NY TIMES
Baltimore’s chief prosecutor charged six police officers on Friday with a range of crimes including murder and manslaughter in the arrest and fatal injury of Freddie Gray, a striking and surprisingly swift turn in a case that has drawn national attention to police conduct.
The state’s attorney for Baltimore City, Marilyn J. Mosby, filed the charges almost as soon as she received a medical examiner’s report that ruled Mr. Gray’s death a homicide, and a day after the police concluded their initial investigation and handed over their findings. Officials had cautioned that it could take considerable time for her office to complete its own investigation and decide whether to prosecute.
In a city rocked by unrest this week, and now under curfew and patrolled by National Guard troops, Ms. Mosby’s announcement on the steps of the War Memorial downtown drew cheers from the assembled crowd while a nearby cordon of officers in riot gear looked on stonily. As word spread, people in parts of the city took to the streets in spontaneous celebration.
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| Marilyn J. Mosby, the state’s attorney for Baltimore, said that Freddie Gray’s arrest was illegal and that there was probable cause to file manslaughter charges against the police officers involved. Publish Date May 1, 2015. Photo by Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times. |
The officers who were arrested, three white and three black, include a lieutenant with 17 years on the force, several near-rookies and a woman who had just been promoted to sergeant.
The most serious charges were brought against Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., who was driving the van that carried Mr. Gray to a police station after his April 12 arrest. Along with involuntary manslaughter, Officer Goodson, 45, was charged with “second-degree depraved heart murder,” which means indifference to human life.
All six officers were arrested and appeared before a judicial officer. Bail was set at $350,000 for four of the officers and $250,000 for the other two, according to court records. By late Friday, court records showed the officers had been released from jail.
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| Revelry greeted news on Friday that police officers faced charges in the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times |
The death of Mr. Gray, 25, a week after he suffered a spinal cord injury brought to a boil long-simmering tensions between the police and poor neighborhoods in this majority-black city, culminating in rioting and looting on Monday. More peaceful demonstrations continued through the week after a curfew was put in place. And the swift action by the prosecutor seemed to some to mark a turning point after months of debate and demonstrations around the country over police violence.
The Baltimore chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police called the speed of the prosecutor politically motivated. “The actions taken today by the state’s attorney are an egregious rush to judgment,” said Michael E. Davey, the union’s lawyer. “We believe that these officers will be vindicated, as they have done nothing wrong.”
Ms. Mosby faulted the police conduct at every turn. The officers who arrested him “failed to establish probable cause for Mr. Gray’s arrest, as no crime had been committed,” she said, describing the arrest as illegal. Officers accused him of possession of a switchblade, but Ms. Mosby said, “The knife was not a switchblade and is lawful under Maryland law.”
Ms. Mosby said Mr. Gray suffered a spinal injury while being transported in a police van — and not earlier, while being arrested — and pointed to the failure of the police to put a seatbelt on him as a crucial factor.
“Mr. Gray suffered a severe and critical neck injury as a result of being handcuffed, shackled by his feet and unrestrained inside the B.P.D. wagon,” she said.
Despite repeated stops to check on Mr. Gray, the van driver, Officer Goodson, and other officers never belted him in, she said, at times leaving him face-down on the van floor with his hands behind him. Though there has been speculation that the police intentionally gave Mr. Gray a “rough ride,” intended to slam him against the metal sides of the van, Ms. Mosby did not refer to that possibility.
Mr. Gray’s condition deteriorated, she said, as officers repeatedly ignored his pleas for medical attention and ignored obvious signs that he was in distress. At one point, she said, when officers tried to check on him, Mr. Gray was unresponsive, yet no action was taken. He died of his injuries a week later.
Mr. Gray started the fateful ride on the floor of the police van, Ms. Mosby said. A short time later, Officer Goodson “proceeded to the back of the wagon in order to observe Mr. Gray,” she said.
A few blocks later, he called a dispatcher to say that he needed help checking on his prisoner. Another officer arrived, and the back of the van was opened. “Mr. Gray at that time requested help and indicated that he could not breathe,” and asked twice for a medic, Ms. Mosby said. While the officers helped him onto the bench in the back of the van, she said, they still did not belt him in.
While they were there, she said, a call went out for a van to pick up and transport another person who had been arrested. “Despite Mr. Gray’s obvious and recognized need for assistance, Officer Goodson, in a grossly negligent manner,” answered that call, rather than seeking medical help, Ms. Mosby said.
At the van’s next stop, Officer Goodson met the officers who made the initial arrest, and a sergeant who had arrived on the scene. Opening the van once again, they “observed Mr. Gray unresponsive on the floor of the wagon,” Ms. Mosby said.
The sergeant, she said, spoke to the back of Mr. Gray’s head, but he did not respond. “She made no effort to look, or assess, or determine his condition,” Ms. Mosby said.
When the van finally arrived at the Western District police station and officers tried to remove him, “Mr. Gray was no longer breathing at all,” she said. A medic was summoned and found Mr. Gray in cardiac arrest. Then he was rushed to a hospital.
A. Dwight Pettit, a lawyer who handles police brutality cases in Baltimore — and worked to help elect Ms. Mosby — said her emphasis on the officers’ lack of probable cause in arresting Mr. Gray was significant. Rarely, he said, are police officers prosecuted for making false arrests — and too often, they do not worry about lacking probable cause.
He called the charges of false imprisonment “something new for police activity, which offends the constitutional rights of citizens.”