BALTIMORE (AP) — Freddie Gray was listless, lethargic and asking for assistance, but instead of calling for an ambulance, Officer William Porter propped him up so Gray could continue his ride in the back of a police van, the officer said in a recorded interview shown to jurors Friday.
Gray was handcuffed and shackled but unrestrained by a seat belt during the ride, and at some point, he broke his neck and died a week later. Prosecutors and attorneys for the officer disagree on when and exactly how Gray was critically injured. Porter faces manslaughter and other charged in the death of Gray.
The nearly hour-long video is central to the state’s case and will likely be used at the trials of five other officers charged in Gray’s death April 19. Prosecutors say Porter ignored his training and department policies requiring officers to call a medic for prisoners who ask for one.
“I said, ‘Do you want a medic?’ He said, ‘Yes,'” Porter told the detectives. “He didn’t say, ‘I need a medic.'”
Porter said that at one stop, Gray, lying on the floor of the van, asked for help.
“I said, ‘What’s up, dude?’ He says, ‘Help me, get me up,'” so Porter propped him into a sitting position on a bench, the officer told investigators. He said he didn’t buckle Gray in because “these wagons are very small,” making it difficult to get in and “ask him nicely to sit up so you can buckle him.”
Porter said he didn’t call a medic because he assumed Gray was simply exhausted from deliberately kicking and banging the walls of the van.
“You couldn’t tell he was hurt in any way, shape or form,” Porter said.
At the last stop, a police station, Porter said he opened the back door and saw the handcuffed and shackled prisoner unresponsive on the floor of the van. Porter said he finally called for an ambulance after pulling Gray from the van and trying with another officer to revive him with a “sternum rub,” a technique intended to elicit a pain response.
When that didn’t work, Porter said, he realized, “Oh, s—, we need to call for a medic.”
The video was shown during the testimony of Detective Syreeta Teel, who investigated Gray’s injuries for the department’s Force Investigation Team.
Under cross-examination, Teel testified that Porter called for medical attention as soon as he observed that Gray was injured.
When Porter’s defense attorney asked, “As soon as Officer Porter became aware of medical distress a medic was called within ten seconds, is that correct?”
Teel said yes.
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