Thread by @Joel_C_Anderson

Incredible story today from @AlecMacGillis about his time on a Baltimore jury. One of those shake-your-head-and-mumble “Baltimore”-under -your-breath stories. I have one too… 🧵 propublica.org/article/shooti…

Last fall I served as an alternate on a Baltimore City jury. It was a murder trial. Malik Thompson was accused of killing Dennis Lawson in East Baltimore in January of 2019.

There were no eye witnesses to the murder itself, but it was committed midday, and one witness came forward to say he saw a man fleeing the scene in a *convertible Nissan Murano*. There were also bullets/casings recovered from the scene and from the autopsy.

Side note: have you ever seen a *convertible Nissan Murano*? Not sure you could choose a more conspicuous getaway car. Might as well have been driving an Oscar Meyer Wiener.

The prosecutor presented what was, to my way of thinking anyway, a compelling case. Police had tracked the *convertible Nissan Murano* and discovered it belonged to Malik Thompson’s girlfriend.

Detectives began surveilling the couple, and one day, when Malik Thompson was driving that car, they pulled him over. Body camera footage documented the whole thing. At the time he was pulled over, Malik Thompson was wearing a fanny pack. Inside the fanny pack was a gun.

Ballistics testing later matched the gun he was carrying to the bullets found at the scene and in the autopsy. (So, if you’re keeping score: that’s a matching getaway car and murder weapon.)

The defense attorney seemed tired and confused. But she did her job in the face of considerable evidence. She made wild claims about the accuracy/validity of ballistics testing. She cast doubt on the collection of the evidence. She challenged everything.

But it was her closing argument that most surprised me. She flat out said at one point “Baltimore police lie.” Heads turned. The prosecutor was PISSED. He actually objected (which I didn’t know you could do during a closing argument).

She did not say how Baltimore police may have lied in this particular case—just that they do it seemingly always. Which, to be fair…

Months earlier, I’d read @justin_fenton’s “We Own This City,” and knew the evil Baltimore police were capable of—how much damage they’ve done here.

But in this case, as in the case that @AlecMacGillis wrote about, it seemed like they’d done enough and solved a violent crime.

Because I was an alternate, I did not get to sit through the jury’s deliberation. Days later, I learned they found Malik Thompson not guilty. I was surprised. There was so much evidence against him. I don’t know what more the police or prosecutors could’ve done.

But, this being Baltimore, standard bemusement wasn’t the end of it.

After the verdict came out, I googled the case to see if anything had been written about it.

I found nothing about the case I was an alternate for, but I did find this article from 2018 by @justin_fenton about one Malik Thompson (same name as defendant in the case I served on, but I can’t verify it’s the same person, though their ages do line up). baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-…

It turns out Malik Thompson had been arrested on gun charges in 2017. The arresting officer in that case was none other than Baltimore Police Commissioner Darryl De Sousa, who was riding along with officers (he was deputy commissioner at the time).

De Sousa and other officers pulled a car over, and the passenger, Malik Thompson, took off running. De Sousa found a gun in the glove compartment, but took no photos of it— instead he *grabbed the gun from the car and put it in his back pocket.*

At that trial, Malik Thompson’s lawyer described De Sousa’s handling of evidence as "some of the most sloppy police work I've ever seen.”

Thompson was acquitted in April 2018 of those gun charges.

Dennis Lawson was murdered in January 2019.

Questions arise, no? Questions like: If De Sousa had properly handled the evidence, would Thompson have even been on the streets, allegedly committing murder, in January 2019? Would Dennis Lawson be alive? These seem like important questions.

De Sousa was later sent to prison for tax fraud, a fact covered in a coda at the end of the final episode of #WeOwnThisCity, which aired last night. A coda that epilogues the fates of many of the crooked cops and pols who’ve disgraced Baltimore in recent years.

At least some of them are being held to account for some of their crimes. But the damage they’ve done is deep and perhaps irreparable. Trust seems like a precondition for justice—and it doesn’t feel like there’s much of either in Baltimore these days.

Interesting addendum to this thread in this morning’s @BaltimoreBanner thebaltimorebanner.com/tsunami-of-dep…