Porter is accused of manslaughter, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct in office for not having seat-belted Gray in the police van where prosecutors say he suffered a broken neck that led to his death. Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow said at one point. There he ran into a friend of Gray’s, Brandon Ross, who complained about the arresting officers’ treatment of Gray, which Ross said he’d captured on video. Schatzow asked Porter just before one court break.
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Lawyers for a Baltimore police officer charged in the April death of a black man renew their defense on Thursday after the officer testified that he was sorry about the man’s death from a spinal injury suffered in custody. They also indicated the officer may have thought Gray was faking an injury to avoid going to jail.
Prosecutors in the trial of Officer William Porter rested on Tuesday after five days of testimony aimed at showing his role in the April death of Freddie Gray. But after a meeting with city officials and community leaders, she says everyone agrees that unrest like that seen in the spring is unacceptable. “I’m actually offended that you would say something like that”.
Porter said he was familiar with Gray as a “regular fixture” in the neighborhood, and that he and Gray would talk with him whenever Gray wasn’t “dirty”, or carrying drugs. She went on to state that had the driver taken Gray to the hospital after he told Porter he could not breathe, he would have survived.
Porter added that it would have been Goodson’s responsibility to buckle Gray into a seatbelt and he didn’t know if Goodson did so at the fourth stop because he left the scene before as the driver was closing the van doors. He was bundled into a transport van while in handcuffs and shackles and was not secured with a seat belt. Allan and a neurosurgeon the prosecution brought in as a witness both dismissed the defense’s suggestion that Gray could have injured himself, saying the force of the impact was too strong. Novak was one of the officers at Western District who tried to remove Gray from the police van along with Sgt. Alicia White, who was charged in Gray’s death. “When I made that statement today, I was a defendant”. But in a later recorded statement, Porter says at that time Gray only asked him for help off the van floor, and said yes when Porter asked if the man needed a medic. Porter, who is also black, told jurors that when Gray was arrested, he overheard him screaming and mentioning something about needing an inhaler.
According to his testimony, Porter was familiar with the neighborhood, and his primary concern in that initial encounter and in the van’s second stop about a block away, was crowd control.
Zachary Novak said Wednesday that he helped two other officers put Gray in the transport van after he was arrested outside the Gilmor Homes, and that Gray wasn’t using his legs because “he didn’t want to cooperate”. At the sixth stop at Western District precinct, Gray was unresponsive. “You call for an ambulance if you have a medical emergency”.
University of Maryland law professor Douglas Colbert, who has been attending the trial, said he believes prosecutors helped their cause while Porter was on the stand. “I think the prosecution was very methodical in pointing out some discrepancies in Porter’s testimony”, Colbert said. “Trying to get them to calm down, if I can get them to leave”.
Porter said it “felt like an eternity” for the medic to arrive as he held Gray in a “life-saving position” after finding him unconscious.
In the Zimmerman case in Florida, DiMaio said Trayvon Martin’s injuries suggested he was on top of and leaning over Zimmerman when Zimmerman fired his gun, killing the unarmed black teenager.
The defense started presenting their case Wednesday. They allege that after seeing Gray was not buckled in a seat belt, Porter did not get him into a seat belt as stated in department policy.
Di Maio testified that the injury happened later.
“Absolutely not”, Porter said.
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“It’s 50-50. It could go either way”.
