Posted on 06/04/2015 6:47:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The story coming to us out of Baltimore in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray just gets stranger and stranger. Once State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby had brought a gaggle of charges against the six police officers involved in the incident, the defense immediately moved to have her removed from the case over possible conflict of interest issues. Since that time, Mosby’s office seems to have gone into a circle the wagons mentality and has been pushing back against both the police and the media. That pattern took an even more curious turn this week when the autopsy of Freddie Gray was concluded and Mosby immediately sought to keep it under wraps.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby plans to seek a protective order blocking the release of Freddie Gray’s autopsy and other “sensitive” documents as she prosecutes the six police officers involved in his arrest.
Mosby discussed that intention in a court filing Monday, in which she also asked the court for more time to respond to defense motions that she and her office be removed from the case and that the case be tried outside of Baltimore.
The move is the latest effort by Mosby’s office to restrict information in the high-profile case. Her office has also sought a gag order, which would prevent those involved in the case from discussing it in public, and broken with tradition by not providing the autopsy report to Baltimore Police.
Mosby’s claims that she doesn’t want to be “baited into litigating this case through the media” makes less sense than anything we’ve heard thus far. This is the same State’s Attorney who was calling something in the range of four to five press conferences a day while their investigation was ongoing and giving CNN painstaking graphics and timelines of each and every movement of the van that Gray was in, along with details about each of the officers that barely stopped short of providing hair and urine samples. Now, if the evidence against the officers is as strong as she claims and her case is a bullet proof one, then surely the autopsy report would support everything she’s been saying, no? And if so, such exoneration would surely calm some of the media and police department clamor against her. So why the sudden hush hush treatment and gag orders?
One of the lawyers for the accused cops suspects he knows the answer.
One of the defense attorneys, Ivan Bates, said in an interview that the effort to get a protective order is a sign that “there is something in that autopsy report that they are trying to hide.”
“Mrs. Mosby is the one who did an announcement discussing what she said the evidence was in a nationally televised speech, and now that it is time to turn over the evidence, to ask for a protective order is beyond disingenuous,” said Bates, who represents Sgt. Alicia White. “It’s as if she wants to do everything to make sure our clients do not get a fair trial.”
As I mentioned on Twitter when this story first broke, Mosby is looking more and more like a poker player who’s sitting on a pair of threes and facing an opponent who just went all in on her. Unfortunately, she may be too heavily invested in the pot to fold at this point. Right from the beginning there have been many observers besides me who were getting the impression that Mosby is a very ambitious politician with a desire to move up the ladder fast and who was suddenly handed a career making case before she’d even unpacked her things at her new office. Nothing wrong with that whatsoever. But if you fumble a big case like this it can be a long, hard fall.
From what I can see, there’s no reason to suspect that there’s any sort of conspiracy or malevolence going on at the office of the State’s Attorney. Assuming that Mosby harbors some sort of anti-cop bias without hard proof of it is unfair. But at a minimum we may be seeing a lack of experience leading to some very poor decision making under a great deal of scrutiny and national media pressure.
Not to worry Revrunt Al will BE THERE to Stage RIots to protest her ill treatment....after the demise of her career...
I had the opportunity today to read the appeals case in the so-called “rough ride” case from about 5 years ago. In that case, the guy wasn’t secured, and was cuffed, but he kept banging against the barrier behind the driver and demanding she stop to let him use the restroom. In the middle of that activity, he apparently got injured, and when they opened the door, they found him conscious, but unable to move his legs. The officers then removed him from the van, drove him to the hospital, and put him in a wheelchair to roll him to the ER. The primary issue in that case was that they should have stabilized the injury before moving him. The severity of his injury, which subsequently lead to his death, was believed to be increased by the improper handling. So there’s a third possible cause, which can’t be ruled out until we know how he was handled at the scene. Fourth is any of a multitude of possible mishaps during his hospital stay.
On YouTube at the moment is the news conference from 4/20, the day after his death, in which the Police Commissioner states that he had a conversation with the coroner following the autopsy on that date and the coroner opined, “we may not know the answers to all the questions”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1XGPJtS_6g
Normally, what they would have been waiting for would have been the full tox results and the results of any special tissue examinations that might have been requested. So that’s what would be new in the autopsy results she has now. Either they don’t help her case, or she’s just game playing trying to slow-roll the defense. I think we’re safe in assuming, given her behavior so far, that she’d be trumpeting anything that proved her assumptions to be correct.
Oh, by the way, I’m not certain the guy seen running past the camera, then into the building is Freddie. Freddie was wearing a rather distinctive jacket when captured, and that runner appears to be in a black hoodie. It’s possible that’s the other guy who was running, which would also explain why he’s not seen coming out of the building again. The timing’s also not quite right for running down the street, across the courtyard, into the apartment, then back out and a block north to where Freddie was grabbed. The police radio traffic shows that all took place within a minute, with the first officer saying “I got him” 40 seconds after the pursuit was called out.
You are absolutely correct, and that option should not be forgotten.
Did the police van go to the police station, then upon finding Freddie unconscious, did they ferry him to the hospital ?
If so, did they just take him as he was, or did they attempt to move him ?
OK. Thanks. I thought I had read that they had concluded that it was him, based on details of location and timing.
I’m not surprised to find out that the early conclusion might be incorrect.
Well, it’s kind of complicated. Upon arriving at the station, they requested an ambulance.
The information Fire Dispatch got was “male with an arm injury”. Fire Dispatch had received an identical call at a nearby location two minutes earlier, and had dispatched an ambulance to it.
An injured arm call is not life threatening and FD apparently reasoned the efficient thing to do was to check the first scene, then divert the ambulance to the second location if, as they believed, the call was a duplicate.
When the ambulance reached the first scene four minutes after the call for Freddie came in, they found a patient there which told dispatch the calls were NOT duplicates, and dispatch then immediately sent a second ambulance, this time to the police station. The net effect of this confusion was a five and a half minute delay between getting the call for Freddie and dispatching the call.
That delay is partially offset by the fact that the second ambulance was nearby, and was on the scene in three minutes. In an ideal situation, though, had there not been near-simultaneous calls, and had the closest ambulance been dispatched, it would have gotten to Freddie five and a half minutes sooner.
When the medic unit arrived, they evaluated Freddie, and requested additional manpower for a non-breather. An engine and an EMS supervisor were dispatched to the station, and the medics subsequently worked on him for 17 minutes on scene. (That timing’s about right for starting resuscitation and fluids, getting the injury stabilized (Cervical collar), and packaging them for transport.) The prevailing theory these days is stabilize the patient, then transport, so that would have been appropriate care.
Somewhere in the course of that time period, he would have been carefully removed from the van and placed in the ambulance. The ambulance then transported him to the hospital, taking six minutes. Total time from the call from the station to arrival at the hospital was 35 minutes.
Thank you for the response , and all the info.
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