A fellow prisoner said Freddie Gray was banging against the walls of the Baltimore Police van that was transporting him and was deliberately seeking to hurt himself, The Washington Post reported.
Meanwhile on Wednesday night, a relative of one of the six officers who’ve been suspended in the case told CNN that she feared a railroading of the police to make a political point.
According to a police document obtained by The Post, the fellow prisoner couldn’t see Gray because of a metal partition.
But he could listen and he told police he heard Gray “banging against the walls” and could tell that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself.”
It isn’t clear how much other evidence backs up the prisoner’s account of the 30-minute van ride. The document was written by a Baltimore police investigator.
The possibility that Gray’s death could be the result of self-harm would be politically incendiary after more than a week of disturbances and a citywide curfew.
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As a result, the police officer’s relative said she was suspicious of Baltimore’s political leadership.
“If they come out and tell the whole story,” she said of Baltimore’s politicians, “what do they do about the stuff that” had happened since Gray’s death.
“There’s been a riot, there’s a curfew” and it cannot all be for naught, she told CNN on condition of appearing on-camera with her face blurred.
She called the case a possible example of “when something bad happens and nobody stands behind you, including the city you served.”
The Post only obtained the currently-sealed document — related to a search warrant in the case — on condition that the second prisoner not be named. He is currently in jail and fears retaliation, the Post reported.
Gray had been arrested 18 times and had two drug-related charges pending against him when he died. He had been convicted several times, with his longest sentence being a two-year jail stint.
On the day of his death, he saw cops patrolling a neighborhood known as a drug market and his lengthy rap sheet meant he was well-known to the cops who pursued him.
Gray was found unconscious in the van and died of spinal injuries a week later.
Since the April 19 death, the Gray case has become the latest national symbol for the issue of police misconduct and minority suspicions of police.
Marchers have repeatedly demanded “justice for Freddie,” calling the police killers and worse. Numerous community leaders have demanded indictments of the six officers who have been suspended in the case.
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