Marilyn Mosby had been on the job a whole 4 months when she told us "the van did it" and charged those driving in riding in the van with charges as serious as those who beat Freddy Gray so badly he couldn't walk.
I do not defend any sort of depraved indifference. But I do not understand charging those assigned to the van with the same charges as those that did the beating. There had to have been a beating. There's audio of a woman saying his leg is broken. And dosen't appear to be able to walk in the photos. If Freddie Gray had been shot instead then bled out in the van, those who did the shooting would be in the ones primarily at fault...
if all the police officers were white
or
if all the police officers were black.
But with 3 being black and 3 being white who should be to blame for what gets muddled in the good ole anything but post-racial U.S. of A.
Each and every time I see Freddie being carried, with his head off at an odd angle, I can't help but think that nothing --and I mean nothing-- could have stopped the Baltimore Uprising faster than arresting 3 white officers and 3 black officers
...instead of arresting the 3 white officers carrying an already broken Freddie to the van
 |
Questions I still have:
1) Is this THE VAN
2) And is the dark haired white guy one of those charged? |
And these three white officer, plus Freddie, got close to the van *without the black officers in sight* So aren't they the ones that put Freddie the van. A friend of mine thinks maybe they probably threw him in the van, and that's when is neck broke.
If you arrest somebody for eye contact, for the audacity of looking you in the eye, aren't you capable of throwing an already injured person into a van?
I can't stop searching my mind for an alternative theory. I just don't get Mosby's no seat belt path to neck breaking. I'm going to need to see proof that the van driver went around corners on two wheels, fast enough to make that van feel like a roller-coaster ride. And if the driver did that, shouldn't someone have seen this?
But the neck breaking thing in the back of a Baltimore police van has happened before (or has been lied about before). Dondi Johnson died in a police van 10 years ago -- arrested for public urination.
I don't think cops guilty of indifference to pain or another's humanity should get a pass. I absolutely don't. But I keep wondering if the people who received Freddy Gray knew how badly he'd been beaten. They weren't there when he was beaten. It doesn't look like they put him in the van.
For all this to have played out the way it has, this almost has to have happened in a poor black neighborhood. "Poor" because Freddie Gray suffered from lead poisoning eating paint chips that fell into his food from a flaking ceiling. "Poor" because the white cops had the audacity to touch him for eye contact - cop knows there's no lawsuit coming for rough treatment. And with poverty comes certain neighborhood ailments. So how many people have these van officers picked up in poor neighborhoods who are drunk, stoned, or just go limp to be a pain the butt as they are arrested.
If they ignored Gray's pain until he was too far gone to recover, then to jail they go. But what if the ones who didn't beat him didn't know he was hurt? On the surface, it looks like the white officers put Freddy in the van - if that's even the van. Regardless, if Gray was dead when they laid or tossed him in. What if a last tap to the head was all it took after the beating? What if the van officers just didn't respond quick enough when Freddy was silent -- assuming he was drunk or stoned.
A physician's assistant told me that cops bring in the drunk or overdosing and drop them on the emergency room floor until there's a bed or a table ready. Don't see that on television medical dramas, do we? Is that right? No. But how many times do you get thrown up on before you're jaded? Do you got to jail for that if someone dies? Yes. Probably
But if someone one was beat up before they were given to you, then the person that the beating is 75%' at fault. And the charges should reflect this.
"Two officers here are charged with manslaughter, who come on the scene later and don't do enough, according to prosecutors. That may be wrong but getting a jury to convict them of manslaughter for simply not helping enough is going to be very very tough,"
-Dan Abrams, ABC Legal Consultant
When Marilyn Mosby announced the charges, she mentioned the lack of seat belt twice, like that was more important than the beating. And it was this technical sounding rule sucked black police officers in. Compare: This is not the same situation as the black cop who appears to have turned a blind eye to the white officer, Michael Slager, who planted evidence on Walter Scott's body. If that black officer watched evidence being planted to cover a murder so easily, then maybe he's done it before. He' needs a good long time in jail. But in this case? I don't see the black officers in the photos with what looks like an already broken Freddy Gray.
And if Marilyn Mosby wasn't black herself, I think we'd be asking more questions. In fact, I'm sure we would. There's no way we'd let pictures of three white officers turn into six officers half of whom are black ---when they weren't anywhere to be seen in videos and photos.
The charges were applied to the six too fast and likely spread to evenly as well. As I've said before, each of those six cops couldn't have been equal to one another in rank or job assignment. Somebody had to have been in charge in the van. If person x says he's not moving and person-in-charge says we'll be at the hospital in 20 minutes then that's the way it is-- if you don't think the person is dying, if you've had dozens of unconscious or mentally ill or drunk or stoned people in the van before.
And by the way? Assigning the location of the death blow to inside of that van (when the death blow could have been anywhere - he much later) was a mistake. I don't know why that was put across as a sure thing. The inside of that van is an unknowable black box. Random medical experts in the news are already saying they don't agree on the details of how, when, and why of Freddie's death
My inner-hippy is uncomfortable with her ambition, too. She's moving up her career ladder fast That's why she only had 4 months on the job at the time of Freddie's death. Ambitious and moving fast also means she's probably got a politician's tongue.
The facts not matching the pictures above and hearing her described as ambitious is probably why I feel like I've seen the first act of the three act play.
The first act was the "I feel you" performance where she said the absent seat belt was key (twice) to Gray's death, charged six people, three of them being black. As much as I wonder if she arrested those three black to stop the uprising, and feel no small amount of contempt for this, I keep wondering if maybe that wasn't such a terrible thing.
I remember a scene in "Selma" when David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King is at a protest that he is leading, and he's looking off to one side and well ahead as one of his group is being beaten (was it Oprah Winfrey?) How does it feel to watch people you are trying to protect get hurt in protest you lead? If there was a question as to the responsibility of the black officers and trotting them out would end potential violence, maybe a politician-- even a good race woman politician-- would feel obligated to do so.
Makes me sick. I don't think I could do it.
The second act will likely be her fighting the good fight for black folks in the court room. I expect a firey court fight. I expect public announcements and gathering support for her efforts.
And the third act will be the stumbling out of the courtroom, disheveled and battle worn, having lost the war. I expect this case will have her singing the theme song to "The Jeffersons" win or lose.
Of course, it could be that Marilyn Mosby is the race woman that some seem to think she is. But I don't think it matters. I think the performance that we're about to see will be the same. It doesn't matter if she's genuine.
Compare: I think Jesse Jackson is sincere in his feelings of protectiveness for black people, but his inner showman is/was ever present. Al Sharpton? I get the same impression. And I can feel how drawn they are to blackness and to the camera and their ambition too. If Jesse and Al could have an ambitious female child, maybe her name might be Marilyn.
I hope I'm wrong.
I hope that everybody is wrong about how unlikely it is anybody is going to jail for Freddie Gray's death. So I'm raising my glass. Here's to hoping Mosby can keep the jurisdiction in chocolate city a.k.a Baltimore. Because if somebody pulls a Rodney King on her, and gets this case moved from chocolate city to a vanilla valley like Simi Valley, she's cooked. Keeping the trial in Baltimore could be the key to her victory.
Pray em if you got em.
http://heavy.com/news/2015/05/caesar-goodson-charged-charges-murder-garrett-miller-edward-nero-alicia-white-william-porter/
http://abcnews.go.com/US/tough-convictions-baltimore-cop-case-legal-analyst/story?id=30754502
Raynette Turner is one of the 6 women of color (5 black and 1 Native American) to die in a United States jails just last month.
