Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby may have dropped criminal charges against the remaining officers in the Freddie Gray trial, but she remains entrenched in a legal battle in civil court.
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Gray, 25, suffered severe spinal cord injuries in the back of the van in April 2015 and died a week after his arrest.
Gray’s death added fuel to the growing Black Lives Matter movement and set off widespread protests and riots in the city.
The ruling was issued the same day all remaining charges were dropped against Baltimore police officers in the death of Freddie Gray, who was injured while being transported in a police van.
Mosby, who is black, was a little more than four months into her role as state’s attorney for Baltimore City in April 2015 when she charged the officers four days after the city exploded in a day of rioting and arson following Gray’s funeral. Officer William Porter, whose trial ended with a hung jury, was due to be retried.
It’s also updated its “use of force” policy which, in time, could help remedy a police force long plagued by accusations of racial bias.
“There were individual police officers that were witnesses to the case, yet were part of the investigative team, interrogations that were conducted without asking the most poignant questions, lead detectives that were completely uncooperative and started a counter-investigation to disprove the state’s case”, Mosby said a press conference Wednesday.
Grays stepfather, Richard Shipley, said the family is not pleased and is planning action. She said, “It’s something that I’ve been grappling with for some time”. “We do not believe Freddie Gray killed himself”.
Darden says police “lied, I know they lied, and they killed him”.
The day started with a pretrial hearing for Officer Garrett Miller – who had faced assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment charges. She did not let up Wednesday.
Other charges were based on the assertion that officers intentionally gave Gray a “rough ride” in the van, which Jennifer says has been hard to prove.
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.
Circuit Judge Michael Usan ruled in favor of suspended Deputy Peter Peraza of the Broward Sheriff’s Office under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law that eliminates a requirement to retreat – for civilians and law enforcement officers, the judge said – when facing a dire threat. “The Baltimore state’s attorney had the opportunity to do an investigation and they did not. And they were not tainted, and I would’ve been happy to testify about that”, Schatzow said. “There was a political motivation and the charges were not supported by evidence”.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, in Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention, said in a CNN interview that she was surprised by the defiance of Mosby.
Earlier this year, five of the officers filed defamation lawsuits against Mosby. He rejected Mosby’s accusations that officers involved in the investigation were biased.
However, the state’s attorney and her team were unable to provide conclusive evidence that the cops on trial did indeed intend to hurt Gray.
In a fiery defense of her prosecution, Mosby blamed police for an investigation that failed to hold anyone accountable for the death of Gray, a young black man.
In some cases, charges depended on prosecutors arguing that there was no probable cause to arrest Gray in the first place – an unusual strategy, as NPR’s Jennifer Ludden has reported.
Prosecutors, the officers and their attorneys were all barred by a gag order from discussing the case, until after all of the officers’ cases have been adjudicated.
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But the city’s top prosecutor didn’t quite see it that way.
