Baltimore’s top prosecutor on Wednesday dropped remaining charges against police officers tied to the death of black detainee Freddie Gray, after failing four times to secure convictions in a case that inflamed the USA debate on race and justice.
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Gray suffered a severed spine while being transported in the back of a police van, unsecured and with his hands and feet bound, after being arrested on April 12, 2015 while fleeing police.
Several activists are questioning members of a Baltimore City Council spending panel for signing off on $26 million in police expenditures.
“There were individual police officers that were witnesses to the case, yet were part of the investigative team, interrogations that were conducted without asking the most poignant questions, lead detectives that were completely uncooperative and started a counter-investigation to disprove the state’s case”, she said, shouting into a microphone as she read her remarks.
“We stand by the medical examiner’s determination that Freddie Gray’s death was a homicide”, the Baltimore Sun reported Mosby said during a press conference after a hearing meant to commence the trial of officer Garrett Miller. According to the autopsy report from the State Medical Examiner’s Office, Gray’s death was deemed a homicide.
London-based Amnesty International called on Baltimore police to exercise restraint during protests, which erupted after Gray’s death a year ago. The officers have sued Mosby, saying she intentionally filed false charges against them.
She reiterated what she said in her Wednesday afternoon press conference, that she is not anti-police, but rather anti-police brutality.
Gray’s mother, Gloria Darden, stood by Mosby, saying police lied.
Mosby, 36, whose husband Nick a year ago ran an unsuccessful campaign for mayor of Baltimore, blamed what she described as a shoddy police investigation for the failure of her cases.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, in Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention, said in a CNN interview that she was surprised by the defiance of Mosby.
Today’s decision was somewhat predictable considering that three other officers had already been absolved on similar or more severe charges.
Marvin Cheatham, 66, president of the Matthew Henson Neighborhood Association, near Gray’s neighborhood, said he thought Mosby had no other choice than to drop the remaining cases. While in the van, Gray had not been secured via seatbelt, which went against a Baltimore Police department policy that had been instituted six days earlier.
Gray was a black man who was critically injured in the back of a police van in April 2015.
Daniel Alonso, a former chief assistant district attorney in NY, agreed that Mosby’s decision to prosecute the officers was risky.
The news comes just weeks after the fourth officer involved in the arrest and transport that ultimately led to Gray’s death was cleared of all charges.
Prosecutors had said Gray was illegally arrested after he ran away from a bike patrol officer and the officers failed to buckle Gray into a seat belt or call a medic when he indicated he wanted to go to a hospital.
The announcement came as pretrial motions were scheduled to begin for Officer Garrett Miller, who faced assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment charges. Six officers, three white and three black, were charged in Gray’s death.
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Reacting to the decision to drop charges, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Mosby had made a bad call in prosecuting the officers.
