Baltimore police revealed Thursday morning in a news conference that a transport van carrying Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old black man who suffered a severe spinal injury in police custody, made one more stop than was previously known.
The city has been riled by protests and pockets of violence since Gray succumbed to his injures a week after his April 12 arrest. Police have so far been unable to explain how Gray sustained the spinal injury, although they’ve indicated that they believe it happened while Gray was inside the van en route to the Western District police station.
Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said police found out about the new stop from video footage captured on a privately owned surveillance camera. According to the timeline Davis laid out, the new stop is the second of four stops the van made on April 12.
The van first pulled over to complete paperwork after the driver believed Gray began acting “irate.” Then the van made a second, previously unknown stop (Davis did not elaborate on what occurred during this new stop). At a third stop, an officer had “some communication” with Gray, which was under investigation. The van then picked up another arrestee at a fourth stop before completing its trip to the Western District police station, where a medic was called to respond to Gray.
Police Commissioner Anthony Batts also said in the news conference that the agency had turned its investigation over to the state attorney’s office, although the department would continue to investigate if any new evidence or witnesses emerged.
Batts has previously acknowledged that officers should have called for medical attention for Gray when he was first arrested and not once he arrived at the Western District station. He has also said officers failed to put a seat belt on Gray while he was in the transport van as required by department policy.
What are the chances the BPD would admit to what we all know happened? Zero. The man’s neck was broken after he was arrested. We know that. We also know that arrest should have not taken place.
So we have a man killed while in police custody and no one disputes that or that the death was the result of serious trauma. It is inconceivable, just from what we all do know and the police do not dispute, that the cops are not being deceptive. They know what they did just as we do. In time it will all come out.
This is just so wrong. Stopping to complete paperwork!! I have seen some footage of the young man actually standing in the van handcuffed with cops around him and he appeared to be in pain but the video stopped before the actually closed the doors so who knows if they threw him in the van and how did his voice box get crushed.
I sure hope so
Sure its wrong. That’s why the cryptic behavior on the behalf of the Cops. If they had a legit excuse or a false one that would stand scrutiny they would be yelling it all over the place…as would be the media. Silence speaks more than words here. They don’t have anything they can say.
The Cop’s broke this man’s neck. They killed him yet he had done nothing wrong. And everyone pretends not to get it. The media yacks about “thugs” and the Cop’s do of gangs and purges. No one talks about being Black in Baltimore and this killing the pudding of proof of what that’s about. A broken fucking neck.
He has also said officers failed to put a seat belt on Gray while he was in the transport van as required by department policy.
Sir, let’s call it like it is: The officers’ fail with regards to the seat belt was deliberate.
These officers should pay by spending the remainder of their natural lives behind bars in the general population of all the prisoners.