He is charged with second-degree depraved-heart murder, a charge used when a suspect is accused of reckless disregard for another person's life, in addition to involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, manslaughter by vehicle and misconduct in office.
WBAL-TV in Baltimore reported last week that Goodson is facing internal disciplinary proceedings in a separate case for allegedly allowing a prisoner to escape from a hospital.
Goodson is the grandson of a police officer, according to the obituary for his mother, who died in Baltimore in 2012. He lives in Catonsville in Baltimore County, where two of his neighbors said Friday that he had minimal interactions with them.
Frances Hubbard, who lives on his street, described the officer as a "family man, always polite, always speaks. I see him eating with the family."
The other five officers, with pictures, are given sketches in the story. Goodson and two others are black; the other three are white, thus roughly reflecting Baltimore's racial make-up.
It seems like the criminal liability of the officers who participated in the arrest of Gray will depend upon whether that arrest was supported by probable cause. That determination will depend upon whether their subjective belief that Gray possessed an illegal weapon was objectively reasonable.
So the question becomes, what did the knife Gray possessed look like? And would a reasonable officer have believed that it was illegal?