Gloria Darden gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The twins are born two months premature. In her early twenties when she had the twins, Gloria had never attended high school. She could not read or write, and struggled with heroin addiction. Tiny and underweight, Freddie and his twin sister, Fredericka, spend their first months in the hospital. After five months, Gloria brings the twins back to the housing projects of West Baltimore.
Freddie and his family move to 1459 N. Carey in West Baltimore. The home rents for $300 a month. In 2009, it and 480 homes just like it will be named in a civil suit regarding the endemic levels of lead paint throughout those houses. By age two, Freddie and his twin sister have elevated levels of lead in their blood and suffer lasting brain damage. The family lives on Carey Street until the twins are six years old.
Freddie starts school at Matthew A. Henson Elementary School in Sandtown-Winchester. Because of the lead poisoning, Freddie’s behavior poses considerable challenges to the school’s teachers (statistically, among the least-experienced and worst-equipped educators in Baltimore City). His teachers enrolled Freddie in special education classes, which he would never leave. By the fifth grade, Freddie was four grade levels behind in reading. Driven out of the classroom by his intellectual disability, Freddie spends his early years in nearby recreation centers.
Freddie is spending more and more time out of the classroom, experiencing increasingly long stretches out of school. Freddie starts to migrate to the corners and begins dealing drugs. At home, Freddie’s stepfather leaves for drug rehab because of his heroin addiction. Without his income, Freddie’s home experiences long stretches without electricity or running water. Freddie’s godmother takes Freddie to church, where he volunteers delivering meals to senior citizens and washing cars.
The Baltimore City Public Schools record Freddie’s last attendance in school. He’s eighteen. He’s in the tenth grade.
Freddie is arrested and sentenced to four years in prison for two counts of drug possession with intent to distribute.
Freddie is paroled and back on the streets.
Freddie is arrested again for drug possession and distribution. Shortly thereafter, Freddie’s half brother, Raymond Lee Gordon, thirty-one years old, is gunned down near the Inner Harbor in downtown Baltimore.
At the intersection of W. North Avenue and N. Mount Street, four officers on bicycles attempt to stop Freddie Gray and another man who ran after making eye contact with the police.
Police catch and arrest Freddie on the 1700 block of Presbury Street. According to police accounts, the arrest takes place without incident and no force is required.
A police van is requested to take Freddie to the police station. At that point Freddie indicates he has asthma and asks for an inhaler. Minutes later when the van arrives, Freddie is put into leg irons and placed in the back of the van.
At Druid Hill Avenue and Dolphin Street, the van driver requests a secondary unit to drive over and check on Freddie in the back of the van. Minutes later, the van Freddie is riding in is requested to go to 1600 North Avenue to pick up another recently arrested individual. There is some communication between the police officers and Freddie, and his behavior and physical condition seem off, enough so that the officers will later admit there was concern at that point that they “needed to assess Mr. Gray’s condition, how we responded, were we able to act accordingly.” After the stop, the van eventually continues to the Western District police station with both suspects.
The city fire department responds to a call for paramedics to support an “unconscious male” at the Western District police station.
The medics arrive and provide “patient care” for Freddie for twenty-one minutes.
The medics depart with Freddie Gray for the Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Freddie undergoes double surgery at Shock Trauma. It is determined that Freddie has three broken vertebrae and an injured voice box.
Freddie remains in a coma.
Word spreads about what happened to Freddie, and protests begin outside the Western District police station.
At seven o’clock in the morning, Freddie is declared dead at Shock Trauma.