Judge Finds Baltimore Police Officer Not Guilty In Death Of Freddie Gray

Baltimore Police Officer Edward Nero was found not guilty on Monday for his alleged role in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray a year ago.

Nero, 30, was fac­ing mis­de­meanor charges of sec­ond-degree assault and two counts of mis­con­duct in office for his part in Gray’s arrest. He was also charged with reck­less endan­ger­ment for shack­ling Gray and plac­ing him in a police van with­out buck­ling his seat­belt. He plead­ed not guilty to all charges.

Nero is the sec­ond of six offi­cers to stand tri­al in con­nec­tion to the death of Gray, a black man who sus­tained a fatal spinal cord injury in police cus­tody on April 12, 2015. Gray died from his injuries a week lat­er, on April 19, spark­ing city­wide protests against police bru­tal­i­ty. After his funer­al on April 27, the unrest inten­si­fied — res­i­dents loot­ed stores and set fires, and pro­test­ers threw rocks and oth­er items at police lines.

Baltimore Police Officer William Porter was the first to stand tri­al, in December, but the jury could not reach a ver­dict. Unlike Porter, Nero opt­ed for a bench trial.

Some res­i­dents, accord­ing to a local Fox affil­i­ate, won­dered if the reac­tion to Nero’s ver­dict would be as intense as that to Gray’s funeral.

“It just comes down to, you don’t want anoth­er out­break of peo­ple loot­ing and what­not,” Andrew Murphy, a Baltimore res­i­dent, told Fox 5 DC. “Hopefully it comes to a peace­ful resolve.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D‑Md.) asked res­i­dents on Friday to put aside their per­son­al feel­ings and hon­or the verdict.

“The future of our com­mu­ni­ty will not be defined at the moment of the ver­dict, but in the days and years that will fol­low,” Cummings said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake also released a state­ment ask­ing res­i­dents to keep the peace.

The Baltimore Police Department beefed up secu­ri­ty around the cour­t­house in prepa­ra­tion for the verdict.

“Although the crim­i­nal case against Officer Edward Nero has come to a close, the inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion has not. With that, Officer Nero’s sta­tus will remain unchanged. He will remain in an admin­is­tra­tive capac­i­ty while this inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues,” the depart­ment stat­ed in a release. “The inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion is being han­dled by oth­er police depart­ments. The inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion will not be com­plet­ed until all of the crim­i­nal cas­es against the oth­er five offi­cers are com­plet­ed because they will like­ly be wit­ness­es in each case.” http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​e​n​t​r​y​/​e​d​w​a​r​d​-​n​e​r​o​-​v​e​r​d​i​c​t​-​f​r​e​d​d​i​e​-​g​r​a​y​_​u​s​_​5​7​4​2​1​8​e​7​e​4​b​0​0​e​0​9​e​8​9​f​5​4​6​c​?​u​t​m​_​h​p​_​r​e​f​=​p​o​l​i​t​ics