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BALTIMORE — Six police officers were charged Friday in the death of Freddie Gray as Baltimore’s top prosecutor acted with surprising swiftness in a case that ignited protests and rioting here. She described how Gray allegedly was arrested illegally, treated callously by the officers, and suffered a severe spine injury in the back of a police van while his pleas for medical help were ignored.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby publicly delivered her stunning, detailed narrative of extensive police misconduct in the latest of several cases nationwide that have fueled anger over heavy-handed law enforcement tactics in low-income communities.
Her decision to file charges brought joy and relief to low-income West Baltimore and beyond, at least temporarily. By nightfall, thousands of residents had taken to the streets in peaceful demonstrations.
One officer is accused of second-degree murder, and three others were charged with manslaughter.
“To the people of Baltimore and the demonstrators across America, I have heard your call of ‘No justice, no peace,’ ” Mosby declared. Her announcement of the charges came after days of angry yet nonviolent marches in the city and overnight rioting and looting on Monday, mostly in West Baltimore.
“Your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of this young man,” Mosby said of Gray, 25, who died in a hospital April 19 — a week after three of the officers took him into custody on a West Baltimore street in what Mosby said was an illegal arrest. She said Gray was carrying a folding knife, which is legal in Maryland.
Gray’s family said it was “satisfied” by the filing of the charges. Richard Shipley, Gray’s stepfather, also issued a plea for demonstrators to assemble peacefully this weekend.
“Where there is no justice, there is no peace,” Shipley said. “But let us have peace in pursuit of justice.”
An attorney for Baltimore’s police union reacted angrily to the charges, calling them “an egregious rush to judgment” and saying that “these officers did nothing wrong.”
Except for the allegedly illegal arrest — which resulted in false- imprisonment charges against the three officers who first encountered Gray — allegations in the case stem not so much from what the six officers did to Gray as from what they failed to do after he was taken into custody the morning of April 12.
Mosby said Gray, in handcuffs, was placed in the back of a police van but was not secured by a seat belt, as required by police rules. At one point during a trip that involved four stops, he was removed from the van and then put back in “on his stomach, headfirst, onto the floor,” Mosby said. After the first stop, Gray “suffered a severe and critical neck injury as a result of being handcuffed, shackled by his feet and unrestrained” by a seat belt, she said.
///The accused Baltimore officers are Lt. Brian W. Rice, 41, a 17-year member of the force; Sgt. Alicia D. White, 30, who joined the department in 2010; Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., 45, a member of the department for 16 years; and Officers Garrett E. Miller, 26, Edward M. Nero, 29, and William G. Porter, 25, all of whom joined the force in 2012.
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