Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Baltimore Police/YouTube
On the morning of April 12, 2015, Freddie Carlos Gray Jr. ran from Baltimore police and was stopped in the Gilmor Homes housing development. According to police, he was arrested for possession of an illegal switchblade knife. A part of Gray’s arrest was captured on a viral cell phone video, showing him screaming while restrained on the ground and then dragging his legs as police carried him to a transport van. Later that morning, he was found to be in a coma. He died one week later in the hospital. His death brought national attention to Baltimore, leading to mass protests.
On May 1, 2015, State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby charged six officers in Gray’s death, outlining six stops that the van took while Gray was in custody. She said that Gray was injured while the van was in motion, from being unrestrained and thrown forward. Her office was unable to win any convictions based on this premise, and Gray’s cause of death was left a mystery.
My new book, They Killed Freddie Gray: The Anatomy of a Police Brutality Cover-Up, uncovers evidence of how Gray was killed by police and how city leaders covered up the truth, including by hiding and manipulating evidence. What follows is an excerpt from the chapter “Missing Footage.”