Prosecutors rest case in Freddie Gray trial

The first trial in the case, of Officer William Porter, continued this week, including the prosecution resting its case on Tuesday.

As part of his ongoing effort to connect with Black voters, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders explored the West Baltimore neighborhood that was the site of Freddie Gray’s April arrest and met with local clergy to discuss the area’s plights.

Porter, 26, is the first of six officers to stand trial in Gray’s death.

Porter is charged with involuntary manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment in the April death of Freddie Gray. Prosecutors have accused Porter of failing to get prompt medical attention for a clearly ailing Gray, and not restraining him in a seatbelt in the back of a police van – per police policy – while being transported to the police station. But state’s witness Angelique Herbert, a Baltimore Fire Department paramedic who treated Freddie Gray, told jurors that in her 17 years on the job she’s never once refused a police call for an ambulance.

After dismissing the jury for the day, Judge Barry Williams heard arguments from defense lawyers who asked him to dismiss the charges against Porter on the grounds that testimony for the prosecution did not make a sufficient case. Porter’s attorneys will begin their case Wednesday.

“You understand that William Porter is a patrol officer in Baltimore City”, Murtha said, adding Lyman has no personal experience in making the split-second decisions a patrol officer makes daily. In addition to saying officers have the responsibility to ensure the safety of those arrested, “especially when [the detainee] is in hand and leg restraints”, Lyman also testified that officers are responsible for securing medical attention as quickly as possible for a detainee in medical distress. Defense attorneys have said other police officers routinely break such policies, but Schatzow said those officers should not be considered “reasonable”. Hebert was the state’s 15th witness. Porter checked on Gray at a later stop, and helped pull him up on to a bench, but still did not seatbelt Gray.

The expert witness, Michael Lyman, is a professor of criminal justice at Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri. Serologist Virginia Cates said stains on the van’s walls and seat belt tested positive for blood, which DNA analyst Thomas Herbert then testified matched that of Gray. He testified Tuesday that seat-belting, or making sure a detainee is properly restrained, is “a shared responsibility”, and not just that of the transport vehicle driver.

Gray should have been belted in when he was placed in the van, Lyman said.

Prosecutors called five witnesses to testify about general orders requiring officers to belt in their prisoners and immediately seek medical care if a detainee appears injured or requests aid. But the revelation could help the state raise doubts that Gray died exclusively by what happened in the van and maybe this injury was a contributing factor. The state’s medical examiner and an expert neurosurgeon testified that by that point, Gray’s spinal injury would mean he was struggling for air, finding it hard to talk.

He says samples from eight bloodstains contained Gray’s DNA.