The strange death of Freddie Gray
 

Well, add Baltimore to the rapidly growing list of cities with a police/citizen issue. Watching the video, one has to conclude that Gray was in distress before being placed in the police van, his legs seemingly dangling underneath him while he could be heard crying in pain. A later clip shows him being removed from the van to have his legs shackled before being placed back in the van. By the time he arrived at the station, his spine was almost completely severed and he was to die from his injuries. the police say whatever happened occurred in the van but the video seems to dispute that, even so... obviously the injuries had to occur while he was in police custody. The preliminary autopsy, according to police spokesmen showed no signs of force being used. These results however still remain unavailable to the public a week later. Protests are growing daily and the streets are tense as marchers grow in numbers and to make tensions greater, police have characterized the protestors as a 'lynch mob".

It is a very disturbing story. They chased him because he ran. And now he is dead. There was a claim in an article i read that says they only needed reasonable doubt, not probable cause, because of the area in which this happened. I have yet to look into that more, to see if thst is indeed the case. All he was found to have was a pocket knife. It also said he asked for medical attention almost immediately. I cannot help but wonder if four police taking him down is what caused the injury.

Lived and died a gangster. Court dates coming and still a switchblade in his sock. Never giving up and always trying to escape.

RIP

Dell, you may be right in what you say, I admit that I don't know anything about Mr Gray but the issue is much larger than that. All across this nation we are seeing young black men dying at the hands of police, and with the explosion of social media, it's being caught on video or broadcast immediately via 24/7 media outlets. There is an unavoidable conclusion that mistrust of the police particularly within the black community has been simmering just beneath the surface for a long time and there is a danger of the streets of our nation exploding into violent protest. I am only suggesting that a problem exists and marginalizing the victims is not the answer.

We are also seeing young white men die at the hands of police, in fact more frequently than young black men.

What's really sad is we are seeing far more young black men and women being killed by young black men than by police. However many of those victims aren't being chased or pursued for crimes, real or suspected but walking to school, playing in the park, sitting on their front steps and even lying in their beds.

There definitely is a problem in this country but making police the scapegoat is absurd.

You're going to need to provide some stats for your claim about more white men being killed by the police than black men.

And more white men and women are killed by other white men and women than by the police, so I'm not sure what your point is on the second paragraph there. Though it sure caught my dog's attention. ;)

Dell, don't you ever get tired of parroting the same old tired line? Yes, we all know the stats regarding black on black crime and I'm not scapegoating the police but you have to have your head stuffed way up your anal cavity to not recognize the animosity between the black community and predominately white police departments. You cannot disregard history and that history is full of lawless behavior by white policemen against black men, women and children. For decades, so called law enforcement folks were involved in lynchings, torture and abuse of power with the black community enduring same. Sure much of this abuse occurred in the south but it was by no means restricted to there. Today, black folks, especially young men, are still considered guilty of something if seen in the "wrong" place (code for upscale white neighborhoods). I worked in the prison system and was an MP in the service, I understand that law enforcement is a tough job and I respect the vast majority of policemen who do their best to protect law-abiding citizens but there is no defense for those who disgrace the badge and behave like thugs. Some of problems are simply related to lack of proper training but others result from racist ideologies and macho behavior. When police authorities refer to citizens as "lynch mobs" or "enemy combatants" it is not only inflammatory but an indication of a mindset that is dangerous to ALL citizens. We need the police, they protect us and enforce the law...but they are not above the law!

Among those we do know were shot by police, black teens were 21 times more likely to be shot dead than their white counterparts.

“The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police,” a new ProPublica report explains, noting that if whites were killed at the same ratio there would have been another 185 white deaths, just during that three-year period, just of those in that narrow age range.

To arrive at this statistic, ProPublica analyzed the list of 12,000 police shooting deaths that were self-reported by agencies to the Federal Bureau of Investigation between 1980 and 2012. Because this data is self-reported and departments are not required to submit information, this data likely significantly undercounts the number of shootings. Florida departments, for example, haven’t submitted data since 1997 and New York City hasn’t submitted data since 2007. And the FBI asks only for “justifiable homicide” figures, meaning in those instances where the shootings are most overtly viewed as unjustified or the litigation is ongoing, departments are less likely to report.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ut-minority-d/


You're second paragraph makes my point. I did not mean a black v. white comparison but rather a police v. citizen comparison.

Your dog must be very intelligent.:rolleyes:

I'm not saying police don't make mistakes and are right/justified all the time, but by and large they don't shoot down or kill citizens going about their normal day.

and of course we know that prison sentences are longer for blacks than whites for the same crime, that blacks are more likely than whites to be given prison sentences...death row is also racially biased. those are facts....but some still believe race is no factor, when in fact study after study shows it very much is.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014...04463789858002

that's just one of many articles on the subject.
people need to quit pretending there's not an issue here. it needs to be accepted, faced, addressed. note in that article that since the scotus ruling, sentences returned to what they'd been before the guidelines were adopted.


here's another:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/we...ater.html?_r=0

note the disparity of searches conducted...and so often, whites are shown to be caught more often than others wih contraband, yet they are still searched less often! talk about perception vs reality!!

"By and Large" ? Shouldn't we expect 100% of the time that they don't kill people who are unarmed?

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...y-shot-police/

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...IlW-yLGL1hAezw

'Bates, an insurance executive, has donated cars and other equipment to the sheriff's office -- and donated to the re-election campaign of Sheriff Stanley Glanz.

Details of Bates' certification began to unravel Tuesday, when Glanz told KFAQ radio that Bates had qualified with three different weapons — but that the paperwork had been misplaced.

The World says three supervisors were transferred after declining to approve Bates' training.'

"Oh I shot him, sorry." From the RESERVE 73 YEAR OLD COP ALLOWED TO CARRY A GUN.

with faked training and certification....
appalling. what's really appalling is the people who will say 'oh, no big deal'.
yeah, just a human being killed because someone was allowed to play cops and robbers.

Yea it happens everyday, don't you know?

BTW Baltimore has had 63 homicides so far this year with 56 of the victims being black (89%).

Police in all of Baltimore County have been involved in 2 deaths so far one being Gray and another being a 16 year old white kid wanted for a triple homicide in KY. Not sure either can be considered a homicide but nonetheless there are 2 victims who are dead. By why stress the 97% of killings not involving police?:wf

http://data.baltimoresun.com/bing-ma...s=Show+results

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/mar...214-story.html

Because the topic is Police killing unarmed citizens that is why. Your citing of a statistic is simply Dell being Dell and creating a strawman.

Since the vast, vast majority of death row inmates are in for murder and not because of race, it seems necessary to determine what the racial makeup is of offenders committing murders. Using 2013 FBI stats (the latest available)

Total Murders 5,655
Whites 2,730 48.27%
Blacks 2,681 47.40%

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr...ender_2013.xls

So with whites committing 48.27% of all murders they occupy 43% of death row. While blacks committing 47.45% of all murders occupy 41.75% of death row. Doesn't seem to get any fairer than that!

And your ignoring 97% of murders is simply ignorant.

BTW if you apply 'police killing unarmed citizens' as the criteria you want to go with, Baltimore has had zero this year.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/24/us/bal...ath/index.html

A rough ride, eh?
And not a first, several others paralyzed in baltimore after suffering a 'rough ride' courtesy of Baltimore cops...frequently occurs, and they wonder why people are upset?!
Again, police are there to arrest, keep the peace, etc. Not to be judge, jury and executioner all in one. This is reprehensible.
The patriotic act, the NSA, the militarization of local PDS, and occurrences like these...what next? Why this constant assault on our rights?!

And in Florida, a 20 year old man paralyzed by a police officer shooting him. Apparently riding a bicycle while black is grounds for the cops to drive their cars up onto lawns in an attempt to stop said person.

You mean Dick Chaney ?

I just read after an extended meeting following last night's riots, President Obama and newly appointed Atty. General Loretta Lynch plan to take action using video captured last night to bring charges.

Once identified the plan is to charge up to a thousand Baltimore Police officers with loitering.

This will put to rest once and for all the problem of police brutality and allow time to focus on the country's biggest threat, Global Warming. The President and Ms. Lynch plan to celebrate the action by taking Air Force on a joyride over the underground, nuclear research facility in Iran. :rolleyes:

Six Baltimore police officers charged over death of Mr Gray today, charges ranging from second degree murder to dereliction of duty. Arrest ruled unlawful and State's Attorney detailed events subsequent to same that resulted in death of Mr. Gray. The knife that Mr Gray had in his pocket was not a switchblade as reported but a lawful folding pocket knife. Five of six officers already in custody.

Hannity of Faux News..:zz:

Should be great tonight. Gray's death was officially ruled a homicide. Hannity and Faux said he did it to himself !

Not surprised to hear this at all. Based on what they said he had in his possession, there was no reason to arrest.
you can chase a suspect, and question, because someone running at seeing a cop when in a high crime area is enough to have reasonable suspicion. That doesnt mean tho that running alone is cause to arrest.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...ddie_gray.html


The police must obey the law while enforcing the law...
Earl Warren

I see that 3 of the 6 officers are black. One of them is a black woman who was recently promoted to sergeant. The three black officers are facing the most serious charges. It will be interesting to see if Al Sharpton and company change their tune when they find out that 3 of the officers are black. Sharpton won't be able to claim racism.

Allan Dershowitz (who is obviously very liberal) blasted the prosecutor. He says this whole thing is politically motivated.

Dershowitz says, "This is a very sad day for justice." He says the prosecutor acted out of a "desire to prevent riots."

And as for murder charges, Dershowitz said there’s "No plausible, hypothetical, conceivable case for murder". He says, "This is a show trial."

He went on to say that it’s "unlikely they’ll get any convictions in this case and if they do they’ll likely be reversed on appeal."

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/alan-ders...y-for-justice/

So a White Jew lawyer is defending Black cops who killled a guy..plus other white cops who killed the same guy...??

The point is simply that Dershowitz is very liberal. He is a defense attorney and he is often times very critical of the police. So when he is an outspoken defender of the police, I think it means something. I'm not saying that it means mistakes weren't made by the police in this case. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a full and exhaustive investigation. I'm just saying that there shouldn't be a rush to judgment and the police should not be overcharged, simply to placate the protesters.

It is unheard of for police in this situation to be charged with false imprisonment. I have friends who are prosecutors. They have told me they have never seen anything like this in 25 years of prosecuting cases. If police make a mistake and arrest a guy because they think his knife is illegal and it turns out the knife is legal, the charges against the guy are going to be dropped. The police aren't go to be arrested for false imprisonment. That doesn't happen, ever. But in this case, that is what the prosecutor is doing. It's crazy.

One of my friends who is a prosecutor was telling me that he can't personally be sued for making a mistake. The city could be sued for his mistake but he couldn't personally be sued. The only way he could personally be sued would be if there was some type of intentional misconduct on his part. He can't personally be sued or arrested for making a mistake. If he could, who in their right mind would go into that field? It is the same with becoming a policeman. Who in their right mind is going to become a policeman if you can get sued and arrested for making a mistake. The officer did not know that the particular knife that Gray had was legal. You're going to arrest the cop for false imprisonment in that case? That is insane.

I'm not saying that some of the charges in the Gray case may not turn out to be legitimate. A few of the charges could be legitimate but some of the charges filed so far are absurd.

Wait till the murder charges are dropped or they're found innocent. It will make the riots seem like child's play.

http://gawker.com/report-cop-who-arr...kil-1702565790

One of the cops involved sounds like a real winner there.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/d...icide-30980451

two have no resigned over the reserve, non trained 'deputy' killing a guy. oops, thought i grabbed my taser....

Great news, police have killed no one since the riots so this is just racist reporting. :rolleyes:

So there you have it, without jobs there is nothing to do but murder. Perhaps that was the reason the Waco bikers went off?:wf

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2015/0...-in-baltimore/

Any of you read the Baltimore Sun article yesterday about that grandstanding incompetent buffoon Mosby?

I'm sure the liberal idiots here did. Why didn't you post about it? Doesn't fit your brainwashed "kill my own race" narrative?

**** you. Sick of idiot whites who've fallen for mainstream media cover-ups and intentional lies.

This doesn't even address the fact that the Baltimore mayor is a confirmed mouth breather.

How much more appeasing do you weak-kneed apologist 'crackers' have left?

Come on you can muster up something...semantics...anything.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/mar...ry.html#page=1

Hmm I guess this new tidbit of info is counterproductive to the "**** the legal process lets automatically assume criminals are honest and the working class are evil liars" schtick these appeasing wastes of flesh are promoting.

Once again...**** you.