In 2015, Freddie Gray was arrested and detained inside a police van. By the time the infamous van ride ended, Gray had fallen into a coma and had suffered severe injuries. We know that he was not wearing a seat belt during the trip. We know that officers chose to make four deadly stops with Freddie Gray still in tow before stopping at the Police station. While we may never truly know what exactly happened during that trip or if any of the officers truly were aware of the condition of Gray, we can at least deduct that Gray’s injuries were the result of negligence on the police’s part. How else would you describe his death? He went into that van alive and in a viable heath condition and left that van unconscious and on a gurney, with injuries that would later kill him in the next week.
When State Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced the charges on the six officers, we were hopeful. Surely, justice would be served and Gray’s death would not go unnoticed under the nose of the law. We had faith in the court system and chose to ignore the systematic way that they had acquitted officers that committed wrongdoings in the past. As the trials continued, a pattern began to form, and that is when we grew nervous. One by one, the involved officers began to be acquitted of the charges. One by one, the officers began to walk away from the courthouse without any evidence that they had committed a wrongdoing. One by one, the officers began to get away with murder. As we began to tense, they began to relax and see the truth of the situation- the odds of them actually being convicted were growing lower and lower as each of their fellow officers began to walk away as free men.
And now, as the fourth and highest ranking officer, Lt. Brian Rice, joins the rest of his comrades, I can only stare in shock and disbelief. How? How are these men and women not being punished for their part in the death of Freddie Gray? How can a medical examiner rule Gray’s death a homicide, yet no one is deemed responsible? A homicide involves someone else’s role, someone else’s bad judgment, someone else’s negligence that in-turn takes the life of someone else. Whether that someone else is the van driver or the three other acquitted officers, someone has to take responsibility for Gray’s death because if we know one thing it’s that Freddie Gray did not kill himself. His death was not random, the cause of his death lies in the way that he was tossed around in the back of that police van without being secured. His death lies in the reckless and negligent behavior of those six officers.
The other two officers will be tried in the weeks and months to come, but I feel as if we already know the verdict. The majority of the involved officers have already been acquitted and that verdict paints a bleak future for the justice of Freddie Gray. We can only hope that Freddie Gray will not be lumped into the growing group of black men that have been killed at the hands of the police and have had their justice taken away from them because we are far too tired to see that tragedy play out. Again.
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