Police findings on Baltimore man's death handed to prosecutors | Reuters

BALTIMORE (Reuters) - A Baltimore police report on the death of a black man who suffered severe spinal injuries while in custody was handed over on Thursday to the city’s chief prosecutor, who must decide whether or not to bring charges against any of the six patrol officers involved in the man’s arrest.

The office of Marilyn Mosby, the 35-year-old state’s attorney, will include the internal police report as part of its own investigation into the death of Freddie Gray, who was injured sometime between his arrest on April 12 for carrying a switchblade knife and his arrival at a police station.

Gray’s death on April 19 has become the latest flashpoint in a nationwide debate about police use of lethal force and race relations, setting off demonstrations and a night of rioting in Baltimore. Protests spread to other major cities on Wednesday, a reprise of demonstrations last year after police killings of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, New York and elsewhere.

Mosby, an African-American who was elected just last November, said her staff was regularly briefed by police investigators during the course of their probe, and at the same time, her office has been conducting its own independent probe.

“We are not relying solely on their findings but rather the facts that we have gathered and verified,” Mosby said in a statement. “We ask for the public to remain patient and peaceful and to trust the process of the justice system.”

Mosby faces the biggest test of her short career in trying to determine what exactly happened to 25-year-old Gray and whether any of the six officers should be criminally charged. The six have been suspended.

The daughter and granddaughter of police officers, Mosby, married to a city councilman, vowed during her campaign to crack down on repeat offenders and promised to be more visible in the community than her predecessor.

In an election questionnaire she filled out for the Baltimore Sun, she decried “the long-standing history of distrust between citizens and law enforcement, and the widespread belief that the State’s Attorney’s Office cannot offer protection from retaliation.”

She has also emphasized the need for safe neighbourhoods, offering the story of a cousin whom she said was killed on his doorstep over a pair of sneakers.

While there were no immediate plans to make the police report’s findings public, it was delivered a day earlier than expected, highlighting the urgency with which officials view the case of Gray.

“I understand the frustration, I understand the sense of urgency,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts told a news conference. “That is why we have finished it a day ahead of time.”

Community activists said putting the report in the hands of prosecutors would make a difference in defusing tensions.

“It helps a lot,” said Rev. Keith Bailey, president of Fulton Heights Community Association, where Gray had done court-ordered community service. “I think this is what everyone wanted.”

A spokeswoman for the Baltimore police union, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, said she doubted the union would comment on the report.

“Sure, it’s a good thing. Only a fool would be confident that the police would investigate themselves,” the law firm of lawyer Billy Murphy for the Gray family said on Twitter.

The U.S. Justice Department, headed by another African-American woman, Loretta Lynch, was investigating Gray’s arrest and death for possible civil rights violations.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake vowed to get justice done. She noted that she, Mosby and Lynch were important figures in the case.

“If, with the nation watching, three black women at three different levels can’t get justice… for this community, you tell me where you’re going to get it in our country,” Rawlings-Blake told reporters.

A curfew had held for a second night and relative calm returned to the predominantly African-American city. Looting, arson and street clashes with police roiled Baltimore on Monday after Gray’s funeral.

Police offered a fresh wrinkle to Gray’s case on Thursday, saying officials learned of a fourth, previously undisclosed stop by the police van en route to the station house after viewing footage from a private camera. It was not immediately known what the footage revealed about Gray’s injury.

The family’s lawyer says Gray’s spine was 80 percent severed at the neck while in custody.

(Additional reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago; Writing by Frank McGurty and Paul Thomasch; Editing by Grant McCool)

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