*(Top row from left) Alicia White., Brian Rice and William Porter. (Bottom row from left) Edward Nero, Garrett Miller, Caesar Goodson Jr.
State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s prosecution against the six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray is getting off to a shaky start. One of the main pillars of her case is that the officers made an illegal arrest because Gray was not carrying an illegal knife. But the police task force determined that the knife does violate a Baltimore code.
Mosby also badly botched her announcement of the charges in the case at her press conference Friday afternoon. Of the six Baltimore PD officers who were charged, “two of them were charged under the wrong names, the wrong dates of birth, and wrong address,” Sheriff Mike Lewis alleged on Hannity Monday night.
When Miss Mosby stood up in front of the world with her theatrics at her press conference last Friday she charged two of the wrong people. Now, when I say she charged two of the wrong people, I don’t mean she charged two of the wrong officers. I mean she charged the wrong people. Innocent people. Of the six police officers that were charged, two of them were charged under the wrong names, the wrong dates of birth and the wrong addresses.
And because of that, reporters went to the wrong addresses of these innocent people, these private citizens and whose lives have now been invaded. They went to their homes, knocked on their doors. They harassed them. They went to their neighbors and attempted to get interviews. And it wasn’t until these innocent people these private citizens contacted their local state’s attorney’s offices that this problem was rectified.
Lewis concluded that the embarrassing blunder was the “direct result of a hasty prosecutor who wants to charge these individuals.”
Video via Gateway Pundit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2618Rd3CmY
The Baltimore Sun reported that the mistake created a major hassle for the two individuals who were named by Mosby at the press conference:
When charges were announced Friday against Alicia White for the death of Freddie Gray, her phone started buzzing from journalists and bail bondsmen.*
The problem was, they were calling the wrong Alicia White. The elementary school cafeteria manager from East Baltimore was not the Baltimore Police sergeant charged with manslaughter in the high-profile police custody death – even though court records listed her.
The middle initial was off. Her address, her height, her weight, her driver’s license number – all of the information was my client’s information,” said Jeremy Eldridge, an attorney who says he has been hired by the resident.
“Her life has been a living hell the past four days,” he said.
An attorney for Lt. Brian Rice said his client’s information was also entered incorrectly when prosecutors filed charges, but declined further comment.
On Friday evening, Tammy and Brian Rice of Brunswick, Md. said they were receiving multiple calls from reporters looking for the lieutenant. Brian Rice of Brunswick is a plumber, they said.
The Baltimore Sheriff’s Office, which assisted the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office in charging the officers, declined to comment and referred questions to prosecutors, who could not immediately be reached.
Also the Baltimore Sun reports on the separate investigations by police and prosecutors — which have some conflicting findings.
While Mosby said Friday that the officers had made an illegal arrest because a knife Gray was carrying was not a “switchblade,” a violation of state law, the police task force studied the knife and determined it was “spring-assisted,” which does violate a Baltimore code.
Some legal experts across the country have called for the “hypocritical, grandstanding idealogue” Mosby to appoint a special prosecutor to handle the case — which she so far refuses to do.
*Names of officers were originally posted in inverted order.
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