Police shooting of unarmed teen leads to protests and Riot

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

The cops in the Freddie Gray case have been charged. One with 2nd degree murder.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/mar...ry.html#page=1

Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., 45, who was the driver of a police van that carried Gray through the streets of Baltimore, was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter, second-degree assault, two vehicular manslaughter charges and misconduct in office. A man who answered the phone at Goodson's home declined to comment and hung up the phone.

Officer William Porter, 25, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault and misconduct in office.

Lt. Brian Rice, 41, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault and misconduct in office.

Sgt. Alicia White, 30, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault and misconduct in office.

Officer Edward Nero, 29, was charged with second-degree assault and misconduct in office.

Officer Garrett Miller, 26, was charged with second-degree assault, misconduct in office and false imprisonment.

If convicted of all charges, Goodson would face up to 63 years in prison. Rice would face up to 30 years and Porter, Nero, Miller and White would face up to 20 years.

Bet this was the guy was the officer refusing to co-operate.

[CaptainCrunch]

Wait didn't just one guy die?
How is he being charged with a murder, a manslaughter and two vehicular manslaughter charges?

I wonder how much riot fear contributed to these lists of charges.

[combustiblefuel]

http://news.yahoo.com/freddie-gray-s...124521845.html

A law enforcement official told the Washington Post that this was not the 25-year-old man's only injury, and that his wounds were consistent with those generally seen in car crashes.

Multiple police sources told WJLA that the head wound corresponds with a bolt in the back of the vehicle, and that the impact broke Gray's neck.

The witness speaks out

The Washington Post reported that the prisoner, who could not see Gray because they were separated by a metal partition, thought that the young man "was intentionally trying to injure himself" by "banging against the walls."

The D.C. paper found this account in an application for a search warrant that had been sealed by the court. Authorities were reportedly seeking the uniform one of the arresting officers wore the day of Gray's arrest.

But Donta Allen, who identified himself as the man in the van with Gray, told WJZ-TV that the report is inaccurate and that he just heard "a little banging."

"And they trying to make it seem like I told them that, I made it like Freddie Gray did that to hisself [sic]," Allen said to the station. "Why the f--- would he do that to hisself [sic]?"

Police revealed that the van made a stop on the way to the station that was not appropriately logged. Gray died in a hospital one week later

Arresting officer mental state

A report from the Carroll County, Md., Sheriff's Office, obtained by The Associated Press, indicates that one of the officers suspended following Gray's death has had his mental stability called into question.

Lt. Brian Rice, the officer who initially pursued Gray, had been hospitalized in April 2012 over mental health concerns; at the time, he reportedly said he "could not continue to go on like this" and threatened to commit an act that was censored from the public version of the report.

[pylon]

So by the looks of things, I would assume the vehicular manslaughter charge would be a result of him giving the guy a rough ride, or slamming on the brakes to smash him around in the van. At least that would be my guess.

If so, the police officers involved in this, deserve everything they get in Prison. "To serve and protect." not "To enforce and punish."

I hope they get everything coming to them and more for allowing this to happen, regardless of how bad of a person Freddie was.

[combustiblefuel]

http://nytimes.com/2015/05/02/us/fre..._r=0&referrer=

The state’s attorney for Baltimore, Marilyn J. Mosby, filed the charges almost as soon as she received a medical examiner’s report that ruled Mr. Gray’s death a homicide, and a day after the police concluded their initial investigation and handed over their findings. Officials had cautioned that it could take considerable time for her office to complete its own investigation and decide whether to prosecute.

Ms. Mosby said that Mr. Gray suffered a fatal spinal injury on April 12 while being transported in a police van — and not earlier, while being arrested — and pointed to the failure of the police to put a seatbelt on him as a crucial factor. “Mr. Gray suffered a critical neck injury as a result of being handcuffed, shackled by his feet and unrestrained inside the BPD wagon,” she said, referring to the police van.

Despite repeated stops to check on Mr. Gray, the van driver, Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., and other officers never belted him in, she said, at times leaving him facedown on the van floor with his hands behind him. Though there has been speculation that the police intentionally gave Mr. Gray a “rough ride,” intended to slam him against the metal walls of the van, Ms. Mosby did not refer to that possibility. She charged only Officer Goodson with second-degree murder, the most serious crime facing the six officers; he was also accused of manslaughter, assault and misconduct in office.

Mr. Gray started his fateful ride lying on the floor of the police van, Ms. Mosby said. A short time later, Officer Goodson “proceeded to the back of the wagon in order to observe Mr. Gray,” she said, though she did not say why.

“At no point did he seek, nor did he render, any medical help for Mr. Gray,” the prosecutor said.

A few blocks later, he called a dispatcher to say that he needed help checking on his prisoner. Another officer arrived, and the back of the van was opened. “Mr. Gray at that time said that he needed help and indicated that he could not breathe,” and asked twice for a medic, Ms. Mosby said. While the officers helped him onto the bench in the back of the van, she said, they still did not belt him in.

While they were there, she said, a call went out for a van to pick up and transport another person who had been arrested. “Despite Mr. Gray’s obvious and recognized need for assistance,” Ms. Mosby said, Officer Goodson answered that call, an act she called “grossly negligent.”

[Antithesis]

And the chief of police (or the head of the union, can't recall), in a remarkably tone-deaf response, argues against the indictment, claiming the officers didn't do anything wrong.

[Mr.Coffee]

if the chief of police thinks nothing was wrong with what happened, that city has bigger... much, much bigger problems (thanks captain obvious- but still felt needed saying).

[wittynickname]

From the Baltimore Sun article previously linked in this thread:

She also said his arrest was illegal, performed without probable cause. A knife found in his pocket was not an illegal switchblade, as police had previously reported, Mosby said.

So not only did the officers--at the very least--neglect to properly restrain this man in the police van, but they also wrongly arrested him. And then they lied that the man was carrying an illegal switchblade. The man didn't even warrant being arrested, and now he's dead.

And then the police chief claims they did nothing wrong?

This is why people don't trust police. Standing up for their own despite much evidence to the contrary.

[Resolute 14]

Obviously unaware of the irony, racists decry the charges against the cops as being racist:

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/this...altimore-cops/

[Acey]

3 of the 6 charged cops are black. State's attorney is black. Is this relevant? Noteworthy at the very least.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by Antithesis

And the chief of police (or the head of the union, can't recall), in a remarkably tone-deaf response, argues against the indictment, claiming the officers didn't do anything wrong.

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

if the chief of police thinks nothing was wrong with what happened, that city has bigger... much, much bigger problems (thanks captain obvious- but still felt needed saying).

Its the Head of the Union making these claims.

The Police Commissioner said the were negligent with not calling for medical assistance as well as if the officers caused harm they will be dealt with.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by icecube

Far less offensive than someone dumb enough to think that Black's, Latinos and North America's indigenous people are in the lowest caste of society (generally speaking) because they just don't work as hard as the immigrants do. Yep, nothing to do with the intergenerational impacts of things like slavery, assimilation policies and other ongoing forms of systemic racism. It's just because they're inherently lazy and dumber!

You're right, it's not as bad as that. I wasn't trying to equalize it to that either though. And to back pedal a little, what I articulated as lack of motivation to try, I really meant feelings of hopelessness. They are related ideas as people who feel the system is against them are more likely to feel hopeless and people without hope have little reason to want to play within that system.

I would compare it more to like when people say that someone is good at sprinting or basketball because they are black, or that Asians are successful in business because they are good at math. Those types of statements diminish the hard work of people who are successful and also insinuate that people of those races that aren't successful are bigger failures.

I get it though, it's satire and hyperbole and it certainly makes a valid point about African Americans being historically underprivileged. The system is certainly not set up to benefit people without resources and there is no denying that African Americans are disproportionally represented in that group.

[PsYcNeT]

Saw this posted earlier on another site, but the Fraternity Of Police in Baltimore is trying to crowdfund a defense for the officers:

https://twitter.com/FOP3/status/594238017201676288

Their GoFundMe was shut down, so now they're searching for other avenues.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Pretty interesting breakdown of what each officer did (or didn't do). One charged with 'second-degree depraved-heart murder'.

"Depraved heart means he intentionally, willfully and deliberately acted with depraved indifference to human life," she said.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/01/us/fre...ons/index.html

[combustiblefuel]

Baltimore Mayor laying down the law.
Video in link.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/mar...501-story.html

In this Case in particular there must be some real shocking things tht we have not seen yet in the autopsy report. The Mayor,Police commissioner and State prosecutor have condemed the actions of these officer's in public with some real emotion. It is extremely rare to see .

[combustiblefuel]

Kevin Moore the man who filmed Freddie Grays' arrest was arrested at gun point.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-10217973.html

Kevin Moore, the man who filmed Freddie Gray's brutal arrest, has now himself been arrested following "harassment and intimidation" from Baltimore police.

Arrest comes in spite of his cooperation with the police

[longsuffering]

I stumbled across this story from Toronto Life. It's well written and I encourage everyone to take the time to read it. It was an eye-opener for me.

As 55 year old white man, other than at a check stop, I've never been randomly stopped and asked to produce ID.

The Skin I’m In: I've been interrogated by police more than 50 times—all because I'm black

At Queen’s, I was one of about 80 black undergrads out of 16,000. In second year, when I moved into the student village, I started noticing cops following me in my car. At first, I thought I was being paranoid—I began taking different roads to confirm my suspicions. No matter which route I took, there was usually a police cruiser in my rear-view mirror. Once I felt confident I was being followed, I became convinced that if I went home, the police would know where I lived and begin following me there too. I’d drive around aimlessly, taking streets I didn’t know.

I had my first face-to-face interaction with the Kingston police a few months into second year, when I was walking my friend Sara, a white woman, back to her house after a party. An officer stopped us, then turned his back to me and addressed Sara directly. “Miss, do you need assistance?” he asked her. Sara was stunned into silence. “No,” she said twice—once to the officer, and once to reassure herself that everything was all right. As he walked away, we were both too shaken to discuss what had happened, but in the following days we recounted the incident many times over, as if grasping to remember if it had really occurred. The fact that my mere presence could cause an armed stranger to feel threatened on Sara’s behalf shocked me at first, but shock quickly gave way to bitterness and anger.

About a decade ago, the Toronto Police Service established carding, a controversial practice that disproportionately targets young black men and documents our activities across the city. According to police parlance, it’s a voluntary interaction with people who are not suspected of a crime. Cops stop us on the street, demand identification, and catalogue our race, height, weight and eye colour. Until early this year, these fill-in-the-blanks forms—known as Field Information Reports—also had slots to identify a civilian as a “gang member” or “associate”; to record a person’s body markings, facial hair and cellphone number; and, for minors, to indicate whether their parents were divorced or separated. All that information lives in a top-secret database, ostensibly in the interest of public safety, but the police have never provided any evidence to show how carding reduces or solves crime. They’ve also failed to justify carding’s excessive focus on black men. The Toronto Star crunched the numbers and found that in 2013, 25 per cent of people carded were black. At that time, I was 17 times more likely than a white person to be carded in Toronto’s downtown core.

In a recent report to the Toronto Police Services Board, residents in 31 Division, which includes several low-income and racialized neighbourhoods in northwest Toronto, were candid about their views of police. Many said our cops disrespect them, stop them without cause and promote a climate of constant surveillance in their neighbourhoods. Some respondents to the TPSB survey said they now avoid certain areas within their own neighbourhoods for fear of encountering police. Black respondents were most likely to report that police treated them disrespectfully, intimidated them or said they fit the description of a criminal suspect. “Police are supposed to serve and protect, but it always feels like a battle between us and them,” one survey participant said.

I have been stopped, if not always carded, at least 50 times by the police in Toronto, Kingston and across southern Ontario. By now, I expect it could happen in any neighbourhood, day or night, whether I am alone or with friends. These interactions don’t scare me anymore. They make me angry. Because of that unwanted scrutiny, that discriminatory surveillance, I’m a prisoner in my own city.

I was carded for the first time in 2007. I was walking my bike on the sidewalk on Bathurst Street just south of Queen. I was only steps from my apartment when a police officer exited his car and approached me. “It’s illegal to ride your bike on the sidewalk,” he informed me. “I know, officer, that’s why I’m walking it,” I replied edgily. Then the cop asked me for ID. After sitting in front of the computer inside his car for a few minutes, the officer returned nonchalantly and said, “Okay, you’re all set.” I wanted to tell him off, but thought better of it and went home. I still don’t know what he saw when he ran my name.

Over the next seven years, I was carded at least a dozen times. One summer evening in 2008, two friends and I were stopped while walking at night in a laneway just north of my apartment, only a few hundred metres from where I was carded the first time. Two officers approached in their cruiser, briefly turning on their siren to get our attention. Once they got out of the car, they asked us what we were doing. “We’re just walking, bro,” I said. The cops immediately asked all of us to produce identification. While one officer took our drivers’ licences back to his car, the other got on his radio. I heard him say the word “supervisor,” and my stomach turned. Within 60 seconds, a second cruiser, marked S2, arrived in the laneway, and the senior officer at the wheel got out to join his colleagues.

The officer who had radioed for backup returned and asked us to empty our pockets. As the supervisor watched, the radio officer approached us one at a time, took our change and wallets and inspected them. He was extremely calm, as if he was thoroughly accustomed to this routine. “I’m going to search each of you now to make sure you didn’t miss anything,” he explained. I knew it was my legal right to refuse, but I couldn’t muster the courage to object.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

I stumbled across this story from Toronto Life. It's well written and I encourage everyone to take the time to read it. It was an eye-opener for me.

As 55 year old white man, other than at a check stop, I've never been randomly stopped and asked to produce ID.

The Skin I’m In: I've been interrogated by police more than 50 times—all because I'm black

I'm white and have been stopped and harassed by the police 4 times so far in my life for what to me seemed completely random questioning. Two of those times the police were quite mean and I was asked to provide ID.

The worst incident is when I was returning a video to a video store after hours. They assumed that I was trying to break in and apprehended me until they could do a background check.

There was another time where I ran out of gas in a rural area and had to walk several kilometers down a rural road to a gas station. The police drove by and made me sit in the cop car so they could verify that I wasn't wanted for anything. At the time I was at least happy because I thought once they realized that I had no record, that they would at least drive me into town, but nope.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I'm white and have been stopped and harassed by the police 4 times so far in my life for what to me seemed completely random questioning. Two of those times the police were quite mean and I was asked to provide ID.

The worst incident is when I was returning a video to a video store after hours. They assumed that I was trying to break in and apprehended me until they could do a background check.

There was another time where I ran out of gas in a rural area and had to walk several kilometers down a rural road to a gas station. The police drove by and made me sit in the cop car so they could verify that I wasn't wanted for anything. At the time I was at least happy because I thought once they realized that I had no record, that they would at least drive me into town, but nope.

So what?

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

So what?

Just saying, police bullying happens all the time and no one is off limits.