BALTIMORE _ After a Baltimore jury convicted him for shooting a man during a 1996 traffic stop, Sgt. Stephen R. Pagotto said he became a pariah in the community and with top police brass.
The Baltimore Police Department fired him, and he became a car salesman in Harford County, where he moved from his Northeast Baltimore home after vandals tagged his van with "killer cop." When Maryland's highest court reversed his conviction in 2000, he wanted to get back to policing but said command staff made it clear that he'd never get ahead on the force. He returned to work one day and retired the next.
Two decades later, Pagotto has been following the case of the six officers charged in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray. Now that all charges have been dropped, those officers are on administrative duty and may return to patrol after internal reviews determine whether they broke department policies.
"I wouldn't trust anyone if I were them," Pagotto said.
After being exonerated in other high-profile police prosecutions, some officers have returned to serve with an unbowed sense of duty. In Baltimore, police union leaders and others believe the officers in the Gray case should be welcomed back to the force, given the lack of evidence of wrongdoing. Like anyone else, they are considered innocent unless proven otherwise.
Highlighting support across the ranks for the six and expressing a growing concern that police will be wrongfully prosecuted going forward, union members unanimously agreed to pay more in dues to cover the cost of defending officers in court.
But some officers cleared of crimes in the past have confronted more obstacles: continuing protests, threats, stress-related health problems, political pressure to resign. In Baltimore, the case has drawn intense interest, and Gray's death continues to elicit strong emotions on city streets, where rioting broke out last year on the day of his funeral.
All officers are changed by such an experience, said Dean Angelo Sr., president of a police union local in Chicago, a city where video showed police shooting an unarmed teenager 16 times two years ago.
"Can they get back to normal? I guess. But it will never be the same for them," Angelo said of the six Baltimore officers. "It will always be hanging over them. People will always be whispering behind them when they come in and out of a room. They're going to have to deal with it the rest of their lives."
Brandon Scott, vice chairman of the City Council's Public Safety Committee, said the transition to old jobs would be easy for some officers, difficult for others.
"It's going to vary from person to person and where they are assigned," Scott said.
The Baltimore officers return to a changed environment. Since they were indicted 15 months ago, tensions between police and residents here and nationally have rarely been worse.
While protests in Baltimore have remained peaceful since last year's unrest and police are working to improve community relations, more black men have died after encounters with police across the country, including some caught on camera. Several officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, La., were killed in retaliatory shootings.
The Baltimore Police Department has also changed. A number of reforms have been implemented _ some in response to the Gray case _ and more are expected soon, when the U.S. Department of Justice releases its findings from a wide-ranging civil rights investigation.
And police union officials have engaged in a war of words with Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby, a key partner in the crime fight. In fact, some of the officers in the Gray case have civil litigation pending against Mosby, alleging malicious prosecution. Mosby has been widely criticized for pursuing charges that were considered baseless.
"Policing has changed dramatically," said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former New York City police officer. Officers today must "run into harm's way with all those cameras pointed at them, worried about their physical safety, worried about being criminally charged or civilly sued."
O'Donnell said it used to be that officers were encouraged to get back to policing the streets after being cleared of wrongdoing. "Years ago you would see cops in this position demanding to get back out there," he said. "The peer pressure used to be hard-driving."
"The peer pressure now is, 'Why are you getting involved?'" he said. "We'll see if these cops launch a major push to be back out there to be screamed at and vilified, or if they say, 'Give me an assignment that doesn't put me back out.'"
"Avoidance has become part of the culture," he said.
Gene Ryan, president of Baltimore's Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, said the officers "can go back to work and they will." Union officials and defense lawyers have said that the officers didn't mean Gray harm and that his death was a tragic accident.
Four of the officers were suspended without pay last year; they now join the other two on paid administrative duty.
Kenny Schubert, secretary of the Maryland Fraternal Order of Police, said the officers might want to stay on the force to keep their retirement benefits. Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., the driver of the transport van in which Gray suffered a fatal spinal injury, is the closest to retirement at age 47. But if the officers wanted to leave, Schubert is certain other departments would be happy to hire them.
"Maybe they can pick up and go to another police agency, and it wouldn't be too hard to start over," Schubert said. "But why should they? They didn't do anything wrong."
Some of the officers had deep ties in the community they served. Officer William Porter grew up in West Baltimore near Gilmor Homes, where Gray was arrested. And Sgt. Alicia White "was the darling of the community", said Barbara Jackson, president of the Frankford Improvement Association.
"She always took her time working the community, the elderly and the kids, especially the kids," Jackson said. "We want her back."
White's attorney, Ivan Bates, said the police sergeant was considered to be on the fast track for promotion before Gray's death.
"Many people viewed her as a future leader in the Police Department," he said of White. "She wants to get back to her community. I'm sure every officer wants to get back."
Edward C. Jackson, a 22-year veteran of the Police Department who retired as a colonel and teaches at Baltimore City Community College, said he expects all of the officers would be eager to return to their jobs.
"There's a sense of pride, duty and honor in being a police officer," Jackson said. "Most folks are more afraid of being disgraced than being killed in the line of duty. Most of them are going to want to come back if only to vindicate themselves."
The department has a legal and moral obligation to "make these officers as whole as possible" by giving them meaningful police work if they can't return them to the street. He said the department must consider their personal safety, too.
Jackson said the officers also would have to navigate a strained relationship with the state's attorney's office. Five of the officers have sued Mosby, alleging false arrest, false imprisonment and defamation.
"There's no way in hell they're going to be comfortable submitting a statement of probable cause to the same state's attorney office that tried to prosecute them," he said. "You would think bygones would be bygones, but if Mosby's still the state's attorney, and I'm any one of these officers, I would have to be very apprehensive."
Gray, 25, died a week after he emerged from the police van. Prosecutors accused the officers of causing his death by failing to secure him in a seat belt and get him timely medical care; they also accused Goodson of giving Gray a "rough ride."
The officers have not spoken publicly since the case concluded.
The city has reached a $6.4 million civil settlement with Gray's family.
