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Banned
A mistrial was declared on Wednesday in the case of a Baltimore police officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray, a black man whose killing while in custody sparked riots last April, and the city's mayor appealed for calm.
The judge dismissed the jury in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Officer William Porter - the first of six officers to be tried in Gray's death - after 16 hours of deliberations during which it was unable to reach a verdict on any of the charges against the policeman.
"I do declare a mistrial," Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams said.
The judge said an administrative judge would schedule a new trial as early as Thursday.
Within minutes of his ruling, a phalanx of uniformed officers surrounded the courthouse. They pushed back a group of a few dozen protesters and arrested at least two people, one of whom appeared to swing at an officer. Large numbers of police have been stationed around Baltimore over the past few days.
Porter, 26, was the first of six officers to be tried in Gray's death from a broken neck suffered while he was transported in the back of a police van.
The panel of five men and seven women had said on Tuesday that it was deadlocked, but Williams had told the jurors to keep trying to reach a verdict.
Porter, who like Gray is black, was charged for having put Gray in the back of the van without seat-belting him and with being too slow to pass on his request for medical assistance. His attorneys had argued that he may have been unaware of department policy mandating that detainees be seat-belted, which was put into place shortly before Gray's arrest.
Gray's death triggered protests, rioting and arson in the majority-black city of 620,000 people, and intensified a U.S. debate on police treatment of minorities. It followed the police killings of black men in cities including Ferguson, Missouri, and New York, which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-baltimore-police-idUSKBN0TZ1F620151216
They must be waiting for the white cops to find someone guilty...
The judge dismissed the jury in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Officer William Porter - the first of six officers to be tried in Gray's death - after 16 hours of deliberations during which it was unable to reach a verdict on any of the charges against the policeman.
"I do declare a mistrial," Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams said.
The judge said an administrative judge would schedule a new trial as early as Thursday.
Within minutes of his ruling, a phalanx of uniformed officers surrounded the courthouse. They pushed back a group of a few dozen protesters and arrested at least two people, one of whom appeared to swing at an officer. Large numbers of police have been stationed around Baltimore over the past few days.
Porter, 26, was the first of six officers to be tried in Gray's death from a broken neck suffered while he was transported in the back of a police van.
The panel of five men and seven women had said on Tuesday that it was deadlocked, but Williams had told the jurors to keep trying to reach a verdict.
Porter, who like Gray is black, was charged for having put Gray in the back of the van without seat-belting him and with being too slow to pass on his request for medical assistance. His attorneys had argued that he may have been unaware of department policy mandating that detainees be seat-belted, which was put into place shortly before Gray's arrest.
Gray's death triggered protests, rioting and arson in the majority-black city of 620,000 people, and intensified a U.S. debate on police treatment of minorities. It followed the police killings of black men in cities including Ferguson, Missouri, and New York, which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-baltimore-police-idUSKBN0TZ1F620151216
They must be waiting for the white cops to find someone guilty...
