Rioters Ruin Another Protest

[KabeRinnaul]

Manslaughter? They'd have to prove the cops intended to harm Gray. If they can, then it's manslaughter.

That would only be for voluntary manslaughter, and I doubt they'd have too much trouble with it.

There's plenty of evidence to charge them with criminally negligent manslaughter, though. Even if they didn't set out to harm him; they didn't properly secure him, denied him medical care, and drove recklessly, despite having multiple opportunities to correct for some of these issues.

[Greenday]

That would only be for voluntary manslaughter, and I doubt they'd have too much trouble with it.

There's plenty of evidence to charge them with criminally negligent manslaughter, though. Even if they didn't set out to harm him; they didn't properly secure him, denied him medical care, and drove recklessly, despite having multiple opportunities to correct for some of these issues.

Didn't the cops call for paramedics and EMTs? And is there any actual evidence of reckless driving?

I think for manslaughter it depends on the laws involved with transporting prisoners. It might be policy to buckle them in but is it the law? If it isn't, they are going to have to prove they did something illegal that directly resulted in his death.

I'm not familiar with prisoner transportation laws so I don't really know.

[Aragarthiel]

Did Gray have a history with these cops?

He had quite a lengthy criminal record, so I'm pretty sure the cops probably knew him. In fact, my theory is that he was probably minding his own business, the cops saw him, then stopped him because they assumed he had drugs or something on him.

[lordlundar]

I'll be blunt here, I heard the prosecutor announce the charges and the only thing that ran through my mind was "save it for the court that counts because the court of public opinion doesn't". Her delivery, both the content and the tone, sounded like an opening or closing argument in a courtroom than a public announcement.

[Gravekeeper]

Didn't the cops call for paramedics and EMTs? And is there any actual evidence of reckless driving?

Yes, eventually.

1. Gray needs an inhaler and was in medical distress right from the start. It is BPD policy to call for medical assistance in this scenario. They did not.

2. It is BPD policy to belt prisoners in to prevent injury during transport. They did not. Because then they couldn't give him a "nickel ride". Which is to say rough him up in the back by making sudden stops, hard turns, etc.

3. The van stops once a few blocks down. The officers claim Gray is acting "irate". They remove him from the van and put him in leg irons. They toss him back in the van on the floor, face down. Now handcuffed and shackled at the legs. They again fail to belt him in and leave him on the floor. Hands and legs bound, he has no real means of cushioning himself from impacts.

4. The van makes 7 stops total.

5. At the 4th stop, they stop and check on Gray. They do not call for medical help nor do they secure him.

6. At the 6th stop, they stop and check on Gray again. At this time, Gray indicates multiple times he is in need of medical attention. The officers ignore his appeal, pick him up and put him on the bench of the van. They again do not secure him as is department policy. Nor do they render first aid or call for medical help.

7. The officers decide to respond to another call instead of going back to the station or seeking medical help for Gray.

8. The van stops again. This time, Officer White ( who would later be put in charge of investigating this situation despite being an active participant in it ) checks on Gray. She finds him on the floor of the van and tries to talk to him. But makes no move to check on him physically or assess his condition. She is advised that Gray requested medical aid. She does not provide aid nor call for aid. She does not secure him in as per BPD policy.

9. On 5 separate occasions total the officers check on Gray and do not render aid, call for aid or secure him as per policy.

10. They arrive at the police station, an hour after Gray's arrest, at this point Gray is completely unresponsive when they remove him from the wagon. At this point, at the station, an hour later, the officers finally ask for a medic to check on Gray.

The medic tells them Gray is severely injured and in cardiac arrest. EMT is called, he's transported to a trauma center where he later dies.

The officers write in their report that Gray "suffered a medical emergency" and leave it at that.

So no, its not negligence, its malice. They didn't intent to kill him, but they certainly intended to harm him and in doing so violated department policy numerous times. Never mind the failure to render first aid.

[the_std]

I think an important point that everyone is missing is that intent is, in this case, almost a moot point, because the second degree murder charge is a "depraved heart" murder charge. From the linked Wiki article...

In United States law, depraved-heart murder, also known as depraved-indifference murder, is an action where a defendant acts with a "depraved indifference" to human life and where such act results in a death. In a depraved-heart murder a defendant commits an act even though they know their act runs an unusually high risk of causing death or serious bodily harm to someone else.

Given that people had previous been injured and killed in this situation, and given that the BPD had told its officers to stop this behaviour (whether or not they tacitly encouraged it), the murder charge fits almost perfectly within the "depraved heart" definition.

[s_stabeler]

yeah, manslaughter is where you hurt somebody and it causes moee damage than you thought ( for instance, if you shove somebody over, and their head hits the wall, snapping their neck? Manslaughter. Manslauighter would be appropriate IF they did the stops, and whatever was securing Gray had snapped. ( It's manslaughter because they shouldn't have deliberately done the hard stops. if there was a genuine reason for the stops, it would be neither.)
2nd degree murder is when you don't care if someone gets killed.
1st degree murder is when you are deliberately trying to kill somebody.

depending, there's also the Felony-Murder rule ( if you commit a felony, and someone dies as a result, you are automatically guilty of murdering that person. Felony-Murder is 1st degree, incidentally. So if the actions of the police rose to the level of assault, then they should be charged with 1st degree murder)

as for the question of if it is policy or the law to buckle somebody in- it's policy to do, however the part of the law that makes it a criminal offense is that it is criminally negiligent- had they followed normal procedure, and buckled him in, then he would still be alive. Had thye not screwed around with the stops, he would still be alive.

[Rageaholic]

I have no idea how that conclusion was made. Sometimes, kids of ANY race need to learn lessons this way. My mom always threatened it if she ever caught me doing drugs or smoking, and I was smart enough to know better. And we are both white. It says something about the values of the parents that approve of her actions. Not enough people discipline their kids the way they need to be, and she disciplined her child as she deemed necessary. That's what people were applauding, not the fact that she (OMG!) slapped her black child. She was a mom being a mom, like so many moms fail to do. Her actions had nothing to do with race.

Even as someone who's generally against corporal punishment, I applaud the mother. This wasn't some kid talking back to his parents, it was a kid participating in riots which could have easily led to his own death or the death of others.

[Panacea]

Baltimore police have one of the most horrific track records of police brutality and corruption of any police force in the country. <snip>

I'm not going to defend the looting and burning or anything, but Baltimore has been a powderkeg waiting to happen for years. Their police force beats the ever living fuck out of people on a regular basis and they sweep it under the rug to hide it from city officials while blocking reforms. <snip>

These people live in neighbourhoods that are basically third world countries while getting shit kicked by one of the nations most corrupt police forces day in and day out for decades.

Speaking as someone who grew up in Maryland and spent a lot of time in Baltimore, GK's characterization is spot on.

depending, there's also the Felony-Murder rule ( if you commit a felony, and someone dies as a result, you are automatically guilty of murdering that person. Felony-Murder is 1st degree, incidentally. So if the actions of the police rose to the level of assault, then they should be charged with 1st degree murder).

Maryland doesn't have a seperate Felony Murder Rule statute. It is incorporated in the First Degree Murder statute, which requires premedication and deliberate action to kill. That's going to be impossible to prove in this case, which is why the prosecutor went with 2nd degree depraved heart murder for the driver and lesser charges for the other officers (to include manslaughter for a couple).

I suspect she will cut deals with a couple of the officers to nail the one charged with murder and the ones charged with manslaughter.

[HYHYBT]

why indeed would a prisoner make it look like the cops beat on him? It certainly would be the first time a prisoner self-harmed to make it look like the cops beat him up so he could get released so he doesn't cause a fuss, right?

Sure, people sever their own spines on purpose just to make the police look bad ALL the time.

[Greenday]

Sure, people sever their own spines on purpose just to make the police look bad ALL the time.

Could have just went overboard. Makes just as much sense as cops wanting to hurt other people who can't defend themselves.

[Hyena Dandy]

Could have just went overboard. Makes just as much sense as cops wanting to hurt other people who can't defend themselves.

Okay, so, either a person managed to injure himself in a difficult-if-not-impossible manner. Or someone else injured them.

Police officers are not magical beings with goodness auras that prevent them from being petty, cruel, or vindictive. They're human beings.

Which REALLY makes more sense to you. That someone managed to exert enough pressure on their own spine to sever it by ACCIDENT, or that they did not, in fact, manage the rare feat of a self-inflicted spinal severance, and were, in fact, injured by an outside influence?

Also

If it isn't, they are going to have to prove they did something illegal that directly resulted in his death.

That's not how manslaughter works at all, either. You're just being ridiculous here. You don't need to have done something explicitly illegal to have committed manslaughter. You need to have done something that you should have known would get someone killed. To wit, there is no law against driving cars. No law against lying on top of cars. And yet, if I knew someone was lying on top of my car (someone who was allowed to be there, say) and I decided, as a joke, to drive off while they were lying on it, then I'd be guilty of manslaughter if not depraved-heart murder (depending on whether I had any expectation of their balancing ability, thought they'd jump off, how fast I went, etc) if they fell off and died. Becuase I should reasonably have known that would kill someone.

In this Maryland, manslaughter is if a person dies because someone did something either

A) Against their legal duty

or

B) That they should reasonably have known would result in injury or death

Then they have committed manslaughter. If police do not have a legal duty to follow their policy (Which is not the same thing, by the way, as it being illegal not to follow policy) then at the very least, a reasonable person would know that not securing someone in a moving vehicle could hurt them. So either way, it's manslaughter.

Neither manslaughter nor murder require something to be EXPLICITLY illegal, which should be obvious. I can't get away with beating someone to death with my friend's Yeti, simply because there's not actually a law that says you can't bludgeon someone with a piece of recording equipment.

[Greenday]

Well, if they didn't drive erratically and there's no reports that they did, then there is no reason to suspect you'd cause harm to someone by not buckling them in. People remain unbuckled in backseats all the time without dying so it's not unreasonable to believe he'd be fine too.

[Kheldarson]

Well, if they didn't drive erratically and there's no reports that they did, then there is no reason to suspect you'd cause harm to someone by not buckling them in. People remain unbuckled in backseats all the time without dying so it's not unreasonable to believe he'd be fine too.

This, in no way, shape, or form, matters. The department has rules that state that prisoners must be buckled in. This department also has a history of rough stops, hence why they have the rules. That means that these cops broke their own damn rules casting suspicion on their behavior because of the department history. Even if they were being careful and it was a freak death, their actions should still be called into question.

[protege]

I'd heard that Gray had some surgery on his spine before the incident. If that's the case, why didn't he follow his doctor's orders and stay home? Still doesn't justify his death. But, had he been properly belted inside the vehicle, he wouldn't have been killed.