Attorneys for the officers said justice had been served and praised the police department’s thorough investigation.
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She says it’s part of a bigger conversation about police training, increasing diversity and community relations. It makes a variety of changes to the police disciplinary process, hiring and training.
Gray died a week after he was gravely injured in the back of a police van. Mosby told 11 News the decision to drop the charges was not an easy one for her and her team.
“The decision to prosecute six police officers was not, and has never been, an indictment on the entire Baltimore police department”, Mosby said.
At a hearing in City Hall on Wednesday, activists compared the money to bonuses for police.
“Every officer now knows that he or she will be held criminally accountable when a police officer is responsible for someone dying in police custody”.
They say the money should be spent on improving police and community relations to de-escalate tensions. He said officers were justified in pursuing Gray.
The decision to drop the remaining charges was disclosed during a pretrial motion for Officer Garrett Miller, whose trial was scheduled to begin this week.
People walk by a mural depicting Freddie Gray in Baltimore on June 23, at the intersection where Gray was arrested in 2015. That they were suggests that Mosby was playing to the mob rather than following the facts.
But Warren Alperstein, an attorney in private practice who also watched the trials in their entirety, said Mosby’s inability to convict “was a total failure by the state’s attorney’s office”. During the trial for officer Caesar Goodson, the van driver, prosecutors said Goodson had given Gray a “rough ride”, deliberately driving erratically to injure the prisoner.
“As a mother, the decision not to proceed on the remaining trials is agonizing”, she said.
She said she is not “anti-police”, but “anti-police brutality”.
Mosby blamed the losses on “the system” of police officers investigating themselves whom she said exhibited “inherent bias” and poisoned the investigation. “I am surprised, it seemed like they were steadfast in moving forward”.
Freddie Gray died in April of previous year, a week after his neck was broken in the back of a police wagon.
A week later Gray died; a medical examiner determined that his death was a homicide.
Despite the outcome of the case, Freddie’s stepfather, Richard Shipley, publicly announced that he supported Mosby.
Due to Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams’ gag order preventing parties involved in the case from speaking publicly, Mosby was unable to talk to the press about the obstacles her office faced over the past 14 months. Mosby, 35, stepped into her role as state’s attorney in January.
“We do not believe Freddie Gray killed himself”, she said, standing in the neighborhood where Gray was arrested.
Mosby spoke Wednesday near the site of Gray’s arrest in April 2015. Her comments came after prosecutors told a judge that they were dropping the remaining charges against three officers.
Last year, Gray’s family received a $6.4 million settlement from the city.
Angel Selah (left) and local artist PFK Boom gather to remember Freddie Gray and all victims of police violence during a rally outside city hall in Baltimore, Maryland, US, July 27, 2016. The prosecution claimed that officers failed in their duty by not putting a seatbelt on Gray, which they claimed was a contributing factor in his injury.
Prosecutors dropped the charges after earlier trials of three other police officers had ended in acquittals.
In reading his verdict across three bench trials, Judge Barry Williams repeatedly said that prosecutors did not present enough evidence to show that officers meant to hurt Gray or that his death was anything beyond a tragic accident.
In addition to Miller, Sgt. Alicia White was also facing trial.
Gray’s death, and the protests that followed, catapulted Baltimore to the center of a national reckoning over race and policing.
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Baltimore Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow made the request to drop charges against them in court Wednesday.
