Two officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray filed a defamation and an invasion of privacy lawsuit against the state’s attorney, a sheriff’s officer and the state of Maryland, according to The Baltimore Sun.
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Nero was one of the first officers to encounter Gray past year.
Harvard University professor Alan Dershowitz said he believed the judge’s verdict was an example of the legal system looking at the facts of the case without being influenced by race or community pressure.
“To the youth of this city, I will seek justice on your behalf”, Mosby told reporters during her announcement of the charges on May 1, 2015. Jurors deliberated three days before Judge Williams declared a mistrial. “The state’s attorney for Baltimore city rushed to charge him, as well as the other five officers, completely disregarding the facts of the case and the applicable law”.
The judge dismissed the jury in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Officer William Porter after 16 hours of deliberations during which it was unable to reach a verdict on any of the charges.
Four more officers await trial.
“He had virtually no interaction” with Gray, she said, “What did he do that was wrong?”
In his verdict, Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams said Nero played little role in Gray’s arrest and wasn’t responsible for the failure to buckle him into the police van where he suffered a broken neck.
Although it was the second setback for prosecutors who have brought charges against six officers, the narrowly focused judge’s decision acquitting Officer Edward Nero suggested that the prosecution’s strategy could bear fruit in at least some of the five remaining trials, the experts said. His retrial is scheduled for September. The head of Baltimore’s NAACP branch aired her disappointment, saying she is hopeful that someone will be held responsible for Gray’s death.
Gray was placed in the back of the transport van, seated on the wagon’s bench. Though Nero was not found criminally responsible, Mckesson was in favor of Baltimore leaders’ intentions to carry out an administrative review of the officer. What Williams left in place was the prosecution’s principal theory of the case against Nero – that he was criminally liable for an alleged error in judgment in making a so-called Terry stop.
Gray’s death April 19, 2015, set off more than a week of protests followed by looting, rioting and arson that prompted a citywide curfew.
In Nero’s case, he was charged with and acquitted of official misconduct and assault.
“It speaks to the lack of police knowing their own rules and regulations”, she said.
Gray’s neck was snapped sometime during a 45-minute ride in the back of police van, with his hands in cuffs and ankles in shackles.
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Nero was facing assault, reckless endangerment with two counts of misconduct in office and is the second officer to be tried in the death of Gray.
