Showing posts with label freddie gray. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freddie gray. Show all posts

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Six Baltimore Police Officers Indicted by Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby

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Previous Related Post:
Baltimore Burning Over Death of Freddie Gray

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It was an epic day for justice in Baltimore, Maryland, when State Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby stepped up to a microphone and stunned the world by announcing the indictment of six officers charged with the death of Freddie Gray.



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From the Baltimore Sun
State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby charged the driver of the van with second-degree murder and the other officers with offenses that included involuntary manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, second-degree assault, false imprisonment and misconduct in office. The officers were taken into custody Friday and released on bail.
"These charges are an important step in getting justice for Freddie," said Richard Shipley, stepfather of the 25-year-old Gray, who died April 19, one week after he was injured in police custody.
. . . After weeks of tension and occasional violence, it felt as if many exhaled in relief Friday. Gray had become the focus of massive demonstrations, here and in other cities, as the latest in a string of African-American men who died during confrontations with police.
The case stood in stark contrast to others across the nation in which police officers were cleared of wrongdoing in the deaths of black men. Grand juries declined to indict the officer who put a chokehold on Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y., or the officer who fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

From Jennifer Bendery on Huffington Post

Who Is This Objectively Badass Attorney Running The Freddie Gray Investigation?
. . . Mosby's news marks a huge turning point for people around the country demanding justice for yet another black man killed by police, for a city torn apart by the drug war and economic disparity, and for Mosby herself.
She was just four months into her job when she was tasked last month with investigating Gray's death. She had never held elected office before November. And at 35, Mosby is the youngest chief prosecutor of any district.
Those details gave city residents reason to doubt her abilities, something even her biggest supporters have conceded. Before her current job, Mosby had been counsel for Liberty Mutual Insurance for three years and an assistant state's attorney for five years.
On Friday, though, Mosby emerged as the voice that so many in Baltimore needed to hear. She gave a detailed description of what happened to Gray the day he was arrested and said officers ignored his requests for medical attention. She let the findings speak for themselves.

Huffington Post Headline 5-2-2015

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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Baltimore Burning Over Death of Freddie Gray

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Here we go again. On April 19, 2015, a group of policemen in Baltimore, Maryland, took custody of a man named Freddie Gray and after he was injured during the scuffle, they dragged him to an ambulance where later he died a mysterious death. Somehow he was killed inside an ambulance, completely severing his spinal cord. You cannot make up a horror story worse than the plight of African Americans in the hands of white cops these days.

From The Atlantic: The Mysterious Death of Freddie Gray
According to the city, an officer made eye contact with Gray, and he took off running, so they pursued him. Though he'd had scrapes with the law before, there's no indication he was wanted at the time. And though he was found with a switchblade, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said, “We know that having a knife is not necessarily a crime.”

The police say Gray didn't resist arrest and that officers didn't use force, which seems to be mostly corroborated by video shot by bystanders. Gray seems to shout in pain, and his leg seems injured as officers drag him to a police van. (Someone off camera shouts, "His leg broke and y'all dragging him like that!") Gray also had asthma and requested his inhaler, but didn't get it. Yet it's not the leg or the asthma that killed him. Instead, it was a grave injury to his spinal cord. Gray's family said he was treated for three fractured vertebrae and a crushed voice box, the sorts of injuries that doctors say are usually caused by serious car accidents. The van made at least two stops before reaching the police station, but there's no footage to say what happened during the journey or at those stops.

It's a baffling conundrum. "None of the officers describe any use of force," Deputy Police Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez said. "None of the officers describe using any force against Mr. Gray." And yet somehow Gray was fatally hurt while in police custody.

Baffling conundrum, indeed.

So what has happened since Gray's death? Protest marches have sometimes turned into riots, with looting and fires, and the Governor called in the National Guard. Hashtag Baltimore is turning into another Ferguson, Missouri. Or maybe EVERYWHERE is Ferguson these days, and the country has got to get this under control! The good news is that recently sworn-in Attorney General Loretta Lynch has already sent a team to Baltimore to investigate the circumstances. Which is fine, but at some point there has to be justice for black Americans who are scared for their lives and for their children.















































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