BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Officer Caesar Goodson, who was driving the police van inside which Freddie Gray incurred his fatal neck injury last April, has been found not guilty of second-degree “depraved heart” murder by Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams. Goodson, 46, has also been found not guilty on charges of manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment.
Goodson waived his right to a trial by jury. His bench trial began June 9 and final arguments were heard Monday.
Gray, a 25-year-old black man from the Sandtown area of Baltimore, died of his injury on April 19, 2015. A week earlier, Baltimore City police officers put him in the back of Goodson’s van, handcuffed and shackled, but unrestrained by a seat belt.
His death set off more than a week of protests followed by looting, rioting and arson that prompted a citywide curfew.
After the verdict was read, protesters began chanting “Murderer!” over and over again outside the courthouse.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE COURTROOM?
Inside court, with high security present, “People were quiet … There were a few people shaking their heads, some people who were emotionless,” WJZ’s Mike Hellgren reports.
“The judge said that the evidence simply was not there, that there was no way that Officer Goodson would have known that Freddie Gray was injured until that final stop at the Western district, and that’s when a medic was called. He chided the state for using the term ‘rough ride,’ he said that it’s a highly-charged term, they failed to define it.”
RELATED: READ THE JUDGE’S FULL VERDICT
Hellgren says “the prosecution’s theory of the case did not fit the facts that they had presented to the judge and he was clearly troubled by this.”
“I find it hard to believe that he would convict any of the officers in any of the four remaining trials to come,” Hellgren says.
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Poster Comment:
What a colossal blunder by the DA office.
