In a fiery defense of her case, prosecutor Marilyn Mosby blamed police for an investigation that failed to hold anyone accountable for the death of Gray, a young black man.
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Mosby said the decision to drop the charges was “agonizing”, but she had little hope that she’d be able to get render guilty verdicts on the last three cases she was set to try.
“Justice is always worth the price of pursuit”, Mosby said Wednesday after the charges were dismissed.
Freddie Gray’s stepfather, Richard Shipley, said his family stands behind Mosby and her team’s decision.
“When you’re hired, you’re trained with the concept that your only friend is the officer next to you”, he says.
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.
The spending panel’s actions came hours after prosecutors made a decision to drop the remaining charges for officers in the Gray case. When a crowd gathered around the police wagon where officers were attempting to place an “uncooperative” Gray, Rice “directed other officers to move the wagon approximately one block south in order to complete paperwork and otherwise effectuate Mr”.
Gray was a black man who was critically injured in the back of a police van in April 2015. Throughout the trials, prosecutors tried honing in on each officer’s experience and training, suggesting that they should have known the consequences of failing to secure a shackled prisoner without a seat belt.
Miller is the fifth officer to stand trial. Officers callously ignored Gray’s cries for medical help.
Just days later, five white police officers were shot dead at one such protest in Dallas, Texas.
But every theory fell flat. Williams then ruled three times in a row that although the officers may have exercised poor judgment, the state presented no evidence to prove they meant to hurt Gray. “The typical officer, they’re not being given any true incentive to turn in an officer that they know or they see is doing something improper”.
Gray was arrested for allegedly possessing an illegal switchblade. “Prosecutors come close to a risky line when they start promising justice to crowds”, Alonso said.
An internal investigation by police and a federal civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice are still pending.
They say the money should be spent on improving police and community relations to de-escalate tensions.
Prosecutors in the cases against the officers had setbacks in almost every trial presented before Circuit Judge Barry Williams.
Still, the challenges for the state appeared increasingly overwhelming as Miller’s trial approached.
Prosecutors have been facing pressure to drop the charges after so many trials ended without a conviction.
However, Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow informed the judge the charges were being dropped.
“Clearly they had given up on that pretense that they were keeping the trials separate”, Pipkin said.
Mosby said prosecuting officers is “fraught with systemic and inherent complications”. Each sought a separate trial. That they were suggests that Mosby was playing to the mob rather than following the facts.
Thea ” som agency has reconfigured its police vans and fitted officers with body cameras.
“She’s immature, she’s incompetent, she’s vindictive and that’s not how the justice system is supposed to work”, former Baltimore police commissioner Anthony W. Batts said on Wednesday.
Batts led Baltimore police from the fall of 2012 until Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake fired him in July 2015 amid a surge in city homicides that followed weeks of criticism from the police union over his handling of the city’s riots two months before. Some eyewitness accounts allege that officers were unnecessarily forceful in the arrest, while the Baltimore Police Department disputes those claims.
“We’re ready to proceed in these cases, and it was a matter of, ‘Is this in the best interest of the city?”
“I have no respect for corrupt cops”, he said, “but in this case with the six officers, they are not corrupt”. This led the judge to believe there was no sign of malintent.
Mosby explained why she and her office made the decision, which she said was a hard one.
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“Our communities are arguably safer than ever”, he said.
