Baltimore prosecutors dropped all charges today.
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Facing a judge who repeatedly said there was insufficient evidence in the cases, the city’s state’s attorney, Marilyn Mosby, on Wednesday dropped criminal charges against three officers still awaiting trial. He was arrested on a Baltimore street and then suffered severe injuries, including a broken neck, in the vehicle that took him to the police station.
It’s just been frustrating here in Baltimore with the Freddie Gray trials, as of now I haven’t been called one time to testify in four trials and I’m the primary eye witness.
“In these cases, my prosecutors presented a great deal of evidence to support the charges alleged, and although we came close to convicting one of the officers when his case was tried before 12 Baltimore city residents, the judge, who is within his right, has made it clear that he doesn’t agree with the state’s theory of the case and does not believe that any of the actions or inactions of these officers rise to the level of criminality”, she said.
Investigators from the State’s Attorney’s Office began working with police after Gray was first injured, meeting with police department investigators the next day and continuing as the agency appointed a 30-member task force. “Unlike other cases where prosecutors work closely with the police to investigate what actually occurred, what we realized very early on in this case was that, police investigating police – whether they’re friends or colleagues – was problematic. There was a reluctance and bias that was consistently exemplified”.
Prosecutors had said Gray was illegally arrested after he ran from a bicycle patrol officer and that officers failed to buckle Gray into a seat belt or call a medic when he indicated that he wanted to go to a hospital.
At the news conference on Wednesday, Mosby said the legitimacy of her prosecutions “were affirmed time and time again”.
The announcement was made Wednesday at what was scheduled to have been the opening day of trial of the fifth defendant, Officer Garrett Miller, in the courtroom of Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams. The other trial ended in a mistrial.
“As a chief prosecutor elected by the citizens of Baltimore, I must dismal likelihood of conviction at this point, the judicial economy in proceeding further, and the divisive impact that continuing this prosecution could potentially have on our community”, Mosby said.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby held a press conference this morning at the site where Gray was arrested. Officer Alicia White had a court date in October.
Gray’s death added fuel to the growing Black Lives Matter movement and set off widespread protests and riots in the city. He dies six days after hi9s arrest and six officials were accused.
Many protesters were resigned to the outcome after Williams found the van’s driver, Caesar Goodson Jr., the sole officer charged with murder, and Lt. Brian Rice, the highest-ranking officer in Gray’s arrest, not guilty. To others, her office’s failure to secure a conviction is simply indicative of the grave challenges associated with prosecuting police, and the fact that she brought the charges in the first place should be celebrated as a slice of victory.
“This is part of the pains of breaking new ground”, said Doug Colbert, a University of Maryland, Baltimore, law school professor who observed each trial.
The judge ruled that although the officers may have exercised poor judgment, prosecutors failed to prove the officers tried to hurt Gray. “It would have been just another person dying and the police would continue to engage in the same practices”.
There were “lead detectives that were completely uncooperative and started a counter investigation to disprove the state’s case, by not executing search warrants pertaining to text messages among the police officers involved in the case, creating videos to disprove the state’s case without our knowledge, creating notes that were drafted after the case was launched to contradict the medical examiner’s conclusion, turning these notes over to defense attorneys months prior to turning them over to the state and yet doing it in the middle of trial”, Mosby said.
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Bates described the previous year as a “nightmare” for all the officers.
