I’m concerned that: having been deemed legal, the knife is officially irrelevant to the case and (its owner being deceased) it has been disposed of on the grounds that a chain of custody is unnecessary for something which has no legal bearing on an incident. Now it _cannot_ be produced.
Just a theory...but until the alleged at-issue knife and its chain of custody records are made public, we’ve got grounds to suspect a conspiracy. No knife = no actionable evidence of lawbreaking = grounds to riot.
Except that the arresting officer himself described the knife as a “spring assisted, one hand operated knife” in his report. That makes it pretty clear that the knife is/was not a "switchblade".
Spring assisted is the key phrase.
Spring assisted knives are legal under both Maryland law and Baltimore City Code.