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 Freddie Gray, 27, of Baltimore, was arrested on April 12 and died
on Sunday from a spinal injury after slipping into a coma, officials
said. His death has sparked outrage and protests in the largely
black Maryland city of about 625,000 people.
Deputy Police Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez said officers had
arrested Gray without using force after he fled when they approached
him. They put him into a police van to take him to a station, he
told a news conference.
"I know that when Mr. Gray was placed inside that van, he was able
to talk, upset, and when Mr. Gray was taken out of that van, he
could not talk and he could not breathe," Rodriguez said.
Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said a wide-ranging and
transparent department investigation would be concluded by the end
of next week and the results forwarded to state prosecutors. After
that, the probe will undergo an independent review, he said.
 "We will examine every piece of evidence, and we will go wherever
the evidence takes us," Batts said.
He said the Baltimore police would institute training and reforms on
the transport of suspects and their medical treatment.
Six officers involved in the arrest were suspended with pay, the New
York Times reported.
Gray's death followed the killings of a number of unarmed black men
by white police officers, including in Ferguson, Missouri, and New
York. The deaths have raised a outcry over the treatment of
minorities, and particularly the use of force, by law enforcement.
UNINJURED
Police have said Gray had a switchblade knife in his pocket when he
was arrested.
The cause of the spinal injury was unknown, Rodriguez said. A lawyer
for the Gray family, William Murphy Jr., said on Sunday his spine
was 80 percent severed at the neck while in police custody.
Gray asked for an inhaler when he was placed in the van, and the van
made two stops on the way to the station. A second suspect was put
in the vehicle but was separated from Gray by a metal barrier,
Rodriguez said.
Batts and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, both of whom are black,
appealed for calm.
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"Our community is experiencing a great deal of trauma, and none of
us get the answers that we need or that the Gray family deserves by
resorting to violence," Rawlings-Blake said.
A video taken by a bystander showed officers dragging Gray into the
van. Police also released an unedited street surveillance video
showing the arrest.
The U.S. Justice Department is conducting a separate review of
complaints about Baltimore police, at Batts' request. It followed a
Baltimore Sun newspaper investigation that found the city had paid
almost $6 million since 2011 to settle more than 100 lawsuits
alleging police brutality and other misconduct.
The city has long struggled with high crime rates, and last year
imposed one of the strictest youth curfews in the United States, an
effort to reduce the frequency of petty crime. That measure has met
criticism from local residents who say it is unevenly enforced.
A few dozen demonstrators gathered outside city hall in a protest
organized by the leftist Peoples Power Assembly, according to a WMAR
television, an ABC affiliate.
"If we stay calm at a time like this there is something wrong with
us," one demonstrator said. Protesters carried signs that said
"Freddie Gray Justice" and "No Justice No Peace."
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Scott Malone, Doina Chiacu and
Mohammad Zargham)
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