Baltimore police officer William Porter could have prevented the death of Freddie Gray in police custody with a few simple steps but failed to do so, prosecutors argued in a forceful closing argument Monday.
Janice Bledsoe, deputy state’s attorney, punctuated her argument for convicting Porter of involuntary manslaughter and other charges with the refrain “I need a medic,” returning again and again to Gray’s requests for medical assistance.
“I need a medic. How long does it take to click a seatbelt and click a radio and ask for a medic?” Bledsoe said. “Is two, three, four seconds worth a life? That’s all it would have taken.”
The jury now begins deliberations, after both the prosecution and the defense completed arguments in the case that spurred days of protests that turned to riots over the death of Gray, who incurred fatal spinal injuries after being dragged on the ground and transported in the back of a van, handcuffed but unbuckled.
Baltimore Bloc, an activist group, has called for protests in the event of Porter’s acquittal.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has urged citizens to respect the verdict and out of “an abundance of caution” opened the city’s emergency operation center this morning, while leave for police officers has been cancelled through 18 December.
In her closing argument, Bledsoe attacked the credibility of officer Porter, pointing out discrepancies between statements Porter made to detective Syreeta Teel, who took the stand last week, immediately following Gray’s injuries. In that statement, the prosecution argued, Porter told Teel that Gray had said “I can’t breathe” when Porter went to check on him at the fourth stop of the police van on 12 April. But on the stand, Porter said he had heard Gray say those words when he was first being arrested and not again.
Bledsoe played tape of initial interviews to contradict this. “‘I hear someone screaming, I hear someone yelling.’ Not once did he say ‘I heard Freddie say those words’” at the initial stop.
In an hour-long argument, defense attorney Joseph Murtha argued that credibility is not an issue in this trial, where the entire burden of proof lay with the prosecution, who he claimed was playing on the emotions of the jury and asking them to fill in gaps with speculation. He said there is “an abundance of reasonable doubt in this case”.
He stressed that the state had failed to produce a witness to show that Officer Porter had not acted as a “reasonable officer”, the standard by which jurors were instructed to judge Porter’s actions.
“I understand that there is a need to find someone accountable, to hold someone responsible for the death of Freddie Gray,” Murtha said.
“Whether you may be offended by the way the police put him in [the van], it isn’t part of your consideration,” Murtha argued in an attempt to counter the graphic descriptions of a “hogtied” Gray being forced into the van on his stomach, and again tried to impugn what he called the state’s “speculative theorizing” and attempt to “influence your passion, calling Officer Porter someone who doesn’t care ... That’s not evidence”.
In the state’s final rebuttal, Michael Schatzow, chief deputy state’s attorney, argued that “the defendant had a duty to keep Mr. Gray safe. He simply didn’t care”, Schatzow said.
