Baltimore Leaders Try to Curb Expectations Over a Pending Police Report

BALTIMORE — An edgy peace held sway here as a huge crowd took to the streets before a curfew Wednesday night and the mayor and the police sought to tamp down expectations that residents would learn details on Friday about how a young black man died after being injured in police custody.

Fears ran high that the end of the week could return this city to the violence spurred by the still-unexplained death of the man, Freddie Gray, 25 — particularly if people think they will get answers but do not. Speculation about the possible release of some or all of the findings has fueled expectations that the public will learn much more about the case that day.

But the mayor, the police commissioner, a large group of prominent clergymen and a lawyer for Mr. Gray’s family emerged from a meeting Wednesday to give a united warning against expecting any revelations Friday, when the Police Department has said it will turn its findings over to the state’s attorney for Baltimore, Marilyn J. Mosby, who will decide whether to seek criminal charges. Six officers have been suspended in the episode.

The 34-year-old Mosby is the daughter of police officers and wife of City Councilman Nick Mosby. She couples a police officer's love of telling stories from the beat with a belief in the importance of civil rights.

"The criminal justice system is probably the biggest problem facing African-Americans today," Mosby says.

After law school at Boston College, Mosby passed the Maryland bar in 2006 and started as a city prosecutor. She quickly moved up to handling more serious cases. She said she took about half a dozen felony cases to trial, as well as about 40 misdemeanors, before leaving the office in late 2011.

She was not involved in a rape or a murder case as a prosecutor.

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