BALTIMORE — The trial of Officer Edward Nero, charged in the arrest of 25-year-old Freddie Gray last year, resumed on Monday with close to two hours of testimony by one of the other officers also charged in the case. It marked the first time that one of the defendants has testified in the trial of a fellow defendant.
Nero is the second of six Baltimore officers to face trial in connection with Gray’s arrest on April 12, 2015, which ended with the young man unconscious in a police van where he had been placed with his hands cuffed behind his back and his legs shackled. Gray died a week later without ever regaining consciousness, sparking protests and rioting across the city.
Officer Garrett Miller, who worked bike patrol with Nero that day, was forced to testify by prosecutors, with approval from the court. His testimony in Nero’s trial cannot be used against him when faces trial himself in July.
Miller told the court that he and Nero became involved when they heard orders from Lieutenant Brian Rice, who is also charged in the case, to begin a chase. The officer testified that neither he nor Nero saw the chase start nor did they know why Rice had ordered it.
Miller said that he and Gray came face-to-face in an alley. The officer said he chased Gray, holding out his electronic shock weapon and shouting “‘Taser, Taser, Taser, get on the ground.’”
When he and Nero caught up to Gray, he said, the suspect did not resist.
“When he heard Taser and saw the other officer, he just gave up,” Miller told police investigators in an interview he read from the witness stand.
Prosecutors contend that the officers had no probable cause to arrest Gray that day, and that detaining him amounted to assault. They also allege that Nero had a responsibility to seatbelt Gray in a police van for transport to central booking, and that his failure to do so constitutes reckless endangerment.
The prosecution on Monday attempted to establish that neither Miller nor Nero knew why they were chasing Gray. Miller said he never asked Rice why the chase was ordered and that he didn’t know if Nero asked Rice why he had called for the pursuit.
Miller said in court Monday that he alone arrested Gray. And Nero’s lawyers said in opening statements that Nero didn’t touch Gray until the arrestee asked for his inhaler. But according to testimony on Monday, Miller told the investigators who interviewed him on the day of Gray’s arrest, “We grabbed him and put him on the ground.”
Under cross-examination, Miller clarified that he used the word “we” only because he and Nero worked as a team. “We did everything together,” he said.
Miller also testified that when he brought Gray around the corner after detaining him, he placed him on the ground in a sitting position. But he had told investigators that he initially placed Gray on his stomach on the ground. “He said he couldn’t breathe, so we spun him around and lifted him up” to a sitting position, Miller said at the time, according to the transcript he read on the stand.
“Did he fight you?” prosecutor Michael Schatzow asked. “Did he bite you?” “Did he spit on you?” “Did he headbutt you?” “Did he kick you?”
To every question, Miller answered no.
“He was cooperative at that time,” the officer said.
Miller said he did not see how Gray was then placed in a police wagon, because he “stepped away.” But he acknowledged that he told police investigators on the day of the arrest that he believed Gray was put on the van’s bench.
Miller then testified that the police van drove a block away and made a stop. There, he said, he and Rice pulled Gray from the van by his feet. Miller replaced the handcuffs that Gray was wearing with flex cuffs and placed Gray in leg irons. Again Schatzow asked Miller if Gray spat, hit, bit or headbutted anyone or made any attempt to assault any officer.
“No sir,” Miller replied.
When Nero and Rice attempted to put Gray back in the van, his body was limp, Miller said.
“He was acting like a dead fish?” Schatzow asked.
“Yes,” Miller answered.
Testimony began Monday with an assistant medical examiner for Baltimore City, Dr. Carol Allan, who merely attested to having conducted an autopsy on Gray’s body. She was followed by Joseph McGowan, a bioengineering consultant who concluded that Gray died from a “diving injury,” his body continuing to move forward after his head has hit a hard surface.
The injury was caused either when Gray was lying on the ground and the van stopped suddenly or when he rose to his feet, lost his balance, and hit his head against the van wall, according to McGowan’s analysis.
“Had Mr. Gray been restrained by one of the available seatbelts in that van, then there’s no diving injury,” McGowan said.
Judge Barry Williams asked McGowan whether Gray could have sustained his injuries after being seated on the bench, still handcuffed and with his legs shackled. In his trial last fall, Officer William Porter testified that when he checked on Gray partway through the ride, he lifted Gray off the floor and placed him on the bench.
“I can’t rule out that he could get that injury,” McGowan said, but he said that positioning would be affected by other seatbelts on the bench that might alter the direction and force of Gray’s fall.
The ambiguity is important, because if Gray was injured after Porter moved him, his defense attorneys can argue that Nero’s role in placing the young man face down in the van is irrelevant.
Nero helped arrest Gray the morning of April 12, 2015. In a recorded video interview with police investigators played in court on Friday, he said Gray was “flailing” and “screaming” as officers arrested him, trying to “make a scene.”
But Nero, who is also trained as an emergency medical technician, said Gray showed no sign of medical distress as he was handcuffed, put in a police wagon, then taken out and shackled before being loaded into the van again on his stomach.
Defense attorney Marc Zayon argued in opening statements that Nero did nothing wrong in the chase and apprehension of Gray, who authorities say began running after making eye contact with another police officer. Gray was charged after a knife was found in his pants.
Zayon also contended that the officer was unaware of a police department rule change, implemented days before Gray’s transport, which made it a requirement to seat-belt all detainees with no exceptions.
Nero opted for a bench trial rather than a jury trial, so his fate will be decided by Williams, who is hearing the cases of all six officers. Porter’s case ended in a mistrial.
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