The top prosecutor in the eastern U.S. state of Maryland says all six officers charged in the police-custody death of an African-American man have been indicted by a grand jury.
State Attorney Marilyn Mosby said the grand jury found probable cause to formally indict the Baltimore Police Department officers in the arrest of Freddie Gray, who died in April after being injured while in police custody.
At a news conference Thursday, Mosby said the grand jury had brought a range of charges against all six officers and had affirmed the most serious charge — second-degree depraved-heart murder — against Caesar Goodson, the driver of the van that transported Gray after his arrest.
Gray was arrested April 12. He died in a hospital a week later of spinal cord injury and became a symbol of what protesters say was police brutality against African Americans. His death brought to a boil long-simmering tensions between the police and poor neighborhoods in this majority-black city, culminating in rioting and looting.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has opened a federal investigation of the Baltimore Police Department, to determine whether the force had engaged in a pattern of civil rights violations.
