OPINION:
Marilyn Mosby, no Blackstone she, has made such a mess in Baltimore that the city won’t live it down for decades. The Baltimore state’s attorney announced this week that she was dropping all charges against the remaining Baltimore police officers she charged with murder in the 2005 death of Freddie Gray. She has lost every trial so far and wants to spare herself further humiliation.
She leaves a legacy of incompetence, carelessness and misunderstanding, to put the kindest construction on her work, of what is expected of a public official. Her speeches and behavior in the wake of Freddie Gray’s death in police custody fed demonstrations that turned into the riots that left Baltimore a deeply divided wasteland, competing with Chicago as the murder capital of the nation. She still hasn’t learned much. Her little speech accompanying her announcement that she was dropping the charges won’t help healing the city’s wounds, and probably were not intended to do that.
Noisy praise by the left, which was pleased to listen to hear her exploit the powers of her office to demonize the police, had rewarded her with the kind of instant celebrity that never lasts long, like the celebrity for going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. But the praise and a photographic spread in Vogue magazine no doubt tempted her to think she could look forward to a bright and unlimited future in the politics of division and distraction. When she preened before the cameras while Baltimore burned, neither Mrs. Mosby nor her admirers gave a thought to the future she faced herself. She would have to persuade an impartial judge that the six police officers were in fact guilty. That, as it turned out, was impossible.
At the time she filed those original charges, other lawyers and legal scholars predicted difficulty for her. Mrs. Mosby had “over-charged” the officers and the state had precious little of the evidence she would need once in court and away from the cameras. That turned out to be on the point. Mrs. Mosby and her aides tried in appearance after appearance to deliver on her boasts, but as it turned out there was nothing to deliver. The signs were clear after officer Caesar Goodson, Jr., the driver of the van in which Freddie Gray died, and the highest ranking officer involved were acquitted. After wasting nearly 7 million dollars of the state’s money to convict the officers, Mrs. Mosby threw in the towel.
When she stepped up again to address the cameras that by now she knew so well, to announce the end of the attempted lynching, she took no responsibility for her misfeasance. The officers got off, she suggested, because “the system is rigged,” forgetting that she herself is the system. The police cheated, she said, and there would be no justice for Freddie Gray. Her admirers and the agitators who had exploited Freddie Gray’s death naturally agreed and demanded “reforms” that would make it easier to abuse the next targeted cop. Even in defeat she couldn’t resist making things worse.
The mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, was asked by a reporter to characterize Mrs. Mosby’s latest remarks. She blandly replied that the remarks were “not helpful.” The mayor didn’t exactly cover herself in glory in the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s death, either, but scolded Mrs. Mosby for blaming everyone else for her own failures. “I have never and will never use my position to give the impression to the community that they should not have confidence in the people who have sworn to serve them,” she said. She needn’t do that. Marilyn Mosby has done it for her.
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