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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSomeone isn't telling the truth about Freddie Gray's death
Big duh, but there's a lot here. These are just the first four paragraphs, but this is a pretty long article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/30/freddie-gray-death-questions_n_7182428.html
By now, everybody knows the injuries that contributed to Freddie Gray's death. Baltimore authorities and representatives for Grays family agree that the 25-year-old sustained fatal trauma to his neck and spine at some point while in police custody following his arrest on April 12. Although a full autopsy hasn't yet been released, the family has said that Grays spine was nearly severed, and that his doctors had attempted to repair three fractured neck vertebrae and a crushed voice box. Last week, The Baltimore Sun spoke to medical experts who said that Gray's injuries were, in the paper's words, comparable to those seen in victims of high-speed crashes.
On Thursday, unnamed law enforcement sources told WJLA that according to a police report shared with prosecutors earlier that day, an investigation into Gray's death suggested the fatal injuries occurred when Gray slammed into the back of the police transport van. The officer driving the van has not yet given a statement.
While this may end up being a significant detail of the investigation, much is still unclear about the circumstances of Gray's death, including how Gray's head might have hit the wall of the van hard enough to kill him. Over the past few weeks, Baltimore police have provided few answers about how Gray went from seemingly healthy enough to flee police on the morning of April 12 to dead on April 19 after a week in a coma. On Wednesday, April 29, hours after stating that they would not give the public their forthcoming internal report on Gray's death, police leaked a different document to The Washington Post. It was the first new piece of information from police in nearly a week. But instead of clarity, it offered more confusion.
The Post reported that a prisoner who was in the van with Gray allegedly told investigators he could hear Gray "banging against the walls" of the police vehicle, and said he believed Gray was "intentionally trying to injure himself," according to a document written by a Baltimore police investigator. However, in a subsequent interview with WBAL, the man, identified as Donte Allen, seemed to walk back his claims.
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)And he was injured before he was placed in the back of the van. They murdered that young man and no amount of spinning their story will change that.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)It's horrifying.
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)by intimidating another prisoner into lying.
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)I just hope we can trust that prosecutor.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)because it's a systemic issue, we probably can't. It isn't individuals, it's the whole criminal justice system. The whole system needs to be reworked. Cops get off all the time for stuff like this, and that's by design. That's how the sytem is intended to work.
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)They know they'll get away with it. Something's got to give.
global1
(25,242 posts)I heard that 5 of the 6 officers gave statements but the driver of the van has yet to do that.
Also - why do the police circle the wagons and protect the bad apples on their force? It seems to me that they would want to purge their forces of those officers that give their force a bad name.
When they self-investigate; leak stories to the media and circle their wagons around the bad apples - it just raises suspicion and gives them a bad name.
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)Because you know, killing is fun for psychopaths. I'm not saying they are all psychopaths, but too many are. Maybe even at the top of the police organizations. Rotten to the core, imo.
Whiskeytide
(4,461 posts)... apples anymore. It's an institutional problem. The LE community has been trained to believe it's us v them, and it's a war. The public, media, politicians... Everyone is out to get THEM. Good cops don't see themselves as protecting a bad apple. They feel they are closing ranks to protect the department. Nothing short of a complete reboot of the system is going to make much of a difference.