My understanding is that a few weeks prior to this incident, a new policy went into place, requiring officers to belt in the prisoners. This leads me to believe that:
a) It was common practice to not buckle in a prisoner, especially prior to this rule change.
b) The City of Baltimore likely had made some payouts on settlements/lawsuits...trying to get hurt in a police van may have been a common practice?
Also, as I understand it, the driver was black himself. And, the sequence of events was:
1) Arresting officers put Gray in Van
2) Van drives a few blocks and stops
3) Driver takes Gray out and does paperwork (I think this practice is to get perps out of the immediate area, where crowds might gather)
4) Driver puts Gray back in van
Based on this series of events, I have no idea why one of the original arresting officers is being charged with Manslaughter (he’s white btw). He could not control what the driver did, after he pulled Gray out and back in.
Anyway, it seems like Baltimore had a long history of not belting in prisoners, leading up to this...and for expediency they would shove people in the van in a temporary position, drive a few blocks, and then do paperwork/re-position the prisoner...but not necessarily buckle him up. A flawed practice, but not racist.
If you can find the map. He was taken away from the final destination, then to pick up the second past the destination and finally back to where they were heading. The first stop was the one that was not put into the original report but showed up after time.and distance didn’t add up
I’ve asked repeatedly if any of the officers arrested were involved or on duty with officers involved with the previous five incidents