April 12th was the beginning of an incidence that would continue to be discussed all throughout the country for the following month.  On April 12th,  a man by the name of Freddie Gray ran away from the police which caused suspicion and therefore led to his arrest.  The following six officers were later pressed with charges for this arrest; Officer Garrett Miller, Lt. Brian Rice, Sgt. Alicia White, Officer Caesar Goodson, Officer William Porter, and Officer Edward Nero.

When Freddie was arrested, he had suffered a critical neck injury as a result of being handcuffed and as he was put into the police van, he was not restrained to the vehicle, which is required under police department rules.  This was one of the many reasons that the police officers were pressed with charges.  The police officers then continued to make a stop in order to fill out paperwork for his arrest and still failed to restrain Freddie to the vehicle after checking up on him.

Upon arriving near Mosher Street and Freemont Avenue, the officers made their next stop to check up on Freddie.  They did not see any need to call for medical assistance.  A few blocks later, the officers once again stopped the vehicle.  This time it was to call dispatch and request additional units.  At this time,  Freddie showed the officers that he was having trouble breathing and that he required medical assistance.  One of the officers helped off of the floor of the van and put him onto the bench but still failed to restrain him to the vehicle.

The officers had now almost reached the spot of Mr. Gray’s original arrest and made a stop to check on Freddie.  They had found Freddie laying of the floor of the van and was unresponsive.  At this time,  the officers had requested a medic and he had deciphered that Mr. Gray had a cardiac arrest and was not breathing at all.  “This is a horrendous tragedy that could have easily been prevented,”  says Corey McGinnis (10).

This event has led to numerous riots that have been started in Baltimore.  The mayor of the city even issued a curfew to prevent any further damage from riots that occur over night when people are unsupervised.  The number of riots have slowly been reducing in the following weeks causing the curfew to be lifted and having this start to go back to normal.