More excellent coverage from the Baltimore SUN, sticking a thumb in the eye of the F--- Rep----c website and its vicious rumors.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/...
(No paywall, the SUN is busy doing journalism). Note the careful "may possibly" and "allegedly" carefully inserted by the fearmongers. Not that you can libel a dead man.
The Free Republic website said Wednesday that Gray's "life-ending injuries to his spine may have possibly been the result of spinal and neck surgery that he allegedly received a week before he was arrested." The article also said the injury was a result of a car accident and cited thefourthestate.com as the source of information. The story did not cite any court records.
Free Republic has since removed the story from its website and could not be reached for comment.
The court records, from Howard County, indicate that Gray was involved in a lead-paint lawsuit, not a car wreck. The family's attorney
confirmed that the Howard County case was connected to the lead paint lawsuit.
As children, Gray and his two sisters were found to have damaging lead levels in their blood, which led to educational, behavioral and medical problems, according to a lawsuit they filed in 2008 against the owner of a Sandtown-Winchester home the family rented for four years.
While the property owner countered in the suit that other factors could have contributed to the children's deficits — including poverty and their mother's drug use — the case was settled before going to trial in 2010. The terms of the settlement are not public.
And there's the other shoe: the destructive effects of lead in the environment where poor people live in Baltimore.