Detainee Who Was in Van with Freddie Gray: “He Can’t Hurt Himself Back in no Paddy Wagon…”

Donta Allen, the man who was in custody with Freddie Gray in the back of the police van, spoke with WBAL TV yesterday to clarify his side of the story. His account of what happened in the van definitely doesn’t support the BPD officers’. At the station, he says he overheard a conversation the officers were having in which one of them said, “We gave him [Gray] a run for his money.” He goes on to note that all he heard in the van was “a little banging” for approximately four seconds, which he later on took to mean that Gray’s body was “wobbling” in the back “because he was dying.” Other than that, he says it was a “smooth ride to the police station.” He insisted that there is no way he could have hurt himself in the back of the paddy wagon, so whatever injuries he had sustained happened to him before he was put in there.