So is he implying that the charges wouldn't have been filed if the riots never happened? If so, then call me crazy, but that makes me feel like the riots worked. Would those charges have been filed if people didn't turn this case into the huge deal that it became? Maybe! But probably not.
It's pointed out in this article that Mosby stopped short of calling what happened to Gray a "rough ride." But seeing as how that's a practice that involves shackling a detainee's feet (check), placing him facedown on the floor of a police van instead of strapping him in with a seat belt (check), and then taking sharp turns and braking suddenly so as to make the detainee slide around and get slammed into the sides of the van (nooooo, of course not), I have a feeling that's what happened. Just the fact that it's a thing that's acknowledged to exist makes me think that's exactly what happened.
Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images News/Getty Images
I'd bet money on it.
How many fucking people has that happened to before, to the point that people just know it's a thing? If people are up in arms about the driver of that van being charged with something as obscure as "depraved heart murder," keep in mind it's probably because someone actually getting charged for doing this is so unspeakably rare.
Again, police forces inventing their own unique ways to torture people isn't a novelty. For example, read up on the Saskatoon freezing deaths if you're looking to have your day wrecked.
Thinkstock Images/Stockbyte/Getty
Or just visit Canada for a day. You'll get the same result.
So if "rough rides" are a thing that have been happening in Baltimore for an extended period of time, how many people haven't said anything? How many people have said something and didn't get anywhere, because they didn't die and the whole thing sounds so crazy? People have been coming forward left and right since the Freddie Gray incident to tell their own stories of enduring "rough rides" in Baltimore. Are they all just criminals looking to lie their way into the spotlight? Maybe, but don't count on it.
The more likely scenario is that it took a combination of Internet video and someone dying in police custody for this insanity to catch up to the Baltimore police department. Would those charges have been filed without the riots? Alan Dershowitz says no. If that's the case, then in this instance, riots were exactly what needed to happen.
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