PROSECUTORS DROP REMAINING CHARGES IN FREDDIE GRAY CASE
Officers still face administrative review
Prosecutors dropped the remaining charges Wednesday against three Baltimore officers in the death of Freddie Gray but stood by the medical examiner’s ruling that his death was a Marvin Cheatham, 66, president of the Matthew Henson Neighborhood Association, stands near a mural and shrine to Freddie Gray. homicide. Defense attorneys, though, said the state could not supply ample evidence to prove the officers’ guilt.
“We do not believe that Freddie Gray killed himself,” State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said at a news conference in Gray’s neighborhood in West Baltimore.
Ivan Bates, attorney for Officer Alicia White, said the state failed to call for a full independent investigation aside from the Baltimore City Police Department’s own investigation, which ruled Gray’s death an accident.
Gray, 25, suffered a severe spinal injury, apparently while en route to the police station, after he was shackled and loaded into a police van but not secured with a seat belt in April 2015.
His death a week later while in custody set off a series of protests that prompted Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the nation.
“The state’s attorney simply could not accept the evidence that was presented. She had her own agenda,” said Gene Ryan, president of the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police.
Mosby claimed that some members of the Baltimore police department tried to undermine the state’s case and said that there is “inherent bias” when “police police themselves.”
“For those who believe I’m anti-police, that’s simply not the case, I’m antipolice brutality,” she said.
The officers now face administrative review. Nearby police departments will conduct the investigation and give findings to the Baltimore police commissioner.
Ryan said four of the six officers involved in the case are back to work for the department.
Mosby said the state dropped the charges because it was “highly probable” the remaining defendants would waive their right to trial by jury and that the judge would acquit the officers.
“We could try this case 100 times and cases just like it, and we would end up with the same result,” Mosby said.
The decision closes the case without any convictions of the six officers charged. Judge Barry Williams acquitted officers Brian Rice, Edward Nero and Caesar Goodson earlier this year. Officer William Porter had been awaiting retrial after his trial ended in a hung jury. White and officer Garrett Miller never faced a trial.