and off
so that you could uh stay on course and and and stay focused on what needs to be
done the concept of closure is subjective it's personal but there is perhaps no one better equipped to Define
it than a homicide detective and the family member of a murder victim for Fenwick he can only hope the family of
the men who works so hard to give him his closure is afforded the same Comfort it's terrifying it is it's it's
speechless speechless just trying to hold myself together now but um it's speechless speechless meanwhile in just
a few moments here the Baltimore City Police Department is planning to brief the media of an update in this
investigation that is now as you said Jamie exactly one week old tonight we will bring this press conference to you
live as it happens here from City police headquarters for now we're live that City Police Headquarters in downtown
Baltimore this evening Ryan cubler ABC 2 [Music] news on November 15th 2017 detective Shan suder is 43 years
old old and an 18-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department in Maryland sudor started out as a Beat cop and
worked his way up through the ranks to earn his detective badge he was assigned to the homicide division back in
2016 we should mention 2017 was the third straight year in which Baltimore had more than 300 killings so almost One
A Day In fact the murder rate was so out of control in 2018 City organizers began
holding 72-hour ceasefire weekends a time period when it is not okay to shoot someone busy homicide detectives in
Baltimore PD traditionally work in pairs and the detectives do not wear a uniform
but rather a suit and tie I'm sure everybody's familiar with this this seems to be the protocol most cities
furthermore unlike Baltimore police officers detectives do not wear body cameras on November 15th detective
Suitor was not working with with his regular partner sudor was paired up with a different partner for the day and the
two headed out to follow up with a possible witness on a triple killing from 2016 the area they went to was the 900
block of Bennett place and what the Baltimore son called quote a notoriously violent section of the Harlem Park
neighborhood of West Baltimore detective suor was familiar with the Harlem Park neighborhood as he was a patrol officer
there at one time according to the Sun newspaper the facts of the event is this detective sudor and his Partners saw a
man acting suspiciously in a vacant lot the two detectives split up to cover different exits of the block and then
detective sudor was shot sudor suffered one gunshot wound to the head and was rushed to the University of Maryland
Shock Trauma Center the BPD confirmed the shooting at 5:42 p.m. in an email to the media stating the police Department
was gathering details regarding the police involved shooting that occurred at approximately 4:30
p.m. at 900 p.m. detective suor was in critical condition a news conference featuring Police Commissioner Kevin
Davis outlined the details of the incident without releasing the detective's name according to Davis the
detective approached a man engaged in suspicious behavior in an attempt to speak with him when he was shot Davis
described the attack as spontaneous he continued our 18-year veteran homicide detective was shot in the head the
detective was in very very grave condition and he continues to fight for his life sadly the detective Shan Suter
died the next day on November 16th in the presence of his wife and five children doctors desperately tried to
save the life of the respected officer they knew personally but they were unsuccessful commissioner Davis released
Shan suter's name to the public in a news conference announcing his death Davis told the media that police found
evidence that the suspect was injured but declined to elaborate on this statement he said police were searching
emergency rooms and doctor's offices for anyone with any unexplained injuries the
Maryland state flag was lowered to half staff and within days a reward of $215,000 was offered for information on
the case in the wake of detective sutor murder officials from all over Maryland declared that they would make it their
mission to find detective sutor killer we will find the person responsible for this ridiculous absurd unnecessary loss
of life said commissioner Davis he described detective sudor as a wonderful detective husband father and friend
Davis employed citizens to help the police bring this heartless ruthless soulless killer to Justice he asked the
immediate investigation so Captain for hours after sudor was shot police maintained a wide perimeter around the
900 block of Bennett Place while officers checked nearby homes for the shooter police helicopters circled
overhead looking for suspects the day after the shooting police fanned out across the neighborhood knocking on
doors to ask neighbors if they knew anything about the shooting or the shooter they cored off the whole block
questioning all the residents and looked in all of the homes there residents expressed concern that they were often
detained when coming and going regardless of probable cause required to show ID and Pat it down this aggressive
zoning off of the area was later declared by the media and public to be unconstitutional and this lasted for 6
days after the shooting the lockdown caused complaints from residents to say the very least which is this is a sticky
situation cuz you don't want anybody's rights to be infringed on but at the same time you have a officer that was
killed in your area trying to protect and serve your area so it's like you should be a little more Cooperative
possibly with this investigation I think describing this as a sticky situation A
spoton by you Captain good job by you it is very difficult and it's difficult for
me to have an opinion on this because on one side I want to say you know what they're looking for a cop killer and we
should do we can to find whoever killed this police officer right but at the other hand it's it's tough because I
don't live in that neighborhood you know I've never had my neighborhood blocked off for six six days and be paded down
and asked to show ID every time I come and go from my home my neighborhood that's infringing on your right so I I
think you're allowed to have an opinion it sucks on both sides yeah it's yeah it's a terrible situation so who was
Shan sudor well sud's colleagues remembered him as a Dependable investigator who was often smiling and
that's one thing that in the research here that I found time and time again everybody said how much this guy was he
was always smiling always kind of in a good you know good-mannered guy good-natured guy Jonathan Jones suter's
regular partner said sudor loved the Dallas Cowboys he was known amongst detectives as face on the street uh
citizens knew him as yeah that was his his nickname but I guess citizens on the street called him scar now both of this
referred to a facial scar that uh sudor had and then when you put them together you get what Scarface yeah that would
have been the cooler name Rick Willard a retired officer said he meaning sutor is
one of the best officers I've ever worked with and it breaks my heart former Baltimore prosecutor Jeremy
Eldridge called sutor a man with Integrity he continued sutor was one person you would always count on he
worked tirelessly to put together very wellth thought out cases sud was born and raised in Washington DC he enlisted
in the Army After High School and served until 1998 he joined the Baltimore Police Department in 1999 but was called
back to serve in Iraq as a member of the Army Reserves from 2005 to 2007 at the time of his death he lived in York
County Pennsylvania about an hour's commute to Baltimore he was married and had five children it seems like a more
common thing lately that these cops don't live in the areas that they work in they actually live an hour or more
away yeah and here's the thing is I I know that in some areas they're required to live in the areas that they serve or
within a certain mile radius of that area that area of the country DC Baltimore heavily congested and you also
have high high crime rates in those cities as well and then the nicer neighborhoods extremely expensive to
live in so I I don't know that his salary would provide him a good home and a safe neighborhood in that area I just
want to warn everybody to pay attention because the information that we're going
to give you it it kind of trickles out over time but you don't want to forget about the information that happened
beforehand mhm that that's going to play a key role in this case and and I'm telling you the more we dive into this
case the more that you're going to think we made this up yeah I mean this case will blow your mind well and the
information coming out in a trickle is is exactly right because from the get-go the police commissioner he held an
unprecedented number of news conferences about the shooting actually there were seven press conferences in the first 10
days of the investigation yeah and some have wondered why so many press conferences was this an attempt to
control the narrative or the release of information about what happened so here are the details that were officially
released by the Baltimore Police Department concerning the shooting death of detective sudor this is in the first
10 days sudor was found in the vacant lot of Bennett Place lying face down police recovered detective suter's
service weapon at the scene it was found underneath his body sudor had his police
radio clutched in his left hand more than one shot had been fired from sud's gun detective sudor had been killed with
his own weapon I'll repeat that detective sudor had been killed with his own weapon there was evidence that a
struggle occurred the detective's killer might have been injured in the course of
that struggle one strange turn of events also came to light detective sudor was not transported to the shock trauma
center via ambulance instead officers at the scene put him in a police vehicle and drove him to the hospital which was
less than a mile away this presumably to save time instead of waiting for an ambulance right now unbelievably while
in root this police vehicle got into an accident colliding With a Civilian car sutor was then transferred to an
ambulance at that scene of the accident and then taken to the shock trauma center let's try to get an understanding
of exactly where detective Suitor body was found he lay on the ground in a vacant lot between two houses from
photos of the scene you can see it looks like almost an Al Cove between buildings
windows in the surrounding houses Overlook the lot they appear to be boarded up so there's a lot of vacant
homes in this area the area has been described as a place where drug addicted homeless and squatters would hang out
this this is an L-shaped lot that is open to Bennett Place on one side of the lot and to Schroeder Street on the other
end of the L-shaped lot so there are two ways to access this vacant lot within days of the shooting a makeshift
Memorial of flowers American flags and momentos sprung up on the corner of the vacant lot in honor of Shan Sutter
detective suter's autopsy was completed within 5 days of the killing the autopsy
officially ruled that his death was a homicide Baltimore Police investigators returned to the scene of the shooting to
investigate further based on what they learned from the autopsy about the bullet trajectory police said they found
additional significant evidence which turned out to be the Fatal bullet it was lodged in the dirt in the vacant lot and
it had detective Suitor DNA on it the discovery of this bullet in the lot by evidence text appears to sum to have
been somewhat staged the discovery happened in front of rolling TV news cameras with what seemed like deliberate
displays of the bullet police disclosed that in total three shots were fired from Sutter's gun and one of these was a
close contact gunshot wound to Suitor head police said they found no DNA or other evidence at the scene that might
lead them to the perpetrator but earlier reports stated police found evidence that the per was injured at the scene
okay so we have a situation where the law enforcement officer detective Suitor shot in the
head mhm there's three bullets because there's three shots correct the bullet that hit his head that hit detective
suter's head they possibly when they find the bullet they find this and the media is there mhm so they're going to
be holding this up we found the bullet right okay well and the reason why some have stated that they believe it might
be staged is that so the autopsy it took five days they had remember they blocked
off that whole area for 6 days total after the shooting and what what the people in the public are going well you
had this area blocked off for all this time and you didn't find the bullet until after the autopsy 5 days later and
then when you do find it you're kind of like I mean praying around well yeah you're
almost holding it up like some kind of trophy or something like that that's very strange yeah but the other key
thing there is that they state that no DNA or other evidence at the scene might lead them to find the
perpetrator but we have an earlier statement by police that stated they found evidence that the per was injured
at the scene so that's conflicting things but they clean it up a little bit with what they find to be good evidence
to steer them in the right direction so what they found originally that may have
led them to believe that the perpetrator was injured at the scene this turned out
to be two blood stains found in the vacant lot one of the blood samples was determined to have been from an animal
and one was from a local junkie who was interviewed and ruled out so the theory that the suspect had been injured in the
struggle turned out to be baseless Baltimore Police Department they had no suspects in the killing of one of their
own well we don't need blood stains or puddles of blood in this alley what we do have is we do have two bullets that
did not hit detective suor mhm so were those bullets when we look at those bullets did they did they hit anybody do
they have any DNA evidence on them now I think this would tell us if there was somebody injured in the attack on
detective sudor yeah and you brought that up at the perfect time because the earlier information that was coming out
was just very it was a little vague stating that there was more than one shot fired from detective Sutter's gun
it was later determined that three shots were fired from Sutter's own service weapon and this came about when
commissioner Davis announced that three shell casings were recovered that ballistically matched su's gun he
pointed out that these findings did not necessarily mean that no other gun was present or was fired but the casings
were found very close to Sutter's body police also pointed out pointed to a scuffle mostly because dirt was found on
suter's suit so the conclusion was that detective sudor was attacked and overpowered by someone his gun taken or
at least controlled and three shots fired with one hitting SU Su her fatally in the head now you were talking about
that him and his partner were tracking down a guy that was suspicious in the area mhm the report says that they saw
someone behaving suspiciously in the area and Suitor decided to approach this individual right so then I'm assuming at
that point that this is our suspect mhm so do we have a any ID of this guy do we
have any a description of the potential suit shooter or someone who overpowered Shan Suter right well see this is
difficult because like you said we're going off of probably just a description of this suspicious person there doesn't
seem to be any witnesses that actually saw the shooting or the scuffle take place right but we do have his partner
that saw this suspicious individual mhm in the beginning and this is interesting
we also have Baltimore Police Department they're refusing to release the detective I name that was working with
sudor that day it took a while for that information to come out and they also refused to say what he had told
investigators other than the suspect was a black man wearing a black and white jacket well right but I'm sure that
narrows it down quite a bit right but I think what they're assuming there is hey
we have one suspect right now that's probably the guy mhm and then we have one eyewitness and now that suor is dead
we don't want to release this information we don't want to release what he has told us because we don't
want a hit put out on this guy M you know what I mean because that's your only eyewitness well two weeks after Sutter's
death the Baltimore son released the name of the detective working with sudor that day and this is detective David
banka uh not much is known about this detective from what I could find in the papers uh but reportedly he and
detective sudor worked at least one case together previous to this shooting uh this detective was a 10-year Baltimore
Police Department veteran then additional information came out commissioner Davis stated that on the
day of the shooting bmana and sudor were canvasing the 900 block of benett place
while investigating a 2016 triple homicide case now this case was Suitor case that they were working not bowa's
case they had no particular person of interest in their focus on that day for that outing according to the
commissioner bmana was also investigating a separate murder case that he was staffed
on the way this reads to me Captain is that they are in this area and they're both working these cases together by
this point because they've now been paired up right you know detectives thank God they get a day off like
everybody else apparently it was Suitor Partners day off apparently he and Boo were paired up the day before as well
right and when you say he you're talking about sudor so sud and Bowa work together this would be the second day in
a row correct that's my understanding according to the commissioner and this is this has to have come from
banka this is his account of what was going on at the time of the shooting the commissioner says that both detective
suor and his partner meaning banka saw a person behaving suspiciously there were
two observations of this suspicious person one occurred 20 minutes prior meaning the shooting prior to the
shooting and one occurred just moments before the shooting the detectives did not engage this suspicious person the
first time they saw this person now in between the two sightings the officers were in a different area but to be clear
bomea was not in the presence of Detective sudor When The Struggle went down or when the shots took place this
case is just getting started but for first a quick beer [Music] break this show is sponsored by better
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it's a [Music] GameChanger all right cheers mates how about a quick Captain recap so what we have going on in this
case is we have detective sudor and his partner go out we have a suspicious individual now we have detective Suitor
dead and we have law enforcement saying hey we're locking down this neighborhood
we're going to check anybody coming in and out and we have award money for a possible cop killer
$215,000 for information leading to the perpetrator of the killer of sha suder and this case continued to be
investigated as a homicide with Police pursuing All Leads but startling new information came to light about two
weeks after detective Shan suder was killed that merged his unsolved murder case with another high-profile case
rocking the city of Baltimore this new information suddenly changed the way people were looking at things and
introduced new potential theories regarding sud's death on November 30th so 15 days after detective sudor was
shot a Federal grand jury handed down an indictment of a Baltimore Police sergeant and several officers on the
force what was learned is that detective sudor was scheduled to testify in front
of this grand jury on the day after he was shot so on November 16th 2017 sudor was scheduled to be a witness
against Sergeant Wayne Jenkins in the Federal Criminal Case and sudor had multiple texts and phone calls with his
lawyer in the two days before he was shot his lawyer was seeking a meeting presumably to discuss his testimony that
would never come to be but even without suor the case was a slam dunk Federal prosecutors had the goods on a slew of
crooked cops including wiretapping recordings where the Crooked detectives admitted to various illegal activities
including selling drugs M okay now that everything is nice and messy let's talk something through before we go any
further because even though police are looking for a cop killer those outside of the department are saying wait a
minute this is a mysterious death this detective's death is likely more of a mystery than first thought all right so
the most basic breakdown of theories and there are three is this one Shan sudor was murdered a suspicious random person
killed him to which police gave a vague description of and per the autopsy determination of homicide police were
still pursuing the unknown gunmen two this kind of started with the media Shan sud may have taken his own life it was
determined he was killed with his service Weapon by close contact gunshot wound and the gun was found under his
body three so then you have what some of the public were thinking Sean suder was
set to testify against corruption inside the police force and detectives he worked with or for and he was silenced
and his death was a hit he was murdered potentially by one of his own right let's look more at detective Wayne
Jenkins the one that was uh the sergeant who was indicted Jenkins was the supervisor in charge of the gun Trace
task force a group of Baltimore Law Enforcement Officers tasked with getting guns off of the streets Federal
authorities brought down a wide ranging indictment that alleged members of the task force engaged in a pattern of
corruption including robbing citizens framing people stealing confiscated drugs and then reselling them they are
also falsifying Court reports and earning fraudulent overtime pay mhm Six Gun Trace Task Force officers pled
guilty to these charges two others did not resulting in their trials Wayne Jenkins the leader of the gun Trace task
force was charged with racketeering conspiracy robbery illegal use of a firearm well like we talked about on the
phone little bit this seems really when you start investigating this aspect of the case it
very much seems like the movie Training Day yes in in in parts of American Gangster as well yeah and when you watch
that movie you think to yourself there is no way this would happen in real life and then you see a case brought to light
like this and you start going well maybe uh a movie like that hits closer to home
than we would we wish it would yeah and for those of the people listening that are not familiar with Shan suter's case
this is not our speculation this happened this is real life it happened we have individuals that pled guilty and
others that were later found guilty so the gun Trace task force was essentially a rogue unit comprised of corrupt
officers disguised as an Elite Force of public protectors according to Vox magazine the police officers in the unit
engaged in a yearslong pattern of criminal activities they set people up for baseless searches they robbed people
of drugs and guns among other things they clocked overtime when they weren't working at all in fact when they were on
vacation or on leave they were billing the department for overtime pay they used illegally placed GPS trackers to
locate and Rob drug dealers and others they planted evidence and filmed themselves finding it well as far as
hold on so as far as as the overtime I'm assuming that this is like a task force
that is run by itself meaning that if you let's say I'm the boss right because there's no way I'm working for you but
let's just say I'm the boss okay you're Sergeant Wayne Jenkins in this portion of the story I
guess okay say I'm a flaming pile of [ __ ] but you work for me and you say I'm going on vacation but I want paid mhm
well you just submit your time sheet to me and then I submit it to the department like the head Department yeah
cuz you could sign off on it and then submit it to to the department itself right so then if I wanted something done
nobody's double-checking my work either so that's kind of how we don't know if these guys were corrupt before they
joined the task force but once they become a part of this task force they go hey we run things a little different
here you want to get paid while you're not working we can help you do that right and and while you're doing that
you're also going to turn the other way why we take drug uh we take drugs from drug dealers and sell them mhm or or Rob
them for their money or whatever so it's it's a separate unit and and I think that's very important it wasn't like
there was a lot of checks and balances to make sure these guys weren't doing crup things right if that makes any
sense for the most part it it it appears that what they were doing a large part of what they were doing was stealing
from people that had no recourse against the police right you know they're going
after people that are doing Petty crimes selling drugs M you know making money off of drugs and if you're a drug dealer
and I'm a an officer of the law and I go and Shake You Down and Rob you of all your drug money I mean what are you
going to do you're going to go file a police report saying hey this officer stole my drug money right you know it
just it doesn't work out they participated in some home invasions as well what have been classified as home
invasions I'm assuming that's kicking in the door of a known drug dealer and stealing their weapons money and Drugs
in total the gun Trace task force members are suspected of stealing at least $300,000 in Cash 3 kilos of
cocaine 43 lbs of marijuana 800 G of heroin and jewelry worth hundreds of thousands of dollars wow now the the
indictment of Wayne Jenkins related among other things to an arrest he made in 2010 on a case where he was partnered
with Shan suder the two detectives were investigating large scale drug dealers sudor and Jenkins became involved in an
unmarked vehicle pursuit of another car driven by one Umar Burley basically Umar
Burley says he believed that the officers were trying to rob him so he fled and now we have a car chase right Burley
crashed into another car the driver of that car was Albert Davis an 87-year-old father of a Baltimore Police Officer he
was killed and his wife was seriously injured mhm after the accident sudor and Jenkins arrested Burley and Jenkins
directed sudor to search burley's vehicle according to the Federal indictment documents unbeknownst to
sudor Jenkins had planted drugs in burley's car sudor found 28 G of heroin in the vehicle so this is to justify the
car chase that sends Burley and an associate who was also in the car to prison for federal drug offenses after
suter's death us attorney Steven shanning said the federal prosecutors did not get a chance to discuss sud's
testimony with him prior to his death sudor was offered limited immunity to testify about Umar Bradley's case but we
don't know what else the grand jury would have asked him about or where his testimony would have led the
investigation Police Commissioner Davis held a press conference and said quote what this indictment outlines in great
detail is the fact that sha Suter wasn't involved in any way shape or form in any
criminal misconduct whatsoever end quote however it appears that Shan sudor was actually potentially in a lot of trouble
there was a federal grand jury investigation into corrupt cops that extended to the highest levels of the
police force sudor worked closely and at length with several of the named corrupt
cops over the course of his career sud worked extensively with at least three of the officers indicted in connection
with the corruption of the gun Trace task force I know you're speaking English but it doesn't make any sense to
me so what you're saying on one hand is that they're saying sudor had nothing to
do with this the police commissioner says the police commissioner is saying he he did nothing wrong mhm and then but
you also say saying hey he was going to testify and we're going to offer him limited amounts of immunity right
meaning well he did something wrong where they're going to give him immunity for but are there other things that
they're not going to give him immunity for so it's that's very confusing okay so I'm kind of just dissecting this
myself and and giving my uh opinion here on what that means my guess is that they
spoke to him about some of his testimony what he was going to be willing to testify towards against these officers
right okay so we're going to say you have immunity on those particular aspects of our investigation however
during the course of your your testimony you could be asked any number of questions that could go outside of the
box that could go away from those particular cases those particular aspects of their investigation yeah in
the course of that we made learn new information that now we figure out you're not completely on the up and up
Mr sudor and we can pursue charges against you for information later learned now what the commissioner is is
saying in a lot of words basically when you break that down is sudor was there to rat out these other officers that his
testimony wasn't he wasn't going to be put on the stand in front of the grand jury because he was under investigation
he's simply going to be there to testify because we need witnesses to this illegal activity a lot of this illegal
activity is going down and the only people witnessing it are other corrupt cops right and criminals known criminals
that they are victimizing so basically they're saying once we get you on the stand and we yell we want the truth and
I ask you can you handle the truth and then I tell you that I issued a code red that I still might go to jail for that
right he could be open he could open himself up to investigation per his testimony and again it's not like it's
not a situation where they go okay here's these 10 questions this is what we're going to ask you and that's it and
that's all no it's you are you are there and you are to give us your knowledge of
anything we ask you questions about it could be anything at all right but on top of that we have the chief of police
saying hey based on what we know and based on what we believe that he did not do any illegal criminal activity as a
law enforcement officer correct that's what the commissioner is saying now where people call that into question is
sud's lengthy career stating you know he would have worked with some of these individuals at some point in his career
now let's name a few of them we know he worked with Wayne Jenkins who was pretty
much the ring leader of this of these corrupt cops right he's the Denzel Washington in Training Day yeah he also
worked with or Josh Brolin from uh American Gangster um he also worked with detectives Maurice Ward and mamadu gond
so Ward and gondo both pled guilty to federal charges so now we have to wonder what that leaves the public wondering
about what did sha sudor know about these illicit activities and his fellow detectives did he know and just choose
to look the other way was he in fact ratting them out like the commissioner would have us believe or did he
participate joining in with these corrupt officers and being in on the take right or was it again like Training
Day what a lot of things that happened was Denzel Washington's character would set up Ethan Hawk's character mhm and
say hey go ahead and rep me out go ahead and tell them I did this and they're going to drug test you and guess what
you got PCP in your system mhm so again it could be one of those situations where we don't know what sudor is going
to say because is sudor going to not say certain things therefore not incriminating himself does that make
sense oh yeah and and just to give you a little uh thought of where my feelings were when researching this case MH right
from the get-go in the very beginning I'm like oh my God this guy was a hero he was a a veteran officer of a
well-respected homicide detective out just doing a good job and he was killed in the line of duty right and then you
find out about all this corruption and you start to wonder was he just another dirty cop in this big story here right
and the thing that I had to kind of remind myself of is what you just talked about training day where Ethan Hawk is
almost forced into a position he never thought he would be in he was he just wanted to be in that drug task force
right and he gets in there and he finds out they're doing illegal activity and Denzel Washington's like you're going to
go along with this right and we're going to force you to we're going to bully you
into doing our illegal activity right and at the end of the day you go oh well Ethan Hawk his character good guy mhm
saves the day but if you go back through that movie there's a lot of stuff that was incriminating or criminal activity
that he took place in and so therefore he could still get in trouble for that training day I know we're getting
sidetracked here but training day is one of my favorite that's a great movie like
King Kong ain't got [ __ ] on me rarely can I go back and watch a movie multiple
times training day I've watched multiple times and here is when you for me this is when I know somebody's like a
extremely fine actor Denzel Washington who I I mean I'm a big fan of I've watched many of his movies but when an
actor can become a bad guy when he's playing a bad guy and he's you're not used to him being a bad guy MH and he
does it so well that you want to punch him in the face that's an actor that's a damn a damn fine actor right there in
the face I'm going on record right here I want to punch Denzel Washington's character in the face in the face now to
date Captain six indicted detectives have plad guilty and been sentenced the ring leader Wayne Jenkins got 25 years
clap clap two detectives who plad not guilty were convicted by a federal jury on several federal charges MH here's the
other sketchy thing though here it's unclear whether sha suder was ever actually part or a part of the gun Trace
task force there are reports out there that says he was early on but asked to be removed from this task force right
again and again look that's a sticky situation because if you are a good cop and you see bad stuff happening and
these guys are doing really bad stuff we're talking about stealing drugs stealing money we're talking about
robbing uh gang members we're talking about robbing drug dealers we're talking about
planning evidence on those people after you arrest them I mean this is some bad stuff so if you're in that situation you
can't just go hey hey uh sge uh well I don't like what's going on here uh can you uh I'm going to have to arrest you
all you know take in MH no you can't do that you have to go this is some bad stuff going on let me get out of this
department well and here's the thing too when you really dive into what these corrupt members of the task force were
doing it's almost like at some point they became completely out of control themselves like in Training Day like in
American Gangster where these Rogue cops all of a sudden they they are like you said King Kong ain't got nothing on me
there's nobody bigger than me I can do whatever I want that that at some point that is the behavior that took over
there's in fact there's one story of these corrupt cops where they are breaking up a riot okay and the riers
were looting the area and after they broke up the riot and made some arrest these officers decided to keep and steal
basically steal the looted items from the rioter oh right so if the riers stole TVs and stuff they went yeah we're
not going to give these back well you just go we can't find it you know we we don't know what happened to this we
don't know where those TVs went and if anybody wants to know what it's like to drink with the
colonel all you have to do is watch that scene of King Kong ain't [ __ ] on me that's that I mean that's that's
basically an impersonation of you when you're at the peak of drunkness I become bulletproof I still think you
know listen up people when you ride in and say I'd love to have a beer with the captain you're making a mistake okay cuz
first of all I like to do the shots you're not going to be able to keep up but second of all I'm not the party
animal of the group it's the colonel he becomes the Kentucky Fried no what's the one
extra crisp colel extra crisp hey I wish I had that tan if you don't believe me come see us at crime con uh in New
Orleans this year yeah we have our uh our code yeah what's our promo code we have a promo code on our website and
we'll mention that at the end of the show you can get a discount on your crime Con tickets using that code yeah
but anyways the evidence will be at crime con and you'll see video footage and and pictures and you will know that
the extra crispy Colonel is Alive and Well is that's that's the one you want to party with well but so just to kind
of clean this up though yeah you know from an outsider's perspective you have to wonder was you you have one of two
things either Shan Suter was an awesome cop was very good at his job was a clean
cop or you do have there is enough stuff out there to wonder if he wasn't so on the up and up and a lot of that is a is
a leap a lot of that is a jump but what that comes from is knowing that he work worked with at least three of these
detectives that were later convicted yeah but look at these guys that were convicted they got what they deserve
time in person and if detective suor was a dirty cop he would have got we would have found evidence of this and we would
have he would have done time and that's he would have got what he deserved this is not what he deserved
right no matter if he was a dirty cop or not he's he's killed in the line of duty
and we don't know why mhm or a possible suicide mhm I mean this is very strange well and the way that these little the
way that these gangs work whether they be cop bad cops or real you know street gangs or anything like that most of the
time the way that this works is they bust one guy they get some information from this one guy he starts talking now
they got other people to investigate they start other people in and these corrupt cops most of them gave a wealth
of information about what was going on that's what led to them pleading guilty to these charges and others being
convicted who didn't plead guilty now out of all of those officers it's my understanding that only one of them was
implicating Shan sudor in having any involvement at all with this group after the November 30th 2017 indictments
against members of the gun Trace task force the US attorney's office filed a petition to vacate the federal
convictions of Umar Burley and his associate those were the two involved in the car chase and later the car accident
that led to the older man's death they vacated this because it was proved that the drugs were planted on them and that
they were not actually guilty of the crimes they were convicted of when the indictments were handed down
commissioner Davis disbanded the gun Trace task force describing the indicted officers as 1930 style gangsters now
3,000 pass cases handled by the unit members have been called into question and who knows how many convictions will
be thrown out hundreds have already been vacated yeah clearly Davis did not do a
good job the commissioner of overseeing the police department this is because obviously this Rogue unit was allowed to
run rampant for years under his watch this would eventually end Davis's career but before so commissioner Davis stated
in a press conference that he only learned of suter's planned grand jury testimony after suter's death he also
stated that investigating officers found no connection between detective suter's
murder and his planned testimony he also said that sudor was not the target of the federal investigation which was
confirmed by the US attorney's office Davis said there was no information he was aware of that indicated that
detective sudor was anything other than a stellar detective great friend loving husband and great
father commissioner Davis wrote a highly publicized letter to FBI director Christopher Ray formally requesting that
the FBI take over the shooting of detective suor investigation Davis said that it was because he suspected that
there was information about the murder that the feds had access to that the Baltimore Police Department did not FBI
involvement was supported by sud's Family Nicole sud Sutter's Widow apparently told the mayor that she
supported the FBI taking over the case yeah and this is because once people start leaning towards this idea that
detective suor took his own life mhm this is something that she she welcomed investigation right but also you're
going to have people investigate a case where he was possibly involved in wrongdoings with other officers and
you're going to have that department how can you trust that department to head this investigation right so okay now the
FBI doesn't want to head that investigation yeah so to be clear they agreed to assist in the investigation
but they publicly stated they did not want to lead the investigation fine with me right if I'm if I'm a loved one fine
with me at least they're involved and if they're involved I'm going to trust the
investigation a lot more this is coming from his his widow which talked to him I
believe within an hour of his death right and so she was on the phone and they were talking about some video where
he was you know dancing or something and somebody took you know caught him dancing and they're making fun of it you
know and just joking around and she just said that he seemed very normal mhm so we have this cop that we it's
it's so weird because we have so many people saying this guy's a good cop and a good and a good dude on top of that
his wife is saying he wasn't suicidal right and then you start going well again do you get any benefits is
his family going to get any benefits I mean it was it wasn't just him and his wife they had a lot they had five
children a lot of kids so the thing here is you know when when this came forward
that this is a possible suicide rather than a homicide Sutter's family has been extremely vocal saying we believe it was
a homicide we believe that there's evidence to point that would indicate that it was a homicide and they've been
extremely vocal about that and you know what commissioner Davis is obviously a flawed commissioner we know that we have
this Rogue task force that is out there doing whatever the hell they want under his watch but I'm sure throughout his
career he did do a good deal of good things along the way right now one thing well and mind you I mean there's
hundreds of officers so the idea that you have one person that's responsible for all those officers you how anybody
gets out of that job with a good name I I don't know how it happens you can't babysit every officer every minute of
the day it's you're one person now one thing I think we should give credit to commissioner Davis for this was before
he was fired is requesting the FBI come in and take over this investigation yeah
that to me shows a couple of things it shows smarts on his part because one he wants to be transparent he knows that he
has a police department that is under the scrutiny of the Public's eye which they should be because they some members
and we Shady we need to be very clear about that some members of the police department were very much guilty of
illegal activities some members were Shady that's that's a a hardcore fact MH so commissioner Davis bringing in the
FBI is a couple things one to be transparent and it could not hurt to have an outside agency take a good look
at this investigation to take a good look at this case and try to solve it for them yeah and then on the other
spectrum of it too you know like I said if you Comm commit suicide I don't think
you're getting I don't think the officer's family is going to get support I don't
think they're going to get certain benefits MH but if he is killed on the line of duty they're taken care of mhm
and pretty well so then one could argue are they just saying hey it's impossible
that he would kill himself because they benefit from that and that's something that you have to
look into I Believe by watching the interviews with his widow that she she just wants the truth to be told right I
don't think she cares about the benefits or not well after commissioner Davis was
eventually fired he was replaced as police commissioner in January of 2018 by veteran Daryl dusa dusa lasted less
than 6 months as the police commissioner he stepped down in May after being indicted for federal tax evasion
one thing dusa did before he departed he set up an independent review board to look into the unsolved killing of
detective [Music] sud so thanks everybody for joining us in the garage today we'll be right back
at you tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't [Music] litter [Applause] [Music]
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Detective Sean Suiter /// Part 1 /// 276

Part 1 of 2

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Veteran Police Officer and Homicide Detective Sean Suiter was shot and killed while on duty in the murder plagued inner city of Baltimore. His case remains the longest unsolved murder of a Baltimore Police Officer. But the crime scene and the events surrounding shooting raise serious questions and many in the public are demanding the truth. This week we discuss the death of Detective Sean Suiter. Beer of the Week - Captain’s Log Lager by Cameron’s Brewing Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 Bottle Caps

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Brief Summary

Detective Shan Sudor was murdered, raising questions about police corruption and his planned testimony against corrupt officers.

Key points

Detective Sudor's Legacy. Colleagues remember Sudor as a dependable investigator and a family man.
Detective Shan Sudor's Murder. A week after the murder, the investigation continues as the community mourns.
Community Response to Violence. Residents express concern over police lockdowns following the detective's murder.
Detective Sudor's Mysterious Death. Detective Sudor was shot just before he was set to testify against corrupt officers.
Corruption in the Police Force. A grand jury indictment revealed a pattern of corruption among Baltimore officers.
The Corruption Unveiled. A veteran officer's legacy is questioned amid corruption allegations.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He was a special very, very special man.

Colleague reflecting on Detective Sudor

5:06WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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