Police Claim Freddie Grey Broke his Own Neck – Secret “Witness” Says So

American Everyman – by Scott Creighton

UPDATE: As I concluded in my article, the second prisoner was only in the van for the last 5 minutes of Freddie’s 30 minute ride and according to this reporter, Freddie was already unresponsive by the time the other guy was loaded in the van. Also, there aren’t any other injuries to Freddie that would corroborate him banging his head on a wall hard enough to break his own neck. And then there is this…

Miller also pointed out that on April 23, Commissioner Batts said that the second prisoner had said Gray was “mostly quiet.”  

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Disinfo assets like Prison Planet and Mark Dice are running with the story that Freddie Grey broke his own neck in the back of that police transport van in spite of the fact that it’s obviously a bullshit story.

Does anyone remember the story of Victor White? He was the young man who police say shot himself in the head in the back of a police car after he had been arrested, patted-down (searched) and handcuffed. Quite a remarkable trick, that one.

Mark Dice’s video on Prison Planet is insulting and racist. He constantly refers to the protesters as “those people” and says the reason they are so easily manipulated is because they can’t “read past the headlines” and “haven’t read a book since they were forced to in school”. That, according to Dice, is why they are out there protesting. They’re just not as smart as he is.

Dice claims that the real proof that Grey “was banging his head against the wall” is the fact, according to him, that if a cop broke his neck either via a choke hold or a “rough ride” then the other cops would have “ratted him out”

The Blue Wall of Silence simply doesn’t exist according to Mark Dice. Seems like Mark is shilling for Police Chief magazine’s interpretation of the existence of the Blue Wall. But the wall exists. We all know it.

Speaking of not reading past the headlines, let’s take a look at the original story of this new “witness” who claims Freddie Grey broke his own neck in the back of that police van. Let’s read past the headlines for Mr. Dice.

First of all, the statement was given to the Washington Post, presumably by the Baltimore PD. The Washington Post is a conservative, establishment rag who was sure to run with the story regardless of it’s somewhat self-serving nature.

The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for the inmate’s safety.WP

Then consider the fact that the statement was not written by this secret witness. It was written by a Baltimore police officer while the name of the actual witness is being suppressed. It would also appear that this “witness” is still under the control of the Baltimore PD.

The prisoner, who is in jail, could not be reached for comment….

The document, written by a Baltimore police investigator, offers the first glimpse of what might have happened inside the van. It is not clear whether any additional evidence backs up the prisoner’s version. WP

According to the official story which is the basis for this new line of disinfo, Freddie Grey was in the back of the van for 30 minutes and two of the three stops the van made on route to the station were before the third and final stop, the stop in which the other prisoner was loaded into the van. That stop was only 6 blocks from the precinct where they found Freddie on the floor of the van and unconscious.

The third stop was to put the other prisoner — a 38-year-old man accused of violating a protective order — into the van. The van was then driven six blocks to the Western District station. Gray was taken from there to a hospital, where he died April 19

… Gray was found unconscious in the wagon when it arrived at a police station on April 12. The 25-year-old had suffered a spinal injury and died a week later… WP

That’s right folks. The secret witness was only along for the ride for a few minutes and the vast majority of the ride and the stops they made were prior to him entering the vehicle.

You gotta love those “secret witnesses” right? They are always there when you need them and you haven’t got to worry about them or their convenient stories being scrutinized.

• Secret witness “Danny” at Dzhokhar’s trail
• Secret witness who claims James Holmes confessed was actually a sheriff’s office employee
• Secret witness in Michael Brown shooting was a racist friend of the cop
• Prosecutor in Mike Brown case knew secret witness was lying

Though Dice and many others now claim this proves Freddie Grey broke his own neck slamming his head against the wall of the van, that conclusion isn’t supported at all by this rather self-serving leak to the Washington Post. That’s because, if you read beyond the headlines you will find that what the secret witness supposedly claims he “witnessed” during the 6 to 10 minutes he shared of Freddie’s 30 minute last ride, what you find is a rather striking bit of truth… he didn’t “witness” anything. He couldn’t have. There was a steel wall between the two.

A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle andbelieved that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.

The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him. WP

How does that in any way prove Freddie Grey broke his own neck by slamming his head against the wall of the van? What the ‘witness” said was that he heard banging on the other side of the wall. That could have been anything, if it really occurred at all.

Grey was on the floor, out cold when the police opened the door. The banging could have been his attempts to get the attention of the officers as he lay dying. It could have been his foot sliding back and forth across the slick metal floor as the van turned this way and that. It could have been an officer in the van “tuning” Freddie up as far as we know.

Hell, it could have been an unused seat belt swinging back and forth hitting the wall.

There is no way of knowing what that was, if the “witness” really did hear something.

Whatever it was, it’s by no means definitive proof that Freddie Grey broke his own neck.

Do you know what Dice offered as conclusive evidence in his bullshit disinfo video? Clips from COPS the TV show, showing OTHER ARRESTED PEOPLE banging their heads on police cars and windows.

See? There you have it. Someone else did it once, so Freddie must have as well.

Absolutely ridiculous.

And speaking of those seat-belts, if you read past the headlines in that very article Mark mentions in his video, you notice something very interesting:

Batts has said officers violated policy by failing to properly restrain Gray. But the president of the Baltimore police union noted that the policy mandating seat belts took effect April 3 and was e-mailed to officers as part of a package of five policy changes on April 9, three days before Gray was arrested.

Gene Ryan, the police union president, said many officers aren’t reading the new policies – updated to meet new national standards – because they think they’re the same rules they already know.. WP

So Freddie should have been buckled in his seat according to official Baltimore PD policy, but he wasn’t and the argument isn’t that the van had no seat-belts, it’s that the officers simply didn’t read the email. That means the seat belts are in the van and that could easily have been what this secret “witness” heard.

Batts has said officers repeatedly ignored Gray’s pleas for medical help and failed to secure him with a safety belt or harness in the back of the transport van. WP

Police Commissioner Batts has admitted to mistakes in how Gray’s arrest was handled, saying he should have received medical attention and that he should have been secured while in the back of the police van. Huffington Post

Another issue lost on Mr. Dice is the fact that regardless of what is claimed to have or have not happened during his ride to the station, Freddie Grey appears to have been gravely injured prior to being loaded into the van.

The video of his arrest shows a limp Grey being dragged to the van and loaded into the back of it. He was screaming in pain and witnesses on the scene claim it looked like his leg was broken. That means his neck may have already been injured at that point.

Video shot by several bystanders has fueled the rage in West Baltimore. It shows two officers on top of Gray, putting their knees in his back, then dragging his seemingly limp body to the van as he cries out. WP

Grey should have been left there at the scene and paramedics called to attend to him. But he was not.

They should have taken him straight to the hospital. Had they done that, Freddie Grey might still be alive today. But they did not.  They took him to the station where they found him unconscious in the back of the transport vehicle and only then did they call for paramedics. At that point, Freddie was already in a coma and he died later as a result.

According to the video, the arresting officers placed their knees on Freddie’s back in order to hold him down. Another witness claims they put their knees on his head as well.

“They had him in a crab-like position, where his legs were bent back and his arms,” an unnamed witness told WBAL-TV. “He was handcuffed, and at that point, they had knees in his back and his head.” WP

This tactic of suppression has been used before by police. This Denver cop was punished by his department for doing it.

The fact that we know officers are told to pile onto suspects during an arrest and when they do so they are trained to put as much of their full body weight on the man’s back, neck or head is irrefutable.

The fact that we have a video showing the officers doing this to Freddie is also irrefutable.

The fact that he complained of extreme pain cause by injuries he received during the arrest is also irrefutable.

The fact that the police violated multiple procedural mandates throughout Freddie’s arrest and transport to the station is also irrefutable.

The fact that this “witness” statement proves absolutely nothing about what happened to Freddie in the back of that van is also irrefutable.

The fact that it comes from a highly suspect source and is extremely self-serving on the part of the Baltimore PD is beyond irrefutable… it’s just plain obvious.

Regardless of the knife Freddie or did not have on him at the time of his arrest, regardless of his criminal record which some are now touting as a reason to disregard his manner of death… regardless of all of that… Freddie Grey should not have met his end in that way on April 19th of this year. And that is an irrefutable fact.

While people like Mark Dice continue to use spurious arguments to justify the deaths of men like Freddie Grey and Michael Brown (yes, Dice cited several lies about how Mike Brown died in order to justify his death as well in his horrible little hate-mongering disinfo piece) those of us who actually do read beyond the headlines see the situation for what it really is: an abject lack of empathy from the police department toward the people they are supposedly sworn to protect and serve.

Freddie Grey’s death is a direct result of that, pure and simple. Not his banging himself to death in the back of a police van or shooting himself in the head while in custody and cuffs.

You have to be a true idiot to believe that… or maybe you just haven’t read past the headlines or a book since you were forced to in school.

Ain’t that right, Mark?

https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/police-claim-freddie-grey-broke-his-own-neck-secret-witness-says-so/