NOVANEWS
A man participates in a protest after Baltimore Police Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. was acquitted of all charges for his involvement in the death of Freddie Gray. | Photo: Reuter
Prosecutors have dropped all charges for the remaining three Baltimore police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray, a victim of police brutality, Wednesday morning, news outlets reported.
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The decision came on the heels of the next scheduled officer who was to stand trial, Officer Garrett Miller, at the start of his pretrial motions hearing this morning. While Officer William Porter was to be retried in September and Sgt. Alicia White in October, Officers Edward Nero, Caesar Goodson Jr. and Lt. Brian Rice have previously been acquitted of all charges in the death of Gray.
All six officers were initially charged in the young man’s death, who suffered a severe spinal injury in the back of a police van in April 2015 and died a week later as a result.
Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, in a press conference Wednesday morning, said she is not “anti-police,” but “anti-police brutality.” Defending her decision to bring the charges against the officers, she said the decision to drop them as a mother was “agonizing,” according to the Baltimore Sun.
“After much thought and prayer it has become clear that without being able to work with an independent investigatory agency from the very start, without having a say in the election of whether cases proceed in front of a judge or jury, without communal oversight of police in this community, without substantive reforms to the current criminal justice system, we could try this case 100 times and cases just like it and we would still end up with the same result,” she said.
His death led to widespread protests throughout the country, where crowds demonstrated against ongoing police brutality against Black people in the United States.
