Officer acquitted in Baltimore police custody death case

A judge acquitted a Baltimore police officer of manslaughter and other charges today in the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who was critically injured in a police transport van.
It was the fourth straight trial prosecutors failed to win in the case.
Lt. Brian Rice, the highest-ranking of six officers charged, faced charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. Williams previously dismissed a second-degree assault charge, and prosecutors dropped a second misconduct charge against the 42-year-old officer, who is white.
Gray's death in 2015 became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement, fueling outrage nationwide over the treatment of black people by the criminal justice system and prompting the worst rioting in the city in decades.

But the case hasn't fit quite so neatly into the narrative of white authorities imposing unfair justice on minorities.
In this case, three of the officers charged are white and three are black. The victim, judge, top prosecutor and mayor are African-American. At the time of Gray's death, so was the police chief.

In his verdict, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams said the failure to seat belt a detainee in a transport wagon is not inherently a crime, adding that the state failed to prove both that Rice was aware of his duty to seat belt Gray, and that he intentionally failed in that duty. "The state failed to show that the defendant, even if he was aware of the risk, consciously disregarded that risk," the judge said.

Three officers have been acquitted and a fourth trial ended in a hung jury. The other officers are scheduled to be tried or retried, but today's verdict raises questions about those cases.
Warren Alperstein, a prominent lawyer in the city who has been observing the case, said after the ruling that prosecutors have exhausted their theories and need to question whether to move forward.