Thursday, April 30, 2015

The fog of war

Submitted without further comment, but with emphasis added:
A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.

The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him. His statement is contained in an application for a search warrant, which is sealed by the court. The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for the inmate’s safety.

12 comments:

Gino said...

sounds like another 'jail house informant', like what the public defender in orange county uncovered.

basically, they have a few inmates who will say what the cops want in exchange for shorter sentences, dropped charges or increased privilages.

i dont beleive this practice is just limited to orange county, either...

Bike Bubba said...

I'm suspicious--a man throws himself around hard enough to sever his spine in a police van?

At least it's testable by the pattern of his injuries, I guess, but count me very, very skeptical.

Mr. D said...

I thought so too, Gino. And the practice of being a jailhouse informant is universal.

Brian said...

I guess it isn't impossible to sever your own spine throwing yourself around the back of a van, but you'd have to be really strong, really determined, and really, um, lucky to catch some momentum just right from the moving vehicle. As a reference, look into how frequently executions by hanging (which done right involved a drop at least as far as you could travel inside a van) failed to sever the spine.

The "rough ride" on the other hand has a long and well documented history in the Baltimore PD.

Mr. D said...

The "rough ride" on the other hand has a long and well documented history in the Baltimore PD.

That would be a more plausible explanation. For me, it doesn't matter how it happened, because it's on the Baltimore PD regardless. When you have someone in custody, he's not supposed to end up dead. Period.

Brian said...

For me, it doesn't matter how it happened, because it's on the Baltimore PD regardless. When you have someone in custody, he's not supposed to end up dead. Period.

YUP.

We had a similar conversation here in Durham last year, after Chuey Huerta (who lived in my neighborhood, though I didn't know him), a teenager that got picked up by Durham PD one night, and was subsequently shot (fatally) in the head. While handcuffed. In the back of the squad car. In the parking lot of the police station.

The official line was that: 1) Chuey was handcuffed, 2) Chuey had been properly searched, and 3) Chuey shot himself.

At least one of those things could not possibly be true if the other two were.

(Eventually DPD admited that the officer missed the gun when he frisked the kid. For which he served a one-week suspension.)

Gino said...

it was nice of that officer to take one for the team. he'll get promoted now.

Bike Bubba said...

It strikes me that if indeed "rough rides" are common, one remedy would be to have an accelerometer mounted right above or below the area where the prisoners are held. Log large spikes in each axis and compare to what rides in a similar vehicle would log, punish officers whose driving generates those spikes.

One little quibble; one might end up with occasional deaths of prisoners in police custody through no fault of the police. On the flip side, we can do something to prevent situations like "rough rides" which are simply cruelty on someone who hasn't been convicted yet.

Gino said...

The accelometer would malfunction when it needed to.

Mr. D said...

I suspect you're right, Gino. This case is going to be fascinating to watch. The prosecution is going to have a delicate task.

Gino said...

what will be fasinating to watch is Fox News and the various cop apologists trying to explain how this guy killed himself.... and trying to steer the discussion in another direction.

Bike Bubba said...

Gino; and the demise of the accelerometer will still be linked to who was driving the paddy-wagon, no? If we keep our eyes on the ball, we can make this better.