With national TV coverage, though, you'd have to move it to the moon to get an unbiased jury.

I retired after 27 years in a state prison system and know just a little bit about dealing with the criminal element Professionalism is a great beginning but more often then not the suspect becomes irate and uncooperative and the fight is on. Cops can't afford to lose out on the street or in the prisons so professionalism must take a back seat until the perp is wrapped up. After that I totally agree with you as well as in the beginning. We don't yet know exactly what happened in this case so non here should be passing any judgement on 6 officers involved in a volatile confrontation with an unwilling suspect. If they thumped him after the arrest then they are wrong and as a supervisor I was there to make sure this did not happen. Thumping during the fight to get him wrapped up is unavoidable and both the perp and officers often get injured.

@GaryL - I think it need not be that dire if the cops can articulate principle and treat people with the respect they deserve. In other words, be professional and objective.

For example, when an officer stops and interrogates (even a traffic stop), a professional, appropriate demeanor speaks for itself. If the stopped party acts defensive, a professional would reassure them that they are a professional who respects their their rights and the law. For a reasonable person, that should be reassuring if the rest of the behavior is consistent.

If that does't work, then they deal with the actual behavior in a professional manner including taking the problem person down and arresting them while protecting themselves from harm at all costs. That why they need extensive training and simulation exercises.

One of my daughters is an airline pilot and has regular cycles of refresher training, simulation exercises and recertification. They need to be able to act effectively in the moment - as do police officers. It's very hard to gracefully handle many such situations. Like in any field there are the good, the bad and the incompetent. Each needs to be dealt with appropriately - simply, justice with wisdom.

It isn't about letting the system work. It's about tearing down and rebuilding "the system." See my comments below.

I'm wondering whether the militarization of the police is more about controlling society or alienating the police from white middle class America. Both, but especially the latter, support Obama's plan to get white America behind inculcating social justice for the oppressed.

One thing I particularly liked about the prosecutor. Rather than characterizing the charges in general, she actually read the probable cause statement verbatim. That is highly unusual but, I thought, appropriate in this case. She publicly laid her cards on the table.

Woodlema: Right, the change of venue motion will start with that quote.

The prosecutor is supposed to disclose any exculpatory evidence to the defense. I assume the prosector here, a former insurance company lawyer who has held office for three months or so and has never tried a felony case, knows this and will abide by it.

The riots, protests and crowd and local press reactions to the charges will serve as very strong support for a change of venue motion.

The Prosecutor should go after the looters and moochers with as much fervor as she went after the police officers.

That's the comment I heard too, but I thought it was the prosecutor who said it. Oops.

I can't believe it either. Mass exodus already. Sheesh.

It sounds like you are saying two 'wrongs' are going to make a 'right'. The error of that thinking can justify any action for any greater good.

The "justice" for homeowners, business owners, and innocent police officers appears to be taking a "rough ride" in the Maryland legal system.

I'm slightly encouraged by a NYT article today on the prosecutor. She talks to the rule of law, her responsibility and commitment.

She's a black woman, from a family of police officers who knows the difference between good and bad cops. I also have some police background and know the difference. She grew up in the city, experiencing all that entails.

Her husband is a law maker. However, the article states that he wanted to return to his poor, black neighborhood to live after his university time. That leads to a bunch of questions about his values and intentions. They good be all good. Don't know.

It sounds like she understands the correct principles and may be able to act on them. I hope so. By her sense of urgency she is described as a calming influence on those who don't trust the justice system and are demonstrating out of outrage and frustration - not to excuse one iota of the rioting. Let's see what principles are made visible in this trial - hopefully, becoming a positive example for all.

I agree that's the only hope for real justice to be served.

For the life of me I can't understand why we don't have police officers in mass resigning their positions and seeking other employment. It seems apparent that any cop, particularly a white cop who gets involved with any black suspect will immediately be a suspect him or her self. With your elected officials out to appease the masses a cop is in a very precarious position and would be better served by Not doing his job.

Did you hear the Mayor? If her statements do not warrant a change in venue nothing does.

Words STRAIGHT from the Mayor. Now if this is not very disturbing in the context of "Justice."

"“If, with the nation watching, three black women at three different levels can’t get justice and healing for this community, you tell me where we’re going to get it in our country,”

Read more: http://www.bizpacreview.com/2015/05/01/b...

Almost tantamount to the chant, "Give them a fair trial THEN LETS HANG THEM!!!"

I detest laws such as "depraved heart murder" where subjective intent is part of the charge. Premeditation is one thing, but the consequence of ones actions should determine the crime, not immeasurable things in ones head.

Based on what I've seen, which is little, it seems that there was something up here. I think these issues are just evidence of misbehavior on the part of police, and the poor are the canary in the coal mine. Since three of the defendants are black, it is hard to view this a truly racially motivated.

It seems that the default position of the prosecution, the judicial system, the elected city officials and the police in general is always always always to close ranks and defend the police no matter what they did. Sometimes, the police are justified and sometimes they are not.

The reason I lead with that is that while I agree with everything you said on a philosophical level, I cannot buy into the notion that "If only the rioters had the patience to allow it to work, much damage may have been avoided." I cannot and will not defend what the rioters have been doing under any circumstances, but I do think the rioters' actions brought a spotlight to this case that the prosecutors could not shy away from. I think that spotlight is the only reason these cops are being charged, and there is no chance they'd have to account for what they did if it weren't for the protesters/rioters.

There is exactly zero transparency within the criminal justice system when it comes to the police being at fault unless the public raises such a stink about it that they simply cannot hide.

I know it is an unrelated case, but think back a month ago to the officer in South Carolina who shot a suspect in the back as he was running away. If it weren't for that person's 3rd party video hitting YouTube, do you think for even one second that cop would ever have been charged with murder?

As it relates to this case, perhaps the charges against these 6 cops are simply a case of trying to appease the public, and perhaps these 6 cops are truly guilty of wrongdoing. They will have their day in court to defend themselves. Freddie Grey never got that chance. He was alive, then arrested without probable cause of any crime, and then he died in police custody. I want to know why, and I doubt your assertion very seriously that if the protesters/rioters had all just stayed home that the system would have ever been brought to bear against those 6 officers.

I agree with you 100% about the way the world should work, but I have less faith than you do in how it actually does work. As perverse as it is to say so, Freddie Grey's family is more likely to have justice rendered in his case as a direct result of what the protesters have done than he ever would if we simply put our faith in the police to investigate their own without the pressure from the protesters. It sickens me to say so, but that it the truth as I see it.

Move the trial to the West of MD.

There's a bigger picture. To understand what's going on behind what's going on, read, "The Roots of Obama's Rage" by Dinesh D'Souza. It's a fascinating look into the transformation of Barry Soetoro into Barack Obama. This transformation was all about getting the power to transform the world according to the dreams of and from the father who abandoned him, to once and for all destroy colonialism and right the wrongs of history.

D'Souza speaks of white guilt and the importance of shaming middle class America, because blacks alone, as a minority, could never get the power to get justice.

Because Obama's history was not rooted in America's experience he had to co-opt American black experience, which meant he had to decide what kind of black he would become. He had 3 power choices. The first 2 were seen by Obama as too limited and ineffective for inculcating massive change: black nationalism (in the form of Nation of Islam, for example) and black shakedown (Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH).

The third option was a "bigger, more effective shakedown" that came from Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. It was to bring the middle class on board by creating "alienation, to cut this group from the power bases in society, to intensify the feelings of hopelessness and frustration" and to "rub raw the sores of discontent." And so Obama became a community organizer and, encouraged by Jeremiah Wright's anti-colonial furies, did just that. As president, he's doing it on steroids.

White Guilt continues. Whites are on board with the fundamental transformation, every group is increasingly hostile to every other group, and everything is going according to plan.

Exacto mundo OA!

That, is what change-of-venue motions are for. I confidently predict a change of venue, to a place where nobody knows this prosecutor, these defendants, or the deceased.

It's all troubling. Race isn't the issue, individuals are and their choices and ultimate consequences. I'm not siding with the cops at all... we don't have the facts yet. But the insistence on focusing on race does nothing but cloud things. Almost ALL lives matter...and the ones that don't have NOTHING to do with race. This illogical mantra is getting stale and is not helping a thing. The officials are pandering, imo.

I couldn't find the exact quote. Nevertheless, reassuring them that there is a system isn't wrong. You are taking it to mean that she is going to unjustly charge people to satisfy them.

Maybe she is, I don't have the details. It does seem that the police arrested someone for carrying a knife that he could legally carry and that he died in custody.

While I don't feel the slightest urge to go and burn my local grocery store and steal toilet paper, I do think it is troubling.