State's
Attorney Marilyn Mosby must review the evidence, consider charges and
decide how to move forward in the death of Gray, who suffered severe
spinal injuries at some point after he tried to run from police on April
12, and died a week later.
Police
Commissioner Anthony Batts took no questions and provided no details
about the report, which he said represents the work of more than 30
investigators.
"I understand the frustration; I understand the
sense of urgency," Batts said. "That is why we have finished it a day
ahead of time."Batts said police would keep probing at the direction of the state's attorney, while Mosby stressed that her office is doing its own investigation.
"We are not relying solely
on their findings but rather the facts that we have gathered and
verified. We ask for the public to remain patient and peaceful and to
trust the process of the justice system," her statement said.
Batts
left it to Deputy Commissioner Kevin Davis to release yet another
official timeline of what happened to Gray after his arrest nearly three
weeks ago.
In all, the previously undisclosed stop now makes four
stops between the time officers arrested Gray and his arrival at a
police station, where he was found unresponsive. He was hospitalized in
critical condition and died a week later.Batts and Davis said nothing more about when or how investigators obtained the previously undisclosed video or learned about the additional stop. However, five of the six officers gave statements to investigators the day Gray was injured, and as recently as a week ago, the stop was not part of the official timeline, suggesting investigators learned of it later.
Gray was arrested after he made eye contact with an officer and ran. Officers chased him down and handcuffed him behind his back. Bystander videos recorded police loading him, dragging his legs, into one of two metal compartments in the back of the van.
Police earlier said the van stopped once so that officers could put Gray in "leg irons" because he had become "irate;" stopped again because the driver asked for an additional unit to check on Gray's condition, and then again to put an additional prisoner in the van's other compartment before arriving at the station.
Now police are saying an additional stop was made before the driver asked officers to check on his condition. They said nothing about this stop other than its location — at what appears to be a desolate intersection with three vacant lots and a corner store. Last week, Batts had said the second prisoner told investigators the driver did not speed, make sudden stops or "drive erratically" during the trip, and that Gray was "was still moving around, that he was kicking and making noises" up until the van arrived at the police station.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake sought to dispel any notion that the police report would bring a swift and public conclusion to the case. "Whatever time the state's attorney's office needs to make that determination, the family wants to get it right," she said Wednesday after meeting with Gray's family and legal team.
"This
family wants justice and they want justice that comes at the right time
and not too soon," said Hassan Murphy, one of the family's lawyers.
Meanwhile,
protests over Gray's death spread Wednesday night to other cities
including Boston, New York and Washington, making it clear that tensions
over the case are far from subsiding. The demonstrations were mostly
peaceful, but police made many arrests, including at least 60 in New
York.
Gray's death was only
the latest high-profile case of a black man dying as the result of a
police encounter. Similar protests erupted over the killings of Michael
Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Eric Garner in New York last year, and
Walter Scott in South Carolina. Scott was shot in the back by a white
officer who has since been charged with murder.
Source:AP
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