A neurosurgeon said Gray’s still-unexplained injuries were so severe that Porter could not have saved his life even by getting him immediate medical care.
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One of Officer William Porter’s colleagues is testifying at his manslaughter trial in the death of Freddie Gray.
Prosecutor Michael Schatzow pressed Porter on Wednesday about an apparent discrepancy between the officer’s first interview with a police investigator and his later interview and testimony.
Porter testified that he overheard someone – who he later learned was Gray – mentioning having trouble breathing, but that was at the first stop when Gray asked for an inhaler.
He called the moment he found Gray unresponsive “a very traumatic thing for me also”, because he knew Gray from his job, and said he was “absolutely” sorry for the death.
In a key exchange, Porter disputed the prosecution’s claim that he told a police investigator in April that Gray told him he couldn’t breathe at the fourth stop of the van. Longo said general orders such as the seat belt policy “don’t create a higher standard in criminal or civil proceedings”.
With no eyewitnesses and no unequivocal evidence as to how and when Gray suffered the spinal injury that killed him, the trial could come down to Porter’s word against prosecutor’s assertion that he “callously” disregarded Gray’s request for medical aid, and intentionally left him unrestrained and vulnerable to injury in the back of the transport van.
Does Porter think the Baltimore Police Department has a “don’t snitch” culture?
Porter took the stand for more than four hours Wednesday.
Di Maio, the former Chief Medical Examiner of Bexar County, Tex. said he thought Gray’s death was an accident “and accidents happen”.
While Porter expressed concern for Gray’s safety on the stand, he and his defense team also repeatedly said that fellow officer Caesar Goodson, the driver of the transport wagon in which the 25-year-old suffered a broken neck, maintained primary responsibility for Gray. Allen was loaded into the same police van as Freddie Gray in the 1600 block of West North Avenue, when he was arrested for possession of marijuana. Porter said Gray wasn’t limp, and was able to support himself with his legs. He said he asked Gray if he needed help because it was “taking way too long” to get him to jail, and he believed Gray “was acting out”.
Porter faces manslaughter and other charges in connection with Gray’s April death. Because of that, he said Gray could not have suffered his injury before the fourth stop – where he spoke with Porter – and must have suffered it between the fifth stop and the last, where Gray was discovered unconscious.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby charged Porter and five other officers involved in Gray’s arrest and death several days later.
But he said Gray had a reputation for misleading authorities about injury and that just two weeks before the April 12 encounter, Gray tried to kick out a window of a police SUV after he was detained.
Why didn’t he immediately call a medic for Gray?
LUDDEN: Well, first of all, he says that Gray never said he couldn’t breathe there.
Prosecutors have sought to show Porter flouted department policy by failing to strap Gray into a police van and not calling a medic when Gray said he needed one, but on both counts Longo said Porter had good reason to follow the course he did.
Porter also staunchly denied that he had not protected Gray’s life, saying “untrue” when Schatzow posed the question. “He couldn’t say he is short of breath (after the injury) because he couldn’t speak”. Charges against the other five officers range from misconduct to second-degree murder. The prosecution rested its case Tuesday.
Based on the medical examiner’s report, prosecutors also say that Gray’s critical injury during the unsecured ride took place before the fourth of ultimately six stops.
Teel testified Friday that Porter told Goodson that Gray informed him that he needed help and could not breathe. “Knowing him from the neighborhood and calling his name, being on the hospital detail and seeing everything they’d done to him”. Schatzow, the state’s lead prosecutor, appeared agitated at times during the cross-examination by Porter’s responses.
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Officer William Porter was the second witness called by the defense. He’s also black like Freddie Gray.
