Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby riveted the country just over a year ago, powerfully declaring that she would seek charges against all six officers connected to the arrest and subsequent death of Freddie Gray.
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Gray died after getting injured while in police custody in April 2015 and his death sparked riots and unrest in the city. On the day of his funeral, rioting and looting broke out.
The judge dismissed the jury in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Officer William Porter after 16 hours of deliberations during which it was unable to reach a verdict on any of the charges. Nero’s parents and his brother were in the front row while Gray’s stepfather sat a few rows behind.
When State Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced the indictments, a lot of people assumed she had strong cases against the officers, but Harris said the state has yet to support that belief.
Lt. Gene Ryan, president of the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police, expressed similar thoughts, charging Mosby with capitalizing on a political window. She posed for magazine photos, sat for TV interviews and even appeared onstage at a Prince concert in Gray’s honor. The internal investigation is being handled by other police departments, and will not be completed “until all of the criminal cases against the other five officers are complete because they will likely be witnesses in each case”.
They have previously accused Mosby of “overzealous prosecution”, saying she improperly discussed the charges when she announced them on the steps of the War Memorial, and asked her to recuse herself and her office citing conflicts of interest.
David Weinstein, a Florida attorney and former federal civil rights prosecutor who has been following the case, said the verdict will probably serve as a “wake-up call” for prosecutors. “These are officers who may have made a mistake, but they are not guilty of criminal conduct”, Dershowitz said..
Officer Edward Nero was charged with unlawfully arresting Gray without probable cause and acting negligently by failing to buckle the prisoner into a seat belt. Prosecutors allege that they ignored Gray’s injuries and failed to secure him in a seat belt.
Admittedly, my AP Stylebook is a bit old, but I wasn’t able to find an entry mandating that “White police officers involved in the death of a black man should be racially labeled, but black police officers should not”. He said evidence showed Nero neither arrested nor handcuffed Gray.
“The state’s theory has been one of recklessness and negligence”, the judge said in his ruling. “There has been no evidence that the defendant intended for a crime to occur”. The verdict is the first to be rendered; the first trial of another officer ended in a hung jury in December.
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Prosecutors plan to retry Porter in September. The officers have said they believed Gray was simply being uncooperative. “This thing may extend on and on, quite frankly. It’s the prosecution that keeps on giving”. His death set off protests in Baltimore.
