Marilyn Mosby: For Minneapolis, lessons and echoes from Baltimore - The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.

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Democracy Dies in Darkness

I was the prosecutor in the Freddie Gray case. Here’s what

Minneapolis should know.

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Marilyn Mosby: For Minneapolis, lessons and echoes from Baltimore - The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/30/minneapolis-lessons-echoes-baltimore/

By Marilyn Mosby

May 30, 2020 at 11:08 a.m. PDT

Marilyn Mosby is the Baltimore City state’s attorney.

Like any American, I was sickened by footage of a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, forcing the life out of him as
he struggled to say the words that have defined a movement: “I can’t breathe.” In 2015, I found myself at the heart of a similar
national storm after Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, was killed while in Baltimore City police custody. My office evaluated
the evidence and decided to charge the officers responsible. This choice had repercussions that continue to reverberate for Baltimore
— and that hold important lessons for Minneapolis.

Gray was killed as the result of a “rough ride”: He was placed in a metal police wagon head first, feet shackled and handcuffed. The
officers did not strap him in, and his spine was partially severed in the back of that wagon. Later, his pleas for medical attention
were ignored. As I reviewed the evidence, I considered that my office would prosecute any ordinary citizen for such an appalling act,
so there was no reason to have a separate standard of justice for police.

I was a young, black, female prosecutor only a few months into the job, and many warned me against such action. There is a higher
threshold for officers, I was told. Prosecuting police would damage my political career. Prosecutors partner with police; they don’t
charge them. As one of the first to apply the routine standard of justice to police, my team faced long odds. We received death
threats and hate mail. People protested outside my home; some posted my address and photos of my children online. None of it
deterred our pursuit of justice on behalf of Freddie Gray.

There are differences with the case of George Floyd. For starters, there is clear video of an officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more
than eight minutes while he gasps for air and pleads to breathe. Such evidence would have been the “smoking gun" in Gray’s case,
which is why I was perplexed to hear Hennepin County, Minn., District Attorney Michael Freeman announce Thursday that he
hadn’t yet pressed charges because he didn’t want to repeat the “rush to charge” and "rush to justice” of the Gray case.

It’s a demonstrably false and bizarre statement. My office announced charges 18 days after Gray’s arrest, following an extensive
review of the evidence, which included an autopsy report declaring his death a homicide. In addition to my office deciding there was

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