Lack of details from probe of Gray’s death frustrates many

Associated Press

BALTIMORE

The refusal of authorities to provide more than a few sketchy details about the Freddie Gray investigation may be legally appropriate, but many people in Baltimore were finding it hard to be patient Thursday when police revealed next to nothing about the criminal investigation they turned over to the state’s attorney’s office.

Nearly two weeks after Gray’s death, the public still doesn’t know much more than it did on Day One. The central question — what caused his fatal spinal-cord injury — remains a mystery.

“The transparency is just not there,” the Rev. Cortly “C.D.” Witherspoon said after Police Commissioner Anthony Batts refused to answer any questions Thursday.

Batts said his department’s report was delivered a day ahead of time to State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, and that from now on, any questions should go to her.

Mosby also declined to talk, issuing a statement Thursday asking “for the public to remain patient and peaceful and to trust the process of the justice system.”

A coalition of news media organizations, including The Associated Press, sent a letter Thursday evening to the Baltimore Police Department seeking the immediate release of the report as information that would serve the public interest.

With rumors flying about how Gray’s spine was “80 percent severed,” as his family’s lawyer Billy Murphy put it, police did release a new piece of information Thursday, but it served mostly to raise more questions about how truthful the six suspended officers have been with investigators.

Deputy Commissioner Kevin Davis said investigators discovered a security-camera recording showing that the police van carrying Gray had made a previously undisclosed, second stop, after the 25-year-old black man was put in leg irons and before the van driver made a third stop and called for help to check on his condition. The van then made a fourth stop, to pick up another passenger, before Gray arrived at the police station with the fatal spinal-cord injury that left him unresponsive.

Police had said Gray obviously was injured and asking for medical help when he was hoisted into the van April 12, and unresponsive on arrival at the station. He died in a hospital after a week in a coma.

Then, last week, Batts said the additional passenger who was picked up along the way had told investigators the driver did not speed, make sudden stops or “drive erratically” and that Gray was “was still moving around, that he was kicking and making noises” up until the van arrived at the police station.