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http://abcnews.go.com/US/freddie-grays- ... d=30728026" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's going to be interesting for sure. We won't know all the facts until it goes to trial. Going to be a lot of speculation and I'm not going to have an opinion until the facts are revealed. I'm betting many of the charges will change as time goes on. Some of this may be grandstanding to try and stop the rioting and protest.

Seems to be a political proscution, on the surface.

If I was a police officer in Baltimore I'd see if there were openings in Texas.

philip964 wrote:Seems to be a political proscution, on the surface.

I don't yet agree.

Was the guy arrested without probable cause? Seems to be so.
Was he placed in the van in (relatively) healthy condition only to come out with a broken neck that resulted in his death?
Do you believe that someone can self-inflict a broken neck? I believe it's very hard to do but not impossible.

So... given the limited facts at hand... is there "probable cause" for charges? Seems so to me.

Are the charges reasonable? Are they really going to make a murder charge (requires intent) stick? Seems unlikely, given the little I know today.
I might agree that the extent of charges are politically motivated... but there seems to be evidence of negligence, possibly rising to manslaughter.
I'm not on the grand jury, so, I really know nothing. Feel free to disagree.

RoyGBiv wrote:

philip964 wrote:Seems to be a political proscution, on the surface.

I don't yet agree.

Was the guy arrested without probable cause? Seems to be so.
Was he placed in the van in (relatively) healthy condition only to come out with a broken neck that resulted in his death?
Do you believe that someone can self-inflict a broken neck? I believe it's very hard to do but not impossible.

So... given the limited facts at hand... is there "probable cause" for charges? Seems so to me.

Are the charges reasonable? Are they really going to make a murder charge (requires intent) stick? Seems unlikely, given the little I know today.
I might agree that the extent of charges are politically motivated... but there seems to be evidence of negligence, possibly rising to manslaughter.
I'm not on the grand jury, so, I really know nothing. Feel free to disagree.

I read somewhere today that the investigation has turned up video evidence of at least two stops made while transporting the deceased that were ommitted from all of the officers statements. There is more to the story than we know. Hopefully the whole truth is revealed and if punishment is warranted it is doled out justly.

We don't want or need Baltimore cops in Texas. Any Maryland cops.

anygunanywhere wrote:We don't want or need Baltimore cops in Texas. Any Maryland cops.

I don't know anything about Baltimore or Maryland other than you can buy an inside the loop house for $13,000 in Baltimore.

RoyGBiv wrote:

philip964 wrote:Seems to be a political proscution, on the surface.

I don't yet agree.

Was the guy arrested without probable cause? Seems to be so.

Apparently, he was contacted (i.e. tackled) by the popo because (a) he made eye contact with the officer and then (b) he ran, indicating the fact that he was guilty of something or other. Unfortunately for the officers, that's not codified in the Maryland statutes.

After the initial contact was made, one of the officers, during the subsequent search of the body, found a knife, and arrested him for being in the possession of an illegal weapon. But the DA says the knife was legal. Thus, an invalid arrest.

RoyGBiv wrote:Was he placed in the van in (relatively) healthy condition only to come out with a broken neck that resulted in his death?

In the video, you can see him stand up on the back bumper of the paddy wagon (Did you know that it was in Boston where the Paddy Wagon got its moniker - taking poor dumb Irishmen to the pokey!). He was apparently in control of his body at that point. The officers admit that they didn't belt him in, in violation of the state statute which requires everyone in a moving vehicle to be belted in, and in violation of department rules/regs that require prisoners to be belted in for their safety.

And, don't forget that the arrestee asked for medical assistance, and was denied, apparently not only once, but three times. An officer takes on a lot of liability when he diagnoses a person as not being in need of a medical facility by his eyeballs - most officers down here (at least the ones that I worked with for 25 years), would have called for EMS to come and check him out, at least. We were the ones that got paid to take that responsibility.

RoyGBiv wrote:Do you believe that someone can self-inflict a broken neck? I believe it's very hard to do but not impossible.

Yep - I've seen it happen to a jailed inmate before, but this guy took a header off the top bunk at the old Fort Worth jail - about 6' off the ground, landing on his head.

I find it hard to believe that Baltimore would run Paddy Wagons that had bolts that stuck out from the inside of the van (the current report this morning was that one of those exposed bolts exactly matches the wound on the back of Freddy's neck where the injury site was found - indicating that it was a self-inflicted wound). Not impossible, of course, but knowing what kind of liability such an exposed bolt would be, it's hard to believe that it wasn't covered or welded over into a less hazardous mound.

RoyGBiv wrote:So... given the limited facts at hand... is there "probable cause" for charges? Seems so to me.

Are the charges reasonable? Are they really going to make a murder charge (requires intent) stick? Seems unlikely, given the little I know today.
I might agree that the extent of charges are politically motivated... but there seems to be evidence of negligence, possibly rising to manslaughter.
I'm not on the grand jury, so, I really know nothing. Feel free to disagree.

While I agree with you that the charges might be political, at least for some of the six officers, that doesn't necessarily make them unreasonable. The union asked the DA to decline to prosecute all of the officers involved - was that a political request? Sure! Doesn't mean it wasn't expected or reasonable for a union rep to ask.

I admit that I had some time, this morning, to surf the web a little more than usual, and did a lot of reading about the case, since I hadn't had much time to catch the news in the last week or so up to then and didn't really know much about what had gone on. From my Friday afternoon chair, it sounds like the driver of the Paddy wagon, the officers who put Freddy into the van, and the arresting officer have the most to worry about... charging all six officers involved seems a stretch.

n5wd wrote:...
I admit that I had some time, this morning, to surf the web a little more than usual, and did a lot of reading about the case, since I hadn't had much time to catch the news in the last week or so up to then and didn't really know much about what had gone on. From my Friday afternoon chair, it sounds like the driver of the Paddy wagon, the officers who put Freddy into the van, and the arresting officer have the most to worry about... charging all six officers involved seems a stretch.

I have a question for you. There was (reportedly) another prisoner that said he heard Gray banging into the walls of the wagon. I'm sure we've all seen videos on Cops (and similar shows) where stupid arrestee's start banging their heads against car hoods, walls, etc.

What if Gray was doing something like this inside of the van, and the driver took a sudden turn (or stop, or start, depending on where the bolt was), and Gray's planned 6 inch head banger turned into a 4 foot lurch across the van?

Personally, I think a conviction against any of the officers is probably going to be hard to get.

I'm also bothered by the conduct of the city's prosecutor. At the end of her statement she said:

Last but certainly not least, to the youth of the city. I will seek justice on your behalf. This is a moment. This is your moment.

Why??? Why is the "your moment" for the youth of the city? Yes, Gray was a relatively young man, but I've never heard a prosecutor of any sort use that type of rhetoric for a case. It has nothing to do with facts, but is merely a rabble-rousing political statement.

Now look at the end of the statement:

Let’s insure we have peaceful and productive rallies that will develop structural and systemic changes for generations to come. You’re at the forefront of this cause and as young people, our time is now.

Why did she switch to "our time" (previously, she had specifically said "your time").

There's very little doubt in my mind that she's pushing for a cause. I bet the attorneys for the police involved are going to have a field day with her statements.

http://100percentfedup.com/states-attor ... ys-arrest/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

According to this article ( I cannot vouch for the source) Freddy Gray had an outstanding warrant.

If that is the case, then all the false imprisonment charges would be dropped?

It would seem that this information would almost have to be made up as a DA would have to be stupid to make such a charge. Or if there was a warrant but they really didn't know about it till later is a get out of jail free card?

If my memory escapes me, it seems lots of people are falsely arrested for lets say legal photography and later released, but no police offices are charged with false imprisonment.

This smells political.

Most people vote with their feet. I'm afraid if I lived in Baltimore I'd give it one election and if it didn't change I'd be gone.

philip964 wrote: If my memory escapes me, it seems lots of people are falsely arrested for lets say legal photography and later released, but no police offices are charged with false imprisonment.
Most people vote with their feet. I'm afraid if I lived in Baltimore I'd give it one election and if it didn't change I'd be gone.

I don't get that either. I assume that it's usually not prosecuted due to qualified immunity, meaning that you'd have to prove that the officers intent was willful and a known violation of the law versus a "whoops".
The other broken part of this system is that we require that police officers and our prosecuting attorneys work together frequently and often. Asking those attorneys to prosecute the people that they work with every single day and will have to work with tomorrow creates an interesting situation... Personally, I think that someone "else" should prosecute the police - someone without that history and someone who doesn't need their assistance in the future.

I've been to Baltimore... Not a place that's on my bucket list to go back to.

philip964 wrote:Seems to be a political proscution, on the surface.

If I was a police officer in Baltimore I'd see if there were openings in Texas.

I'm kind of thinking that because this has been an extremely quiet investigation, because it is going to be done with IA, and because the charges are specific to each officer, this is probably diligent police work. Now the way they will be paraded around will likely be political, but that is to be expected. I'm interested to see what else comes out of this. For example, was there some sort of coverup by other officers? Hopefully not.

Lack of safety/seat belt, failing to have him checked over at the jail/holding facility, that's negligence. I doubt it's criminal, but it's certainly gonna land them in hot water with IA, and it's fodder for any civil suit.
Supposedly making unannounced/unreported stops? Could have been anything from pulling over to tell him to knock off the banging, to grabbing food at a drive-through (not really kosher), to "tuning up" the disruptive prisoner (definitely not kosher, but I doubt this was the case... at least I hope not).
The media frenzy over the whole thing, however, is likely to "poison the well." The officers involved have a -very- good claim now that any investigation will NOT be partial, and can sue the department for an injust investigation and politically-biased results. If IA has any brains, they will realize this - which will poison the well in the opposite direction.
Add to all this the supposed warrant vs. the supposed unjustified stop, the potential for self-inflicted injuries, testimony from a fellow prisoner to the same, the deceased's extensive criminal history (something like 20 arrests in the past four years alone, not counting whatever "acquaintance" he may have made with the cops somewhere in his juvenile record), and the political frenzy from the mayor, district attorney, race-baiters, rabble-rousers, and a whole host of other disquieting factors, and I am -very- glad I'm not one of the people tasked with investigation of this case.

I'm predicting the officers -will- be charged, but they will -not- be convicted. If they are, they'll have a very good case for retrial, just as they'd have a very good case for biased investigation, no matter what Internal Affairs does.

It's a mess, and the whole hoopla in Baltimore is just making it worse.

I had heard that during the arrest an officer had put his knee into Freddie's back as his arms were pulled back to get under control. And that much or all of the officer's weight was on that knee. However, I've also heard that injuries sustained during the arrest were non-life threatening and that those were sustained while inside the van. If that is true, they could be self inflicted or as a result of a seizure. I wonder if that can be distinguished pot-mortem. So, if none of the fatal injuries happened during the arrest, the only thing they've got to prosecute them for at all is the failure to buckle him in inside the van.

Is that about it? Am I missing something?