Tag: Freddie Gray

Baltimore to pay Freddie Gray’s family millions

The city of Baltimore will pay Freddie Gray’s family a $6.4 million settlement for his April arrest and death. If approved, the payout will be larger than all combined police misconduct settlements by the Maryland jurisdiction over the past several years.

The settlement, announced by black Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake on Tuesday, does not admit any wrongdoing by the six Baltimore Police Department officers who are charged in Gray’s death.

Gray, a 25-year-old African-American, was arrested by the Baltimore Police Department. While being transported in a police van, Gray fell into a coma and later died.

“The proposed settlement agreement going before the Board of Estimates should not be interpreted as a judgment on the guilt or innocence of the officers facing trial,” Rawlings-Blake said in a statement.

“This settlement is being proposed solely because it is in the best interest of the city, and avoids costly and protracted litigation that would only make it more difficult for our city to heal and potentially cost taxpayers many millions more in damages.”

The proposal calls for Baltimore to pay $2.8 million during the current fiscal year and $3.6 million in next year, the city said. It will have to be approved by the Board of Estimates, the governing body that oversees the city’s spending. The five members, including Rawlings-Blake, are expected to meet Wednesday.

City Council President Bernard C. ‘Jack’ Young, also a member of the Board of Estimates, will support the proposal, spokesman Lester Davis told the Baltimore Sun.

If approved, the settlement would be more than the combined payouts of over 120 lawsuits brought against the Baltimore PD claiming police brutality and misconduct since 2011, according to a 2014 Baltimore Sun investigation.

The city paid some $5.7 million in those cases, with payouts capped at $500,000 per case, unless there were extenuating circumstances like multiple victims or actual malice. Baltimore paid an additional $5.8 million in legal fees in defending the police in those cases.

In the 30 days following the death of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore Sun reports that there have been 34 murders and more than 160 non-fatal shootings in West Baltimore.

Black protests started after the funeral and soon turned to violence. Civil unrest and hooliganism continued with at least twenty police officers injured, at least 250 people arrested, 285 to 350 business damaged, 150 vehicle fires, 60 structure fires, 27 drugstores looted, thousands of police and Maryland Army National Guard troops were deployed, and a state of emergency was declared in the city limits of Baltimore.

Source: RT

Seattle, San Francisco, Baltimore face fresh riots

Police say black-clad May Day marchers hurled wrenches and rocks at officers and hit police with sticks as a Friday evening march through Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood turned violent, injuring three officers — two seriously.

Police responded with pepper spray, pepper balls and flash bang grenades. Officers said several dozen vehicles were damaged. Windows were broken in neighborhood businesses.

Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole said one officer had a dislocated shoulder, a second had a broken wrist, and a third had a burn injury to his leg and ankle. They’re recovering at Harborview Medical Center.

“Thankfully, they’re all conscious,” O’Toole said. “We talked to them. They’re in good spirits. Just happy the situation didn’t become more serious.”

The injuries occurred at 7:30 p.m. when officers issued a dispersal order to the group and attempted to clear the street at Broadway and Howell, Seattle police said.

Protesters hurled bottles, rocks, bricks, wrenches, and other projectiles at police, who responded by utilizing pepper spray and pepper balls to break up the increasingly violent crowd, police said. They added protestors also began pushing barricades and trash cans into roadways, and raided a fenced construction site for items they later burned in the street.

A May Day protest and march through the streets of Downtown Oakland, San Francisco, also turned violent Friday evening, with some businesses and cars being vandalized.

Friday’s protest began peacefully. About 500 people protesting several issues, from police brutality to capitalism, marched from Frank Ogawa Plaza and eventually up Broadway. Later on, vandals went on a rampage. They broke windows of business and vehicles and set a car on fire on the Broadway Auto Row.

One of the marchers said she was okay with vandalism that targeted big business.
“I see it like a game of chess and if one day we can throw rocks at police, right or wrong, however you feel about it, then that’s a day we took a stand. And that, in my mind, to some extent, is a win against the system,” Melissa Crosby said.

Baltimore is bracing for fresh protests this weekend, following a tumultuous week that included looting and arson, the arrival of National Guard troops and the filing of criminal charges against six police officers in the case of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man whose death in police custody set off the unrest.

Thousands of people are expected here Saturday for a march organized by Malik Shabazz, president of the Washington-based Black Lawyers for Justice and a former chairman of the New Black Panther Party. For nearly two weeks, ever since Mr. Gray died, city leaders have been warning against “outside agitators,” an oblique reference to Mr. Shabazz, who is clearly making them nervous.

“They should be nervous,” Mr. Shabazz said in an interview Friday night. “The youth went off and had a rebellion because the established leadership has not represented them well.”

Source: CBS/NYT

Did Gray intentionally injure himself?

A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.

The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him. His statement is contained in an application for a search warrant, which is sealed by the court. The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for the inmate’s safety.

The document, written by a Baltimore police investigator, offers the first glimpse of what might have happened inside the van. It is not clear whether any additional evidence backs up the prisoner’s version, which is just one piece of a much larger probe.

Gray was found unconscious in the wagon when it arrived at a police station on April 12. The 25-year-old had suffered a spinal injury and died a week later, touching off waves of protests across Baltimore, capped by a riot Monday in which hundreds of angry residents torched buildings, looted stores and pelted police officers with rocks.

Meanwhile City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby says Freddie Gray received his critical injuries in Baltimore police custody and has charged all six officers involved in his death.

The state medical examiner’s office turned over Gray’s autopsy on Friday morning, a day after the police turned over their investigation into Gray’s death.

Source: Washington Post

Freddie Gray protesters gather in NY and DC

New York City police arrested more than 60 people Wednesday as protesters marched in solidarity with those in Baltimore, where demonstrations and riots were sparked by Freddie Gray’s death in police custody.

The arrests come after hundreds of people gathered in New York’s Union Square to rally against Gray’s death and in support of those in Baltimore. The NYPD had warned participants that marching into the streets or blocking sidewalks could result in arrests.

More than 60 people were arrested throughout the night, an NYPD spokesperson told Reuters. Police are charging many of the protesters with disorderly conduct, according to CNN.

The event was organized by the Millions March coalition, which asked participants who support “social, economic, and racial justice” to head down to Union Square to “stand in solidarity with them and with their resistance because their resistance is for justice and their justice is our justice.”

“People of Baltimore have taken to the streets day after day for justice for Freddie Gray and for Black lives across the country but now that the National Guard has been called in and a curfew set, we must stand in solidarity with the people of Baltimore,” the group wrote on the Facebook page for Wednesday’s event.

“The media will continue to paint the people of Baltimore as rioters and looters but people forget that the City and Police of Baltimore loot and destroy Black and Brown communities of Baltimore every day of the year.”

Hundreds of protesters showed up to Union Square to begin the rally. Prior to the rally’s commencement, police used loudspeakers and distributed flyers warning demonstrators that they could be arrested if they walk in the streets or block the sidewalks.

In Washington, DC, the National Black United Front scheduled its own rally in support of Gray and “all those that have been killed by at the hands of police terrorism.”

Speaking with the Washington Post, one local activist described the motivation behind the event.

“We wanted to come out and show our solidarity with folks who are protesting for Freddie Gray in Baltimore and continue to bring national attention to this, and not allow for this, like any incident, to be treated as isolated to one city,” said Eugene Puryear.

Several hundred people turned out, where protesters were set to march to the White House.