Bates said Mosby’s office declined assistance that was offered by the Maryland State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And I give a lot of respect and a lot of credit to those police officers who probably could’ve made a deal; they stuck it out and she had no chance. The number of settlements in Baltimore is reportedly in the millions. Of the six officers charged in the case, three were black and three were white.
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They say the money should be spent on improving police and community relations to de-escalate tensions. “And I need not remind you that the only loss, and the greatest loss in all of this, was that of Freddie Gray’s life”. He added that comments about police from Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby were “outrageous”. “She should be held accountable”. “And the way she did it and the news conferences she had where, they were guilty before anybody even knew the facts”.
The officers, their defense attorneys and the union that represents the officers and paid for their defense held their own news conference shortly after Mosby’s.
While praising the police officers for persevering through four trials in seven months, he’s called Ms Mosby “a disgrace to the world of prosecutors”.
The move means there will be no convictions in the case. Three more trials were scheduled. Taylor in turn accused a deputy state’s attorney of discarding evidence that did not fit the prosecutor’s narrative of the case.
Sharon Black is an organizer for the Peoples Power Assembly, which has been holding rallies and protests in the city. At Wednesday’s hearing Miller’s defense attorneys planned to put prosecutors on the stand to probe whether there were improper communications.
Lt. Brian Rice and Officers Edward Nero and Caesar Goodson were acquitted.
When Mosby first announced the charges, the audience was “stunned”, NPR’s Gene Demby reported at the time. Despite knowing the hurdles, she pressed ahead with an aggressive prosecution knowing her office could not meet the socially-imposed standard. Before Miller’s trial could proceed, prosecutors were required to show that they had not gleaned any evidence or strategic advantage in Miller’s trial from his immunized testimony. “I am surprised, it seemed like they were steadfast in moving forward”.
Goodson, who had driven the police van in which Gray is believed to have suffered a fatal spinal injury, received the harshest charge of all six officers: second-degree depraved-heart murder. She said the charges she brought were not an indictment of the entire Baltimore Police Department, but she also broadly condemned the actions and testimony of some officers involved in Gray’s arrest or in the department’s investigation of the incident – alleging “consistent bias” at “every stage”.
The announcement that charges were being dropped came at the start of pretrial motions for Garrett Miller, the next officer due to stand trial.
Gray died April 19, 2015, a week after his neck was broken in the back of a transport wagon.
The state’s decision to drop charges against the remaining three officers in the Freddie Gray cases came at the end of several legal battles.
Mosby spoke Wednesday near the site of Gray’s arrest in April 2015.
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The failed prosecutions prove that the burden of proof is extraordinary when members of law enforcement are involved. Three others were acquitted and one will be retried in September after a mistrial a year ago. Her address to reporters on Wednesday, delivered not at the courthouse but on a street corner in the West Baltimore neighborhood where Freddie Gray was arrested, was as brilliant a display of arrogance, scapegoating, and self-righteousness as one is ever likely to witness.
