Persecutors representing the officers said that officers didn’t have anything to do with Gray’s death and that the previous year has been a “nightmare” for the officers.
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The lead prosecutors in the Freddie Gray officer trials – Chief Deputy Michael Schatzow and Deputy Janice Bledsoe – will speak Thursday morning about “trial specifics”, according to a release from the State’s Attorney’s office.
Gray, a 25 year old black man, was transported from the scene of his arrest in Sandtown-Winchester on April 12, 2015 to the Western District police station in a BPD van without being properly restrained.
Four Baltimore officers already stood trial in connection to Gray’s death.
The officers involved in Gray’s death have sued Mosby, saying she intentionally filed false charges against them.
“The prosecution of on-duty police officers in this country is surprisingly rare and blatantly wrought with systemic and inherent complications”, the Democratic prosecutor said.
“She’s immature, she’s incompetent, she’s vindictive and that’s not how the justice system is supposed to work”, former Baltimore police commissioner Anthony W. Batts said on Wednesday. “There was a reluctance and bias that was consistently exemplified”. The autopsy report said that Gray suffered a single “high-energy injury” to his neck and spine; he died a week later. “Never again should someone be placed unsecured and defenseless in a metal wagon, head first, feet shackled, and handcuffed due to the fact that officers are now required to secure and seat belt all prisoners”, Mosby said. The state also said the officers erred when they chose not to call a medic after Gray indicated he wanted to go to a hospital. Three officers charged in the case were acquitted, and a fourth was slated for retrial after his proceedings ended in a hung jury past year. All opted for bench rather than jury trials, meaning that presiding judge Barry Williams determined the verdicts. Without evidence or eyewitnesses to prove intent, he said, he could not convict.
The city spent roughly $7.4 million on the trials, according to Anthony McCarthy, a spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Such a high-profile failure would be a heavy blow for the career of any prosecutor, but Mosby’s quick action has earned her significant support in the majority black city of 620,000 people, legal experts and civil-rights activists said.
At the trial for Lt. Brian Rice, the judge prevented prosecutors from using Rice’s training records as evidence.
Fourteen months later, Mosby again faced the grip of news cameras – this time announcing that her office would drop all the remaining charges in the Gray case.
Gray’s death added fuel to the growing Black Lives Matter movement and set off widespread protests and riots in the city. Three of the officers charged in his arrest and death are black, and three are white.
Mosby outlined what prosecutors have called sabotage, saying officers who were witnesses were also part of the department’s investigative team. Grand juries in NY and Ferguson, Missouri, by way of comparison, reviewed evidence of similarly controversial deaths for weeks before ultimately deciding not to bring criminal charges.
The entire trial process has been controversial in Baltimore.
Much was made in the wake of Mosby’s public statement about her effectively accusing individual detectives of sabotage and fabricating notes. It was an “agonizing” decision, she said, but “I must consider the dismal likelihood of conviction at this point”.
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“Different communities experience policing in very different ways and view these cases through very different lenses: For some, there may be a belief that Marilyn Mosby fought the good fight and was defeated by the resistance of a police department unwilling to prosecute their own”. After other defendants saw Nero’s acquittal – the first in all of the trials – they were emboldened to do the same. “It’s striking that this case demonstrates the limitations of expecting a criminal prosecution to resolve very hard issues”.
