Baltimore: Six Officers In Freddie Gray Case To Have Separate Trials

Matt Vespa | September 02, 2015 7:02 PM

As Cortney wrote earlier today, a judge refused to dismiss the criminal charges against the six officers who were involved in the death of Freddie Gray. There will now be six separate trials for the officers involved (via CNN):

A Baltimore judge ruled Wednesday there will be separate trials for each of the six police officers charged in connection with the death of Freddie Gray.

The ruling represented a small victory for the defendants on a day that Circuit Court Judge Barry G. Williams earlier denied two key defense motions in the case -- one seeking its dismissal for alleged prosecutorial misconduct and another calling for prosecutor Marilyn Mosby to recuse herself.

Prosecutors had asked that three of the six officers be tried together; defense lawyers argued for separate trials for each

Williams said holding the trials together as the prosecution requested "is not in the interest of justice."

Gray was the subject of a controversial arrest on April 12. He suffered a severe spinal injury in police custody and died a week later. By April 27, the day of Gray’s funeral, the rioting and clashes with police had reached its most intense level. It reached a point where Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency and deployed the National Guard.

In May, Marilyn Mosby, the State Attorney for Baltimore City, indicted six officers in the death of Freddie Gray on charges that included vehicular manslaughter, reckless endangerment, second-degree assault, false imprisonment, and misconduct in office. Around the time of the indictments, crime began to spike in Baltimore.

At the same time, the situation placed the city’s police department under the microscope and found that it had a sordid history of false arrests and misconduct in office. With Mosby, she said that Gray’s knife, which was on him during his arrest, was legal. That didn’t turn out to be entirely truthful either.

Regardless, the police department is now more “hesitant” to do their jobs. The department is demoralized; federal agents have been brought in to work with homicide units to curb the violence; and the city is once again bracing for unrest.

Arrests were made earlier today during the pre-trial hearing.