As Marilyn Mosby announced Friday morning her plans to charge six officers in connection with the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, her family in Boston was watching.
Before she was Baltimore's top prosecutor, Mosby lived in Dorchester, raised in a home full of police officers.
"I am from five generations of law enforcement. My father was a police officer, my mother was an officer, several of my aunts and uncles," Mosby said during the news conference. "My recently departed and beloved grandfather was one of the founding members of the first black police organizations in Massachusetts."
Mosby was named after her grandmother, Marilyn Joyce Thompson.
Thompson says her late husband encouraged everyone to join law enforcement.
"A lot of the police officers became police officers because of him," explained Thompson.
It was a tragedy that happened right in front of their Dorchester home that sent Mosby on a different career path.
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In August of 1994, her 17-year-old cousin, Diron Spence, was murdered by a man who mistook him for a drug dealer.
At 35, Mosby is now the youngest top prosecutor of any major city in the country.
Thompson beams with pride talking about her granddaughter's career and says Mosby hasn’t told her much about the Freddie Gray case.
However, Thompson has her own feelings.
"I think that those police officers were totally and utterly wrong," she said. "The minute that man was hurt, they should have brought him straight to the hospital or someplace not ride all around."
Many say, however, that Mosby's background was on display Friday morning when she asked for balance between the anger of the community and respect for law enforcement overall.
"I have heard your calls for no justice, no peace however your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of Freddie Gray,” said Mosby.
