Testimony from officer charged in Freddie Gray case

It was a moment the riot-scarred city had waited for.

“Untrue”, said Porter. He added: “It’s untrue because Freddie Gray wasn’t injured at the fourth stop and the fifth stop and had he’d been injured, I would’ve called for a medic”. “Any loss of life, I’m sorry to see that”. They also suggested that the officer may have thought Gray was faking an injury to avoid going to jail.

According to Porter, he did everything Gray asked of him.

In a case that revolves around what Porter did or did not do during a few key encounters with Gray, Porter addressed those questions directly in his testimony.

“He was unable to give me any reason for why he needed one”. Gray, he said, showed no cuts, bruises or other signs of physical injury.

He said her spoke to Brandon Ross, who caught Gray’s arrest on video, at the scene and told him to go to the media with it.

“Absolutely not”, Porter, 26, said.

The trial comes as police agencies across the nation grapple with how to convince the public that the legal system can provide justice when their own are accused of wrongdoing.

Porter is charged with involuntary manslaughter, second degree assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office.

Prosecutors in the trial of Officer William Porter rested on Tuesday after five days of testimony aimed at showing his role in the April death of Freddie Gray.

Novak told the jury that by April 12, the day Gray was hurt, he hadn’t seen an updated seat belt policy that had been emailed to all department employees, nor had it been read aloud at roll call. He’d never arrested Gray, Porter said, but witnessed a prior arrest in which Gray tried to kick out the window of a police vehicle. People were really angry about the way police were treating Gray.

“There’s no testimony that what Officer Porter did was any sort of deviation from what a reasonable police officer would do”, defence attorney Gary Proctor said in arguing for dismissal of all charges.

Porter testified that he overheard someone – who he later learned was Gray – mentioning having trouble breathing, but that was at the first stop when Gray asked for an inhaler. Like Gray, Porter is black. So he says he and the van driver talked about taking Gray to the hospital instead. He testified that he has participated in 150 arrests in which detainees were transported in a police van and that not once was a detainee buckled in. But in this case they say the defense for Officer William Porter made the right decision in allowing him to testify.

Prosecutor Michael Schatzow pressed Porter on Wednesday about an apparent discrepancy between the officer’s first interview with a police investigator and his later interview and testimony. Schatzow asked Porter just before one court break. He also took exception to Schatzow asking whether there was a “no-snitching culture” among police officers.

University of Maryland Carey School of Law Professor Doug Colbert, who has attended every day of the trial, said Tuesday he believed Porter would testify last, because he is the defense’s strongest witness.

Di Maio attacked the conclusions of the medical examiner, saying that Gray could not have either moved or breathed, much less spoken, after sustaining the severe neck trauma that was revealed on scans taken at Shock Trauma and found on autopsy.

The injury had essentially “cut off the head from the body” in a neurological sense, Di Maio testified.

But Di Maio acknowledged that “if he was being restrained by a seat belt”, Gray would not have been injured.

But it also means the jury has an important decision to make. Porter was present at five of them.

Di Maio said Gray was likely injured between van stops at Penn-North and the Western District police station. But prosecutors say it would have been as easy as pressing a button on his chest for Porter to call for a medic. Porter told jurors the experience was “a very traumatic thing for me”.

Porter said it “felt like an eternity” for the medic to arrive as he held Gray in a “life-saving position” after finding him unconscious.

There was mucous around Gray’s nose and mouth, Porter testified. “The Western District was a pretty violent place”.

He called Gray’s name – which elicited responses at previous stops – but this time Gray was silent.