BALTIMORE, MD. May 24 (DPI) – A judge in Baltimore yesterday exonerated a police officer in the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray, who was injured in police custody and later died. The case is the latest in a string of alleged police misconduct episodes across the country in recent years, all of which have stoked a racially charged narrative repeated often in the mainstream media.

But the decision by Judge Barry Williams – himself African American –  didn’t fit with the narrative, so The New York Times and The Washington Post struck the story from its front pages and section fronts within hours of the decision. Moreover, readers – and an increasing number of black readers – posted comments expressing relief that facts and evidence still matter in a court of law.

Five more officers are charged in the Freddie Gray case, in which Gray, arrested and unbelted in a police van, sustained serious injury and later died.  The trials of the other officers are scheduled for later this year.

Among the most popular comments on NYTimes.com, which reported on the decision yesterday:

The subhead of this story questioned whether anyone will be held accountable for Mr. Gray’s death.
I’m curious when the African American community will accept accountability for the deaths in their own community. It is naive and disingenuous to deny the fact that heavy handed policing in African American communities is the direct result of the extreme violence and lawlessness in these communities.
My own community still faces protests resulting from the justified police shooting of an African American man in November, yet the same community activists are silent when African Americans have killed African Americans since then in public shootouts that resemble Baghdad, not the Midwest.
The African American community has a lot of legitimate grievances, but those won’t ever get solved as long as they keep acting as if they don’t bear any responsibility for the chaos in their own community.

This was an absolute farce of an indictment. It was an embarrassment that it even went to trial. Anyone paying attention knew an acquittal was coming as the judge basically ridiculed the prosecution’s closing arguments as they were being made.
I feel sorry for the young officer whose life has been destroyed to appease an angry mob and advance political careers.
Although the charges against all 6 officers are dubious, the ones against Nero are the most ludicrous. Although you won’t read about it in the media, it’s clear that he and other white officers were indicted because indicting only the two officers most culpable (who were black) would not fully appease the mob. I’m glad the judge stopped this travesty before it went even further.

I agree whole-heartedly with the decision. The charges should have never been brought. The incompetent prosecutor was looking to inflict a political lynching on the cops, not that I am enamored with police brutality. The case was never about justice but an appeal to the street mobs. I want justice for all parties involved. Mr. Gray, who has already received his recompense for a life foolishly lived, was a thug guilty of poisoning his own community. I will never understand why the black community deifies criminals and miscreants who help keep our race downtrodden. I wonder why there are never any protests about black CPAs, doctors, lawyers, and other successful professionals who are killed by police. Ooooh! That’s right: They are leading responsible lives devoid of lawless acts that cause contact with law enforcement. I guess the eternally aggrieved victim and entitlement minded blacks want to obfuscate the fact that we are committing self genocide by proclaiming that limited police killings of blacks is our communities’ primary problem.

From among favorite posts on The Washington Post site:

The judge is local, black, former prosecutor & former civil rights prosecutor. What more does take for some people to accept that these are phony charges.

The prosecutor overcharged all of these cops… and everybody knew it at the time. She never had a shot at getting convictions on the charges she brought. She was trying to appease rioters instead of performing her duties responsibly…. and her chickens are coming home to roost.