On April 12, 2015, Freddie Carlos Gray, Jr., a 25-year-old man, was arrested by the Baltimore Police Department for possessing what the police alleged was an illegal switchblade.[2] While being transported in a police van, Gray fell into a coma and was taken to a trauma center.[3][4] Gray died on April 19, 2015; his death was ascribed to injuries to his spinal cord.[4] On April 21, 2015, pending an investigation of the incident, six Baltimore police officers were suspended with pay.[3]
The circumstances of the injuries were initially unclear; eyewitness accounts suggested that the officers involved used unnecessary force against Gray during the arrest—a claim denied by at least one officer involved.[3][4][5] Commissioner Anthony W. Batts reported that, contrary to department policy,[6] the officers did not secure him inside the van while driving to the police station; this policy had been put into effect six days prior to Gray’s arrest, following review of other transport-related injuries sustained during police custody in the city, and elsewhere in the country during the preceding years.[7] The medical investigation found that Gray had sustained the injuries while in transport.[8][9] On May 1, 2015, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney, Marilyn Mosby, announced her office had filed charges against six police officers after the medical examiner’s report ruled Gray’s death a homicide,[10] on the grounds that Gray had died as a result of a ‘rough ride’—a form of police brutality in which a victim is helplessly thrown around the interior of a police vehicle by deliberately abrupt police driving, while unable to protect themselves due to handcuffs or other restraints. (Rough rides were already implicated in deaths, paralysis, and severe spinal injuries in several other cases.)
The prosecutors stated that they had probable cause to file criminal charges against the six police officers who were believed to be involved in his death.[10] The officer driving the van was charged with second-degree “depraved-heart” murder for his indifference to the considerable risk that Gray might be killed, and others were charged with crimes ranging from manslaughter to illegal arrest.[10]In a later rebuttal to allegations that the knife was illegal, prosecutors argued that Gray was illegally arrested well before the officers knew that he possessed a knife, and without probable cause.[11] On May 21, a grand jury indicted the officers on most of the original charges filed by Mosby with the exception of the charges of illegal imprisonment and false arrest, and added charges of reckless endangerment to all the officers involved.[12]
Gray’s hospitalization and subsequent death resulted in an ongoing series of protests.[13][14] On April 25, 2015, a major protest in downtown Baltimore turned violent, resulting in 34 arrests and injuries to 15 police officers.[15] After Gray’s funeral on April 27, civil disorder intensified with lootingand burning of local businesses and a CVS drug store, culminating with a state of emergencydeclaration by Governor Larry Hogan, Maryland National Guard deployment to Baltimore, and the establishment of a curfew. On May 3, the National Guard started withdrawing from Baltimore,[16]and the night curfew on the city was lifted.[17]
