Thursday, July 28, 2016

Freddie Gray, Another Black Life that Doesn't Matter





The Baltimore Sun reports that:
Prosecutors dropped all charges Wednesday against three Baltimore police officers accused in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray, bringing to an end one of the highest-profile criminal cases in the city's history with zero convictions.

Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby acknowledged the long odds of securing convictions in the remaining cases following the acquittals of three other officers on similar though more serious charges.

In a hearing Wednesday meant to start the trial of Officer Garrett Miller, prosecutors dropped their cases against him, Officer William Porter and Sgt. Alicia White. Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams, who had acquitted the other officers, was expected to preside over the remaining trials as well.

After the most recent acquittal and "a great deal of thought and prayer," Mosby said, she resolved to drop the remaining charges. Mosby stood by her decision to bring the charges, pointing out that the medical examiner's office ruled Gray's death a homicide and that it's her job as the city's top prosecutor to seek justice.

"It's something that I've been grappling with for some time," Mosby said of her decision to end the prosecution, during an interview with The Baltimore Sun. "It's not something that was overnight."
In Baltimore, there was a black mayor, a black judge, black cops, a black prosecutor and a black commissioner. Yet, there was no justice for the black victim, Freddie Gray.  Even with a black President and a black Attorney General, there will be no federal charges filed.

The black cops did nothing to stop white cops from unlawfully arresting Freddie Gray. Black cops and white cops failed to buckle Freddie Gray in, thereby recklessly placing him in a precarious and dangerous position. Black cops ignored Freddie Gray's cries for medical attention. The former police commissioner, who is black, continues to defend the police who were responsible for Freddie Gray's death.

A black prosecutor failed to convince a jury and a black judge to convict the officers responsible for Freddie Gray's death, a death ruled a homicide by the medical examiner. Despite clear evidence of reckless endangerment and misconduct, a black judge decided to let three killers walk free. Consequently, realizing that the remaining cases would go back before the same black judge, the black prosecutor was forced to dismiss the charges against the three remaining officers. When CNN asked about that decision, the black mayor spoke in a detached, non-compassionate and emotionless manner about not being surprised by the decision.

Sadly, the system did not fail Freddie Gray. Even with black administrators, the system was never designed to protect poor black people. It was designed to protect the police and the powerful. The racist criminal justice system does not need white administrators in order to function. Its brutality continues even when the black bourgeois is placed in token positions of power. Black lives never mattered, not even to some black people.


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