Cross examination of convicted Gun Trace Task Force Detective Jemell Rayam revealed explosive new details about a 2006 shooting in which a then-rookie officer Momodu Gondo was shot outside of his home.
The shooting happened after Gondo worked a double shift in December of 2006, just two months after he graduated from the Baltimore Police Academy. At the time, police said the young officer was assaulted and shot outside his home in the 5700 block of The Alameda as he was getting off work.
An ABC2 News report from Dec. 6, 2006, has been included with this story.
Gondo was critically injured but pulled through, and was eventually assigned to the Gun Trace Task Force.
In an ABC2 News report from 2006, after the shooting, the Baltimore Police Department said, "He was a very young officer, very well liked, very well respected in the district."
Twelve years later, testimony in the corruption trial against two other former members of the Gun Trace Task Force who are now on trial in federal court implied that Gondo told a fellow officer that the shooting in 2006 was because of a drug feud, and was not police related.
During the cross examination of long time partner and fellow convicted GTTF Detective Jemell Rayam, Detective Daniel Hersl’s defense attorney William Purpura peppered Rayam with questions about Gondo.
Rayam testified that Gondo admitted to him that he had been shot coming off duty in 2006 but that it was because of his role as a drug trafficker -- not his work as a police officer.
Rayam also told the court Gondo said he had been involved in shootings before he was an officer and how he at one point, “laid someone out.”
Rayam went on to say Gondo once told him he had gone along with a drug dealer friend of his to purchase a gun that had been used in a murder.
Gondo is also expected to testify in the federal corruption trial. He would be the fourth and final GTTF Detective who had pleaded guilty and testified against detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor.
ABC2 News Investigative Reporter Brian Kuebler is in the courtroom. Follow him on twitter @BrianfromABC2 for updates throughout the case.
