And, Jennifer, how did the prosecution lay out their argument in the case against Officer William Porter?
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Porter was present a few weeks before when Gray tried to kick out the windows of a squad vehicle. By the next stop, they say Porter saw that Gray was limp, not moving, not talking, clearly getting worse and still do not call the medic. Porter is accused of failing to get him medical help during several stops on the 45-minute trip.
In those cities, protests erupted when white officers shot and killed black men. “Not a word about not being able to breathe”. By then, Gray was fatally injured, prosecutors said. The defense argued that there wasn’t any physical evidence that Gray was in need of medical attention. But the defense attorney said the fact that Gray was on his knees at all suggests his neck had not yet been broken. At the fourth stop, he said Porter asked Gray, what’s wrong? Gray was the unarmed black man fatally injured while in police custody last April.
Porter arrived after Gray was apprehended and taken down – video footage shows him being facedown with his legs twisted up – by other officers and loaded into the van, which stopped about a block away.
Porter “knew he [Gray] didn’t go quietly”, the lawyer said.
“He didn’t become a police officer to swing a big stick”, Proctor said.
Pointing to a poster-sized photo of the van with one of its rear doors open, Shatzow said Porter failed to buckle Gray in, as required by Baltimore Police Department policy.
“There was no reason not to put him in a seat belt, unless you simply didn’t care”, Schatzow said.
Michael Schatzow, Chief Deputy State’s Attorney for Baltimore City, left, and his staff walk to courthouse East for the third day of jury selection for the trial of police officer William Porter, one of six…
The defense attorney told jurors that a man who shared the transport van with Gray from the fifth stop to the final stop at the Western District station house told investigators that Gray was flailing in the van, attempting to injure himself.
Prosecutors said Gray’s spinal injury occurred in a section of the spinal cord where the nerves control the chest and the diaphragm.
Prosecutor says the officer could have saved Gray’s life but deliberately chose criminal neglect instead. He also said Gray showed no signs or symptoms of injury and did not complain of any pain.
The officers shackled his feet, replaced his metal handcuffs with plastic ones, and pushed him back into the van face down.
The death of Gray in April set off days of unrest and renewed a national debate about police use of force.
No reputations hinge on the trial’s outcome as much as that of state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby and her husband, Nick Mosby, a councilman for Baltimore’s west side who announced his mayoral candidacy shortly after Rawlings-Blake pulled out.
She was in the courtroom for opening statements.
Porter is the first of six officers to go on trial in the case. The four alternates are men.
Opening statements may be heard as early as Wednesday.
Porter, who has pleaded not guilty to four counts – manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct in office – is expected to take the stand in his own defense. Porter, Proctor claimed, did everything that Gray asked of him. During Monday’s jury selection, more than half of the 75 potential jurors told presiding Judge Barry Williams that either they or a member of their immediate family had been either a victim of a crime or investigated, charged or incarcerated in the past. Williams told the prospective jurors in the pool of 75 to return to court on Wednesday unless notified in the interim that they have been dismissed.
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On cross-examination, defense attorney Joe Murtha questioned if there was any post-academy follow-up emergency medical training for Porter and highlighted the challenges officers deal with in properly assessing whether individuals are experiencing an actual medical emergency.
