By Sean Yoes
AFRO Baltimore Editor
syoes@afro.com
In an exclusive interview with the AFRO, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who charged the six police officers connected to the death of Freddie Gray in April 2015, recently reflected on the five years since his death and the Baltimore Uprising.
Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby evokes very strong emotions in some; for them she is either a saint or Satan. Of course, she is neither.
May 1 will mark five years since Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby charged the six officers connected to the homicide of Freddie Carlos Gray Jr. while in police custody on April 19, 2015. (Photo: Twitter)
For many the more objective truth is as the lead prosecutor in perhaps the most violent city in America over the last five years, with arguably the most corrupt police department, Mosby has earned her reputation as one of the nation’s young, hard-charging, big city prosecutors. And she has emerged as a leader in the law enforcement and criminal justice reform movements.
She was thrust into the national spotlight on May 1, 2015, in the wake of Gray’s death and the subsequent Uprising.
“I think that when you look at this innocent, 25-year old Black man, Freddie Carlos Gray Jr…oftentimes we try to diminish, or to kind of look at it as just another statistic or just another number. Freddie was not that,” said Mosby during a phone conversation earlier this week, as she juggled the duties of motherhood and the State’s Attorney’s office from her home in Reservoir Hill.
“He was somebody’s brother, somebody’s son, you know? Somebody’s friend and he deserved that level of respect. The same way I fought for him is how I fight for every single one of my victims who have come into contact with police and have been discriminated against in the criminal justice system,” she added.
Only five months into her tenure as State’s Attorney (at the time she was the youngest of any big city lead prosecutor), for many the Gray tragedy symbolized the generations-old systemic practice of dehumanizing young Black men within the nation’s criminal justice system with impunity.
This mural painted by Justin “Nether” Nethercut in honor of Freddie Gray is at Mount and Presbury streets in West Baltimore near the Gilmore Homes where Gray lived and was arrested on April 12, 2015. (Photo: Sean Yoes)
“I think it was incredibly important in that moment to humanize him (Gray). So often we don’t look at the humanity of these young people coming from circumstances, all too often in Baltimore City, where 28 percent of the population lives in poverty, we don’t look at folks as if they’re human,” Mosby said. “It was incredibly important for me to remind folk this is about justice for Freddie Gray. This is about a young man who unnecessarily lost his life in the custody of police.”
In the wake of those volatile days in 2015, what was unearthed within the Baltimore Police Department, and ultimately at City Hall has presented what Mosby describes as “unprecedented challenges,” to the city as a whole and to her office specifically.
“Having that one standard of accountability, that one standard of justice. As I reflect on the past five years, which have been unprecedented and going through it you’re like you couldn’t make this up, you couldn’t write this,” she said.
“This is more crazy than the damn Wire, with the unprecedented challenges that we’ve faced…from the Uprising and the untimely death of Freddie Gray, to having the full implementation of body worn cameras on all officers. The officers who were re-enacting the discovery and seizure of evidence…to having one of the largest police corruption scandals in the history of the country. You’ve got officers who are robbing drug dealers and redistributing drugs on the street placing guns and drugs on individuals,” added Mosby alluding to the eruption of the Gun Trace Task Force Scandal in 2018. The arrests of the notorious former members of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD), which is connected to the still unsolved homicide of Det. Sean Suiter, has also led directly and indirectly to Mosby being forced to toss out thousands of cases contaminated by the actions of the infamous GTTF. Yet, she argues scandals within the BPD and at City Hall have led to opportunities for reform and the potential for a national role of leadership for Baltimore.
“From the mayor being indicted and ultimately sentenced and convicted and going to federal prison, to having to work with five police commissioners in four years, one of which is also doing federal time. All of these unprecedented sort of challenges we’ve been faced with as a city,” Mosby said. “And I think the one thing that I’m appreciative of…And I say this all the time but it’s so incredibly important…to put it into perspective. That accountability, which was not being had…has led to exposure. You now see what these young men have been dealing with in their engagement with police for decades. That was the start of that, accountability led to exposure. That exposure led to reforms,” she added. We can list a number of reforms that were put in place as a direct result of the Freddie Gray case, from body worn cameras on all officers, to the cameras in the van, to the use of force policies…there are so many things that have taken place even within the police department,” said Mosby, who despite the revolving door of police commissioners during her tenure, says she is “optimistic” about current Commissioner Michael Harrison.
“One of the things that I think we’ve lacked in the past five years is stability within the police department, real leadership…I am optimistic, we’ve had a Commissioner in place for a year now…I’m optimistic because I feel like this Commissioner gets it. He has a great deal on his plate trying to move the needle to reform, but he understands the importance of it,” Mosby said.
Yet, despite all we’ve experienced as a city during the five years since Gray’s death, Mosby says, Baltimore has the opportunity to take the mantle of leadership in law enforcement and criminal justice reform.
“I think the most compelling thing is that it has come full circle and those folks that were in denial about communities and police relations can no longer be in that denial. That accountability is now being had all across the country, people are now holding police officers accountable. And I say this although those individual officers weren’t held individually and criminally responsible, every single one of the police officers in the Baltimore City Police Department is being held accountable,” she added.
“And so I think that we have a very unique opportunity now that that exposure has happened in the City of Baltimore. Now that we have accountability, now we have exposure, now that we’re moving towards reform we have a unique opportunity at this moment to be a model for getting it right and being a model for the rest of the country. And I just think we can do it.
