The 2nd prisoner riding in the Baltimore police paddy wagon with Freddie Gray the day he was critically injured denies telling police he heard Gray “banging against the walls.”
The Washington Post quoted a source who said the 2nd prisoner believed Gray was “intentionally” trying to hurt himself by beating his head on the wall of the police van.
Donta Allen, 22, told WBAL’s Jayna Miller that the ride to the police station was relatively quiet.
“It was a smooth ride. We went straight to the station. All I heard was a little banging,” said Allen. He described the noise he heard by lightly tapping on a staircase bannister.
Gray, 25, was unconscious and barely breathing when he was removed from the van on April 12. Doctors diagnosed him with a severe spinal fracture. He died a week later while on life support in the intensive care unit.
The Post’s source also mentioned a head injury suffered by Gray that matched a bolt inside the police van.
Gray’s neck fracture was consistent with a car accident or falling off a roof.
Allen insisted he didn’t tell the police that Gray hurt himself.
“There’s no place where a man can hurt himself in there,” he said.
“I told homicide that I don’t work for the police,” Allen told WBAL. “I did not tell the police nothing.”
Allen was separated from Gray by a metal partition. He said he initially thought he was alone in the van.
Mainstream media outlets gleefully seized upon the Post’s report as proof that Gray was responsible for his own fatal injuries.
Conservative Fox News host Megyn Kelly was so convinced that Gray broke his own neck that she badgered Gray family attorney Jason Downs to accept the fact that no charges would be filed.
The Washington Post article was the lead story on every national and local news outlet. Neither CNN nor Fox News gave much credence to WBAL’s exclusive interview with Allen.
When CNN host Don Lemon was informed by another Gray family attorney about Allen’s interview, Lemon said Allen was still locked up.
In related news, investigators discovered a previously unreported stop made by the police van driver on April 12. The stop, recorded by a private surveillance camera, was the 2nd stop in the tragic sequence of events.
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