One of the six officers cleared of charges in the 2015 deadly arrest of Freddie Gray has been promoted at the Baltimore Police Department.
Lt. Alicia White was promoted Friday to captain of the department's Performance Standards Section, which conducts audits and inspections to make sure the agency is properly following its policies, The Baltimore Sun reported.
White previously served as lieutenant of the inspections and audits unit of the department's compliance bureau, WBAL-TV reported.
White was among six officers charged with manslaughter and other offenses related to Gray's arrest and death.
Gray was arrested for possessing a switch blade knife outside a housing project on Baltimore's west side and suffered a severe spinal cord injury while being transported in a police van. An investigation determined the 25-year-old was not secured by a seat belt, against department rules. He died in custody a week later and his death was ruled a homicide.
Three of the six officers were acquitted and the State's Attorney's Office dropped all charges against the others, including White.
Federal prosecutors also declined to bring charges in the case following an independent investigation by the Justice Department that found insufficient evidence that the officers willfully violated Gray's civil rights.
After the state charges were dropped in 2016, White defended her actions in an interview with The Baltimore Sun.
"I still believe that, when I went to work that day, I did everything that I was trained to do," she said. "Unfortunately, that day someone lost their life. But I feel like everything I was trained to do, I did."
Gray had been in custody for about 30 minutes before White arrived to investigate complaints about the arrest. Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby said White only "spoke to the back of Mr. Gray's head," and failed to properly assess his injuries or call for a medic, the Associated Press reported.
In her statement to investigators, White said Gray was kneeling on the van floor, leaning over the bench with his head down and facing away from her. She asked if there was a problem, but Gray never responded and she interpreted his silence as an indication that he did not want to cooperate with officers.
Minutes later when the police van arrived at the Western District station, Gray was unconscious and not breathing. White and another officer called paramedics to transport Gray to the hospital, where he remained comatose for days before he died.
Multiple scans revealed that Gray suffered from a fractured neck and pinched spinal cord. Medical experts who analyzed the injuries later determined that they were similar to those sustained by a person who dives into a shallow pool and hits their head on the bottom, the Justice Department said.
Gray's death prompted days of unrest and protests across Baltimore.
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