Prosecutors dropped all remaining charges against three Baltimore police officers accused in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray in a downtown courtroom on Wednesday morning, concluding one of the most high-profile criminal cases in Baltimore history.
The startling move was an apparent acknowledgement of the unlikelihood of a conviction following the acquittals of three other officers on similar and more serious charges by Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams, who was expected to preside over the remaining trials as well.
It also means the office of Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby will secure no convictions in the case after more than a year of dogged fighting, against increasingly heavy odds, to hold someone criminally accountable in Gray’s death.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby stated Wednesday she stands by her decision to charge six officers in connection with Freddie Gray’s death; however, she felt she had no choice but to drop charges against the remaining officers facing trial. Three had been acquitted earlier.
“We do not believe that Freddie Gray killed himself. We stand by the medical examiner’s determination that Freddie Gray’s death was a homicide. However, after much thought and prayer, it has become clear to me that — without being able to work with an independent investigatory agency from the very start, without having a say in the election of whether our cases proceed in front of a judge or a jury, without communal oversight of policing in this community, without real, substantive reforms to the current criminal justice system — we could try this case 100 times, and cases just like it, and we would still end up with the same result.”
