Justice Department to Investigate Death of Freddie Gray

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the death of Freddie Gray as the Baltimore Police Department released the names of the officers who arrested him.

The New York Times reports that the Department of Justice has begun an investigation to determine if Gray's civil rights were violated in an arrest that ended with 80% of his spinal cord severed and medical coma. Gray passed a week after sustaining the injury.

The six officers involved in Gray's arrest have been suspended. They are 41-year-old Lt. Brian Rice, 45-year-old Officer Caesar Goodson, 30-year-old Sgt. Alicia White, 25-year-old Officer William Porter, 26-year-old Officer Garret Miller, and 29-year-old Edward Nero.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts vowed that an internal Baltimore Police Department investigation into Gray's death would be done by May 1. The findings of that investigation will be given to the Maryland state prosecutor. Batts also said he had ordered the department to evaluate its prisoner transport policies.

Grey was injured April 12 after a group of bicycle officers tried to stop him. He ran away, and was then captured by the police.

In the police report regarding the arrest, the arrest is described as non-violent, but a cell phone video of the incident shows Grey screaming as he is tossed into the back of a police van. After arriving at the police station, the police called for an ambulance that took Grey to a hospital, where he spent the rest of his life in a coma before passing April 19.

The police are claiming that he suffered the injury in the van on the way to the station, but in the same video where he can be heard screaming during the arrest, the police have to drag him to the van.

At that point, Grey's legs seem to be those of a rag doll's, loose and uncontrolled. The woman who shot the video of the arrest can also be heard exclaiming about the state of his legs, which seemed to resemble the legs of someone who had been paralyzed.