Baltimore philosophical as Freddie Gray cases collapse
Community is quiet, with no arrests reported after charges dropped
Reaction couldn’t have been more different from a year ago, when protesters looted buildings, marchers shouted “Justice for Freddie,” and national media showed fires in the streets. This week, after criminal cases collapsed against cops accused of killing Freddie Gray, the city was quiet.
Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who had forcefully announced the charges after raucous, sometimes violent protests following Gray’s death, on Wednesday said she was essentially dropping the case.
None of the six officers would face a day of jail time and the local police union said it would push to get the officers their jobs back.
Many residents from the West Baltimore neighborhood where Gray was arrested are praising Mosby. Lt. Jarron Jackson of the Baltimore Police Department said there were no reports of violence related to the Gray case.
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. “It’s sad that someone has to have lost their life and no one is being held accountable, but ... we can’t do what we did back in April (2015),” he said. “We know we’re not happy, but let’s not get angry.”
Former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, now president of the University of Baltimore, praised Gray’s family attorney, Billy Murphy, for saying the family “was not pursuing a specific outcome — they just wanted to see the process pursued.”
Schmoke also said the city’s decision last September to settle a civil case in Gray’s death for $6.4 million was “the right decision.”
“The criminal cases were always going to be difficult to prove because of the higher standard” of evidence for criminal negligence, he said.
Gray, 25, who was black, died in police custody a week after he suffered a severe spinal injury while traveling without a seat belt in the back of a van on the way to the police station.
A police probe ruled Gray’s death an accident, but the protests pushed Mosby to pursue criminal charges against the six cops involved.
But after the first trial ended in a mistrial because of a hung jury and Judge Barry Williams acquitted three others in bench trials, including the van’s driver and the highest-ranking officer of the six, Mosby had to reconsider the cases. After telling Williams early Wednesday that her office was dropping the remaining cases, Mosby picked a key location to make her announcement: the neighborhood where Gray was arrested.
Speaking in the shadow of a huge mural painted in Gray’s honor, Mosby said she stands by the medical examiner’s determination that Gray’s death was a homicide. But she said it was “highly probable” that the remaining defendants would be acquitted as well.