Prosecutors have described Porter as acting with “callous indifference”, alleging the officer ignored Gray’s plea for help when he said he couldn’t breathe in the back of the police wagon. Two weeks after Gray’s death, Marilyn Mosby, the state’s attorney for Baltimore, charged six officers, including four accused of murder or manslaughter. The terms are “evil motive”, “bad faith” and “not honestly”.

Prisoners were never secured with seat belts during field training, and though cadets were instructed to secure prisoners with seat belts, they were not shown how, Porter said.

The jury will return to the deliberation room at 8:30 a.m.

The letter dated Monday from school system CEO Gregory Thornton was sent home with students. In October, more than a dozen activists, including several high school students, were arrested after an overnight sit-in at City Hall. They will resume deliberations Tuesday.

A panel of eight women and four men were handed the closely watched case on Monday after closing arguments.

The jury was told to consider Porter’s conduct from the perspective of a reasonable police officer, not as a civilian.

The case went to the jury Monday after closing arguments. He could face about 25 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

There was no camera inside the van, and there was conflicting information from medical experts who testified about when Gray may have become injured. But on the stand, Porter said he had heard Gray say those words when he was first being arrested and not again.

The defense says the prosecution’s case was based on speculation, not evidence.

Defense closings were expected following a short break.

Porter faces charges of manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office.

Shaleena tells WNEW’s Jenny Glick she does not feel safe, or that the city is prepared.

Joseph Murtha spent more than an hour delivering closing remarks Monday.

Gray’s death was a “horrific tragedy”, Murtha said, but “there is literally no evidence” that Porter caused it.

Authorities say Gray broke his neck on April 12 while being transported in the police van, shackled but not wearing a seat belt.

Prosecutors said that was a blatant lie.

Porter told jurors he didn’t call a medic because Gray didn’t show signs of injury, pain or distress and said only “yes” when Porter offered to take him to the hospital.

‘How long does it take to click a seat belt?’

“Simply because it is hard to prove doesn’t mean a case shouldn’t be brought”, he said.

Other witnesses also testified that the driver was responsible for buckling Gray to the bench.

“It is the responsibility of the wagon driver to get the prisoner from point A to point B”, he told the jury. “We need everyone visiting our city to respect Baltimore“.

The van “became his casket on wheels” after Porter repeatedly denied Gray medical care and left him handcuffed and shackled but unbuckled, thus unable to keep his body from slamming into the end of the metal compartment if the van stopped suddenly, Bledsoe said. Rawlings-Blake says the city also is communicating with outside law enforcement agency partners. Six officers are charged in his death.

The apparent police killing of yet another black man, a seemingly preventable death in a city with a long history of police abuse, sparked widespread protests in Baltimore and beyond.

Following Gray’s funeral in late April, there were riots in parts of the city, drawing the National Guard to help quell the unrest.

“Freddie Gray went into the van healthy and he came out of the van dead”, prosecutor Janice Bledsoe reminded jurors. He’s charged with manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. He was found unconscious and not breathing at the Western District police station.

Gray died April 19, a week after he suffered a broken neck in the back of a police transport van.

Using video clips of Porter’s statements and video from the scene, prosecutors argued that Porter knew that Gray was too injured to be booked into jail, but did nothing.

A man walks past a burning police vehicle, Monday, April 27, 2015, during unrest following the funeral of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Gray died from spinal injuries about a week after he was arrested and transported in a Baltimore Police Department van. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

The aftermath of Freddie Gray’s scattered and seemingly piece-less death in police custody has been complex for Baltimore City – bringing tense relations among police, city officials, activists, and neighboring residents. What was originally seen as a mysterious in-custody death turned into national coverage and eventual rioting of the city’s police and businesses. Maryland’s guardsmen were then deployed through the city, curfews were enforced, and what went from protesting to rioting was now mostly silence, and the eerie control of military and police. In the proceeding days of Baltimore’s eruption, it was the primary task of many to ensure peace; gangs were even associating their organizations – helping enforce curfew and cleaning up.

Once what was like a show was finally over, the media pundits and participating class went back to daily life. The riot though, which has been the center of attention, respectfully so, for its chaos and disorder, is a microcosm of what is taking place in many other cities and states. Influence and distrust in state police has grown to its bloom stage, and now the response is being made by anti-police factions of all sorts – whether libertarian or progressive. Baltimore is not an exclusive city to the occurring dissent; as we have seen in the Tamir Rice and Eric Garner cases. In fact, this year over 700 have been killed so far by police, according to The Guardian’s statistics tracker. It’s reasonable to expect some rejection of authority.

What is being missed severely though by almost every corner of the room is the Drug War, and the Drug War’s affect on even Freddie Gray. Alone, in Gray’s life, he was stopped, detained and arrested 18 different times by city police. You could make Gray out to be the next Capone with that sort of count; what is interesting, is not the count of arrests, but the similarity and theme in records comparative to Gray’s. According to an ACLU report, African-Americans are nearly 6 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than white folks in Baltimore City. And as ‘CommonDreams’ notes, “56.4 percent of Baltimore students graduate from high school.  The national rate is about 80 percent.” A very grim scene for youth, like Gray, in the city.

In the 18 arrests of Gray, he was arrested in 15 due to non-violent drug offenses, e.g. a ‘crime’ that does not come with a victim – he did not impose himself on another individual – he merely had a bag. The other were trespassing, destruction of property and burglary…all crimes that come with a victim – Gray imposed himself on an individual or an individual’s property. So, in this case, with Gray being a known ‘criminal’ to the police, the image is portrayed that Gray is a daily villain among the Baltimore residents.

However, Gray is not. And this is what the Drug War has tried to do, but failed at with individuals like Gray – they have tried to force the individual to stop selling, using or making drugs. Ignoring the fact that Gray is non-violent, the legislature sees it necessary to police the personal lives of drug users; interestingly, pharmaceutical drugs fit the exception in this rule.

In all, what is being missed in the room is that prohibition has utterly failed, and that Gray who is relatively non-violent, was a victim of the Drug War. If there had not been drug laws created by legislatures in Washington and Baltimore City, both monopolists in their own territory, then the police would have never arrested or even confronted Gray 15 of those 18 times.

Of course, Freddie Gray’s last arrest ended in death – but instead of focusing on the end – the reader should also focus on the beginning. What was Freddie doing wrong? What did Freddie have that was illegal? Did Freddie hurt people or property? Surely, the police officers who felt resources were needed to transport him, process him and then cage him thought he did something wrong enough. Actually what happened before Freddie’s death is not fully known even at this time, as details have not been made public by the Baltimore City Police Dept., and there seems to be no mention in media.

What has been revealed so far, is that bicycle officers were on patrol when one officer [Lt. Brian W. Rice] made visual contact with Freddie, and at that point the officer allegedly watched Freddie run. The runner, Freddie, had done nothing criminal at that point – at least from what officers could objectively know. However, instead of allowing Freddie to run, officers engaged in a chase which ended shortly after. That is where Freddie was detained and then searched. Once opened up and around, officers found five guns, a bloody dagger and some cologne that was actually just explosive material.

Just kidding, they found a pocket-size folded knife – and apparently, according to Marilyn Mosby, the blade piece itself is not against Maryland law. Regardless of the law though, Mr. Gray was in no fashion of the word ‘violent’ before, during or after the police detainment. Law in that situation is victim-less, in the sense that it targets individuals who have not impeded on or encroached on anyone else. Essentially, by passing the law, you are requiring all public enforcement, e.g. police and military, to enforce law through barrel of a gun – which is dressed as moral guidance: drug use or carrying a knife blade in your pocket – scary. These sort of laws, which come by the thousands, are what led to Gray’s death and what is being overlooked entirely.

Advocacy for doing drugs and carrying blades wherever you go is nonexistent in this paragraph, either. But it is time to admit that drug law policies and other state edicts are creating unintended consequences with the public itself. The relationships with police are no longer about solving crime, but handing out citations and chasing drug users – possibly even shutting down a lemonade stand. This has strained trust, and has created violence. For violence to exist in drug trade itself, laws have to exist. Without the prohibition of drugs, the black market monopolies who use violence are no longer able to; and that includes street monopolies ‘gangs’.

Even with Freddie, it is an example of a failure to prohibit drugs, as he is arrested many times for possession and distribution. The failure to prohibit is inherent with any object you try to ban. So to wage a war on ‘drugs’, knowing that you cannot really eliminate the drugs is fallacious, considering at that point, you are only waging a war on the individual who is in possession of said drug. Drug laws are an iron fist in velvet, a one-size-fits-all, socialist can-of-worms that should be done away with today.

One resident who was close to Freddie explained to the Washington Post, “He always got locked up because he’d tell the cops, ‘I ain’t afraid of you.’ He wouldn’t back down. He ran because they always beat him up.” Whether Freddie was afraid or not, he knew one day to run, and it was for good reason, because after the police caught up with Mr. Gray, they decided to let him tumble in the back of a van, instead of provide medical attention, per his request.

Not to fantasize over statistics, it has been under-reported that since the federalist’s ‘war on drugs’, started by President Richard Nixon, addiction rates in the United States have remained steady. Based on the government’s expenditures, drug prohibitionists spent $2 billion in 1970 (start) and $20 billion in 2010 (current) on fighting drugs, or people really. Increase in money funds has done nothing to stop addiction rates in the United States. The researcher of the statistics, Matt Groff, notes, “Drug use and abuse exists on a spectrum and as a society we must accept that some portion of the population will be addicted to drugs even if we don’t like it,” believing State prohibition will not create better results.

Friend of Freddie, who actually filmed the infamous video of Gray being carried off like timber wood, explained to Think Progress, “I just hope that whatever happens, Freddie gets the justice that he deserves.” In the coming months, court trials will be debated, hashed over and cherry-picked, but just remember that Freddie Gray is one more victim to the Drug War, and for that, he is dead.

Written by Ezra Van Auken for TheStateWeekly.com

According to a report from The Baltimore Sun, a fundraiser to help cover legal costs for the cops responsible for Freddie Gray’s death originally included a blackface performance. Original report below:

A Glen Burnie venue on Wednesday abruptly canceled a planned fundraiser for the six Baltimore police officers charged in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray after the scheduled entertainment — a former Baltimore officer singing in blackface — drew sharp criticism.

Bobby Berger, 67, who was fired from the city police force in the 1980s after his off-duty performances in blackface drew the ire of the NAACP, had said he wanted to revive the act to help the families of the officers.

He said he had sold 600 tickets at $45 each to the bull roast scheduled for Nov. 1 at Michael’s Eighth Avenue, where he and several singers planned to perform as guests dined.

In his performances, Berger impersonates Al Jolson, a white entertainer from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s best remembered for his blackface performance of “Mammy” in the film “The Jazz Singer.”

But after news of the event began spreading Wednesday, Michael’s posted a statement on its website saying the event would not be held there.

“No contract was signed with Mr. Berger,” the venue wrote. “Michael’s does not condone blackface performances of any kind. As an event venue, it has not been the practice of Michael’s Eighth Avenue to pre-approve entertainment that is planned as part of a contracted event. This policy will be carefully and thoughtfully reviewed.”

Berger’s plans drew criticism earlier in the day from the NAACP, the city police union and an attorney representing one of the officers charged in the Gray case.

Ivan Bates, who represents Sgt. Alicia D. White, called the planned entertainment “racist and in poor taste.”

“My client will not participate. We will not accept a single solitary dime from this sort of action,” Bates said before the show was canceled. “This is the type of racist behavior that we do not need and do not want.”

Tessa Hill-Aston, president of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP, called the show “disgusting.”

“Right now, with all the things that are going on in Baltimore and also with all the issues with the Confederate flag, this is just putting more salt in the wound.”

Michael Davey, an attorney who works with the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police, said the union was unaware of the event.

“We don’t endorse it. We do not support it, and we will accept no funds from anything involving this event,” Davey said.

The police union issued a statement Wednesday saying it has “much respect” for Berger and another retired officer organizing the event but does not condone “any performance representing the iconic racist figure that is Al Jolson” or any fundraising for the officers that does not come directly through the union.

Berger could not be reached for comment after Michael’s canceled the event, and it is unclear what will be done for ticket holders.

Earlier, Berger said there is not “one iota of racial overtones” in his blackface performance and that thousands of African-Americans have seen his performances and enjoyed them. He said he organized the fundraiser because he knows how it feels to be suddenly without a paycheck from the department.

“I’ve been through what they’re going through and I know they need the help,” he said. “Look at yourself as having a wife and two kids and a mortgage and school payments and everything that comes with it, and a guy comes up to your desk and says, ‘We’ve got to let you go.’ How do you survive?”

Gray, 25, died in April after suffering a spinal cord injury in police custody. His death sparked protests across the city. On the day of his funeral, rioting, looting and arson broke out.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby filed charges against the officers that ranged from second-degree murder to misconduct in office. All of the officers — three black and three white — have pleaded not guilty; trials are scheduled for October.

Berger began squabbling with the Police Department over his performances in 1981. The next year, a performance at a downtown hotel led to protests by the NAACP.

The Police Department ordered him to stop performing in blackface. With the backing of the ACLU, Berger sued the department, saying the order violated his right to free speech. He lost in court and was fired.

A federal appeals court later ruled in Berger’s favor. When the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, a federal district judge ordered the department to rehire Berger and give him more than $108,000 in back pay, legal fees and compensation for humiliation and stress.

After he rejoined the force in 1986, Berger said, he was given a desk but was denied a gun and a badge and given nothing to do. He sued again in 1989, and settled with the department for $200,000 more.

Scott Wagner, vice president of Michael’s Eighth Avenue, said before the cancellation that Berger was a friend of his late father and has a good spirit, and that he had decided to let Berger hold the event because it was intended to benefit families.

“Mr. Berger had a plan to help these families because he’s been through similar issues,” he said. “That’s what captured me.”

The Syracuse reports that  two men who police say helped organize a protest against the death of a Baltimore man in police custody have been charged with violating city law by not having a permit for the protest.

Rev. Lemorris Micah O. Dexter II, 45, and Derek Ford, 30, were each charged with violating the city’s general ordinances that require permits for assemblies or parades.

According to a complaint signed by Lt. Richard Shoff, who oversees the Syracuse police Ordinance Enforcement Division, Dexter and Ford were observed assembling, marching and congregating with about 80 other people in the middle of South Clinton Street.

The group was seen obstructing southbound traffic on Clinton Street and east-west traffic on Erie Boulevard, Shoff wrote. The incident occurred about 2 p.m. on April 30.

A lengthy afternoon of protests that day ended peacefully in Syracuse despite arguments, some traffic jams and virtually no police presence.

Protesters met at Syracuse University carrying signs that read “Black Lives matter,” “Stop police brutality,” and “We can’t breathe,” and, without warning, marched off toward Clinton Square. The group, which was protesting the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in Baltimore police custody, easily numbered more than a hundred people and filled all four lanes of East Washington Street as it moved past City Hall.

During the protest dozens of people filed into South Clinton Street near the Jerry Rescue Monument and refused to move for traffic. Dozens of cars and trucks were forced to stop and turn around.

Syracuse police had almost no presence during the protest.

A marked Syracuse police car appeared to be tailing the protesters after they left Clinton Square. The officer driving blared his horn during one of the chants, but did little else. City officials said the protesters had no permit so police were not aware in advance.

The department’s Special Events Section, which coordinates staffing and traffic control for events, issued 123 legal assembly permits last year.

According to Sec. 16-35 of Syracuse’s general ordinances, “No persons, society or organization of any name or nature shall assemble, congregate, parade or march in or through any of the streets of the city,” without having a permit. The permit application must be submitted to the chief of police at least 48 hours in advance of the event.

The law does allow for an exemption to the permit requirement for “lawful assemblages, congregations, parades or marches solely upon the public sidewalks.” The city ordinance does not say what the punishment is for violating the law.

Dexter, of The New Salem Missionary Baptist Church of Syracuse, and Ford, an SU graduate student, appeared in court earlier this month for arraignment, The Daily Orange reported.

Lt. Eric Carr, a police spokesman, said in an email that Dexter and Ford were the only people who received summonses as a result of the protest because “they were believed to be the organizers of the protest.”

Dexter told Syracuse.com at the time of the protest that the event had come together with just a few days notice. It included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Syracuse Answer coalition and The General Body, an SU student coalition, he said.

Carr declined to say how police identified Dexter and Ford as the organizers of the protest.

“We also are not going discuss Police tactics on how the protest … was investigated or handled at the time, so that these tactics will not be exploited in the future by other protesters,” he said.

Published by Ken Sturtz

Three cops arrested for the murder of unarmed Baltimore man Freddie Gray were apparently taken to jail without police even bothering to place them in handcuffs.

Officers William Porter, Edward Nero, and Caesar Goodson Jr. were photographed leaving a police vehicle while completely free of any sort of restraint. TruthVoice obtained the photographs from the Baltimore Sun.

Goodson, who faces a second-degree murder charge, was even allowed to give an officer a hug before continuing on his way.

Defense attorneys for the six Baltimore cops, whose charges in connection with Gray’s death range from assault to second-degree murder, have requested the trial be moved to another city. The attorneys claim it is too difficult to find an unbiased journey in order for their client to receive a fair trial.

Since Gray’s death in April, there have been frequent protests in Baltimore. The US Justice Department released a statement saying it intends to conduct an investigation of the Baltimore Police Department.

Caesar Goodson. Alicia White. William Porter.

These are three of the Baltimore City police officers facing criminal charges in the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who suffered a fatal spine injury in their custody in April. They’re not the only ones being charged: Brian Rice, Garrett Miller and Edward Nero are implicated as well, on allegations ranging from manslaughter to second-degree murder.

The difference is that the first three officers are black — which brings a complicated dimension to conversations about race and police violence in America today.

When Michael Brown was killed by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer in August, the media highlighted a glaring disparity: 67% of Ferguson’s population was black, while all but three of the city’s 53-member police force was white. The police chief was white. So was the mayor and most of the city council and school board. The reporting implied that with such a racially lopsided power structure, it’s no wonder such a fraught relationship existed between white law enforcement and the black population.

Then Baltimore happened. While much of the response to Ferguson’s problems focused on diversifying the power apparatus through voting, Baltimore already had a black mayor (Stephanie Rawlings-Blake), a black police commissioner (Anthony W. Batts) and a relatively black police department. Clearly, this hasn’t helped much — as Stacia L. Brown notes at the New Republic, the relationship between Baltimore’s poor black residents and law enforcement, black or white, is still marked by harassment and even brutality.

“Interaction between black leadership and residents might not be predatory [like in Ferguson], but their relationship is navigated firmly within the parameters of institutional racism,” she writes.

Proof of this came when the city erupted in protests and riots last month. It was triggered directly by the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray while in police custody, but the unrest was also a response to years of police abuse and government neglect that affects housing, health and education in swaths of the city.

But how does it reframe our understanding of racism that the perpetrators of anti-black police can also be black?

There are numerous possibilities. Some observers — like former Washington, D.C., narcotics investigator Frank Starks — attribute the current dynamic to a shift in how police approach their jobs. During his 27-year tenure as a black officer in a majority-black district,  ending in 1996, the South Carolina native says he entered the force at a time when a push for diversifying police departments was underway.

He says law enforcement interactions with residents in even high-crime areas was not limited to arrests, raids and drug sweeps back then — police patrolled neighborhoods on foot and developed a rapport and personal relationship with their communities.

“Today, the police don’t come in contact with communities on a friendly basis, without any crime involved,” Starks told Mic in an interview. “I might’ve been called an ‘Uncle Tom’ from time to time, but overall, people had more respect for officers. We had more discipline then. We knew you had to treat people the way you wanted to be treated.”

This suggests that the interpersonal relationships informing police and citizen interactions have fundamentally changed for the worst.

But Jelani Cobb at the New Yorker points to a broader set of issues:

“At some point soon, Ferguson, like Baltimore, may have more proportional black representation, but the socioeconomic trends in that city won’t automatically change. Gray died 28 years after Baltimore’s first black mayor took office, yet the statistical realities at the time of his death—a 24% poverty rate, 37% unemployment among young black men—show how complicated and durable the dynamics of race and racism can be.”

These patterns were years in the making — following the large-scale oppression of black people through slavery, segregation laws only continued to impoverish, criminalize and disenfranchise black people. Police continue to enforce those laws firmly establishing race and class roles even decades after segregation laws were ruled unconstitutional, as Michelle Alexander outlines in her groundbreaking 2010 book, The New Jim Crow. Nonetheless, the practices of maintaining segregation — including criminalizing entire populations throughmass incarceration and the war on drugs — continue. And the enforcers of these norms can be interchangeable.

As long as you’re maintaining a white supremacist hierarchy, it doesn’t particularly matter what your skin color is. Black people, and black police officers, are not immune to this dynamic.

It’s why the system has been effective for so long.

Published on mic.com by Zak Cheney-Rice

It was a beautiful mid-April day in Baltimore, Maryland. With Cherry Blossoms blooming and a slight breeze blowing, tensions were on the rise across the city. Exactly one week prior, an event occurred which would place the entire United States on the brink of mass civil unrest. Issues of race and liberty dominated the headlines five days later on April 18^th, as blacks, the local police, and state militia would soon clash with one another. The next day, the 19^th, events unfolded which would quickly evolve into all-out war.

If that sounds to you like the aftermath of the Freddie Gray murder in the midst of a police state, you would be mistaken. This is the story of the Baltimore Riot of 1861.

The American Civil War officially began on April 12^th, 1861 when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter without casualty. Anxiety in Baltimore was especially high at this time because it desired to stay neutral in the ensuing conflict. Most Baltimoreans were anti-War, yet simultaneously sympathetic to Southern business interests. Confusing the matter further were the 25,000 freed slaves which lived in the city, often at odds with one-third of the local population still supportive of slavery.

The Commonwealth of Virginia seceded from the union on the 17^th, and the next day all of Baltimore wondered about the effects on the local economy and politics. After a scuffle erupted that afternoon between opposing militias crossing each other in town, the passion of the city’s people were lit. On the evening of the 19^th, a mob of Southern supporters met a brigade of Northern soldiers en route to Washington as the brigade traveled between train stations along Pratt Street. Chaos ensued, and the first blood of the Civil War was spilled. Local police intervened as mediators, but 16 people were killed and dozens more wounded. History was set in motion, and no longer could Baltimore or the rest of the country ignore the reality of war and its cost of human life.

Then-Mayor of Baltimore, George Brown would later opine that the Pratt Street Riot was the last element needed to create full-scale war, saying,

“Because then was shed the first blood in a conflict between the North and the South; then a step was taken which made compromise or retreat almost impossible.”

With riots in Baltimore once again a national story nearly two centuries later, and civil disobedience on the rise across the country, could this mean the start of the next Civil War? Is retreat impossible from the violence of law enforcement everywhere?

This is what makes Freddie Gray different than every police brutality story to come before it. Passions are once more lit, and the fuse is burning. The tension between those who want freedom and those who take it away are higher than they have ever been. Peaceful protests are still the norm, but for how long? What happens when that first shot is fired in an agry crowd of thousands? How long can Humvees and tanks roam public streets without inviting a total assault? Will it matter then if you’re a pacifist, feminist, or socialist? If you’re black, white, or purple? Is non-violent resistance the only option anymore? Will we spiral into barbaric fighting like 150 years ago, or can the police state be ended without the Second Civil War?

By Jordan Freshour, contributor for TruthVoice

A police officer charged with the murder of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, has ended up with less bail on him than a black teenager, who smashed a police car late last month.

Both incidents happened in the same city and were only days apart, but, according to civil rights activists from Baltimore, this specific case further shows the tilted justice system that favors police more than the citizens of the city, who happen to be mostly black, according to official demographics.

Allen Bullock, 18, turned himself into police because he was wanted after the April 25 unprecedented riots in Baltimore, and according to local media, his bail was set by authorities at a whopping $500,000, a sum neither him nor his family can afford to pay.

Caesar Goodson Jr., a 45-year-old police officer, on the other hand, was arrested and charged with second degree murder in the death of Gray.

Allen Bullock was somehow smacked with a higher bail than the officer who is charged with murdering Freddie Gray.

Goodson was also charged with several other criminal accusations on Friday, but had a much less $350,000 bail set on him.

Usually, according to laws in the US and elsewhere, bails are set based on past criminal record, the severity of the crime, and other factors.

The obvious difference in bails of the two men was highlighted by activists, including one who told local media that, “people in Baltimore often refer to bails as ransoms because they’re impossible to meet.”

It’s not clear why the murderer of Freddie Gray was set with more bail than the person who smashed a police car.

Freddie Gray died on April 19, just a week after he was brutally beaten by police in Maryland sparking demonstrations and riots in the city and across the US to this day.