Baltimore Calls for Change After Officer Acquitted in Freddie Gray Murder Trial

Baltimore, MD — After a judge acquitted Officer Caesar Goodson Thursday of all charges in the death of Freddie Gray, everyone from the Gray family to the Fraternal Order of Police issued calls for change.

Billy Murphy, the Gray family's attorney, told reporters that the deceased man's relatives feel "enormous frustration" because "no police officer has yet been brought to justice in this case."

Six officers were indicted after 25-year-old Gray died in police custody in April 2015, and Goodson faced the most serious charge: second-degree depraved-heart murder.

Now, Goodson and one other officer have been acquitted, and a third will head to trial in a few months after his case ended in a mistrial last year.

While the criminal proceedings have not yielded a conviction, Murphy represented the Gray family in a wrongful death case that resulted in a $6.4 million civil settlement from Baltimore City last year.

After the acquittal of Goodson was announced Thursday, Murphy called for cameras to be admitted in Maryland courtrooms during high-profile trials.

"The public has the right to see for itself why this was a not guilty verdict and whether that was the appropriate verdict in this case," Murphy said.

Prosecutors alleged Gray suffered a fatal spinal injury after he was arrested and placed in a police van on April 12, 2015.

Goodson drove the van that transported Gray on a 44-minute ride around west Baltimore, and prosecutors argued he should have rendered medical aid or fastened Gray with a seatbelt; he died from a spinal injury. When the 25-year-old arrived at the Western District station, he was unresponsive and paramedics took him to the hospital. He died a week later, on April 19, 2015.

Judge Barry Williams ruled that there was insufficient evidence to determine that Goodson knowingly tried to harm Gray.

"Simple carelessness is insufficient to establish [the] defendant's guilt," Williams said. He said the state failed to show evidence consistent with the charges.

In addition to the Gray family, many in the community were frustrated by the acquittal.

"Freddie Gray is dead, and no one will pay for it," said Tessa Aston-Hill, president of the Baltimore City NAACP chapter.

Some citizens look at the Gray case and think "that could be me," 21-year-old Shana Ashby, who lived in the neighborhood where Gray grew up, told Youth Today.

Demonstrations were peaceful outside the courthouse and at Penn North, the neighborhood where Gray's encounter with police began. Community activists and legal experts said they anticipated Goodson would be found not guilty.

"We are angered by the verdict, but we are not surprised," said Sharon Black, an organizer of Peoples Power Assembly. "What is deemed legal does not always constitute justice." Her group, which advocates for the working and impoverished, is proposing removal of police from certain communities in Baltimore.

"We've got to stop killing each other, and we've got to get these officers to stop..." said Kamal Dorchy outside the courthouse Thursday after the verdict was read. Dorchy, who told Patch he had been on both sides of the law, wore a shirt that said, "I Am Freddie Gray." It bore a list of names of those who have died in police-involved encounters nationwide.

A total of six officers were indicted in connection with Gray's death, and some have said that State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby should reconsider moving forward with the four other open cases, since the previous two officer trials have ended in an acquittal and mistrial.

"To continue this travesty is an insult to the taxpaying citizens of Baltimore who, at the end of the day, bear the full burden of the enormous cost of these trials that have no merit and continue to divide our city," Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police President Lt. Gene Ryan said in a statement. He requested Mosby "reconsider her malicious prosecution against the remaining four officers."

Four officers are slated to stand trial in the coming months: Lt. Brian Rice on July 5, Officer Garrett Miller on July 27, Officer William Porter on Sept. 6 and Sgt. Alicia White on Oct. 13.

The case against the officers was a failure out of the gate, according to many legal analysts.

"While Mr. Gray's death was a tragedy, there was no crime," Steven Levin, a former federal prosecutor, told USA Today. "Rather than following the evidence, Mosby followed her constituents."

In the hours after Gray's funeral, riots erupted in parts of the city. It wasn't until days later, after the National Guard came in and Mosby announced charges against the officers, that the unrest died down.

Mosby cannot comment on the proceedings due to a gag order in the case.

Pictured, Kamal Dorchy, 42, who said he witnessed the arrest of Freddie Gray, told Patch he believed the verdict was predetermined and there was "corruption all the way across the board," from the police department to the medical examiner's office, in the case. Photo Credit: Elizabeth Janney.