Illegal Arrest, Homicide and Manslaughter. 6 Officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray

General Discussion
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http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/01/baltimore-freddie-gray-death

"“Mr Gray’s death was a homicide,” Mosby declared. His arrest was illegal, and his treatment in custody amounted to murder and manslaughter, she said.

Mosby said Gray sustained fatal neck injuries because he was handcuffed and shackled in the back of a police van without a seatbelt after his arrest on 12 April."

"Officer Caesar Goodson – the driver of the police van – was charged with second-degree murder, while charges including manslaughter, assault, and misconduct in public office were brought against five other officers. Goodson, who has refused to cooperate with investigators, faces up to 30 years in prison.

Officer William Porter and Sergeant Alicia D White were charged with manslaughter, assault and misconduct.

Lieutenant Brian Rice, Officer Garrett Miller and Officer Edward Nero were charged with manslaughter, assault, misconduct and false imprisonment.

All six officers involved were charged. Warrants have been issued for their arrest. They are expected to be arraigned in court later on Friday.

“No one is above the law,” Mosby said.

Gray, 25, was arrested after catching the eye of a senior officer and running away. He was placed in the back of a police transportation wagon and was not placed in a seatbelt, as is required under Baltimore police regulations.

Past prisoners have suffered serious injuries during so-called “rough rides” in Baltimore vehicles.

Mosby said Gray sustained a fatal neck injury while he was handcuffed and shackled inside a police van without a seatbelt.

She said Gray’s arrest was illegal, since the knife in his pocket was not a switchblade and so was legal under Maryland law. In any case, the knife was not discovered until after he was arrested, Mosby said."

I wonder what Fox News reaction looks like.

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We have an entire thread dedicated to this topic. What made you think you were such a snowflake that you could go ahead and make your own?

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That thread about the mother beating her son for rioting doesn’t count Raz0r.

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Why can’t he make his own thread? Just let him, man and stop being bitchy.

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if anything, the driver might get off…sure it’s a known tactic, but if he legit never saw whether the kid was cuffed or not, he might have a case, albeit a slim one. The rest are fucked, and will serve as a warning to future fucktard cops.

7

They’re all going to hell

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I guess mr. Goodson wasn’t such a “Good son” after all!
… I… I’ll see myself out.

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Shoulda learned from the master.

Spoiler

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e5/Goodson.jpg/220px-Goodson.jpg

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It would not surprise me if they still get off on the charges, people like to make excuses for police officers.

11

Naaa, black people need a new OJ type celebration. A legal victory for the ages.

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Why is this even news? Like haven’t people learnt from Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin (who wasn’t even killed by a police officer) and the others that these officers aren’t gonna be found guilty?

These charges are the best that’s gonna happen. More people need to get actively involved in improving not only the judicial, educational, political, socio-economic situation, but also dealing with criminality and the other issues affecting their own communities which are being used as a justification for their our murders.

Reactionary protests and riots aren’t working. And it’s a shame that we’ve got to the point that an officer just getting charged with a murder is a cause for celebration.

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i saw the press conference where the state attorney talked about the charges. it seemed like she was really milking it with the hope of gaining notoriety for some future office. there’s no way these cops will see any jail time but at least they’ll know this time to have the national guard nearby when they announce the charges being dropped.

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Cops are fucking up lately.

As a white conservative, I side with the police 99% of the time. But it’s been a shit show ever since they accidentally killed that guy for selling looseys.

15

Can someone tell me (in a well detailed paragraph or two) why are these police killing getting any national attention all of a sudden?

Like the older generation from my family being saying this shit has been going on for DECADES!!!

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It’s “sexy” now. Racially motivated killings, or ones that may appear to be, are trendy to cover now. Racial tension is moving papers and grabbing ratings. It’s of even more intrigue now that we have a “black” President.

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(refrains from being a smart-ass about the obvious answer)

It’s simple, really, @Weeaboo: cameras, for ill or for gain, are almost literally everywhere (in urban areas) nowadays. Now that almost everyone has a phone that doubles as a camera with video-taping properties that they pretty much take everywhere with them, it’s much, much easier for the usual police cover story of “I thought he was reaching for a gun” to get contradicted and other instances of police misconduct to get caught.

Not that videos are foolproof, obviously (given humanity is foolish), as proved by the Eric Garner video that @Vynce referenced, which only pissed people off more when the secretive Grand Jury didn’t bring charges at all. It’s just that are more videos of pretty much everything nowadays–how many cat videos do we need, really? an Aleph-one amount?–and most of them are quickly available for public consumption (and then just as quickly forgotten or ignored by both the masses and the mdiea).

I mean, if anything, the police are doubtless overall comparatively less corrupt than in the decades and centuries passed–they’re more militarized, yes, but compared to the dirty cops of years passed, there’s generally less of them and they stand a much better chance of getting caught; please don’t mistake “getting caught” with “getting punished” though. That’s debatable, of course, but the fact that cameras are everywhere nowadays isn’t.

Beyond that, very few people tend to care about what people who aren’t power say or have happen to them unless it personally affects them and given that black people have never been in power, much less well liked…yeah. (Not that I’m saying Obama being president now helps anything. If anything, it somewhat hinders things since it caused a lot of [white] people to say that it was somehow “proof” of racism being magically defeated or some bullshit. That and I personally think he’s somewhat of an idiot or at least weak-willed in the unlikely case he isn’t corrupt as well, but I’ll refrain before I digress.)

Basically. It’s why I can’t even be bothered to care despite the fact that this stuff would directly affect me. It’s pretty clear that no one, myself included unfortunately, has any actual idea how to change things permanently for the better–I’m skeptical if that’s even possible, really, given human nature. The mass “protest and only protest” thing is even more annoying because it’s like people forgot about how the whole “Occupy Movement” floundered essentially for the same reasons despite that the fact that fixing economic inequality will always have more mass appeal than any other type of inequality.

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@The Damned You can be a smart-ass if you want,its whatever cuz.

The answer wasn’t obvious to me so yeah…

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Edit: The Damned got it covered I need to Reed Richards.

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For many years, the rest of the country actually doubted that this was going on in their own land, surely they “must have done something” to provoke the police. Now that everyone has a camera, they can’t delude themselves anymore.

Edit: 30+ years ago, video cameras were massively bulky and expensive, you had to find a media source willing to publish what you filmed. 20 years ago, still bulky, if you even had Internet it was too slow to upload decent footage, no wireless. 10 years ago, the equipment shrunk in size/price, but you had to go home to transfer the video and upload it. Today, if someone sees something in progress, everything they need to film and upload for most of the planet to see is really damn cheap and fits in their pocket.