BALTIMORE—For the fourth time, the capitalist courts will put Keith Davis Jr. on trail after being framed for two crimes. In 2015, he was the target of a brutal police shooting, the first since Freddie Gray earlier that year.
What has followed in the over two-year wake of that shooting has been nothing short of a racist judicial and prosecutorial circus. Keith is a target of police terror, a fact the cops are trying to justify by making up murder chargers against an innocent member of our class.
Criminal system prosecutes the victim
What began as a case of mistaken identity has evolved into a framing and cover-up of significant scale. A short recap:
At around 10 a.m. that morning, a hack driver reported an armed robbery in progress in his vehicle. The suspect fled. Police already on scene for another incident proceeded to chase. Neighborhood folks witnessing the chase, Davis included, scattered. Police lost sight of the suspect and began to chase Davis mistakenly.
The cops hased fired at Davis 44 times, struck 3 times, including once on his face, and rendered unconscious. Another lodged in his neck, not far from his spine.
Davis survived, only to be subsequently charged as that armed robbery suspect. He sat trial in late February of 2016 and was acquitted.
Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced charges of first-degree homicide regarding the murder of Kevin Jones, a security guard at Pimlico Racetrack shot hours before in the early morning on June 7, 2015.
On what grounds? A heavily-disputed partial palm print on a gun found near Davis in the garage. The gun was planted. There are no other connections at the murder scene. No motive. No personal connection to Jones. No DNA. No CCTV footage. Finally, he was cleared by eyewitness testimony.
Regardless, the first homicide trial was heard in May 2017. It ended in an 11-1 hung jury. That’s 11 not-guilty votes to 1 abstained vote. Rather than poll the jury, the now-disgraced Judge Alfred Nance declared a mistrial.
The second trail this past October was under Judge Lynn Stewart Mays. With the eleventh hour discovery (read: manufacturing) of a jailhouse witness, the capitalist state declared a second degree felony murder.
But the details of that witness soon would unraveled, leading Davis’ legal team, led by Latoya Francis-Williams, to win an appeal on the grounds of an ill-informed jury and perjured witness testimony.
In a few months, Davis will sit for his fourth trial. It begs the question: what is the State’s Attorney’s goal? How is the community being served by repeatedly prosecuting a man for whom there seems to be no case? What began as a mass acquittal of 15 charges relating to the initial robbery incident, evolved into a heavily defense-favored 11 to 1 hung jury mistrial, and ultimately ended up in an overturned conviction.
Servants of capitalist govt
This case exposes the role of this capitalist state that will go above and beyond to frame, convict, and lock up Black and Latin workers. The police, the courts, and politicians all work together to preserve this racist system. The criminal injustice system originates from slave patrols and slave laws. The modern capitalist legal system is born out of the law enforcement system that existed for the purpose of controlling the slave population and protecting the interests of slave owners.
We can only deduce that Mosby is not operating under the guise of being a public servant, as she claims. In fact, she is not a public servant. She is the capitalist state’s servant. She is the State’s Attorney, not the workers’ attorney. The Baltimore Police Department is an arm of the state and Mosby is fighting to preserve that arm. After all, Davis was mistakenly shot just one month after the Baltimore Uprising—the city was in no condition to handle another incident and Mosby’s career could not withstand a second round of cop indictments. Davis thus became the fall man.
Take the streets
Some argued for a new State’s Attorney come election time later this year. Voting is getting to choose which criminal will rob our dignity and livelihood next.
What is undeniable is the power of organized multiracial fightback. There has been mass organizing. In additions to bold protests in the streets, we protested in the lobby of the office building of the City State Attorney. We wrote letter to all the other judges, and held fundraising events. We also filled the courtrooms. The judge told everyone to sit back down, and lectured us about how it’s illegal to attempt to influence a judge. She also said she didn’t read the letters sent to the judges. But, she was seemed to be clearly responding to the was strength, content, and quantity of those letters. The judge lied. Clearly, our mass actions had an effect.
And so, as 2018 begins, we must remain the streets. It is incumbent that we create new leaders and foster new relationships. Free Keith Davis, Jr. and all political prisoners! Here’s to a louder 2018.