Baltimore has lifted its overnight curfew that was imposed after riots sparked by the death of a Freddie Gray while in police custody, states The BBC.
National Guard troops are now pulling out of the city, writes the BBC.
The curfew was put in place on Tuesday, after protests over Freddie Gray’s death turned into rioting.
The Young Turks
According to NBC Bay Area, an attorney in the Baltimore Office of the Public Defender has become a Facebook and media sensation after her post describing conditions in a holding cell earlier this week following protesting in Baltimore.
The 1,242-word post by Marci Tarrant Johnson had been shared over 28,000 times as of Friday morning.
Johnson said, “I really felt that this was exceptional and people should know what was going on.”
Johnson described a holding cell where women were told not to drink the water because it was “bad.”
There were 15 women crowded into the cell with no room for them to lie down.
Johnson said some of the women in the cell weren’t sure they had even broken the law, but were caught up in a police sweep and they ended up in jail.
On Thursday, authorities released 101 people from jail without charges being filed.
Officials with the Maryland courts didn’t immediately return phone calls or e-mail from NBC seeking comment.
There have been several reviews of the situation in Baltimore recently.
Friday morning, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced the results of autopsy of Freddie Gray.
Freddie Gray’s fatal neck injury – a nearly severed spine – was the result of being handcuffed but not secured in the police wagon, according to the District Attorney.
Specifically, Gray was bound by his wrists and ankles and left stomach-down on the floor of the van as it drove around West Baltimore.
There have been concerns that Gray received what is known as a “rough ride” or “nickel ride,” where the driver intentionally drives in a reckless manner to throw around the prisoners in back.
At least two officers checked on Gray’s status during the drive, but they didn’t act when he said he couldn’t breathe.
Despite pleas and a “rapidly deteriorating” condition, he received no medical assistance. When Gray finally arrived at the station, he was in cardiac arrest.
Gray had been riding in a compartment on the right side of the van.
The Baltimore Police Department suggested—in a release to the media—that Gray had killed himself. In a leaked memo, police said that the prisoner on the left side of the van claimed Gray injured himself on purpose.
According to The New York Times, a prisoner was in the left compartment for part of the ride, but the two were separated by a wall. Reports say there was no camera on the inside of the van.
There’s more, though. According to Mosby, the arrest itself was illegal. Police had no cause for detaining Gray, not even for possession of a weapon; the knife they found in his pocket was not a switchblade and thus was legal under Maryland law.
“No crime had been committed by Mr. Gray,” said Mosby.
In short, Gray was wrongly detained by police and fatally injured under their care. The six officers—Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., Officer William Porter, Lt. Brian Rice, Officer Edward Nero, Officer Garrett Miller, and Sgt. Alicia White—knew Gray needed medical help and chose not to act, ensuring his fate. His death, said Mosby, was a “homicide.”
It is very rare for police to face criminal charges. “Among the thousands of fatal shootings at the hands of police since 2005,” notes the Washington Post in a recent look at police violence, “only 54 officers have been charged.”
In Maryland, with its high rate of “justifiable homicides” by law enforcement, police officers were charged with crimes in less than 2 percent of cases where a civilian died. Gray’s death wasn’t a shooting. But these charges challenge the pattern.
Did more get done against Freddie Gray because of the leadership in Baltimore?
The choice to charge the officers was a legal one, states Slate Magazine. However, it’s hard to dismiss the optics of Baltimore’s black leadership. Compared with the leadership of a city like Ferguson, could it be that these leaders have closer ties to their constituents and a better finger on the pulse of the community? Between the protests and the riots and the general discontent, officials had to have known that no charges would turn a volatile situation dangerous, according to Slate.
There’s no guarantee the charges will stick. Take the case of the killer of Rekia Boyd—an off-duty Chicago cop who fired into a group of people, believing one had reached for a gun, and killed the unarmed Boyd. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter.
He was acquitted.
But if the problem of police violence is, in part, a problem of accountability, then the charges are important, regardless of what comes next.
In so many words, the city of Baltimore has said that these officers were wrong: and that Freddie Gray’s life mattered and that wearing a badge doesn’t mean you’re not responsible.
MSNBC
MSNBC speaks with Danielle, a Baltimore local who believes “this is a time that we really need to come together,” and expresses frustration at the media’s lack of attention to peaceful protests in Baltimore in the days before the violence.
Freddie Gray died on April 19th of this year.
Six Baltimore Police officers who were charged Friday in the death of Freddie Gray: Officer Caesar Goodson; Lt. Brian Rice; Sgt. Alicia White; Officer Garrett Miller; Officer William Porter; and Officer Edward Nero.
According to The New York Times, the officers who were arrested, three white and three black, include a lieutenant with 17 years on the force, several near-rookies and a woman who had just been promoted to sergeant.
The most serious charges were brought against Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., who was driving the van that carried Mr. Gray to a police station after his April 12 arrest. Along with involuntary manslaughter, Officer Goodson, 45, was charged with “second-degree depraved heart murder,” which means indifference to human life.
According to The Baltimore Sun, the other officers were charged 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.
CNN
CNN talks to Felicia Pearson, who portrayed “Snoop” on the television series “The Wire” about the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Pearson refers to Gray having a “pocket knife,” which is not illegal. However, a spring-loaded “switchblade” knife is.
Last month, Baltimore City police wrote in court documents that Freddie Gray was arrested “without force or incident” for having a “switchblade knife.”
According to the Associated Press, the State’s Attorney of Baltimore Marilyn Mosby states that the knife was not a switchblade and was legal.
The knife was found “clipped to Gray’s pants pocket,” states the Associated Press.
NBC called the knife a “folding knife” that was folded in. In other words, it was a pocket knife.
NBC: “Mosby says the knife was not a switchblade, but was ‘folded in,’ which is legal under Maryland law.”
The police account of the knife is provided in charging documents filed in District Court, where officer Garrett Miller wrote that Gray was stopped because he “fled unprovoked upon noticing police presence.”
(Updated article)
Secular Talk
On Thursday, Fox News police contributor Bo Dietl suggested that Freddie Gray be given a toxicology examination because he may have taken drugs that caused him to slip and fall in the van and injure himself. Freddie Gray is the man from Baltimore, Maryland, who recently had his spinal cord injured while being arrested.
Wikipedia: “Richard A. “Bo” Dietl (born December 4, 1950) is a former New York City Police Department detective and a media personality known for contributing on the Fox News Network and Imus in the Morning.”
The Young Turks
Baltimore’s chief prosecutor Marilyn J. Mosby charged six police officers on Friday with a range of crimes including murder and manslaughter in the arrest and fatal injury of Freddie Gray.
The Young Turks looks at the charges against police who murdered Freddie Gray.
Baltimore headed into a weekend of rallies on Saturday after six police officers were charged for the arrest of a 25-year-old black man, who died in a hospital after being assaulted by police and taken away in a police van. Whose death led to rioting earlier in the week. Reuters described the mood as “jubilant.”
Demonstrations are expected to continue around the United States through the weekend, and a massive rally is planned for Baltimore city hall with marchers leaving from the Gilmor Homes housing projects where the victim, Freddie Gray, was arrested.
Many in the largely black city erupted with joy on Friday after the officers were charged with crimes ranging from murder to assault and misconduct in Gray’s death on April 19th from severe spinal injuries while under police custody at a hospital.
Baltimore has largely followed the 10 p.m. curfew put in place after unrest that broke out after Gray’s funeral. Dozens of buildings and vehicles were burned, 20 police officers were injured and more than 200 people were arrested in that unrest.
U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, who represents the area where Gray died and has worked to calm Baltimore’s streets the past four nights, said he was glad to see charges filed.
“It feels good, it’s a relief,” he said. “They have to let it play out. It will take time. But so often there are no charges and the process never begins.”
ABC7 WJLA
Is local news giving more information than national news about Freddie Gray?
ABC7 is a local channel in Washington D.C., about 40 miles from Baltimore, Maryland. The national news reports are giving very little details about what happened in the transport van. ABC7 WJLA states they spoke with multiple law enforcement sources after those sources were briefed on a police report that was turned over to prosecutors Thursday.
(Updated article)
OK, Fine. 