Home » How did Freddie Gray sustain a severe neck injury?

Comments

How did Freddie Gray sustain a severe neck injury? — 46 Comments

  1. Well, obviously many people cannot wait to find out what happened.

    It is reasonably clear that elements in police forces all over the country are developing an “us against the world” mentality. Not all forces; and not all in a given force, but too many. I suppose it is to some extent a natural reaction to the current climate.

    In Southern California, over the past year, there seemed to be a virtual epidemic of police shootings under very questionable conditions; whereas it used to be very rare that the police used their guns. They have other methods of subduing suspects. Of course, there are more illegal, emphasis illegal, guns on the street than ever before. And maybe these episodes were just not as widely reported as they are now.

  2. Oldflyer:

    Are you sure there’s an increase in shootings by police? Or is there just an increase in the reporting of them and the publicity around such cases?

  3. Although black deaths by police are few in number (123) I think that rough handling is quite common. And much covering up occurs with regard to it.

    So I support every cop wearing a body camera. It would help resolve events after the fact and deter some deterrable cops from misbehaving.

    I also would like the war on drugs ended. It is totalitarian and unconstitutional. It has corrupted every law enforcement agency it has touched. The 40,000 swat raids per year have militarized and totalitarianized law enforcement. Whole countries have been corrupted.

    John Fund has a good column on the 1968 Baltimore riots and quotes Agnew’s lecture to local black “leader”. We need more of that. It is long past the point where black crime should be tolerated and not spoken about openly.

    John Fund column:
    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/417581/fires-last-time-lessons-1968-baltimore-riots-john-fund

  4. This was found in the CITY PAPER in the comments section:
    Freddy Gray had a pre-existing spinal and neck injury and had severe damage and scar tissue from an accident that Allstate Insurance was paying him a large structured settlement. Freddy had several unsuccessful spinal fusion surgeries, he most recent spinal/cervical operation was a week and a half before he was arrested. Freddy should have been at home in bed resting and recovering from recent major operation instead of manufacturing and distributing drugs on the streets and resisting arrest. Freddy has a criminal record pages long for manufacturing and distributing controlled dangerous drugs that were cocaine crack heroine etc. along with many assault charges, gun charges, breaking and entering and the list goes on since he was 18 years old. (Juvenile records are sealed.) Look at some of this on http://www.mdjudiciarycasesearch. You will also see where he was trying to cash in his monthly structured settlement for his spinal injury payments to one lump sum through Peachtree Funding, He could have easily fallen in the paddy wagon from the slippery bench to the floor or twisted his fused spine to reopen his recently fused damaged spine. Also, the police that arrested him were also black, not white. Why are people destroying their own homes and revenue when they don’t know the whole story? Mostly because it’s a good reason and timing to loot and get new shoes and stolen goods? You got it! None of the police officers that arrested Freddy had a history of police brutality. Freddy was a dangerous career felon with a damaged spine and neck that was supposed to be healing a week and a half after surgery, not running the streets committing felonies and resisting arrest.

    Court System: Circuit Court for Howard County – Civil System
    Case Number: 13C14101574

  5. In his initial contact with the officers it has been reported that one guy had his knee on Gray’s neck !
    That must have cause the fractured neck bones.
    he had to be dragged to the paddy wagon, walking takes much more effort that just standing which he was able to briefly do. If he was dumped into the paddy wagon, hands restrained, & unable to brace his fall the sharp edges of fractured vertebrae could have severed the spinal cord. It s been reported that Gray “was irate” in the paddy wagon.
    I speculate that he was suffering a full blown seizure caused by increasing paralysis that was interfering with his ability to breathe. Less breathing, less oxygen to the brain, his brain deprived of oxygen goes into a seizure. (This happens as a prelude to brain death, heart attack victims will seize as well.)
    When they arrived at the jail Freddie was most likely dead. Discovering this they call for medics
    (i read somewhere they told dispatch it was a broken arm!) seems the call was amended to *victim in severe medical distress* !
    There is a constant refrain about him being unbuckled in the wagon, I consider that just a
    (excuse the pun) cop out. They want to set up a scenario to absolve the cops, which will have to be a rough ride while unbuckled. No dents to the paddy wagon but the passenger manages to get severe fatal injuries.
    Judge Napolitano says this is 10 days old, do you think a person of interest in a murder would be uncharged in that amount of time ?

  6. The street betting is that someone beat the living daylights out of him while he was off-camera — knowing that he was off-camera.

    This beat down may have started because Gray took a swing — but the street betting is that he mouthed off… something so typical considering the circumstances.

    A swing at the mouth became a swing at the neck… and the rest is tragedy.

    &&&&&&&

    One of the undiscussed issues: repeat offenders breaking police morale — and then police morals.

    You would simply not believe how often some offenders get picked up.

    When the Three Strikes law hit the books in California, my Uncle, the D.A. said that police morale soared straight up… and the courts stopped being clogged with the same fellows time and time again.

    Theft crimes — especially burglary — simply collapsed.

    And then there is the correlation to stupidity. California’s prisoners norm to IQs hovering around 80 — at best.

    THIS is the primary reason for the huge incarceration rates for Blacks.

    Black IQ is at the world norm — 86ish. Whereas White American IQ norms at 102ish — one of the highest in the world.

    The Jain community (India) norms to 106ish…

    Ashkenazi Jewry norms to 115ish…

    The result is in the history books. Jews are incarcerated over ‘brain crimes’ ( Bernie Madoff, Samuel Israel III, et. al. )

    [ In both cases, their victims were overwhelmingly, Jewish. ]

    White crimes cover the waterfront…

    Black crimes (as caught and convicted ) skew towards the drug trade, street violence and burglary.

    Mexican crimes (as caught and convicted ) skew towards the drug trade and burglary.

    This skew shows up in NYC stats. In one recent year (2011, IIRC) there was not one recorded case of Jewish street crime; a handfull of White street crimes; plenty of Latino street crimes; and 80+ percent Black street crimes. (!)

    The skew is even more astounding when you adjust for proportional demographics.

    Which all makes Law & Order the TV show a freak show. With all of its Jewish actors on board — viewer get the impression that the Jews of NYC are whacking their fellow man, right and left.

    While Blacks, Latinos — the poor souls are forever being harassed by ‘the man.’ (!)

    A decade of such totally unreal broadcasts have much the same corrosive effect as Vé¶lkischer Beobachter or Der Sté¼rmer. The national audience is conditioned to believe that violent crime is something that every ethnic group does (equally) and that Blacks and Latinos in NYC are rarely the true perps — even when all of the original L&O plotting points the audience in that direction. The shows/ propaganda almost always shift the blame away from Black street crime to some other locus.

    Everything from Nigerian politicians to multi-racial international drug gangs. (Something that NEVER exists in the real world. No-one is more racist than criminals. See Goodfellas.)

    &&&&&&&

    All of this do-gooding propaganda creates a burr under the seat of the Black street community.

    Eventually, THEY believe L&O.

    They believe that EVERYONE’S doing it.

    And that they are, by their race, automatically being harshly treated by ‘the man.’

    I will leave the rest of the total insanity of that TV show for another post. Suffice it to say: it doesn’t observe ANY of the legal procedures or standards of American criminal law.

    The fictive assistant DA on the program would be locked up in my Uncle’s jurisdiction. He’s a repeat offender — and a criminal one.

  7. Linda, very interesting. Fits my suspicion that the facts would not support the narrative. Obama’s reputation with police will only go lower.

  8. More from the doctor quoted in the linked Baltimore Sun article:

    Bydon cited the case of a 57-year-old Alabama man who was paralyzed in February after being handcuffed and thrown to the ground, suffering a severe neck injury. Handcuffs prevent a person from being able to brace themselves in a fall, placing pressure on the head and neck when they land, he said.

    Was Gray thrown into the van? If so, seems possible that alone was enough to cause his injuries.

    Here’s another Baltimore Sun article — Freddie Gray not the first to come out of Baltimore police van with serious injuries:

    Relatives of Dondi Johnson Sr., who was left a paraplegic after a 2005 police van ride, won a $7.4 million verdict against police officers. A year earlier, Jeffrey Alston was awarded $39 million by a jury after he became paralyzed from the neck down as the result of a van ride. …

    Christine Abbott, a 27-year-old assistant librarian at the Johns Hopkins University, is suing city officers in federal court, alleging that she got such a ride in 2012. According to the suit, officers cuffed Abbott’s hands behind her back, threw her into a police van, left her unbuckled and “maniacally drove” her to the Northern District police station, “tossing [her] around the interior of the police van.”

    “They were braking really short so that I would slam against the wall, and they were taking really wide, fast turns,” Abbott said in an interview that mirrored allegations in her lawsuit. “I couldn’t brace myself. I was terrified.”

  9. I’ve read the majority of police officers in Baltimore are black, as is the head policeman.

  10. It is relatively easy to destroy a person’s cervix sections.

    A simple trip and an application of acceleration to the head when it crashes to the deck is one method, especially if the person is bound or helpless or unbalanced in some fashion.

    A car driving around with its mass could easily do so with repeated shocks to the head. Since the hands are bound, most untrained individuals cannot brace the shock using anything other than their head, and thus their cervix sections take the hit.

    Repeated smashings of a singular section of the spine will cause collapse sooner or later, swelling, internal bleeding or rupture, and so forth. Thus when one attempt cannot succeed, try try again. Much easier if one can make it seem like an “accident”.

    So, basically, you get a weakened livestock in the truck, smash it around, and when its heart blows up or its legs break, say it was due to some natural pre condition or something. Which may be true, but that is not entirely the story, now is it. Humans may be broken as easily, perhaps.

    Pre conditions exist for human health. But it merely makes malicious human actions turn from punishment into death. Even slugging a guy in the head can result in their death, unintentionally. Yet are people who do that called innocent or are they imprisoned for manslaughter?

    The police unions are immune, because they set it up where the lawyers are involved. The unions protect the police from the lawyers and the lawyers reciprocate in some fashion. The unions in charge of the thug workers are also involved, in this Red vs Blue artificial conflict.

  11. Actually….. It was just released that Gray was in a car accident and being paid a lot of money by Allstate. He had severe damage to his spine. He had several unsucessful spinal surgeries.

  12. Has the article above that mentions a previous condition with several operations to Freddie’s spine been investigated? That is quite a revolution if there is any truth to that story! I read this earlier today on the FOX news website where it was an arrival about Obamas speech. It has since been removed and all the people that commented on it. Why I wonder? It would explain a lot if this was really the case.

  13. blert:

    There was no evidence of a beating, either major or minor. I don’t have time to find the link right now, but I recall reading that there was no report of any bruises or injuries other than the neck injury.

  14. I’ve had two fusions of the cervical spine. First one was a 21 day stay the second 30 days. So I seriously doubt any hospital would release him following that sort of major surgery

  15. At 11pm sean hannity asks The gray family attorney
    if there were any *issues with Freddie grays Back?”
    prior to this, surgery or whatever ?
    The Attorney responded “no, nothing”
    Looks like there is some internet mis info out there.

  16. I can understand the police’ aggressiveness. I can understand their mistaken estimate of how much injury his body could tolerate. But, when they knew he was dying, I cannot forgive their choice not to take him immediately to an ER. Burn them!

  17. Once I get behind someone, I can break anyone’s neck without much force; its a matter of knowing how to do it. But we have too little info to pass judgment in this case at this time. If Linda’s info turns out to be accurate it is not difficult to believe the slightest trauma could have produced a sad consequence, which does not make the cops culpable in his demise.

  18. Let’s find out if what Linda, above, posted is true:

    “This was found in the CITY PAPER in the comments section:

    Freddy Gray had a pre-existing spinal and neck injury and had severe damage and scar tissue from an accident that Allstate Insurance was paying him a large structured settlement.

    Freddy had several unsuccessful spinal fusion surgeries, he most recent spinal/cervical operation was a week and a half before he was arrested.

    Freddy should have been at home in bed resting and recovering from recent major operation instead of manufacturing and distributing drugs on the streets and resisting arrest.

    Freddy has a criminal record pages long for manufacturing and distributing controlled dangerous drugs that were cocaine crack heroine etc. along with many assault charges, gun charges, breaking and entering and the list goes on since he was 18 years old. (Juvenile records are sealed.)

    Look at some of this on http://www.mdjudiciarycasesearch.

    You will also see where he was trying to cash in his monthly structured settlement for his spinal injury payments to one lump sum through Peachtree Funding.

    He could have easily fallen in the paddy wagon from the slippery bench to the floor or twisted his fused spine to reopen his recently fused damaged spine. Also, the police that arrested him were also black, not white.

    Why are people destroying their own homes and revenue when they don’t know the whole story? Mostly because it’s a good reason and timing to loot and get new shoes and stolen goods? You got it!

    None of the police officers that arrested Freddy had a history of police brutality. Freddy was a dangerous career felon with a damaged spine and neck that was supposed to be healing a week and a half after surgery, not running the streets committing felonies and resisting arrest.”

    Court System: Circuit Court for Howard County — Civil System
    Case Number: 13C14101574

    If you look at Maryland’s court records on line, there is in fact a case wherein “Freddy Gray Jr.” received a “structured settlement” from Allstate Insurance Co., cause unspecified.

    Verrry Interesting.

  19. He was receiving a settlement from lead paint his family’s “slumlord” was found accountable for. In the “hood” they call this a “lead check”
    Slumlord’s insurance company was probably doing the payout and “structured settlement”
    There is no indication anywhere that he had any back problems or surgery. His attorney stated that.
    Something went way wrong. Hold the cops accountable if it’s found they did this.

  20. Jeff Cowen…I also have had two cervical spinal fusions. My hospital stay in 2006 was 4 days (for a 2 level fusion) and in 2009 I was released the next day from a one level fusion. So he absolutely would have been released that quickly.

  21. Well, on further research, the Daily Mail (UK) reported that Gray got a settlement from Allstate for childhood lead poisoning. Part of a group settlement?

    Murky business.

  22. A knee on someones neck, pressed against hard pavement will crush the windpipe, which is only cartilage & not the stronger material, bone.
    Bone can get cracked & damaged with the weight of a man’s knee on it, Freddie himself was no gigantic man, 5ft 8 is reported.
    A hands behind the back throw into a paddy wagon
    would easily escalate those injuries, keep in mind that
    neck injury victims are usually moved on backboards after being secured above & below the injury.
    There should be an *explanation* from the BPD
    it is nearly 2 weeks into this, shameful.

  23. “Latinos have more or less the same criminality than whites.” Yann

    That article’s assertions are in dispute.

    “Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate” The Color of Crime: Race, Crime, and Justice in America – Second, Expanded Edition, 2005

    While from the same source; “Hispanics are much more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs.” Asians are also much more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. But… “Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.”

    Leading me to the conclusion that the determinative factor in crime is NOT race but cultural beliefs and attitudes.

    2008 (Jan-June) New York City Crime Statistics by Race (from Yahoo News)
    -83% of all gun assailants were black, and Hispanics accounted for 15% of all gun assailants. Whites were thus 2% of all gun assailants, making Hispanics 7 times more likely to use a gun in the commission of a crime. Use of a gun indicates a willingness to inflict extreme harm and even death upon the victim(s).

    Molly NH,

    A knee on someones neck, already predisposed to neck problems is a formula for increased injury. Injury would occur with much less pressure than with a healthy person. Nor is it appropriate for cops to be held to a standard available only to hindsight. However, the crushed voice box indicates that an inappropriate amount of pressure was applied.

  24. GB as a nurse I can tell you that a knee applied to a human neck is a recipe for disaster. Using that to restrain someone you roll forward
    on the knee applying increased pressure to a very
    vulnerable area that is only protected by the windpipe,
    Gray may well have had the upper body weight of an 200 lb man on his neck !!! I find that shocking,
    especially considering all the medical scenarios I have been involved with were we always were instructed
    *Protect the patient’s neck area*

  25. I find it further shocking that some people have the opinion that: My neck gets snapped in the custody of police (who cannot even say why I was arrested)
    and it is MY FAULT.
    Wow, is that blaming the unfortunate victim or what ?
    welcome to the world of the KGB !

  26. GB…

    When you adjust for demographics… the skew is even more astounding.

    Again, NYC — and street crime only:

    No Jewish street crime in a city of millions — for a whole year.

    White street crime down below twenty incidents or some such absurdly low stat — in a city of millions of Whites.

    Latino street crime pretty hefty,

    Black street crime right through the roof.

    &&&&&

    None of the above is to say that off-the-street crime is so skewed.

    But, when the general public is queried, their number one concern, time after time, is street crime.

    Carjackings
    Muggings
    Shakedowns/ strongarm
    Theft and sprint — (Black teens apparently have a city wide monopoly on this one)

    It’s a known fact that one of the city’s biggest auto theft rings was organized by agents of the Communist Chinese. Yet the face of that criminality was overwhelmingly black.

    In which case, it really did echo a Law & Order plot.

    &&&&&&&

    One aspect that my Uncle related: the cops catch only the dumbest criminals. What this means in practice is that the seriously stupid and criminal are picked up time after time.

    THAT’S how America’s prisons have normative IQs of 80 or less.

    They are the ‘low hanging fruit’ of the law enforcement process.

    Gray appears to be an exemplar in that regard.

    The weight of the evidence is that — as is common — the cops used excessive force.

    I have some personal bias. After decades of interaction — and tales from my D.A. Uncle — I’ve but rarely seen a cop stay ‘on script.’ Adam 12 they are not.

    Some of this deviation is built in to humanity. When subjected to role-play (Stanford University?) fellow students fell right into the ‘power intoxication trap’ — within days — if not hours. The study had to be terminated before it got even further out of hand.

    This human tick is evident in all history — and in all law enforcement regimes.

    Physical power is intoxicating — very likely the strongest organic drug the body generates within.

    First Moses, then Jesus, addressed — indirectly, perhaps — this universal failing.

    Moses, the Commandments, moved against capricious judgement — especially after-the-fact damnations. In ancient man, this, ex-post facto judgment, was the universal curse of society; Pharaonic ‘justice.’ (Topped off by non-self limiting personalities — cf ayatollah Soetoro.)

    Jesus: wealth and power are common curses for those destined for the after-life. ( the universal set ) Be on notice.

    The universal reality of law enforcement is that it triggers our universal tendency towards power intoxication — while routinely dealing with chronic screw-ups — many of which are blazingly stupid and frustrating to deal with.

    [ Throw in alcohol, drugs, and pathetic lying… the case load becomes a trial of body and soul.]

    It’s a great moral hazard.

    &&&&&&&

    Almost uniquely among the races, Blacks discharge their rage by destroying their own neighborhoods — something chronic.

    Later, comes puzzlement as to why even Korean businessmen up stakes and leave town.

    It also reveals an unflattering racial trait: a generalized low conception of future consequences. This is a tick that is seen in all Black societies — especially including in Africa.

    This tick goes very far to explaining Black dysfunction in traditional school settings. Big changes are possible WHEN a critical Black adult of influence is able to focus young Black students on the consequences of study: success in American life. This is the under pinning for countless Black success stories. On the evidence, it does not come naturally.

    Which points us back to the dire need for MALE Black instructors for grades 7-12. Everyone else is simply ‘blown off.’

    Their absence results in the dysfunction we see across most of Black American culture today

    &&&&&

    Much of Gray’s troubles are entirely due to an over long rap sheet. It grates on the human emotion to face the same bozo, over and over — doing the exact same stupid criminal acts.

    A happy ending was just not in the cards.

  27. He had a spine injury which affected the movement of his legs. Rather than get bed rest like the docs said, he chose to deal drugs on the corner then run from the police….

  28. Runnins frum da popo……it rarely woks out well….it’s hard to get that through a thick wooly 78 IQ skull….

  29. A knee on the neck is standard Balmer Merlin police procedure when apprehending known felons……

  30. he probably just got the spine injury riding over those rough pot holed roads in Balmer….the black mayor took the road construction money and bought crack with it, so it’s the republican’s fault like Obama said.

  31. MollyNH:

    My point was that if the neck injury was caused by the overuse of police force, then how could he have stood upright on his legs right before getting into the van? You can see him move his legs, seemingly on his own, and then stand for a moment in the video. I can’t square that with a neck injury that left him a quadriplegic occurring before getting into the van. I almost have to conclude it happened during the van ride.

  32. Molly NH:

    I suppose it’s possible that he sustained two neck injuries—one from the initial police handling which shifted something in a way that made his neck vulnerable, and a second one in the van that rendered him much worse. I’m assuming he was a quadriplegic after that, but on thinking about it I realize we haven’t been told that much except that he was in a coma. But there are hints that he was also a quad at that point. He had three fractured neck vertebrae and a crushed voice box, but that’s according to his family rather than an official hospital report, which has not been issued as far as I know.

  33. neo, yes there could be 2 neck injuries
    the first rendered him very fragile, (when he needed to be transported on a backboard with immobilization)
    this did not happen. Where we see him stand briefly at the van door, he was then, I suspect, thrown into the van with those restrained hands landing hard on his
    head and or neck, destabilizing those precarious
    fractured neck bones, the sharp bony edges of which
    ripped the spinal cord.
    Judge Napolitano has just discussed this on Fox.
    He says the 6 officers are culpable for either a 2nd degree homicide or a negligent homicide. He says that if 6 civilians had killled a policeman they would not be
    without charges for this length of time. And the public is due an explanation. Further he says there cannot be the perception that there are separate laws for civilians versus police.
    The family has secured their own separate autopsy
    so we should be hearing more details soon.
    I agree the public has been told very little, & the cynic in me thinks they are *putting together a story
    that absolves guilty parties*.

  34. Molly, stop listening to the voices in your head. The Baltimore Sun reported that Gray had written “auto accident” and “medical malpractice” on court documents they obtained. Gray had written more but apparently no one can read the rest due to sloppy handwriting. They haven’t provided a screenshot yet to see if the public can read it.

    I think there is very good chance Gray had a pre-existing spinal injury. Let’s see what is uncovered.

  35. Mick, you need to re read the Baltimore Sun article
    because you obviously did not comprehend it.
    It appears Mr Gray may well be illiterate so checking off auto accident or injury or whatever is moot if the
    man cannot read & deciphering his scrawls is pointless
    too because the man can t write !
    So does that deserve him a police beat down &
    a rough ride with a fatal outcome for some unknown crime ?
    BTW I don t hear voices in my head, birdbrain !

  36. So now your defense is that he mistakingly check marked auto accident, medical malpractice, and work injury when it was really because he was sniffing too many paint chips? Lol. Right. That’s believable. I am sure a guy that can’t read simple words like “auto” and “work” (your assertion here)would look for help before he started checking off multiple boxes and doodled with a crayon in the explanation box. You know like the attorney who filed the thing or something. Lol.

    I think the evidence is very clear that Gray had been involved in some sort of auto accident. I guess we will find out what, if any, role that accident played in his vulnerability to injury in this case. It will be interesting when the facts present.

  37. Well I guess we can all thank “Linda” and the Fourth Estate for getting this misinformation out there. Even Drudge Report posted Fourth Estate’s article which looks like they took Linda’s information and ran with it. Just who is “Linda”?Sheesh.

  38. As a long time Paramedic/Firefighter I have had many MEDICAL case that may fit this scenario. If you have asima as Mr Gray did and you are stressed (running for the law, arrested, multiple legal issues pending ) as Mr. Gray was this could have precipitated a grand mal seizure which given the inside of the vans hard surface and you have your injuries.

  39. I think the evidence is very clear that Gray had been involved in some sort of auto accident.

    Personally, I think the evidence of Mick joining the Gaystapo increases by the moment.

  40. The pre existing condition in this part is mostly becoming somebody vulnerable enough that the authorities can dish their anger out on. It’s not like the cannonfodder troops can talk back to their union bosses about anything.

    Similar to the DC execution of the black mother and attempted shooting of the vehicle’s passengers, including the child. Somebody became afraid and angered, that was the pre existing condition that people want to “find” in order to excuse in their minds, unsanctioned termination.

    Because otherwise, to most people, they can’t deal with unsanctioned terminations. It’s not something they have the mental or physical fortitude for.

  41. Ymarsakar, so you are also of the opinion that Gray check marked “auto accident” because he sniffed too many paint chips???

    People, c’mon, you are not this stupid. In this witchhunt you ignore that which may throw doubt but cling to anything that doesn’t. Gray may or may not have had an auto accident prior which contributed to his broken spine in this case. I have no idea. The simple fact he marked “auto accident” in court documents is, at the least, curious. Anyone who tried to deny that is lying through their teeth.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>