News / Human Rights

Baltimore officer acquitted in Freddie Gray case

Thursday, 23 June 2016 10:12 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 23 June 2016 10:13 PM ]

People protest after Baltimore police officer Caesar Goodson Jr. was found not guilty on all charges on June 23, 2016 in Baltimore, Maryland. (AFP photo)

A US judge has acquitted a Baltimore police officer of all charges in the death of 25-year-old African-American detainee Freddie Gray in 2015.

In June last year, prosecutors charged a total of six police officers, including a lieutenant and a sergeant, with multiple counts including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in connection with the killing of Gray, who died of severe spinal injuries on April 19, a week after he was arrested and detained by police.

Caesar Goodson was accused of murder of Gray, whose broken neck on the way to the station set off Baltimore's worst riots in decades.

Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams on Thursday cleared Goodson on a second-degree "depraved heart" murder charge, the most serious accusation sought against the six officers charged in the case.

Williams ruled that the state failed to show that Goodson was aware he had injured Gray by leaving him unbuckled, or that he needed medical care.

"The state failed to prove the defendant knew or should have known that Mr. Gray needed medical care," the judge said in his ruling.

"Unlike in a shooting or a stabbing, or a car accident, this injury manifests itself internally," Williams said, citing conflicting testimony from medical experts. "If the doctors weren't clear, how would a person without medical training know?"

The verdict was delivered after hearing five days of testimony in the non-jury trial.

A still from a cellphone video of the April 12 arrest of Freddie Gray in Baltimore.

Goodson was the driver of the police van in which the handcuffed Gray broke his neck in April 2015. He was arrested for fleeing police officers unprovoked in a high-crime area.

Gray’s death set off Baltimore's worst protests and riots in decades and stoked a debate on what is known as the US police brutality against people of color, most particularly African-Americans.

The US police are accused of using excessive force against African-Americans. The deaths of unarmed black men and women over the past years have sparked protests nationwide under the banner called - Black Lives Matter.

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