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| Charges Dropped in Freddie Gray Case Against 3 Last Baltimore Officers | Charges Dropped in Freddie Gray Case Against 3 Last Baltimore Officers |
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| Prosecutors in Baltimore on Wednesday dropped all remaining charges against three city police officers awaiting trial in the death of Freddie Gray, ending one of the most closely watched — and unsuccessful — police prosecutions in the nation. | Prosecutors in Baltimore on Wednesday dropped all remaining charges against three city police officers awaiting trial in the death of Freddie Gray, ending one of the most closely watched — and unsuccessful — police prosecutions in the nation. |
| The decision brought a stunning end to a sweeping prosecution that began with criminal charges against six police officers last May, announced with the city still in the grips of violent protest after the death of Mr. Gray, who was found unresponsive and not breathing after he rode unsecured in a police transport wagon after his arrest on a bright morning in April 2015. Mr. Gray later died of a spinal cord injury. | The decision brought a stunning end to a sweeping prosecution that began with criminal charges against six police officers last May, announced with the city still in the grips of violent protest after the death of Mr. Gray, who was found unresponsive and not breathing after he rode unsecured in a police transport wagon after his arrest on a bright morning in April 2015. Mr. Gray later died of a spinal cord injury. |
| But prosecutors were unable to secure a single conviction during the first four trials, the first of which, for Officer William G. Porter, began in December and ended in a mistrial that led to months of delays. Officer Edward M. Nero, who participated in the initial arrest, was acquitted in May; Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., the driver of the vehicle in which Mr. Gray was transported, was acquitted in June; and another officer present for the initial arrest, Lt. Brian Rice, was acquitted earlier this month. | But prosecutors were unable to secure a single conviction during the first four trials, the first of which, for Officer William G. Porter, began in December and ended in a mistrial that led to months of delays. Officer Edward M. Nero, who participated in the initial arrest, was acquitted in May; Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., the driver of the vehicle in which Mr. Gray was transported, was acquitted in June; and another officer present for the initial arrest, Lt. Brian Rice, was acquitted earlier this month. |
| Mr. Gray’s death, and the protests that followed, catapulted Baltimore to the center of a national reckoning over race and policing. The state’s attorney, Marilyn J. Mosby, helped quell the unrest by announcing the prosecutions and telling protesters that she had heard their calls for “no justice, no peace.” | |
| The prosecutors’ decision to drop the remaining charges on Wednesday was disclosed during a pretrial motion for Officer Garrett Miller, whose trial was scheduled to begin this week. Lawyers from Ms. Mosby’s office announced that the state would not prosecute that case or the two remaining ones — against Sgt. Alicia D. White and against Officer Porter, the first officer to be tried. | |
| There had been little public hint of the decision; Judge Barry Williams of the Baltimore City Circuit Court had imposed a strict gag order on all the lawyers, defendants and witnesses, seeking to tamp down publicity surrounding a death that had sparked violent protests and riots last spring. A court spokeswoman said Wednesday that the gag order has now been lifted. | |
| “I think this was bowing to the inevitable,” said David Jaros, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who was in the courtroom Wednesday. “Ultimately, a prosecutor under the rules of ethics has to believe that they have sufficient evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Given what they had, given what was insufficient in the prior cases, I think it became clear after the last verdict that there wasn’t an avenue forward that would result in a conviction.” | |
| Ms. Mosby appeared in court for pretrial motions Wednesday, the first indication that something unusual was about to happen, Mr. Jaros said. Ms. Mosby has not argued the cases herself. The table was cleared of papers and briefs. “They didn’t look like attorneys about to start a case,” Mr. Jaros said. | |
| Whether Ms. Mosby or any other lawyers or defendants will speak out was unclear; Mr. Jaros said they left the courtroom quickly. But abandoning the charges was a clear blow for Ms. Mosby, who had pressed forward with the prosecutions even as doubts mounted about whether she could get convictions. After a jury deadlocked in the case of Officer Porter, her team pushed to force him to testify against other officers — even as his own retrial was pending. | |
| “At every turn this prosecution pursued the aggressive path toward trying to get a conviction,” Mr. Jaros said. The decision to drop the charges, he said, is “not to say that the state’s attorney doesn’t believe that a crime occurred — only that they concede at this point that they could not prove all the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” | |
| The announcement came as a deep disappointment to those who believed the legal proceedings had highlighted important issues about the city’s police force, even as prosecutors lost case after case. | |
| “I personally wanted them to go through with it, even if it was a no-win situation,” said Tessa Hill-Aston, the president of Baltimore’s NAACP chapter, in a phone interview conducted as she headed to the Sandtown neighborhood, where Mr. Gray was arrested, to talk with people. | |
| Ms. Hill-Aston said she did not think justice had been served “as far as people on the streets, and people seeing that the police officers got away with murder.” | |
| “Because at the end of the day right now,” she said, “Freddie is dead and someone caused his death.” |