The Freddie Gray Case: The Proof is in the Pudding

Vote, they told us. We did that.

Stop rioting, they told us. We did that, too.

Let the justice system do their job, they told us. We even did that.

Be patient, they told us. Well, we've been doing that for more than a century.

And still . . .

And still . . .

I don't know that I've ever cried while writing a blog post before, but I'm crying now. Tears of sadness and tears of frustration -- mixed in with a liberal amount of tears of anger.

Freddie Gray

As of four hours ago, all of the charges have been dropped against the officers involved in the Freddie Gray case. The officers involved in the murder of 25-year-old Freddie Gray.

It was April 12, 2015 around 9:15 in the morning when it happened. Freddie Gray was minding his business, walking in his Baltimore neighborhood. Police Lt. Brian Rice and police officers Garrett Miller and Edward Nero were on bike patrol. Gray caught Rice's eye, and according to the police lieutenant, took off running.
The police gave chase, and tackled Gray to the ground. They found a knife, blade folded into the handle, clipped to the inside of Gray's front pocket and arrested him. Gray, who suffered from asthma, asked for an inhaler, but was ignored. Bystanders videotaped the arrest on cellphones -- the young man did not appear to be hurt when the officers placed him, handcuffed into the police van -- which had two benches, each with five sets of seat belts.

Typical Baltimore Police Van

A short while later, the driver --  Caesar Goodson --  stops the van, and Rice, Miller, and Nero get out and pull Gray from the van to place flex cuffs on his wrists and leg shackles on his ankles. Then they place him -- headfirst and on his stomach -- back into the van.
Ever heard of a Rough Ride? Or a Nickle Ride?
They are terms for a form of police brutality that officers can inflict without ever laying a hand on a person.
They simply handcuff/shackle a suspect and place him/her in the back of a police van. Then the driver of the van then starts speeding on bumpy roads, making series of sharp turns, coming to sudden stops -- all designed to throw the bound and helpless suspect around in the unpadded metal van.
There've been numerous cases where a nickle ride has resulted in serious injury to a suspect, including landing them in wheelchairs and led to multi-million dollar settlements around the country.
Records would show that the officers driving the police van made three stops before taking Freddy Gray to the police station; once to place shackles on Gray, the other to place another person in the back of the van with him.
When the van finally arrived at the police station Gray was found barely conscious. He was taken to the hospital (saying "rushed to the hospital" seems inappropriate here) and died a week later. His neck was broken. His vocal box was crushed. His spinal cord severed.
Despite extensive surgery, Gray died in the hospital on April 19th.
The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide, adding it is "believed to be the result of a fatal injury that occurred when Mr. Gray was unrestrained by a seat belt while in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department wagon."
There were Baltimore citizens who held protests about Freddie Gray's death, but that didn't really get any media coverage or attention.

Then there was rioting.
That caught a lot of attention. National media attention. All of a sudden everyone was paying attention to a death of the young guy in Baltimore. Time Magazine even had a cover devoted to it.
And Baltimore mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, held a press conference after the rioting and called the participants thugs.
They got things rolling, whatever she or anyone else might want to call them.
But after the Trayvon Martin case, the Michael Brown case, the Eric Garner case, and so many over the past five years, the community didn't really think there would be any justice for Freddie Gray's family.
But then on May, 1st, Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore City's State Attorney, held a dynamic press conference in which she announced charges against six police officers in connection with Gray's death -- the most serious charges being depraved-heart manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, and manslaughter by vehicle.
People began to hope, really hope . . .
Someone. Was. Finally. Going. To. Be. Held Accountable. For. Murdering. Our. Young. Black. Men. And. Women.
But then one officer's trial ended in a mistrial. Two other officers were tried and acquitted. The charges were dropped against all the officers earlier today -- July 27, 2016.
To say the community is stunned, hurt, and confused would be an understatement. Freddie Gray did not break his own neck, crush his own vocal box, and sever his own spine.
The officers admit that they did not seat-belt Freddie Gray although Baltimore Police policy dictated they should have.
They admittedly ignored Freddie Gray's repeated requests for medical assistance.
But no one was responsible for his death?
Not even a teeny-weeny bit responsible?
Give me a damn break!


And even Marilyn Mosby, in the press conference this morning announcing the dropping of the charges, was furious. She said there were police officers who were witnesses to the case, but still were appointed to the investigative team. Lead detectives, she said, were not only uncooperative, but actually started a counter-investigation to disprove the state's case.
"We can try this case this case 100 times, and cases just like it, and we would still end up with the same result," she said in a fiery tone.
Mosby went on to say that while justice may not have been done in this case, that at least the spotlight turned on it will prevent what happened to Freddie Gray from happening to others.
What?
I mean . . . What?
And now we're supposed to hang our hopes on that?
I'm sorry. I'm 58-years-old, and I've been fighting social injustice all my life. I've been to protests, I've witnessed riots. I've sat in on trials. I've written newspaper stories and editorials. All trying to get justice for the social injustices I see around me. What is it that you want me to now?
The people of Baltimore . . . they did everything they were supposed to do. Everything they could think of and everything society told them to do.
They used their voting power. At the time of Freddie Gray's death the mayor was Black, the police chief was Black, the city council was Black, the city's state attorney was Black, the U. S. congressman representing the district was Black . . . and you know the ethnicity of the U. S. president for whom Baltimore  overwhelmingly voted.
They held peaceful protests after Freddie Gray's death. Peaceful protests!
It was only when that failed to get attention that the rioting started. And then, when political and social leaders asked the city to stand down and wait to hear if charges would be brought, they did.
And when Marilyn Mosby said charges were being brought, and the young black men and women's voices were being heard, they believed her. They cheered her. And they waited for her to bring damn thing home.
But she didn't.
Because she couldn't.
Why?
Not only because the prosecution was rigged against us . . . that's seems obvious just listening to Mosby's own words . . . but more importantly, the whole damn system is rigged against us.
So, wait . . . what is it you would have us do now?
Never mind. I think it's time we decide for ourselves.

Law Enforcement's Message To Black Community

Posted to Philadelphia Daily News: Sunday, December 7, 2014, 3:01 AM

By Karen E. Quinones Miller 

IT WAS BACK in the 1960s, and I was living in Harlem. A white police officer chasing a criminal through the Foster Housing Projects fired at the man and missed. The bullet pierced the skull of a young African-American boy, a bystander.
That lone white officer was surrounded by scores of African-American and Latino residents, and you know what he did? He knelt down and scooped up the boy's lifeless body in his arms, and cried as if it were his own son whom he killed. And do you know what those many housing-project residents did? They tried to comfort the officer. And when the child's mother finally made it to the scene, they told her it was a horrible accident. Many of them then prayed - with the mother and the officer - over the boy's body before it was taken away a few minutes later to the city morgue.
That officer's grief didn't "unshoot" the boy, but it did something else I couldn't name as an 8-year-old watching the scene.
It wasn't until 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Mo., in August that I realized what that something else was. And how much it mattered.

Of course, it would be irrational for anyone to think that Darren Wilson, the officer who killed Brown, should get down on his knees and cry.
But it would also be irrational to believe that a community wouldn't be up-in-arms about the fact that Brown's body was left in the middle of a street - uncovered and unattended - for more than four hours in the hot August sun. Or that they wouldn't be upset witnessing the police refusing to let his distraught parents approach their dead son.
"Having raised two African-American males, the thought of that happening is just unfathomable," said Linda Richardson, a Philadelphia community activist I spoke with shortly after the incident. "I was just distraught looking at the video and screaming, 'When are they going to put something over him?' To show that kind of disrespect was just unreal and unbelievable."
If Richardson felt that way just watching the video, imagine how the people at the scene felt.
Patricia Bynes, a Democratic committeewoman in Ferguson, seemed to feel the same way as Richardson. She told reporters that it was "disrespectful" for the police to have left the body there in plain sight.
"It also sent the message from law enforcement that, 'We can do this to you any day, any time, in broad daylight, and there's nothing you can do about it.' "
The message sent by law enforcement - that was the "something else" that I couldn't articulate way back in the 1960s.
Harlem is no stranger to riots. They rioted in 1935, in 1943, in 1966, and again in 1968. And, yeah, we had a small riot (by Harlem standards) in Washington Heights, a neighborhood bordering Harlem. All of the riots were started in response to either a police shooting or police brutality.
Yes, Harlemites were veteran rioters. So why didn't they riot after that white police officer killed a very innocent young boy? Maybe because that police officer's very obvious grief sent a message that our feelings, our rights, our lives mattered to him.
Maybe the people in Ferguson did riot the day after Michael Brown was shot because they received a very different message.
In Wilson's testimony to the grand jury that decided whether he would be charged for killing Brown, he described the teenager as looking like a demon; not a human.
And although it's true the citizens of Ferguson - which is 67 percent African-American - were not privy to Wilson's testimony when the rioting started in August, they'd had bitter issues with their police force, which is 94 percent white.
Last year the Missouri Attorney General's Office released a report that said Ferguson police were twice as likely to arrest African-Americans during traffic stops than whites. The U.S. Justice Department is currently conducting a civil investigation to see if that police department has a pattern of using excessive force and/or racial profiling.
Hundreds of African-American citizens of Ferguson stood outside that August afternoon: Looking at the body of an unarmed teenager. Staring at the teenager's family, crying because they were not allowed to check to see if they body was really that of their child. Having their questions ignored by police who refused to give any information. Those citizens received a message that they had been receiving for years - that their feelings, their rights, and perhaps even their lives, meant little to the police.
It's a hard message to receive. A hard message not to answer.
The complete opposite of the message sent that 1960s Harlem summer.
Thank God.