The Prosecutor’s announcement in Baltimore about bringing charges against six officers there was nothing more than a political campaign speech, it certainly was not a prosecutorial statement.
This prosecutor should not even be prosecuting the case. She should have recused herself because she is a close personal friend to the young man who died family’s attorney. That attorney has been her mentor and was a large campaign contributor to her political campaign to become prosecutor. With a conflict of interest like that, there is no way she should be prosecuting the case.
As to her prosecution, she has charged those officers with 2nd degree, willful murder. It sounds like she is going for the highest charge she can possibly think of without any credence given to the actual facts on the ground. Again, it sounds like she is doing so to make a political statement and try and use that to calm things in Baltimore. But it will not work. It will only end up making things worse.
Given what happened, I do not believe there is any hope or chance of sustaining, or winning any kind of verdict on such a charge. If the arrest indeed was not legal (and that is certainly not established), charge them with illegal arrest and detention. If they did not seat belt the young man in the paddy wagon, charge them with violating their own safety protocol. But to take those two things and turn it into a willful murder of this young man is simply amazing in its over reach.
Finally, any good attorney and prosecutor would not rile up the public and seek to bias them as this prosecutor has done. That too ends up backfiring when the house of cards ultimately comes down.
I believe, like with the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, and the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, MO, huge, and unprovable over-reaches like this end up in having the people they are trying to trump up the charges on being exonerated and found innocent of those charges.. As in those cases, this attempt will end up not serving justice or the interests of Baltimore. Sadly, predictably, it will only make matters worse when the charges cannot be supported and the individuals are found innocent.
It is sad to see the U.S. justice system being politically corrupted right before our eyes like this.
The autopsy has not been released yet, and it could be very helpful. It was said by the prosecutor that the death was ruled a homicide, and not accidental.
I would like to see the autopsy reports.
Originally, the family said that his larynx was crushed, three vertebrae cracked, and the spinal cord nearly severed.
I was not there, but it sounds more like a stomping, chokehold, or kneedrop than injuries from banging around inside of a van.
We know they stopped at least twice, once to “further restrain” Freddy, and none of that is on camera.
We also know there was at least one stop recorded by citizens that the police did not report.
These uncertainties make me unwilling to call it a lynching, just yet.
I would love to see the findings from the autopsy.
“It is sad to see the U.S. justice system being politically corrupted right before our eyes like this.”
Actually, I think it is instructive. People are interested enough to pay attention to how the justice system works for a while, and it usually works pretty well, despite all the prejudice and anger in the community. You mentioned the Martin and Brown cases, which garnered much emotion, but in the end, the legal system followed the evidence, showed that evidence to the public, and was seen to have resolved those cases fairly, by most observers.
I expect the same thing to happen here.