[News] A complete takedown of the lies spread by the Baltimore PD and Washington Post on Freddie Gray

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Thu Apr 30, 2015 at 08:02 AM PDT


    A complete takedown of the lies spread by the Baltimore PD and
    Washington Post on Freddie Gray
    <http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/30/1381400/-A-complete-takedown-of-the-lies-spread-by-the-Baltimore-Police-Washington-Post-on-Freddie-Gray>

by Shaun King <http://www.dailykos.com/user/Shaun%20King>Follow 
<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/30/1381400/-A-complete-takedown-of-the-lies-spread-by-the-Baltimore-Police-Washington-Post-on-Freddie-Gray#?friend_id=1128171&is_stream=1> 
for shaunking <http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Shaun%20King>
The story with video links is here:
*http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/30/1381400/-A-complete-takedown-of-the-lies-spread-by-the-Baltimore-Police-Washington-Post-on-Freddie-Gray#*


It was only a two-minute drive between the police station and where 
Freddie Gray was arrested. Why, then, did it take 30 minutes?
So many egregious and disturbing lies are being told about Freddie Gray.

One conservative reporter 
<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/29/1381155/-As-was-done-w-Mike-Brown-conservatives-feel-the-need-to-lie-about-the-life-death-of-Freddie-Gray> 
is claiming that Gray severed his spine jumping from a three-story 
window eluding police and then running full force into a wall. Except 
even the Baltimore police have claimed they simply spotted him on the 
street 
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-map-freddie-gray-arrest-timeline-20150421-htmlstory.html>.

Other conservatives literally doctored a lead paint exposure settlement 
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-gray-settlement-20150429-story.html> 
that Gray and his sister received and claimed that it was for a severe 
spinal injury he received in a car accident.

Perhaps no lie being told, though, is more disturbing than the one the 
Baltimore police are leaking to/through the Washington Post 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/prisoner-in-van-said-freddie-gray-was-banging-against-the-walls-during-ride/2015/04/29/56d7da10-eec6-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html?tid=sm_tw>—that 
Gray /injured himself/ in the van. It is irresponsible for the 
/Washington Post/ to advance this lie, and it's corrupt for the 
Baltimore police to be leaking it to advance a false narrative to 
protect them.

We will investigate and disprove these lies below.

The Baltimore Police Department and the /Washington Post/ are advancing 
the lie that after they arrested Gray, he deliberately crushed his own 
voice box, fractured three of his own vertebrae, and severed his own 
spine. The evidence they claim to have for this is a prisoner they claim 
is speaking anonymously about what he heard when he was put into the 
police transport van in a box next to Gray. Jayne Miller, an 
investigative reporter for television station WBAL, stated in an 
interview this morning that this witness has several years of prison 
hanging over his head and that he currently has a suspended sentence. Is 
he saying these things because he's getting a deal for it?

Here's the bogus claim 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/prisoner-in-van-said-freddie-gray-was-banging-against-the-walls-during-ride/2015/04/29/56d7da10-eec6-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html?tid=sm_tw>:

    A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told
    investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of
    the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure
    himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington
    Post.

    The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a
    metal partition and could not see him. His statement is contained in
    an application for a search warrant, which is sealed by the court.
    The Post was given the document under the condition that the
    prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for
    the inmate’s safety.

Now, because the Baltimore police refuse to release their reports or 
make official statements on what happened to Gray, we will use the facts 
we have to debunk this lie that Gray basically committed suicide in the 
back of the police van.

*1. Gray was CLEARLY injured before he was placed in the back of the 
police van.
*
This video shows Gray in clear pain after he was arrested. He is 
screaming and his legs do not appear to be working. The people filming 
the video are angry because they see him in pain as well.

*2. It took the police nearly 38 minutes to get him to the police 
station, but it's only a two-minute drive away.*

Here is the official timeline 
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-map-freddie-gray-arrest-timeline-20150421-htmlstory.html> 
released by the Baltimore Police Department:

    1. April 12, 8:39 a.m. Mount St and North Ave ‐ Baltimore police
    begin pursuit of Freddie Gray

    2. 8:40-8:46 a.m. 1700 Block of Presbury St ‐ Police pursue Gray and
    eventually apprehend him two blocks away at 1700 Presbury

    3. 8:46 -8:54 a.m. Mount St and Baker St ‐ Police re-position Gray
    at Mount and Baker streets

Again, you must remember that it only takes two minutes to get from 1700 
Presbury to the West Precinct Station. Already, they've taken eight 
minutes from the time Gray was arrested.

It appears that this video was filmed by someone during this time where 
police pulled over again.

    4. 8:54-8:59 a.m. Travel from Mount and Baker to Druid Hill and
    Dolphin St ‐ Police travel to Druid Hill and Dolphin when they get a
    call to return to 1600 North Ave.

    As the van travels toward Central Booking, the driver again stops
    near the intersection of Druid Hill Avenue and Dolphin Street and
    calls for an officer to check on Gray. After the check, which has
    not been described, occurs, the van is requested to return to the
    1600 block of W. North Avenue to pick up another suspect.

Again, it has now been 13 minutes since Gray was arrested, the police 
station is two minutes away, and they still have not gotten him there yet.

This certainly lends itself to the theory that the police were doing 
what's called a "rough ride" 
<http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/04/freddie_gray_and_the_fear_of_a_rough_ride.html>, 
where they deliberately drive erratically to injure a passenger.

    5. 8:59 – 9:24 a.m. Travel from Druid Hill to Dolphin St 1600 North
    Ave ‐ Police pick up a suspect. The van travels back to W. North
    Avenue and picks up a second suspect. Police have declined to
    identify the second suspect, saying he is now a witness in the
    criminal investigation.

    6. 9:24 a.m. 1000 block of N. Mount St, Western District station ‐
    Police travel to the Western District station where they call
    paramedics.

(UPDATE) The Baltimore Police just admitted 
<https://twitter.com/jonswaine/status/593799473307975680> on Thursday, 
after security camera footage was released from a private business, that 
the van made at least two more stops that were not reported or included 
in their original timeline.

So Gray arrived at the police station a full 40 minutes after they 
arrested him. When they arrived at the station, he was unconscious and 
unresponsive.

*3. The Baltimore police's leak to the /Washington Post/ that Gray 
injured himself in the van and that another suspect heard him doing it 
is not supported by the facts.*

a. On April 29 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/prisoner-in-van-said-freddie-gray-was-banging-against-the-walls-during-ride/2015/04/29/56d7da10-eec6-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html?tid=sm_tw>, 
the Baltimore police claimed in documents leaked to the Washington Post 
that a second suspect who was arrested heard Freddie Gray deliberately 
banging up against the walls of the van, but here is where we've caught 
them in a lie:

A full six days earlier, Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts 
claimed that the second suspect said Gray was quiet in the back of the 
van <https://twitter.com/jemillerwbal/status/591401433725014017>.

b. Gray did not have ANY injuries, cuts, scrapes, bumps conducive with 
someone forcefully breaking his own vertebrae, voice box, and severing 
his own spine.

But as Jayne Miller, the WBAL investigative reporter, has said 
<http://www.mediaite.com/tv/nbc-reporter-evidence-does-not-corroborate-claim-gray-tried-to-injure-himself/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews>, 
none of the evidence presented thus far corroborates the police 
explanation of the injuries:

    “The medical evidence does not suggest at all that he was able to
    injure himself,” Miller said. “The force of this injury, akin to
    have the force involved in a car accident with all that momentum
    going, that is much more force than you would get trying to bang
    your head against the wall of the van.”

    “You have to have other injuries,” she continued. “You can’t bang
    your head against the van, to injure yourself in a fatal way,
    without having a bloodier head. There is just no information that
    would corroborate that.”

In the video below, Miller not only explains how Gray's injuries aren't 
consistent with him doing this himself, she explains how police, when 
they opened the back doors, did not do so as if they expected a raving 
madman to be there.

c.  Furthermore, Miller states that Gray was actually completely 
unresponsive by the time the second suspect was loaded into the police 
van, which completely debunks the notion that Gray was slamming himself 
up against the wall in an attempt to injure himself when the other man 
was in the van.

*4. While it's sad to even have to say this, everything about the very 
idea that Gray deliberately severed his own spine in the back of the 
police van is preposterous.*

The truth is that it is disappointing that we even have to debunk this 
claim, because the claim itself is outrageous and shouldn't even have to 
be acknowledged. At the very most police are claiming they were 
arresting Gray for having a pocket knife. He didn't get in the back of 
that van and do this to himself. It's illogical in every sense of the word.

If you have any thoughts or evidence or analysis, please feel free to 
chime in in the comments section below.


        Originally posted to shaunking
        <http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Shaun%20King/> on Thu Apr 30, 2015
        at 08:02 AM PDT.

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