Baltimore officer could have saved man’s life in seconds

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake urged citizens on Monday to respect the jury’s decision and go about business as usual.

Prosecutor Janice Bledsoe described the police wagon that Gray sustained his injuries in as his “casket on wheels”, according to FOX News.

A jury has started deliberations in the first trial of a Baltimore police officer charged in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray.

“You are looking into the wagon and then you turn your back on Freddie Gray”, Bledsoe said.

Officer William Porter, charged with manslaughter, has said he did not call for a medic for Freddie Gray because he had no reason to do so.

Prosecutors have had to prove criminality by inaction – that Porter abused his power by failing to save Gray’s life. “He failed in his responsibility”.

Defense attorneys had previously argued there was no way that Porter – also a black man, but a member of a police force long dogged by accusations of racial profiling and brutality – could receive a fair trial in Baltimore.

Porter’s attorney, Joe Murtha, argued that prosecutors wrongly pressed the case against Porter because of the national attention surrounding Gray’s death.

Officer William Porter faces charges that include manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. Prosecutors are asking jurors to find Porter negligent for not strapping Gray into a seat belt and not calling for medical help when he appeared to be in distress following the van ride to the police station.

Davis sent a letter to the police force on Monday, saying, “Regardless of the outcome of this trial or any future trial, we refuse to surrender to the low expectations of those who wish to see us fail….”

Demonstrations were initially peaceful following the young black man’s death on April 19, a week after his arrest.

In Porter’s case, an officer’s negligence, rather than any violent act or excessive force, is in question. No eyewitnesses said what happened inside the van, and no unequivocal evidence showed exactly when his neck was broken during the trip. The driver, Caesar Goodson, declined to go to the hospital, instead stopping to pick up another prisoner, Porter said. Officers bound him more tightly at the wrists, shackled his ankles and laid him on his stomach on the floor.

However, prosecutors say, Porter failed other obligations – such as following department policy by securing the prisoner in a seat belt inside the van, and summoning medical help immediately once it became clear he was hurt – errors prosecutors said had fatal consequences for Gray.

The van detoured to pick up another prisoner in a separate compartment before Gray finally arrived at the station in critical condition.

Gray told Porter he needed medical aid and Porter put him on a van bench.

“He never made a complaint of an injury”, Porter said Wednesday.

In the prosecution’s response – their final argument to jurors, prosecutor Michael Schatzow closed by reminding them of Porter’s contention on the witness stand that he and Gray – a 25-year-old West Baltimore native with a lengthy history of drug crimes – knew and had mutual respect for each other. Goodson faces the most serious charge of the six officers: second-degree “depraved-heart” murder.

Porter’s fate may influence the trials of the other officers and set the tone for the city’s healing.

The city of Baltimore, still on edge after riots the day of Gray’s funeral, braces for the verdict.

‘We need everyone visiting our city to respect Baltimore’.