Last month we exposed many of the ugly lies about Freddie Gray being spread by conservatives—ranging from the lie that he broke his neck jumping from a window while evading police to the lie that he had a spinal surgery in the weeks before he was killed stemming from a car accident.
It's now been one month since 25-year-old Freddie Gray died because of critical injuries he suffered while in police custody. Six officers having been charged in his murder. And many facts continue to emerge, including a video that was just released showing one of the many stops made while Freddie was in the van.
Below, from the moment when police arrested Freddie Gray until now, we will expose each lie that has been told by the Baltimore police
LIE: The arrest of Freddie Gray was lawful.
TRUTH: Everything about the arrest of Gray was unlawful.
Sadly, we will never fully understand what happened on April 12, because Gray never spoke another word again after he emerged from the police van that day and died one week later from his injuries.
The police claim, in their own timeline, that they chased and subdued Gray (and another unnamed man), but never gave any legal reason for doing so other than making eye contact with them.
The Baltimore police commissioner, Anthony Batts, has already said clearly that "there is no law against running." What law, then, did Gray break to be pursued and arrested in the first place? It is not legal to simply look at a man and assume it must be a criminal.
Furthermore, while police claim that Gray was carrying an illegal knife at the time of his arrest, two facts about this need to be clarified:
1. The police themselves claimed to have found the knife after they hadchased, caught and cuffed him.
In charging documents, prosecutors say three officers were on patrol near Gilmor Homes when Gray spotted them and began to run.2. While officers contend that the knife was indeed a switchblade, Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby and her team said strongly that it isn't. Either way, the illegal pursuit and arrest took place before they found the knife.Prosecutors say the officers chased Gray and soon caught him. They say the officers held him down, handcuffed him, and found the knife.
The officers "substantially found a knife clipped to the inside of his pants pocket," prosecutors wrote in the documents. "The blade of the knife was folded into the handle. The knife was not a switchblade and is lawful under Maryland law."
LIE: Officer Garrett Miller, under oath, stated in his initial police report that Gray was arrested without force or incident. The report is below.
Witness Kevin Moore, who also filmed the arrest, said that police had Freddie folded up like "a piece of origami" and that the "heels of his feet were in his back" and that officers had their "knees on his neck" and that Freddie was "asking for an inhaler" and "telling them he couldn't breathe."
Harold Perry, another witness, said,
"I heard this boy hollering and screaming," said Harold Perry.Perry said he heard the commotion near his home in the 1700 block of Presbury St. where the arrest occurred.
"You're hurting my neck! You're hurting my neck! Get your knee out my back!", Perry recalled.
Perry claims in an exclusive interview with WUSA9 that police shouted at Gray to "shut the f--- up."
See Harold Perry's interview starting at 1:08 in the video below.
The video below shows Gray in clear pain after he is arrested. He is screaming and his legs do not appear to be working. The people filming the video are clearly angry because they see him in pain as well and wonder if his legs are broken.
Starting at 1:41 in the video below, another onlooker filmed the arrest of Gray. In this video, his legs are limp, dangle in an unnatural motion, and he appears to be in serious pain.
8:39:12 a.m., Sunday, April 12TRUTH: Beyond being deliberately vague, at least five critical pieces of information are missing from this misleading timeline.At the corner of North Avenue and Mount Street in Baltimore, a police officer makes eye contact with two individuals, one of them Gray. Both individuals start running southbound as officers begin pursuing them.
8:39:52 a.m.
One unit (officer) says "I got him" at 1700 Presbury Street, two blocks south of North and Mount.
8:40:12 a.m.
An officer says we've got one and confirms the address of 1700 Presbury, where Gray gave up without the use of force, according to Rodriguez. One officer took out his stun gun but did not deploy it, he said.
8:42:52 a.m.
Gray asks for an inhaler. Police request a "wagon" to transport him.
8:46:02 a.m.
The van's driver says he believes Gray is acting "irate" in the back, according to Rodriguez
8:46:12 a.m.
At the corner of Mount Street and Baker Street, an officer asks the vehicle driver to stop so they can finish paperwork. At that point, Gray is placed in leg irons and put back in the wagon. Police interviewed several witnesses in the community with regard to that specific stop, Rodriguez said. The videos that were filmed by bystanders show events similar to what Rodriguez describes happens at this point.
8:54:02 a.m.
The wagon clears Mount Street and heads southbound towards central booking.
8:59:52 a.m.
The van's driver asks for an additional unit to "check on his prisoner [Gray]," Rodriguez said.Another individual is arrested and a wagon is requested.
Before the wagon leaves, there is "some communication" with Gray, according to Rodriguez.
They then travel to the police department's western district with Gray and the other suspect in the wagon. The two are separated by a metal barrier had no physical contact.
9:24:32 a.m.
A medic is called.
1. Police claimed that at 8:46 AM they stopped the van to shackle Freddie Gray because he was acting irate. However, in newly released videos taken by a bystander at that stop, not only is Freddie not speaking, he's not moving whatsoever. He's the opposite of irate.
Last week, Davis said there were three stops — one to put leg irons on Gray, the second “to deal with Mr. Gray” for an unexplained reason and the third to pick up another prisoner.The new stop “was discovered from a privately owned camera,” Davis said, and came between the first and second stops. He did not elaborate.
Here is the video of that stop:
Joseph L. Giacalone, a retired New York Police Department detective sergeant who trains law enforcement, said, "You would never put a detainee struggling to breathe face down because that never promotes free breathing."4. At 8:59 a.m, during a stop, Freddie Gray told Officers Ceasar Goodson and William Porter that he needed medical care but they did nothing.
Goodson radioed for support from other officers to “check on the status of his prisoner”, said Mosby. He then made a third stop at Druid Hill Avenue and Dolphin Street at 8.59 a.m.. He and Officer William Porter inspected Gray. Mosby said Porter asked the 25-year-old if he needed medical care, and Gray “indicated at least twice he was in need of a medic”.5. Officers Goodson, Porter, and now Alicia White all observed Gray completely unresponsive at their fourth stop. Officer White spoke to Gray and he did not respond.Yet Goodson and Porter still did not request medical care, the state’s attorney said. Despite moving Gray from the floor of the van to the bench, Porter once again failed to restrain Gray with a seatbelt. And despite Gray’s obvious distress, Goodson chose—“in a grossly negligent manner,” said Mosby—to respond to a separate arrest nearby.
Goodson and Porter again inspected Gray, this time with Sergeant Alicia White. They “observed Mr Gray unresponsive on the floor of the wagon,” yet did not act. White “spoke to the back of Mr Gray’s head” and when he did not respond “she did nothing further despite the fact that she was advised that he needed a medic,” said Mosby.“She made no effort to look or assess or determine his condition,” said Mosby. Gray, laid out on the floor of the wagon and not answering, was ignored.
“Despite Mr Gray’s seriously deteriorating medical condition, no medical assistance was rendered or summoned for Mr Gray at that time by any officer,” said Mosby. He was once again not restrained with a seatbelt in the back of the van as Goodson made the last leg of his journey to the police department’s western district headquarters.
LIE: Police leaked to The Washington Post that the man arrested and placed in the van behind a separate partition was a 38-year-old under protective order who claimed Gray was deliberately trying to injure himself in the van. They also claimed they couldn't reveal his identity.
TRUTH: Not only did the police blatantly lie about the identity of this man, who turned out to be 22-year-old Donta Allen, he openly came out to blast the lies in several interviews after the fact. Here he flat-out denies that he ever claimed Gray was intentionally trying to injure himself and says that he never heard him say anything. Furthermore, you must remember that police already stated in their reports to the prosecutor that Gray was completely unresponsive BEFORE this man was loaded into the van. This was a deliberate misinformation attempt.
