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Daily News Analysis

Freddie Gray's neck was broken in police van but no one ‘guilty’ of killing him!

Crescent International

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The police in America can do no wrong even when they kill innocent people. Since the police investigate themselves, they destroy the evidence. In the unlikely event of a case going before the court, racist judges ensure police are exonerated. Not surprisingly, so many blacks have been killed in recent months. Black anger is understandable in view of such brutality. Even President Obama says the justice system is broken but is helpless to fix it.

Baltimore, crescent-online.net
Wednesday July 27, 2016, 21:39 DST

Prosecutors in Baltimore dropped all remaining charges against three Baltimore police officers today. They were accused in the arrest and death of 25-year-old African American Freddie Gray in April of 2015.

Gray was running away from the police but when arrested, he was thrown in a police van with hands and feet tied but without a seat belt. During the high speed erratic drive, Gray’s neck and spinal chord were broken. He died in hospital a week later, on April 19, 2015.

Gray’s death, as that of countless other black men and women before him and since at the hands of abusive and trigger-happy police officers, led to widespread protests. The killing of black men has continued. In the first half of this year, at least 559 blacks have been shot and killed by the police. In the same period last year, 465 blacks were killed.

Baltimore State Attorney, Marilyn J. Mosby, herself black, appeared devastated at the decision to drop the charges despite fighting for a year to secure a conviction in a high profile police killing of another black man. The decision means nobody is held criminally accountable in Gray's death.

“After much thought and prayer it has become clear that without being able to work with an independent investigatory agency from the very start, without having a say in the election of whether cases proceed in front of a judge or jury, without communal oversight of police in this community, without substantive reforms to the current criminal justice system, we could try this case 100 times and cases just like it and we would still end up with the same result,” State prosecutor Mosby said.

Even President Barack Obama has admitted that the US criminal justice system is broken but is unable to fix it.

Ms Mosby was scathing in her criticism of the “inherent bias” of the police investigating themselves. In order not to be misunderstood and to preclude the possibility of being misquoted as the racist rightwing media are wont to do, she said the charges she brought against the six police officers were not an indictment of the entire Baltimore Police Department.

However, she condemned the actions and testimony of some of the officers that were involved in Gray's arrest as well as those investigating his death. She insisted there was “consistent bias” at “every stage” in the police department’s investigation of the case.

She was at pains to say she is not “anti-police,” but insisted that she is definitely “anti-police brutality” and said her office will continue to “fight for a fair and equitable justice system for all.”

Of the six officers charged in the murder of Freddie Gray, William Porter's trial ended with a hung jury and a mistrial last December. Three others on trial—Officers Edward Nero and Caesar Goodson and Lt. Brian Rice—were acquitted by Judge Williams in May, June, and July, respectively.

When the court began hearing today for the start of the trial of Officer Garrett Miller, Chief Deputy State's Attorney Michael Schatzow told Judge Williams that the state was dropping all charges against Miller, Porter and Sgt. Alicia White.

Porter had been scheduled to be retried in September, and White had been scheduled to be tried in October.

In the US, being black is a crime and it is virtually impossible to get justice even with a black man in the White House. The entire judicial system is rigged against blacks, Hispanics and other minorities of color.

At 2.3 million, the US has the largest prison population in the world and growing.

“Blacks are being shot at a rate that's 2.5 times higher than whites,” according to Kimberly Kindy, a Washington Post investigative reporter was quoted by the BBC News (July 18).

It then asked: “The big question is whether that is evidence that the police are discriminating against African Americans. There's an obvious argument that it is: African Americans are just 13% of the US population, and yet 26% of the people killed by the police.”

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