Baltimore’s top prosecutor announced criminal charges Friday against all six officers suspended after a man suffered a fatal spinal injury in police custody, saying “no one is above the law.”
“Mr. Gray’s death was a homicide,” State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby declared. His arrest was illegal and his treatment in custody amounted to murder and manslaughter, she said.
The announcement came after nearly two weeks of growing anger over Freddie Gray’s death, and only hours after Mosby received the results of the internal police investigation and an official autopsy report. As Mosby spoke, the city was bracing for huge crowds in two more waves of protests Friday and Saturday.
Mosby announced the stiffest charge — second-degree “depraved heart” murder — against the driver of the police van. Other officers face charges of involuntary manslaughter, assault and illegal arrest.
The officers failed to get medical help even though Gray requested it repeatedly after he was chased down and pinned to a sidewalk on April 12 and hoisted into the van. At some point while he was in custody, he suffered a mysterious spinal injury and died a week later.
Mosby said the switchblade officers accused Gray of illegally carrying clipped inside his pants pocket was in fact a legal knife, and no justification for his arrest, which she said was illegal.
Mosby said she comes from five generations of police officers, and that the charges against these six officers should in no way damage the relationship between police and prosecutors in Baltimore.
She swiftly rejected a request from the Baltimore police officers union asking her to appoint a special independent prosecutor because of her ties to attorney Billy Murphy, who is representing Gray’s family. Murphy was among Mosby’s biggest campaign contributors last year, donating the maximum individual amount allowed, $4,000, in June. Murphy also served on Mosby’s transition team after the election.
Fraternal Order of Police local president Gene Ryan told Mosby in a letter before the charges were announced Friday that none of the six suspended officers were responsible for Gray’s death.
The state medical examiner’s office said it sent the autopsy report to prosecutors Friday morning. Spokesman Bruce Goldfarb says the Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner will not release the report publicly while the case is under investigation.
The announcement prompted whoops, hollers and shouts of “Justice!” in the streets of Baltimore.
At the corner of North and Pennsylvania avenues, where the worst of the rioting took place on Monday, drivers honked their horns. When buses stopped in front of the subway station, people spilled out cheering as the doors opened.
There was no large gathering at the intersection immediately after the announcement, though: Nearly 100 police in riot gear were deployed, and for the moment, they had nothing to do.
In front of a fire station where Gov. Larry Hogan was scheduled to visit Friday, a man leaning out of a passing truck window pumped both arms in the air and yelled, “Justice! Justice! Justice!”
Ciara Ford of Baltimore expressed surprise at the decision to prosecute.
“I’m ecstatic,” she said. “I hope this can restore some peace.”
“It makes you cry,” said her friend, Stephanie Owens of Columbia.
They both expressed hopes that the officers would be convicted. And both believed that the protests in the city made a difference in ensuring that authorities took the case seriously.
“If we had kept quiet, I don’t think they would have prosecuted,” Ford said.
(AP)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
18 Responses
I was listening to a Baltimore radio station on line and then went to Fox News, who streamed the States Attorney’s press conference. The charges and the facts, as presented, was very compelling.
Knowing the Baltimore City Police Dept., their officers are not from the best and brightest overall. Their pay is less than the surrounding jurisdictions and their job is much tougher, so the brighter ones go to the other counties.
I can certainly see those cops involved being upset having to chase Freddie Grey and deciding to teach him a lesson by not securing him in the back of the van so he gets banged around. No doubt they didn’t expect this outcome, but there is a lot of arrogance in that Dept. and some of the cops are like redneck yahoos.
It’s important that justice be done. But looking at it from a prevention point of view, this will not change anything as long as some cops have the attitude that the whole world is their personal domain.
Not so fast BarryLS1
The State’s Attorney, Marylin Mosby, who is briging these charges, recently was elected to that post. If you search the internet and check up on her background, you will find some interesting facts. At 35, she is the youngest State’s Attorney in the country. She is Black, and campaigned on the premise that police have been unfairly targeting blacks. Both she and her husband (a Baltimore City Councilman) have been vocal anti-police activists. In other words, she has an agenda. Watch for charges being brought and eventually DROPPED by a Grand Jury.
Three things:
A) There is immense pressure on her to announce a guilty indictment from many powerful voices. Am arrest for the greater good may be at play here.
B) As mottel1 pointed out, she is as biased as they come. Her verdict is meaningless as far as the truth is concerned. Ask any of the criminals rooting on the street and they will also tell you that it was murder. Her word is worth about as much as theirs is.
C) Having said all that, these cops are abusive animals. Having them on the street is a menace to society. So, all said and done, we killed two birds with one stone. Now if we could just do that to Al Sharpton….
This guy was arrested 7 times since January. What an innocent man.
yayin #4: You cannot and should not arrest an innocent person or officer to satisfy the street “for the greater good”.
This young woman prosecutor player is foolish. She claimed they had no probable cause. Yet if the cops thought the knife was illegal they had probable cause even if it turns out to be a type of knife that is legal.
She is clearly pandering and trampling on justice.
According to the Washington Post, Freddy Gray had other prisoners in the police van with him.
Their testimony was that he was banging his back into a piece of iron as if trying to kill himself. According to them, the Police didn’t cause the spinal injuries. They reported this before the first autopsy results came in.
It seems as though the Mayor of Baltimore or the Pres of the U.S. didn’t want this vital piece of information to become public knowledge.
Now tell me who should be serving time?????
yybc, there’s no such thing as a “guilty indictment.” Also, a jury, not a State’s Attorney, returns a verdict.
Charges presented by a prosecutor are always compelling. That is why our legal system requires hearing from the defense lawyer, who is usually just as compelling, and requires a neutral judge and jury (which is unlikely to be found in Baltimore City).
The charges seem strongest for negligence in not seeking medical care for someone in custody, and in securing him in the “paddy wagon” (note that under Maryland law it is illegal to drive a car with a passenger not wearing a seatbelt). The officers probably will lose their jobs even if acquitted, since they don’t seem to be denying they violated policy (on seatbelts and medical care) which is groudns for firing them (and an administrative matter, meanign a lower standard than reasonable doubt).
Also note that the word homicide does not indicate a crime – only that the person died of other than natural causes. An accidental death is also homicide. It doesn’t start to become criminal until negligence is involved.
Although from the DA’s press conference it sounded like the cops were already on their way to death row, let’s hope they get the FAIR trial they are entitled to. There are STILL many questions to be answered that will have to come out in trial.
Let’s remember, just because the DA files charges DOESN’T mean they are automatically guilty.
Let her and her husband take a stroll at midnight w/o police protection, in Gray’s neighborhood. If they survive, they will disown their liberal attitudes!
Not so fast. Don’t let one ugly incident (and it was ugly) color your opinion of Baltimore City police. The pay may be lower, but many join because they don’t want a boring ‘burb jurisdiction. They have a tough, thankless job to do, and if they were namby-pambies, the whole city would be one big war zone.
To: No.4:
I disagree, these cops are not abusive . Shame on you to speak so derogatory.
“killing 2 birds” is that the way to think and talk?
I think you need to look for a Rav and get some guidance.
The medical examiner ruled it was homicide.
He was arrested … he was healthy. When still in police custody, he became a victim of homicide.
Who is responsible?
Mottel1: I am, well aware of what you said, but my post wasn’t about her.
I am very familiar with the Baltimore City and County Police Departments. I know the mentality of many city cops.
Based on the Medical Examiners report and the admission of most of the cops involved, the scenario that I wrote is very plausible.
As far as the States Attorney, and I do know people that know her, I wasn’t very impressed with many things she said and some of them were foolish, but that doesn’t change what happened here.
Most of these cases, and the corresponding public reactions, are usually wrong and often the Police are vindicated. This situation seems very different. If Grey wasn’t secured properly in the van and was bounced around because of it resulting in his injuries, the Police were negligent and deserve to suffer the consequences.
As I said in the early post, many City Cops are arrogant yahoos who take many liberties. To a degree, their frustration is understandable based on what they have to deal with, but when they step too far over the line, there has to be consequences.
I also know for a fact, that many of the Police reports they write, if they write one at all, are not very accurate and sloppy. It is not a well run effective police force, unlike Baltimore County.
Could also be they don’t want more rioting.
Just enforces the fact, don’t like what happened, behave like an animal to get what you want.
“voseppes says:
May 1, 2015 at 6:04 pm
Not so fast. Don’t let one ugly incident (and it was ugly) color your opinion of Baltimore City police. The pay may be lower, but many join because they don’t want a boring ‘burb jurisdiction. They have a tough, thankless job to do, and if they were namby-pambies, the whole city would be one big war zone.”
voseppes: I don’t make statements like that lightly. If this was the full extent of my knowledge of the Baltimore City Police Department, I wouldn’t have said what I did.
Though these cops might well have been virtual criminals ,it would diminish the greater issues by making this into a bad cops’ vs. minorities ,as is commonly done
Unfair as well to police whose difficult job is essentially in their own words “90% boredom, 10% terror”