The surprise of the early indictments should not have been a surprise. The timeline, actions, and inaction of the officers were pretty well documented for quite some time were documented by videos and other sources during the first three weeks since the incident. The prosecutor had been investigating this as well and the timeline clearly spelled out the indictments handed out on Friday. In fact, it sounded more like a convincing closing statement of a trial. It was a better closing statement than any of the trials I have sat on jury and witnessed. The only surprise to me was that the BPD investigation seemed to have been rather straight forward with the time line and that it provided a timeline that outlined the charges laid out by the district prosecutor.
When the BPD submitted what had already been obvious, how long should it take to come to these indictments? They the actions defined by the police report were textbook examples of the charges.
So why the surprise? Why any controversy?
With the verifiable evidence so far, anything else would not have been an acceptable interpretation. But what is next? That is the question we now face.
This only addressed the obvious. There could be minor adjustments to the charges as more evidence is found and clarified, but the charges followed the facts as presently known by the officers directly involved. I don't expect that the BPD investigation includes mistakes could show that Mr. Gray was given medical help. He was arrested illegally by the BPD and he died while in custody. There could be a loophole here concerning the illegality of the stop, but that is a bit iffy at best and could actually, if reasons for stopping him are added affect the "intent" aspect of the treatment of Mr. Gray. He was known to be in distress and no EMS called, but this is only the lowest level of officers involved with the apparent guilt in this case. I was surprised to hear that many lieutenants were involved in something like this, but they are still only the lowest level of what I learned about the BPD. Maybe Lieutenant is a low level officer. I just don't know that.
But the civil court cases in Baltimore show that he BPD seems to have a history of exactly what happened to Mr Gray in previous incidents in the area. There was no criminal actions in the past against the BPD, as I understand, but substantial civil cases were settled against the BPD so they have a history of this type of treatment!
This creates an MO of cruel treatment of suspects under the care of the BPD. If the same type of actions were committed by a civilian perpetrator. I would think that if the investigation continues, and it should definitely continue, the leadership should continue up the chain of command as far as is necessary to include all higher level public servants that knew what was happening and allowed this reckless indifference or outright brutality to continue under their supervision. One time could possibly be limited to only the guilt of the officers on the scene, but with each recurrence, the guilt moves up the ladder and soon becomes BPD policy and the blame must include those that allowed these actions to fEster in the department.
The surprising thing to me was actually how the police investigation so completely threw the officers under the bus. They put the blame very quickly and strongly to be focused on those 6 officers involved. It just doesn't seem to add up. If this had been the first occurrence, I can see them doing this to nip this action in the bud, but after their history? Really?
Seems odd that on prior similar incidents, there was no indictments and it took civil action to have any attempt at justice. The taxpayers picked up the tab and no punishment for those involved? When it's protested and follows massive recent media coverage and pleas for justice, all of a sudden the leaders have an investigation and come up with the verifiable evidence that everyone saw themselves and it seemed likely that their policy allowing this to go on without any BPD accountability, all of a sudden the leadership made sure that the focus is on these 6 officers.
Instead of the FOP calling for the prosecutor to recuse herself, maybe they should think about the "just following orders" defense as it seems apparent that they seemed to think that this is just the way these people should be treated when in custody.
I am not advocation that these 6 police officers, should be exonerated, but they may be only the real "thugs" and their leaders are the ones that need to be held accountable. They seem to me to be what is called 'guilty by the articles of principles'. They are as guilty as those currently under indictment with the facts we currently believe to be true.
This is not an example of what I want to be considered the American system of justice.
This is my reaction to some of the events so far. What do you think?
LeZi