The prisoner who was in the police van with Freddie Gray on the day he suffered a spinal cord injury that led to his death now says Gray did not cause his own injuries,
Mediaite reports.
The Washington Post on Wednesday reported a leaked document from the investigation in which the second prisoner, who was not identified by the Post, claimed he could hear Gray on the other side of a partition "banging against the walls" and believed he was intentionally trying to injure himself."
But on Thursday, the man spoke to Baltimore NBC affiliate
WBAL-TV and disputed that report.
The man, Donta Allen, told the station, "When I got in the van, I didn’t hear nothing. … It was a smooth ride. We went straight to the police station. All I heard was a little banging for about four seconds.
He said that he originally thought Gray was "banging his head," but now knows "they did something to him and his body’s been wobbling back there.... He can’t hurt himself back in no paddy wagon."
Allen said that when the van got to the police station he heard police say, "We gave him a run for his money."
"When we got to the police station, they said he didn’t have no pulse or nothing," Allen said.
"They called his name, 'Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray.' And he wasn’t responsive."