Maryland State Troopers Sent to Freddie Gray Protests
Gray, 25, died Sunday, one week after he was arrested. His family’s lawyer and activists blame police brutality for the neck injury that led to Gray’s death.
William Murphy, a lawyer for Gray’s family, said Gray’s spine was 80 percent severed at the neck while in police custody.
He added Gray was healthy before his arrest “without any evidence he had committed a crime,” and that “his take-down and arrest without probable cause occurred under a police video camera, which taped everything including the police dragging and throwing Freddy into a police vehicle while he screamed in pain.”
Protests in Baltimore began Saturday and have remained largely peaceful, Hogan said. A crowd of several hundred gathered in front of the western district police station Wednesday.
“There’s raw emotions. People legitimately have concerns, and the community is out in force protesting,” Hogan told the Baltimore Sun. “I want to thank the folks involved in that. So far it has been peaceful. We want to try to keep things under control. The last thing we need is more violence in Baltimore City.”
He said Baltimore city police would remain on the front lines of crowd control and state troopers would only be in place to help when asked.
Protests were further inflamed after a statement from the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3 compared the demonstrations to a “lynch mob.”
“While we appreciate the right of our citizens to protest and applaud the fact that, to date, the protests have been peaceful, we are very concerned about the rhetoric of the protests,” the statement read. “In fact, the images seen on television look and sound much like a lynch mob in that they are calling for the immediate imprisonment of these officers without them ever receiving the due process that is the constitutional right of every citizen, including law enforcement officers.”
The statement was criticized for drawing comparisons between mostly nonviolent demonstrations and the use of lynching for the extrajudicial killings of African-Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department announced a civil rights investigation into Gray’s death Tuesday.
“The Department of Justice has been monitoring the developments in Baltimore, Md., regarding the death of Freddie Gray. Based on preliminary information, the Department of Justice has officially opened this matter and is gathering information to determine whether any prosecutable civil rights violation occurred,” Justice Department Spokeswoman Dena W. Iverson said in a statement.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake promised a response Sunday, saying, “How was Mr. Gray injured? Were our proper protocols and procedures actually followed? What are the next steps? Right now, we’re still collecting details surrounding the incident, but I want our residents to know that we will get the answers.”
Police will organize a task force to investigate, Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said. The six officers involved in the incident were suspended with pay Monday pending the outcome of the investigation.
The Baltimore Police Department on Tuesday released the names of the officers who have been suspended:
— Lt. Brian Rice, 41, with the BPD since 1997
— Sgt. Alicia White, 30, with the BPD since 2010
— Officer William Porter, 25, with the BPD since 2012
— Officer Garrett Miller, 26, with the BPD since 2012
— Officer Edward Nero, 29, with the BPD since 2012
— Officer Caesar Goodson, 45, with the BPD since 1999
A timeline of events, prepared by police, indicated Gray was stopped on the morning of April 12 by four bicycle officers for an undisclosed offense, and that Gray ran from them. He was caught and restrained, and conscious when he was put into a police van.
Medics were called after the van reached the nearby police station, and Gray was hospitalized immediately thereafter.
