Second man in police transport van speaks out
He raised controversy with what he told police because he told them something he really he had to speculate on because he wouldn't have known for sure.
"On the morning of April 12, I went into a store right here at Penn/North Avenue to get a cigarette," Allen said.
Allen was picked up by city police at the corner of Pennsylvania and North avenues on a suspicion of stealing. The city's camera system recorded the van that arrived and picked up Allen. It was the same van that was carrying Gray.
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Allen said he did not know a man was already in the van. Gray was on the right side and Allen was loaded on the left side with a divider separating them.
Allen described what he heard: "When I got in the van, I didn't hear nothing. It was a smooth ride. We went straight to the police station. All I heard was a little banging for about four seconds. I just heard little banging, just little banging."
Asked whether he told police whether he heard Gray banging his head against the van, Allen said, "I told homicide that. I don't work for the police. I did not tell the police nothing."
According to the autopsy on Gray, there is no evidence that Gray hit his head against anything on his own. His fatal neck and spinal injury was a kin to the type suffered in a car accident; it needed that amount of force and energy.
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/second-man-in-police-transport-van-speaks-out/32669692
A direct statement to the media leaves me with the feeling the police initially misrepresented what he said in interviews from homicide detectives. While we never know if he did add the deliberately trying injure himself part I tend to believe this version from himself more. "Suspicion of stealing"?
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