BALTIMORE — In 2015, now Baltimore City State's Attorney Ivan Bates and his team of Catherine Flynn and Thomas Donnelly represented the six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray.
Looking back over the last decade has given them a different perspective.
"I think going through Freddie Gray was one of the biggest lessons I learned," said State's Attorney Bates. "I think it's easy to follow what's popular. It's hard to stand up in the face of doing something that's extremely unpopular."
"I mean, our job was to represent our clients. That was the bottom line," says Catherine Flynn, who represented Garrett Miller.
Representing the six officers came with backlash from people in Baltimore and across the United States.
People who wanted justice against police brutality.
"Freddie Gray was a Black male. I'm a Black male. You had years of frustration based on police abuse of Black males in the Black community. So, I took a lot of heat, you know, I went to Howard University, undergrad, so a lot of my friends from Howard called and had a lot of criticism. 'How could you? How could you?' But, for me, I didn't look at this case other than my client was a Black female. I looked at her no differently than anybody who was facing the weight of the system is innocent until proven guilty," Bates said.
Bates represented police officer Alicia White.
He said despite receiving hate from people, it was important to him to ensure he did his best to defend White.
"The criminal justice system is a mysterious thing; what you believe should happen, don't always happen. And it's very hard when you're hearing one side of the story and this is what you believe, but we knew from looking at the evidence that when the story was put out, that wasn't what happened, and it was incumbent upon us, having been lawyers ad taken the oath, to fight for our clients, and you know, we all did that," Bates said.
The trials ended in 2016, but the violence lingered for several years.
"Violence spiked in 2015 right after Freddie Gray, and it really didn't come down until 2023. I mean, we had eight years of constant homicides over 300 and almost three times the number of nonfatal shootings. So, we're still coming together as a community still recovering from the events that followed, you know, the death of Freddie Gray," said Thomas Donnelly.
Flynn says the tragic death of Freddie Gray highlighted a divide within Baltimore City.
"It opened their eyes to certain things that were happening in Baltimore, and hopefully it's inspired people to get more involved in the community as a result," she said.
One year after Freddie Gray's death, 500 Baltimore City Police officers began wearing body cameras full-time.
And two years later, the court signed off on a consent decree between Baltimore City and the Department of Justice to improve policing in the city.
"Baltimore City Police have made tremendous strides forward, but I think we still have a long way to go to continue earning the trust of the citizens of Baltimore," Donnelly said.
