The trial for Officer William G. Porter ended with a hung jury in December.
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Rice, like the other two officers found not guilty, chose a bench trial in which a judge decided a verdict. In December of a year ago, a Baltimore judge declared a mistrial for Porter in the first trial over Gray’s death, because the jury in his case remained deadlocked.
Lieutenant Brian Rice, the officer in charge, had ordered two police officers to chase Freddie Gray when he allegedly ran off unprovoked in a high-crime area of Baltimore, Maryland. Williams acquitted two other officers in the Gray case, Edward Nero and Caesar Goodson in earlier trials.
There is now an increased clamor by the police union representing Baltimore police officers for Mosby to drop all remaining charges in the case.
Officer Garrett Miller is scheduled to go to trial July 27.
CBS News’ Justice Department reporter Paula Reid reports Rice’s acquittal is not a surprise given that this trial involved the same case, the same facts, similar witnesses, and the same judge as the last acquittal. And Sgt. Alicia White, is scheduled to go to trial October 13.
Gray died April 19, 2015, a week after he suffered a critical spinal injury in the back of Goodson’s police wagon. Rice is the officer who initiated the pursuit of Gray.
“If Mrs. Mosby’s office is willing to violate rules in these high-profile cases, we can only imagine what her office is doing in the cases that affect the citizens of Baltimore every day when the media’s not around”, he said.
An activist law professor at George Washington University is calling for the disbarment of Baltimore Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow and Deputy State’s Attorney Janice Bledsoe for their roles in the Freddie Gray trials.
Gray’s death ushered in a resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests across the country. Tensions were heightened further after police officers were killed in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Williams said the state did not prove that Rice was “grossly negligent” in failing to seatbelt Gray inside the police van, or even that he acted unreasonably or ignored a substantial risk.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement Monday that Rice would now face an administrative review by the police department.
Warren Alperstein, a prominent lawyer in the city who has been observing the case, said prosecutors have exhausted their theories and need to question whether to move forward.
Rice’s defense attorney said in closing arguments that Rice’s decision-making when Gray was arrested was both “professional” and “correct”.
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Prosecutors and defense attorneys gave different characterizations of the onlookers. Also, the Gang Who Couldn’t Prosecute Straight had already soured the milk with Judge Williams when they attempted to dump seven thousand pages of training records into the mix only days before the trial began.
