Baltimore state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby has been placed at the forefront of one of Baltimore’s most high-profile cases ever – the prosecution of six police officers charged with the death of Freddie Gray, Jr., a resident of West Baltimore who was arrested and died in a police van back in April.
So much so that she was the subject of a Vogue magazine profile that focused on her history in a police family in Boston and her marriage to Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby. The two met at Tuskeegee University and bonded over their passion for public service and social justice and are now the parents of two daughters.
Predictable Mosby has received some criticism for the charges in the Gray case, but she told Vogue she feels confident about the investigation and her case.
“The unrest had nothing to do with my decision to charge,” Mosby says. “I just followed where the facts led. This is not something that was fast, or in a hurry. From the time that this incident occurred, we were out there conducting our own investigation and working with the police department. There is nothing that we’ve done differently in this case.”
Mosby says that she will continue to fight not just for the rights of citizens that have been wronged by police but to rid the streets of criminals who have made it a challenge for law-abiding neighborhood residents as well. An investigation by the Baltimore Sun before she took office found out that the city had paid over $5 million to settle cases on use of excessive force and police brutality.
She says the uprising in Baltimore was the natural result of those abuses.
“There have been decades of failed policies: zero tolerance and harassment and people being locked up for small crimes,” she says, “policies that drive a divide between communities and law enforcement. So many people feel like they are voiceless, that they’ve been dehumanized. What we saw in the riots is a result of that.”
