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Freddie Gray Case Unravels

There is no doubt that police officers do bad things and get away with them. When these happen it erodes public confidence in the police and the public eventually strikes out at any officer for any act whether it was justified or not.

This seems to be the case with officer William Porter and the other five charged in the death of long time drug dealer and often arrested criminal Freddie Gray. Let me pause here to say that a person’s criminal history does not give the police the right to become judge, jury, and executioner. Every person is presumed innocent no matter how often that person has been in trouble. I get tired of seeing officers and those who support them write that it was good Gray died and that one more scumbag is off the street. While that applies when a criminal dies during the commission of a crime or in a direct confrontation with police there is no evidence Gray fit into that mold (what crime did he actually commit). The reality here is if Gray did something wrong he deserved his day in court but it is also a stark reality that if the judicial system had kept Gray behind bars where he belonged he might still be alive. I am not losing sleep over a dead drug dealer but the backlash of what happened has caused a lot of people restless nights to include six officers.

Porter and five others have been charged with the death of Gray. Each officer faces different charges but they are all charged with some portion of the alleged crime. The problem here is there does not appear to have been a crime committed.

It is possible that one of these officers did something to deliberately harm Gray but there is no proof that such a thing did in fact happen. Officers chased Gray, took him down and into custody. One can question if they had any reason to go after Gray in the first place but there is no evidence they harmed him once they did go after him.

[note]I am aware Gray had a knife (the legality of which is unclear) but it was not found until after they chased and caught him so it was NOT the reason they went after him and claims to the contrary are untrue.[/note]

The prosecution decided to go after Porter first because they believed it was their strongest case and that once he was found guilty he would turn on the others whose cases were not as strong. The prosecution, who rushed to judgement in the first place, had no reason to believe that it would not win a conviction. The thugs in Baltimore have been threatening to riot once again if any verdict other than guilty was returned. The prosecution was counting on fear to get the conviction.

But some brave jurors had other ideas. At least one juror was not convinced that Porter was guilty of the charges and the end result was a mistrial due to a hung jury.

This will have a domino effect. Porter now has to be the one to get convicted in order to have any hope of even trying to get the others.

You see, during his trial the prosecution claimed that Gray’s injuries happened IN THE TRANSPORT VAN. None of the officers who apprehended and arrested Gray were in that van. The prosecution cannot simply change its tune and now claim those officers harmed Gray. In reality, I can’t see how they can go forward with the prosecution of these folks in any event, with or without a Porter conviction. If the prosecution contends that Gray was harmed in the van (which is what they did and is part of the record) how can anyone who was with Gray BEFORE he got in the van be responsible for what happened to him?

The prosecution cannot have it both ways. It cannot simply change its tune and claim Gray was harmed during the arrest. I do not think they should have charged any of the officers but if they were dead set on doing so they should have charged those who had first contact with Gray and claimed he was harmed during the arrest. It would have made more sense to do it this way and then claim Porter ignored Gray’s requests for medical care.

By taking the route she did Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby ensured that in the event of a failure to convict Porter the entire case would unravel.

We are seeing that now.

Baltimore has remained calm so far as people wait to see what comes next. People are aware that Porter can be put on trial again and they are waiting to see if that is the case.

I can’t imagine the political troll Mosby will not retry the case. She wants a conviction, nothing less.

It is up to brave jurors to look at the evidence and take an informed decision. So far that evidence points to not guilty.

And then the riots will begin.

Mosby did this. She convinced the medical examiner to change the ruling on death from accidental to homicide. She has not been forthcoming with evidence and she is playing politics with the lives of six officers who, by all the evidence so far, did not harm Freddie Gray.

Facts do not matter in a mob ruled locality particularly when the desire is revenge not justice.

This is what you get when Democrats run things.

And Baltimore is getting what it deserves.

The real crime is that six officers are getting screwed over in the process.

Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Big Dog

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