The Baltimore police officer who drove the van in which Freddie Gray was fatally injured last year has been acquitted of all charges, the Associated Press reported on Thursday, June 23.
Officer Caesar Goodson was one of six officers charged in Gray’s death but the only one to be charged with second-degree “depraved heart” murder, which suggests reckless indifference for human life. He also faced charges of manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. He was found not guilty on all counts.
“The court finds there is insufficient evidence that the defendant gave or intended to give Mr. Gray a rough ride,” Judge Barry Williams said in court, per The New York Times. He added that there was no “evidence presented at this trial that the defendant intended for any crime to happen.”
Goodson was at the wheel of the police van when Gray, 25 at the time of his death, was arrested on April 12, 2015. According to reports, officers neglected to buckle him in for the ride to the station, during which they made several stops.
Gray, whose hands and legs were cuffed and shackled, reportedly asked for medical attention, which he did not receive. By the time the van reached the police station, he had suffered a spinal injury and was unresponsive. His death — a week later on April 19 — set off some of the worst riots in the city’s history.
Prosecutors argued that Goodson had intentionally given Gray a “rough ride.” They also accused him of breaching his duty to protect a prisoner by failing to seek medical help when Gray indicated that he needed it.
Goodson’s lawyers, however, said that Gray’s death was an accident and that he had been injured when he stood up in the van.
Goodson is the third officer to be tried in connection with the incident. Officer William Porter‘s trial in December ended in a mistrial, and Officer Edward Nero was acquitted of misdemeanor charges in May. Five of the six involved — excluding Goodson — have filed defamation lawsuits against Baltimore state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby and Major Sam Cogen.
Christina Garibaldi and Ian Drew discussed all the latest on this story during Us Weekly’s Facebook Live News Update.
