PROSECUTORS DROP REMAINING CHARGES IN FREDDIE GRAY CASE
Officers still face administrative review
E4 Ryan W. Miller and Greg Toppo USA TODAY
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 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 seatbelt in April 2015. His death a week later while in custody set off a series of sometimes violent protests that rocked the city and 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.
The officers involved in the case now face administrative review. Nearby police departments will conduct the investigation and give their findings to the Baltimore police commissioner.
“We could try this case 100 times and cases just like it, and we would end up with the same result,” Mosby said. BALTIMORE
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. Miller reported from McLean, Va. Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby holds a news conference near the site where Freddie Gray was arrested after her office dropped remaining charges against three Baltimore police officers awaiting trial.