BALTIMORE — A Baltimore Police Detective tied to the Gun Trace Task force was sentenced to 30 months in prison today for planting evidence, falsifying documents and executing searches without warrants.
After that Robert Hankard, 46, has three years supervised release. He was convicted for falsely testifying to a federal grand jury about his role in a BB gun planting, falsifying an application for a search warrant and an arrest report in a second incident where drugs were planted on a suspect and falsifying an application for a search warrant and subsequent police report related to the search of an apartment.
On March 26, 2014 Hankard received a call from his partner that Sergeant Wayne Jenkins had been “hemmed up” in something and asked Hankard if he had any “toys” or “replicas.” Hankard said he had a BB gun and it was given to Jenkins.
That gun was planted on a suspect who was arrested and charged. Those charges were later dismissed.
Evidence showed that on February 13, 2019, Hankard falsely testified before a federal grand jury stating that he had not provided the BB gun to his partner on March 26, 2014.
On March 2, 2015, Hankard and other officers entered the home of a suspect without a search warrant. They searched the apartment and found a bag containing gel caps of heroin, two digital scales, and other drug paraphernalia.
He then left the home and went to get a search warrant. He never told a judge he had illegally searched the home and in official BPD reports claims he found the drugs after getting the warrant.
On September 24, 2015, Hankard arrested two suspects in a drug investigation at a motel. He and other officers searched the the first suspect's truck but did not find drugs. Officers searched that man's room without a warrant and found a woman inside with heroin and cocaine.
The officers, with Hankard's permission, planted some of the cocaine in the truck to justify arrests and entering the motel room.
As detailed in trial testimony, after the search warrant was obtained and executed at the motel room, Hankard prepared a false incident report, which was approved by his partner as the “officer-in-charge” at the time of the arrests, even though the SES unit’s Sergeant was on the scene at the time.
