[...] all agree on one thing: although initially emboldened by the criminal charges brought against the officers by a fresh-faced state's attorney eager to make her mark, the procession of acquittals has left nearly hopeless the residents most familiar with the problematic police practices that landed the city under federal review in the first place. Days after the riot last spring State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced criminal charges against six police officers in Gray's death, the most serious being second-degree "depraved-heart" murder against Goodson. Under Mosby's scenario, the officers loaded Gray — who had run from police after making eye contact with a bike patrol officer — into the back of a transport wagon as a healthy and physically able 25-year-old man, and carried him out with a spinal injury that quickly killed him. [...] after four unsuccessful prosecutions, and several admonishments from the presiding judge for prosecutorial violations including withholding evidence from defense attorneys, the case has all but fallen apart, leaving those most vocal about police reforms weary, and ready to focus their energy elsewhere. Adam Jackson, co-founder of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, an advocacy organization focused on policy changes, said police brutality toward the black community is so commonplace that people "just expect it," and that residents had braced themselves for not-guilty verdicts even before the trials began. Unlike Ferguson, Missouri, where the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown at the hands of a white officer set off civil unrest that brought attention to the city and its police department's deep racial divides, Baltimore's mayor, top prosecutor, and until recently its police commissioner, are black. Duane "Shorty" Davis — a highly recognizable figure on Baltimore's activist circuit — attributed the lack of protest to the $6.4 million civil settlement the city made with Gray's family before the criminal prosecutions began.
Comment on Weary of protest, Baltimore activists seek change elsewhere
JULIET LINDERMAN, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle
Sat, 07/23/2016 - 6:29am
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