Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died Sunday from a spinal cord injury following an arrest by multiple Baltimore police officers that some eyewitnesses described as brutal.
One of the people who recorded the arrest, Kevin Moore, described the scene to the Baltimore Sun's Catherine Rentz, claiming that police folded Gray like "origami." The video footage filmed by Moore shows Gray screaming in pain as he's carried into a police van. Police don't use force in the video, but the recording started after the officers already had Gray in custody.
"The officer had their knee in his neck. And he was just screaming — screaming for life," Moore said. "He couldn't breathe. He needed an asthma pump, which he let them know.… They ignored it."
Investigators haven't confirmed how Gray received the fatal injury, or if the police officers involved in the arrest caused it. But Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said at a Monday press conference that there were multiple moments while Gray was in custody when police should have called medics but didn't, and those failures have prompted a review of police policies to ensure arrestees get medical care when they need it.
In the meantime, protesters in Baltimore are getting increasingly incensed as the investigation drags on without many answers. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has also voiced frustrations with the slow investigation, which is expected to conclude on May 1, upon which prosecutors will decide whether to press charges.
"This is a very, very tense time for Baltimore City, and I understand the community's frustration," Rawlings-Blake said at a Monday press conference. "I understand it because I'm frustrated. I'm angry that we are here again, that we have to tell another mother that her child is dead. I'm frustrated not only that we are here, but we don't have all of the answers."
Read the Baltimore Sun's full piece on Kevin Moore.
