Washington--Police in Baltimore acknowledged Friday that an African-American man who died from injuries apparently sustained in custody should have received immediate medical help when he was arrested.
Tensions are simmering in the blue-collar Mid-Atlantic port city of 620,000 after 25-year-old Freddie Gray died Sunday from a severe spinal cord injury, a week after he was apprehended for reasons that are still unknown.
Protests have taken place nightly outside the city's Western District police station and organizers expect 10,000 people to join a march Saturday through downtown.
In a press conference, Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said three officers -- one on foot, the other on bicycles -- had given chase to Gray and another man over several blocks on April 12.
They caught up with Gray outside a crime-ridden public housing project, where cellphone video recorded by bystanders showed him being pinned to the ground, howling in apparent pain.
"That's where the apprehension of Freddie Gray occurred and, quite frankly, that's exactly where Freddie Gray should have received medical attention and he did not," said Davis, who is overseeing the police investigation.
Gray was then seen hustled into a police van that made several stops en route to the Western District police station, from where an ambulance rushed him to a shock trauma unit.
He died seven days later with 80 percent of his spine severed at the neck, lawyers for his family have said. His funeral is scheduled for Monday.
Little is known about what happened during the van ride, but police have said that Gray -- who was due in court this week on an earlier drug-related offense -- was not buckled into his seat, contrary to policy.
Six officers have been suspended with pay as the police investigation inches closer to a May 1 deadline to submit findings to a Maryland state prosecutor, who could decide to press charges.
AFP
