BALTIMORE — 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.
Apparently the other prisoner has a new story, but doesn’t want others to know about his cooperation with the police. Gee, you think they offered him a deal in exchange for this BS new story?? Man these cops are dirty.
The WP article also has this interesting bit:
The van driver stopped three times while transporting Gray to a booking center, the first to put him in leg irons. Batts said the officer driving the van described Gray as “irate.” The search warrant application says Gray “continued to be combative in the police wagon.”
The driver made a second stop, five minutes later, and asked an officer to help check on Gray. At that stop, police have said the van driver found Gray on the floor of the van and put him back on the seat, still without restraints. Police said Gray asked for medical help at that point.
Sounds to me like they got him in a chokehold in order to put the leg irons on him.
There are no police transport vehicles – vans or trucks – that I’m familiar with (having ridden in both, multiple times) wherein one arrestee is visually separated from other arrestees while still being able to hear their actions and movements. No such vehicle exists in the NYPD.
There have been a number of questions asked regarding Gray’s status in the vehicle – whether he was secured (as in seat-belted in place) or not. I believe NYPD vans have seat belts but never once have they been used in my experience, and the trucks have no seat belts whatsoever – indeed, only one thin bench on each side of the rear boxed area. Most times, prisoners are transported from various precincts to holding areas in the criminal court building, in quantities that surpass the number of available bench seats, so many prisoners are forced to stand throughout the ride, anchored only by the handcuff chain attaching all the prisoners together like one enormous charm bracelet, and the walls of the truck.
Consequently, prisoners are tossed around as the truck starts, stops, and veers right and left, exaggeratedly most of the time by the police drivers who want to see how many prisoners they can send tumbling to the floor, which, in turn, yanks on another prisoner’s wrist and causes quite a bit of ill will, already percolating because you’re on your way to see the judge (and off to jail for many). That, plus it’s about 90 degrees inside the truck, with nothing but a few slits in the back metal doors for air. Think Cool Hand Luke hot box on wheels. Police drivers have also been known to leave prisoners standing inside the sweaty truck for an extra hour or two after they’ve reached their destination because . . . well, cops.
All of which leads me to believe this latest claim from the “anonymous arrestee” to be total bullshit.
Where were you from September of 2002 to March of 2003? Do the expressions “weapons of mass destruction”, “aluminum tubes”, and “yellowcake uranium” mean anything to you?
Seems to me that the medical examiner is the only party in this whole affair that has no prior interest in favoring one cause of death over another. The police have obvious incentive to lie just to cover their own asses, and the other prisoner may have incentive to say what the police want him to say in hopes they will go easier on him. On that basis alone, the medical examiner’s report is the only one that should be given any presumption of credibility.
Just like Trayvon and just like Michael Brown, the left will just cling to the initial narrative and discount any information as lies if it doesn’t fit into the leftist narrative initial put forward.
Trayvon was not gunned down while he ran screaming for help, yet the left continues to promote that lie even though they know its not true. Micheal Brown was not kneeling with his hands in the air, yelling Don’t shoot but the left continues to promote that lie, even though they know it isn’t true.
And when the all the facts are known, if it doesn’t support the lefts narrative, they will continue to promote their lie even though they will know it’s not true.
The left wants to create a race war in this country and will not stop until they get their way.
War on blacks, war in women, war on homosexuals, war on undocumented workers(illegal aliens), war on…that is how the left operates.
Well, now the coroner has stated that the injury that caused his death was inflicted by a bolt in the back of the police van, lending credence to the theory that at worst it was negligence in not strapping him in, if not his own behavior flailing himself around the van, and not police brutality.
Never mind that the video seems to show that his legs were paralyzed before he was put into the van. But the coroner stated there was “no evidence” (in the autopsy) that the fatal injury was sustained outside the van, even though the video seems to indicate differently. Without the coroner to corroborate what the video shows, that will be impossible to prove.
As with all the rest, they’ll do everything they can to shift the blame to the victim. It’s looking like yet another whitewash. Alert the resident imbeciles.
Thanks for representing the perversity of your tribe. You seem to wiggle your ass out of the woodwork only when you’re bigotry gets agitated by one of these police murder cases. That is symptomatic of a peculiarly sick preoccupation.
What’s bigoted about my statement? Or what is incorrect? Does the left still claim that Trayvon was shot in cold blood while he was running away screaming for help? Does the left still claim that Micheal Brown was gunned down by a crazed racist cop as he had his hands up saying “Don’t Shoot”? The answer to both is yes. They still promote those narrative even though they know that is not what happened. Why would they do that, if not to flame racial conflict?
Just in your comments referring to both Martin and Brown as police murder cases, just proves my point.
There is nothing about the liberal/progressive movement that is uplifting. For liberal/progressive Democrats to win, they first have to destroy and divide. When have you ever heard a Democrat running for office, talk about what is good about America? Their campaigns are always based in America victimizing a certain segment of the population and how they are going to fix it, yet they never do. Because if they did, how would they promote their political ideology.
I saw a video of the arrest where Mr. Gray couldn’t walk to the van and was being dragged while a woman kept screaming that his leg was broken. Did anyone else see that? It was a cell phone video I’m pretty sure. I think they injured his spine during the arrest and it snapped during the ride. I guess. I don’t know but I don’t believe anything the cops have said so far.
Everything that Zimmerman has done since this incident shows us who the real “thug” was in this story. Your argument here is beyond weak, it is ludicrous.
Well, stranger things have happened. After all, there was the guy who managed to take a cop’s gun and kill himself in the squad car - while his hands were handcuffed behind his back! Amazing, isn’t it?!!
That’s has nothing to do with the left still promoting a knowingly false narrative. Zimmerman could be a thug, degenerate, etc… and I would agree, however he did not shoot Martin while he ran away screaming for help, yet the left still promotes that narrative. Was Brown kneeling on the ground with his hands up yelling, “Don’t shoot”? No, but the left still claims that he was murdered.
In this case, Gray could have inadvertently caused his injuries in the back of the that van, the police could have caused with the use of a baton on his neck, his injuries could have been resulted in being thrown around in the van because the police failed to properly secure him, etc… the difference is when the facts are presented, some will accept them while others will reject them if it doesn’t promote the narrative they want to believe and promote.
