At a news conference the day after their boss, Marilyn Mosby, the state’s attorney for Baltimore, announced she was dropping charges against the three officers who still awaited trial, the two lead prosecutors – both seasoned lawyers – said the police had failed to serve search warrants for the officers’ personal cellphones.
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Mosby alleged that the case was sabotaged from the beginning. That contradicted Allan’s own testimony.
Police did not investigate the case properly, Mosby said.
Though Mosby lost the most high-profile cases of her career so far, Doug Colbert, a law professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, said the case represents, “new ground broken”.
“The Baltimore Police Department did not execute those warrants in the correct amount of time and they expired”, Bledsoe said. “It was sort of more by lower command”. “As the quality of this investigation has been called into question, [we] want to remind our residents that over 30 ethical, experienced, and talented detectives worked tirelessly to uncover facts”. The remaining officers’ cases presented no substantially new circumstances or legal issues. But in court, she denied that she had been removed from the case. Without evidence or eyewitnesses to prove intent, he said, he could not convict. The detective “was doing things without notifying us, and doing things that were counter to what a primary detective should be doing”, Schatzow said.
Former Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts elaborated on some harsh comments he made Wednesday about the prosecution of six officers. “This big task force they put together, they did not put together until after Gray’s death”. Freddie Gray was arrested past year, and he broke his neck while being transported back to the police station in a large police van.
The proceedings revealed deep fissures among the police, prosecutors and the people of Baltimore. Somewhere between running from the police and the seven stops the police van made before calling a medic, Gray’s spine was fatally damaged. Our theory is that Freddie Gray was arrested before the knife was found. Schatzow said that indicated, in consultation with Allan and an outside neurosurgeon, something happened to Gray after that point. A department spokesman said Thursday that the police would “not engage in public banter with our criminal justice partners”.
Three of the four officers who stood trial elected to have Circuit Judge Barry Williams hear their cases without juries. Mosby wanted the police officers to be arrested after footage of Gray’s arrest came out, where it was clearly visible that he was hurt and in distress before the officers threw him into the back of the van.
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“We do not believe that Gray killed himself”.
