Baltimore: Of hearts and minds

A "DEPRAVED HEART."

Who knew the quaint-sounding phrase - it sounds pulled from a Bronte novel - was an actual legal term? But Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby used it yesterday to describe the second-degree murder charge brought against one of the officers in the death of Freddie Gray.

Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. allegedly acted with a "depraved heart" when he recklessly drove the van that transported Gray, who was not secured with a seatbelt, to the police station after a bogus arrest. As the world now knows, Gray suffered a fatal spinal injury somewhere along the way.

Goodson may not have laid a murderous hand on Gray, but his alleged actions had the same deadly result. His "depraved heart" allowed him to act dangerously and without thought to the consequences he set into motion.

Mosby did not describe the hearts of the five other officers charged in Gray's death: Lt. Brian Rice, Sgt. Alicia White and Officers William Porter, Edward Nero and Garrett Miller. So I don't know where their cardiac rhythms register on the law's "depravity" scale.

But they appear to have responded with chilling indifference to Gray, who repeatedly asked for medical help and received none until he was in cardiac arrest at the police station.

And to think this all unfolded because Gray simply made eye contact with one of the cops before he took off running.

Maybe the officers gave chase because of Gray's past. He has an arrest record, mostly for minor drug offenses, not all of which were prosecuted. Maybe the officers presumed he was up to something no good.

If not for their arrogance, they might be looking only at a reprimand for the stop or bogus arrest. Bad enough. But at least Gray would be alive to fight the charge.

Instead, a man is dead and The Freddie Gray Six are "really jammed up," as my Philly cop friend "Jim" likes to say.

Jim's own, very good heart broke a little when he heard the charges. He is hoping, as the investigation unfolds, that the Freddie Gray Six are vindicated, that new evidence turns up to prove they were not as bloodless and stupid as they appear to have been.

Because every cop's life is at stake every time a cop does something bloodless and stupid.

"When this stuff happens, I feel the way the good Catholic priests probably feel every time a bad one is arrested for sex abuse," says Jim, a veteran in a high-crime district. "Each time makes it hard for the cops who just want to do their job, follow procedure, treat people respectfully and go home.

"Freddie Gray was killed in a different city, but that doesn't matter. The day after the riots, I stopped for coffee. I was in my uniform, and I could feel people looking at me. I don't know what they were thinking. These days, my head is on a swivel."

Listening to Jim and to other good cops like him, I realize all over again that there's no amount of money you could pay most of us to do what they do. Not when the potential price is the loss of your own life because of something a criminal does - or a rogue cop does, which could get transmitted to you on principal.

Every reasonable person gets what cops are up against.

That's why it's time for the good cops to add one more task to their already burdened work days: They have to start reading the riot act to the cops who are walking the line between good behavior and the kind that will get them "jammed up."

Any psychiatrist will tell you that people change only from within. The same can be said for any police department.

Marches won't do it. Prayer vigils won't do it. But straight talk from a cop who says, "Knock it off, before you get us all killed"?

We might just get somewhere.

The public doesn't know who the depraved or indifferent cops are or which cops are on a dangerous path to become so. But the good cops know. And so do their supervisors.

"When you're in roll call and the supervisor tells us not to do a certain stupid thing, I think, 'I bet I know who he's talking about. Why doesn't he go right to the guy, instead of telling it to all of us?' " says Jim.

In his own experience, Jim has taken the lead and gone right to a cop who he knows has done a dumb thing - not followed procedures, lied on a report, bent the law in ways that will, sooner or later, jam him up. He's told him, "I'm not falling on my sword for you, you idiot." He once went to a supervisor to report on a fellow cop, who wound up being disciplined and losing pay for a screw-up.

"The thing is," he says, "what we do isn't rocket science. We're out there to investigate, to take reports, to not take anything personally. There's a protocol for everything. My supervisor tells us all the time, 'Follow procedures, and you'll be fine.' I guarantee you, the cops who get jammed up are the ones who aren't following the procedures. Or they get all emotional and take it personally when someone takes off running when they stop them. Then they tune the guy up.

"I tell them, 'You've got to expect it. It's what some people do. It's not personal, man. They don't even know you.' "

Jim loves police work but he's not sure how much longer he can do it. His wife is begging him to quit. He keeps telling her he's not ready. But stuff like what's happening in Baltimore, it has him thinking about leaving. It hits him in the heart.

And because his heart is not depraved, it hurts.