Mosby announced Wednesday the remaining charges have been dropped. Police said his death was an accident. “But because of her, we have had more rapid movement”, Hill-Aston said.
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Pugh was the co-chair of a panel of state lawmakers that put together police reform legislation, which passed this year.
A police investigator who manufactures evidence in a criminal prosecution is guilty of a felony. In the wake of his death, the mayor ended her re-election campaign. And in his mind, this situation is a wakeup call for change.
Baltimore Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow made the request to drop charges against them in court Wednesday.
Gray, 25, inexplicably died from a spinal injury one week after being handcuffed and driven unsecured in the back of a police van past year. “The process of these trials has helped rather than hurt the cause of repairing the rift between the police and the community”, the newspaper wrote in an unsigned editorial. But when officers attempted to remove Gray from the van, he was found no longer breathing appearing to have suffered from a cardiac arrest according to responding medics.
The full City Council will take up the spending next month.
Mosby said the case showed “an inherent bias that is a direct result of when police police themselves”. “She acted too quickly”, said David Weinstein, a former state and federal prosecutor now in private practice in Florida.
Even in Memphis people are stunned by the news. She says her case against the officers is solid, but is dismissing it anyway because the (black) judge is biased.
On Wednesday, after losing the first four trials, she gave up on the case.
Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police President Gene Ryan reacted by saying Mosby’s accusations are “outrageous” and “not true”.
“The state attorney simply could not accept the evidence that was presented”, Ryan said. People ask the question, why do others who are frustrated go to the extremes? “I signed up for this, and I can take it”.
Gray’s death became a symbol of the black community’s mistrust of police and triggered days of protests and riots in Baltimore. She said she was sad, but expected that none of the officers would be held accountable after observing how the previous trials have gone. Officers Edward Nero and Caesar Goodson Jr. were acquitted in separate trials in May and June.
“As a mother, the decision not to proceed on the remaining trials is agonizing”, Mosby said.
The case also led the police department to overhaul its use-of-force policy.
His neck was broken while riding unrestrained in the back of a police van. We are very proud of the prosecutors who handled the case and did their best to their ability. The officers have sued Mosby, saying she intentionally filed false charges against them. Gray died a week later at the University of Maryland R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center.
All charges against the last Baltimore police officers facing trial over the death of black detainee Freddie Gray have been dropped. Gray had been arrested on a charge of possession of a switchblade knife. Her comments came after prosecutors told a judge that they were dropping the remaining charges against three officers. Three other officers were acquitted.
Gray’s stepfather, Richard Shipley, said family members “stand behind Marilyn and her prosecuting team”.
Attorneys for the officers planned a news conference for later Wednesday.
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Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, in a statement, defended the department’s investigation into Gray’s death.
