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Late Wednesday night, the Washington Post dropped a bombshell in the Freddie Gray case: according to a second-hand report from the prisoner who traveled in the same police van, Gray was “banging against the walls” of the van as though he “was intentionally trying to injure himself.” On Fox, Sean Hannity went predictably nuts about the “blockbuster,” and used it to blame President Obama for weighing in on race relations “before the facts are known.”
The Post has done some good reporting from Baltimore, but this “scoop” is curious. Police Commissioner Anthony Batts had previously cited the same prisoner as saying the ride he shared with Gray was quiet and uneventful.
NBC affiliate WBAL’s Jayne Miller took the story apart within about an hour, reporting that the prisoner in question only got aboard on the van’s fourth stop, and was with him for five or six minutes. Gray had been alone in the van, with police, for at least a half hour, Miller said, citing the cops’ own timeline, during which time the vehicle made a curious stop to place the young West Baltimore man in leg irons.
The Post called the story the “first glimpse” of what actually happened inside the van, and added that “it is not clear whether any additional evidence backs up the prisoner’s version.” That’s one way to put it.
This isn’t the first story to charge that Gray, not police, was responsible for his own injury. An “exclusive” on a right-wing site blared “FREDDIE GRAY ALLEGEDLY HAD SPINE SURGERY JUST ONE WEEK BEFORE ARREST.” It quickly metastasized to “everyone’s racist uncle’s Facebook feed,” as Gawker put it.