A new cell phone video may show the moments after Baltimore resident Freddie Gray was fatally injured inside a police transport van.
The video was filmed on April 12 at the 2nd stop of Gray’s journey following his arrest at the corner of Mount and Baker Streets.
Michelle Gross, 58, told the Baltimore Sun she was awakened by Gray’s screaming.
Gross, known as “mom,” in Baltimore’s Gilmore Homes projects, said she ran outside and saw Gray being arrested at Baker and Presbury Streets.
“I thought his leg was just broke and that he was just going to the police station and we would hear him that afternoon,” she said.
Most of what we know about Gray’s fatal encounter with police happened at Baker and Presbury.
Gross and a neighbor followed the transport van to the 2nd stop at Mount and Baker Streets, a block away from where he was arrested.
According to documents filed by Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, Lt. Brian Rice directed the van to stop so he could place Gray in leg shackles.
Gross said she yelled at Gray, “You all right?” But there was no response.
Her neighbor yelled, “Porter, can we get a supervisor up here please?”
He was referring to William Porter, one of the six officers charged in Gray’s death.
Porter motioned to Rice, indicating Rice was the highest ranking officer at the scene.
“Can we get someone else out here? This is not cool. This is not cool. Do you hear me?” the neighbor says.
Gross told the Baltimore Sun she handed her cell phone to her neighbor, who asked not to be identified because he fears police retaliation.
A YouTube video released by the Baltimore Police Dept. along with 15 other surveillance videos shows the witness standing across the street from the van filming the scene. That video was yanked down by Baltimore police without explanation.
The cell phone video shows Gray’s limp body partially outside the van. His upper torso is on the floor of the van and his legs are in a kneeling position outside the van. His body is motionless.
One of the officers is seen shackling Gray’s legs while Gray is motionless.
Three officers then lift Gray back into the van and place him face down on the floor of the van. This implies that the officers were aware that Gray was incapacitated — or at the very least they knew he was physically unable to sit up on his own.
In the charging documents Mosby filed against the six Baltimore officers, she wrote: “Following transport from Baker Street, Mr. Gray suffered a severe and critical neck injury as a result of being handcuffed, shackled by his feet and unrestrained inside of the [Baltimore Police Department] wagon.”
Mosby charged the officers with failing to secure Gray with a seatbelt and not providing medical care when he requested it.
Still, the video shows culpability only on the part of the 3 officers who were on the scene and observed Gray’s limp body — Rice, the driver Caesar Goodson Jr. and William Porter.
Goodson was charged with 2nd degree depraved heart murder, and involuntary manslaughter among other charges.
Based on this video evidence, the 1st 2 officers who arrested Gray and the female officer who placed a 2nd prisoner in the police van at the 4th stop should not have been charged.
