A judge ordered a mistrial after the jury remained deadlocked in the trial of William Porter, the first officer on trial in the death of Freddie Gray.
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The jurors will resume their work Wednesday.
The group went home Tuesday after eight hours of discussions that proved so hard that at one point in the afternoon, they told Circuit Judge Barry Williams they were deadlocked. Prosecutors said they won’t retry the white officer for voluntary manslaughter in the September 2013 shooting death of Jonathan Ferrell, who was unarmed.
Gray’s death and the protests and civil unrest that followed drew national attention on issues of police misconduct, particularly in the context of other police-involved deaths of late in Cleveland, Chicago, North Charleston and NY.
With Porter’s trial drawing to a close, Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said the city is opening an emergency operations center as a precaution to help agencies coordinate any responses to the verdict.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby charged Porter and five other officers in Gray’s arrest and death on May 1, and many have watched the proceedings in Porter’s trial closely. He’s one of six officers charged in Gray’s death.
Gray was arrested about seven city blocks from the station, and yet police stopped the van repeatedly and the trip became a 45-minute journey.
Since they began deliberating Monday, the jurors made several requests, including one Wednesday for a copy of a transcript from a witness.
As a jury deliberated in the trial of Officer William Porter, a handful of protesters are gathering outside the courthouse, chanting “send those killer cops to jail”.
Porter, who was a backup officer, testified Gray told him he needed medical aid.
Defense attorney Joseph Murtha countered that nothing more than conjecture and speculation implicates his client. Porter told jurors he didn’t think Gray was injured, and that it was the van driver’s responsibility to fasten Gray’s seat belt.
The jury couldn’t reach a decision in the manslaughter trial of Officer William Porter.
Gray, 25, suffered a broken neck and severe spinal cord injury in the back of a police transport van after his arrest on April 12.
Prisoners were never secured with seat belts during field training, and though cadets were instructed to secure prisoners with seat belts, they were not shown how, Porter said. Next up is the van driver, Caesar Goodson, whose trial is set to begin next month. His lawyer said Combs acted in self-defense in the May 2011 shooting of Bernard Bailey, who was unarmed.
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When Jennifer summed up Porter’s testimony last week, she relayed how Porter “says he knew Freddie Gray and people in that neighborhood by their first names and he had a rapport with them, and he was trying to calm them down”.
