Baltimore RIOT (4/27/2015)

[Ryan Ruck]

Now why would they want to do this?

Report: State’s Attorney Wants To Block Release Of Freddie Gray Autopsy

June 3, 2015

City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby is seeking a protective order to block the release of Freddie Gray’s autopsy, according to WJZ media partner The Baltimore Sun. Mosby is also hoping to block the release of other “sensitive” documents as she pursues charges against six Baltimore city police officers in Gray’s death.

On Monday, Mosby also asked the court for more time responding to the defense’s motions about her ability to prosecute the case as well as the trial being held out of the city.

She previously filed for a gag order in the case, preventing those involved to discuss the case in public.

[MinutemanCO]

I would think that blocking the autopsy would be fundamentally impossible. How do you try officers for murder without knowing definitively the cause of said death?

Hello? Is there anyone there?

[Malsua]

She's clearly trying the ole rope-a-dope, emphasis on dope.

She figures that the longer she can draw it out, the less likely she's going to be held responsible for her incompetent actions.

Also, it's best to release this exonerating information on some 10 degree snowy day at 9am in the morning. Most of the element doesn't come out in the cold nor do they get up that early.

[Ryan Ruck]

Baltimore Gets Bloodier As Arrests Drop Post-Freddie Gray

May 28, 2015

A 31-year-old woman and a young boy were shot in the head Thursday, becoming Baltimore's 37th and 38th homicide victims so far this month, the city's deadliest in 15 years.

The most recent killings claimed the lives of Jennifer Jeffrey and her 7-year-old son, Kester Anthony Browne. They were identified by Jeffrey's sister, Danielle Wilder. Jeffrey and her son were found dead early Thursday, each from gunshot wounds to the head.

As family members cried and held each other on the quiet, leafy block in Southwest Baltimore where they lived, Wilder said she felt as if "my heart has been ripped out." Wilder said a neighbor called their other sister early Thursday, concerned that she hadn't heard any noise coming from Jeffrey's house: no footsteps, Wilder said, no voices, and no gunshots. But when her brother let himself into the house to check on the mother and son, he discovered their bodies.

"She was in the living room," Wilder said. "The baby was upstairs, in the bed." Wilder said police told her there were no signs of forced entry, and that whoever killed Jeffrey and Browne were let into the house sometime yesterday. Wilder said Jeffrey also lived with her niece and grand-niece. Wilder said she believed that whoever killed Jeffrey wanted to catch her alone, and that the boy was collateral damage.

Thursday's deaths continue a grisly and dramatic uptick in homicides across Baltimore that has so far claimed the lives of 38 people. Meanwhile, arrests have plunged: Police are booking fewer than half the number of people they pulled off the streets last year.

Arrests were already declining before Freddie Gray died on April 19 of injuries he suffered in police custody, but they dropped sharply thereafter, as his death unleashed protests, riots, the criminal indictment of six officers and a full-on civil rights investigation by the U.S. Justice Department that has officers working under close scrutiny.

"I'm afraid to go outside," said Antoinette Perrine, whose brother was shot down three weeks ago on a basketball court near her home in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore. Ever since, she has barricaded her door and added metal slabs inside her windows to deflect gunfire.

"It's so bad, people are afraid to let their kids outside," Perrine said. "People wake up with shots through their windows. Police used to sit on every corner, on the top of the block. These days? They're nowhere."

West Baltimore residents worry they've been abandoned by the officers they once accused of harassing them, leaving some neighborhoods like the Wild West without a lawman around. "Before it was over-policing. Now there's no police," said Donnail "Dreads" Lee, 34, who lives in the Gilmor Homes, the public housing complex where Gray, 25, was chased down. "People feel as though they can do things and get away with it. I see people walking with guns almost every single day, because they know the police aren't pulling them up like they used to."

Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said his officers "are not holding back," despite encountering dangerous hostility in the Western District. "Our officers tell me that when officers pull up, they have 30 to 50 people surrounding them at any time," Batts said.

Batts provided more details at a City Council meeting Wednesday night, saying officers now fear getting arrested for making mistakes. "What is happening, there is a lot of levels of confusion in the police organization. There are people who have pain, there are people who are hurt, there are people who are frustrated, there are people who are angry," Batts said. "There are people, and they've said this to me, 'If I get out of my car and make a stop for a reasonable suspicion that leads to probable cause but I make a mistake on it, will I be arrested?' They pull up to a scene and another officer has done something that they don't know, it may be illegal, will they be arrested for it? Those are things they are asking."

The Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3 on Thursday posted a statement from President Gene Ryan on social media saying that the police are "under siege." "The criminals are taking advantage of the situation in Baltimore since the unrest," Ryan wrote. "(Police) are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty."

Protesters said Gray's death is emblematic of a pattern of police violence and brutality against impoverished African-Americans in Baltimore. In October, Batts and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake invited the Justice Department to participate in a collaborative review of police policies. The fallout from Gray's death prompted the mayor to ramp that up, and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch agreed to a more intensive probe into whether the department employs discriminatory policing, excessive force and unconstitutional searches and arrests.

Baltimore was seeing a slight rise in homicides this year even before Gray's death April 19. But the 38 homicides so far in May is a major spike, after 22 in April, 15 in March, 13 in February and 23 in January.

With one weekend still to go, May 2015 is already the deadliest month in 15 years, surpassing the November 1999 total of 36. Ten of May's homicides happened in the Western District, which has had as many homicides in the first five months of this year as it did all of last year.

Non-fatal shootings are spiking as well — 91 so far in May, 58 of them in the Western District. The mayor said her office is "examining" the relationship between the homicide spike and the dwindling arrest rate.

Even before Gray's death, police were making between 25 and 28 percent fewer arrests each month than they made in the same month last year. But so far in May, arrests are down roughly 56 percent. Police booked just 1,045 people in the first 19 days of May, an average of 55 a day. In the same time period last year, police arrested 2,396 people, an average of 126 a day.

In fact, police did not make any arrests in the triple digits between April 22 and May 19, except on two occasions: On April 27, when protests gave way to rioting, police arrested 246 people. On May 2, the last day of a city-wide curfew, police booked 140 people.

At a news conference Wednesday, Rawlings-Blake said there are "a lot of reasons why we're having a surge in violence." "Other cities that have experienced police officers accused or indicted of crimes, there's a lot of distrust and a community breakdown," Rawlings-Blake said. "The result is routinely increased violence."

"It's clear that the relationship between the commissioner and the rank-and-file is strained," she added. "He's working very hard to repair that relationship." Emergency response specialist Michael Greenberger cautions against directly blaming police. The founder and director of the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security, the spike in homicides is more likely a response to Gray's death and the rioting.

"We went through a period of such intense anger that the murder rate got out of control. I think it's been really hard for the police to keep on top of that," he said. Lee disagrees. He says rival gang members are taking advantage of the police reticence to settle old scores.

"There was a shooting down the street, and the man was standing in the middle of the street with a gun, just shooting," Lee added. "Usually, you can't walk up and down the street drinking or smoking weed. Now, people are everywhere smoking weed, and police just ride by, look at you, and keep going. There used to be police on every corner. I don't think they'll be back this summer."

Batts acknowledged that "the service we're giving is off-target with the community as a whole" and he promised to pay special attention to the Western District. Veronica Edmonds, a 26-year-old mother of seven in the Gilmor Homes, said she wishes the police would return, and focus on violent crime rather than minor drug offenses.

"If they focused more on criminals and left the petty stuff alone, the community would have more respect for police officers," she said.

[Ryan Ruck]

Prosecutors Conclude Freddie Gray Case With Zero Convictions Against Officers

July 27, 2016

Prosecutors dropped all charges Wednesday against three Baltimore police officers accused in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray, bringing to an end one of the highest-profile criminal cases in the city's history with zero convictions.

Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby acknowledged the long odds of securing convictions in the remaining cases following the acquittals of three other officers on similar though more serious charges.

In a hearing Wednesday meant to start the trial of Officer Garrett Miller, prosecutors dropped their cases against him, Officer William Porter and Sgt. Alicia White. Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams, who had acquitted the other officers, was expected to preside over the remaining trials as well.

After the most recent acquittal and "a great deal of thought and prayer," Mosby said, she resolved to drop the remaining charges. Mosby stood by her decision to bring the charges, pointing out that the medical examiner's office ruled Gray's death a homicide and that it's her job as the city's top prosecutor to seek justice.

"It's something that I've been grappling with for some time," Mosby said of her decision to end the prosecution, during an interview with The Baltimore Sun. "It's not something that was overnight."

Attorney Ivan Bates, who represents White and spoke on behalf of the defense teams, described the past year as a "nightmare" for the officers, who did not speak. He reiterated the defense argument that the officers didn't have anything to do with Gray's death, which they have characterized as a tragic accident.

"Not one of these officers woke up wanting to do anything negative to anyone," Bates said.

Gray's death has reverberated across Baltimore and the country at a time of national debate over the deaths of young black men in altercations with police. Gray, 25, died of severe neck injuries suffered in the back of a police van. He'd been shackled and handcuffed, but not secured in a seat belt.

Mostly peaceful protests erupted in Baltimore and lasted for days following his death. Then, on the day of his funeral, rioting, looting and arson broke out — and images of Baltimore in chaos were broadcast to an international audience.

Mosby charged the six Baltimore officers days later with offenses ranging from second-degree depraved-heart murder to manslaughter, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office.

The case pitted Mosby against police, and their verbal sparring Wednesday raised questions about their ability to cooperate going forward. The Fraternal Order of Police accused Mosby of pursuing a malicious and wrong-headed prosecution, while she accused police investigators of sabotage.

The case proved costly for the city.

The state's attorney's office and Police Department, which bought riot gear and paid officers overtime in anticipation of protests, spent an estimated $7.4 million on the trials, city officials said Wednesday. In addition, the city reached a $6.4 million settlement last year with Gray's family.

Under the broad theory of the case, the prosecution argued that the officers acted unreasonably, willfully disregarding their training and general orders, when they didn't secure Gray in a seat belt in the back of a police transport van and failed to get him medical help.

Prosecutors said those decisions led to Gray's death. They also argued that the officers had no probable cause to stop Gray and that Goodson, the van's driver, had given Gray a "rough ride."

All of the officers pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys argued that they acted reasonably and professionally and that the prosecution had no evidence to support the charges.

Williams, a former city prosecutor who investigated police misconduct for the U.S. Department of Justice, repeatedly questioned the legal theories put forth by prosecutors.

The trial of Porter ended with a hung jury and a mistrial in December, and Williams acquitted Officers Edward Nero and Caesar Goodson and Lt. Brian Rice after bench trials in May, June, and July, respectively.

Porter had been scheduled to be retried in September, and White had been scheduled to be tried in October.

At the conclusion of Wednesday's hearing, which lasted minutes, Williams lifted a standing gag order that had barred everyone involved in the case from speaking about it publicly. That led to dueling news conferences.

Mosby headed to the West Baltimore neighborhood where Gray had been arrested and stood on the sidewalk to explain her decision and to rail against the criminal justice system.

Mosby blamed a number of factors for her inability to secure a conviction, including having to rely on the Police Department to investigate its own and not having a say in whether the cases proceeded in front of a judge or jury. Under Maryland law, defendants get to pick a judge or jury.

"For those that believe I'm anti-police, it's simply not the case. I'm anti-police brutality," she said. "The only loss and the greatest loss in all of this was that of Freddie Gray's life.

"As a mother, the decision not to proceed on these trials, these remaining trials, is agonizing," she added. "However, as a chief prosecutor elected by the citizens of Baltimore, I must consider the dismal likelihood of conviction at this point."

She noted the "countless sacrifices" of her prosecutors in the case, including Chief Deputy State's Attorney Michael Schatzow and Deputy State's Attorney Janice Bledsoe, and said her office will continue to "fight for a fair and equitable justice system for all."

Gray's stepfather, Richard Shipley, said family members "stand behind Marilyn and her prosecuting team, and my family is proud to have them represent us."

"It was wrong what they did to my son," said Gray's mother, Gloria Darden.

Shortly thereafter, the officers, their defense attorneys and leaders of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, the union that represents the officers and paid for their defense, held their own news conference.

"Everybody wanted to find out what happened to Freddie Gray," Bates said. "The Baltimore City Police, they did the investigation, and they said it was an accident. ... The Baltimore City state's attorney's office had an opportunity to do an in-depth investigation, and they did not."

Lt. Gene Ryan, the union president, said, "Justice has been done." He also described Mosby's comments at her news conference as "outrageous and uncalled for."

Ryan said he expects the six officers to return to work, though all of them face possible discipline. Administrative investigations into their actions on the day of Gray's arrest and death are being conducted by the Montgomery County Police Department, with assistance from Howard County police. Once those investigations conclude, Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis would decide any discipline.

Davis, in a statement issued Wednesday, called Mosby's decision to drop the charges "a wise one" that will help the city heal and move forward.

"As the trials end and this chapter in Baltimore's history closes, it is important that we collectively resolve to direct our emotions in a constructive way to reduce violence and strengthen citizen partnerships," Davis said. "Any motives that fall short of that are counterproductive and inconsistent with the values of Baltimoreans."

The conclusion of the Gray case comes at a pivotal moment for Baltimore and police-community relations.

The Justice Department is expected to release soon the results of a wide-ranging civil-rights investigation into the Police Department. Such reviews in other cities have resulted in increased spending on policing and findings of shortcomings and misguided practices.