Post-Freddie Gray Indictment Baltimore Cops: Demoralized and Hesitant?

By Robert Farago

“As the number of shootings and homicides has surged in Baltimore, some police officers say they feel hesitant on the job under intense public scrutiny and in the wake of criminal charges against six officers in the Freddie Gray case,” baltimoresun.com reports. Now you could ascribe some of that reluctance to recalcitrance; the officers reckon they’ll be second-guessed by their superiors who are being second-guessed by the Department of Justice. And you’d be right. Although plenty of officers reckon their indicted co-workers are being railroaded in the Freddie Gray case, it’s not the homicide per se that’s causing their wariness. It’s the key question of probable cause . . .

Officers and legal experts said they are concerned about Mosby’s contention that Gray was falsely arrested. Mosby said that three officers failed to establish probable cause, as no crime had been committed. She said the knife Gray was carrying was not illegal under Maryland law, making the arrest “illegal.”

Former federal prosecutor Jason Weinstein, who held a leadership post in the Justice Department, said the remedy for failing to establish proper probable cause is that “a defendant goes free — not that an officer goes to jail.”

The result could …read more

Source:: Truth About Guns