Timothy Longo, the outgoing Charlottesville chief and a former Baltimore Police commander, testified that Porter was right to help Gray up inside of the transport van and to communicate to the van driver and a supervisor that Gray needed to be taken to a hospital.
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Allen, who is in a Pennsylvania jail awaiting trial on theft and forgery charges, was brought to court Thursday.
The jury has to determine whether there’s evidence to prove when Gray’s neck was broken and whether Porter’s actions contributed to his death.
Porter, who was driving a patrol vehicle, responded to calls for assistance at some of the van stops. Wood told jurors that during the second stop, when Gray was placed in leg shackles, he heard Gray banging around in the back of the van and saw the wagon shake back and forth. Prosecutors say Porter was criminally negligent for ignoring policy requiring officers to seat belt prisoners, and for failing to call a medic immediately after Gray indicated he needed aid. Porter said that during the fourth stop, he went inside the back of the van and helped Gray, who was handcuffed and shackled, from the floor onto the bench.
“Once that person is in the custody of the van or wagon driver, he or she has ultimate responsibility”, he said.
Demonstrator Arthur Johnson carries a sign advocating justice for Freddie Gray on Monday, Dec. 7, 2015, outside the courthouse in Baltimore where the trial of Offcer William Porter enters its second week.
Officer Mark Gladhill is the sixth defense witness to testify on behalf of Porter. “I’m actually offended that you would say something like that”.
When did Gray break neck?
Porter is the first of six officers to go on trial in Gray’s death.
But on rapid-fire cross-examination by a prosecutor, Longo said he supposes the officer could have gotten on the radio and called for a medic.
Longo testified those, too, were reasonable decisions because Gray did not exhibit any injuries and because protocol dictates that the van’s driver, not Porter, should have been held accountable for the prisoner’s safety.
Porter, 26, the first of six officers to face trial in Gray’s April death, has said that Gray was kicking the inside of the police van en route to the station, and he had tried to kick out the window of a patrol vehicle during an arrest a few weeks earlier.
Washington, D.C., neurosurgeon Matthew Ammerman was an expert witness Thursday at Officer William Porter’s trial.
In cross-examination, Schatzow seemed a bit incredulous, asking how Porter could perceive Gray as a threat after he crawled into a van and helped place Gray on a bench. Ammerman said Gray’s injuries were so severe he likely wouldn’t have survived even with immediate medical attention.
He also said the injury would have immediately rendered Gray unable to speak. His death set off protests and a riot in the city, and became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. His testimony was marked by contentious exchanges with a prosecutor and dramatic demonstrations in which one of Porter’s attorneys, Joseph Murtha, got on the ground and pretended to be Freddie Gray as Porter described Gray’s position in the back of the van following his arrest.
Porter faces manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment charges.
More witnesses are scheduled to testify in the defense of one of six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, the black man who died after suffering a spinal injury in the back of a police transport van. Goodson faces the most serious charge in the case: second-degree “depraved heart” murder. On cross examination, Di Maio did say if Gray had been seat belted, he would not have been injured.
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Last week, at the start of jury selection, Judge Williams told potential jurors the case would be completed by this Thursday.
