Mistrial declared in Freddie Gray trial

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

Shortly after the judge declared a mistrial in the case of Officer William Porter, protesters began to gather outside Courthouse East, with at least one man being arrested. “A mistrial means that the prosecution did not do their jobs good enough”.

After declaring the mistrial, Judge Williams said he might announce a new trial schedule as early as Thursday.

Bill Murphy, an attorney for Gray’s family, gave a similar assessment to reporters.

“It’s not over yet”, he said, before politely ending conversation.

A defense attorney declined to comment, saying he was subject to a court gag order.

Gray’s family thanked jurors for their service and asked the public to remain calm.

During Monday’s closing arguments, prosecutor Janice Bledsoe argued that any officer in Porter’s situation would have called for medical assistance once Gray complained.

“We are not at all upset with them, and neither should the public be upset”, Shipley said at a news conference outside the Baltimore courthouse Wednesday evening. “We are confident there will be another trial with a new jury”.

“We’re not happy today with what happened”, said protester Westley West. “It’s not what we need; we need a conviction”.

“They didn’t offer him immunity”.

“This would be a game changer”, CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin said.

It was unclear whether prosecutors would seek to retry Officer Porter. Options for the state could include granting Porter immunity in exchange for his testimony, trying to persuade the judge to postpone the other trials while retrying Porter or striking him from their witness list altogether.

“I knew it was going to be hard on both sides. It’s not”, he told reporters. “This saga is not over…It’s just a bump on the road to justice”.

But prosecutors now have major strategic decisions to make, Toobin said, like whether to keep prosecuting Porter or offer him immunity. In a department where officers are guided in their actions by personal discretion and social norms rather than the rules they learned in the police academy, the defense argued, Porter could not be held criminally responsible for following the example of his peers and superiors. One group of demonstrators repeated the “Serenity Prayer” as they moved through the streets.

As Rose continued to chant with other protestors: “No justice, no peace, no racist police”, he was suddenly arrested by sheriffs and taken into the courthouse in flex cuffs.

The city is hoping to avoid the arson and rioting that erupted after Gray’s death last April.

Baltimore’s Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake appealed for calm following the announcement.

“We will not – and can not – be defined by the unrest of last spring”, she told reporters Wednesday. As University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris told the Sun, “We’re pretty stingy in this country and this culture with obligating people to do stuff”.

Police arrested Gray on April 12, 2015, for allegedly possessing an illegal knife.

Porter, a black officer who joined the Baltimore Police Department in 2012, was accused by prosecutors of criminal negligence and recklessness for declining to provide Gray with medical attention when he said he was hurt, and for allowing him to be transported in the back of a police van without a seatbelt. One prosecutor referred to the van as a “casket on wheels”. He faces multiple charges, including manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment.

Williams declared a mistrial after jurors could not agree on any of the four charges Porter faced. There is no statutory maximum sentence for the fourth charge, misconduct.

Commissioner Davis, who assumed command of the department after the April riots, which caused significant damage to property, suspended officers’ leave ahead of the jury deliberations this week.

CNN’s Aaron Cooper and Carolyn Sung reported from Baltimore; CNN’s Ed Payne and Catherine E. Shoichet wrote in Atlanta.