The lawyer for the family of a 25-year-old black man who died after being arrested has told Newsbeat "it would be hard to argue that race is not an element here".

Freddie Gray died on Sunday at a hospital in the US city of Baltimore.

He was rushed there on 12 April, 30 minutes after police restrained him on the ground and put him in a van.

Lawyer Billy Murphy says when Freddie Gray got to hospital 80% of his spinal cord had been severed near his neck.

"Our information is that he would have been a quadriplegic if he'd survived," he says.

He believes Mr Gray was in police custody for longer than officers claim and says he asked the police department for video footage on Thursday.

"There was a police camera right above the point where he was stopped, and mysteriously those tapes have not been released to the public.

"There is no reason for the police not to release them immediately - the tapes don't lie.

Mr Murphy says he has "no confidence" in the police investigation and "nor should any reasonable citizen have confidence in an agency under fire like this which is investigating itself - only mischief can come from that. It's like the wolf investigating the fox.

"Like other human beings, the police have a tendency to cover up their wrong doing - they call it 'the blue shield of silence'".

He says he has much more confidence in a separate investigation being carried out by the state prosecutor.

Police say Freddie Gray was running away from officers when he was restrained.

Mr Murphy says: "What right did the police have to chase a running man without knowing why he was running, without having any information that he had committed a crime of any kind? They saw him running and then they chased."

"It's impossible to look at inner city policing without there being a race element attached because there's been so much historical police brutality."

He says the Gray family are "very, very, very upset."

He added: "Shocked is an understatement. Upset is a mild term. They are outraged."

Mr Gray's death has sparked protests by activists campaigning against police brutality.

For two days more than 100 protesters have gathered outside a local police station, demanding more information about the death.

The campaign group Justice League NYC held a march on Sunday afternoon with signs reading `Black Lives Matter', and `Unarmed!! One Man.'

Police and city officials have promised a transparent and thorough criminal investigation.

At a press conference on Sunday, Baltimore's Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said: "I will ensure we will hold the right people accountable."

Baltimore Police Deputy Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez said: "I can say with certainty that we have no physical, video or any other evidence of an altercation that would have resulted in this - so the question is how, and why."

He said some officers and other witnesses had been interviewed, but that the officers who are subjects of the criminal investigation had a right not to potentially incriminate themselves.

They've been placed on administrative leave while the investigation is carried out.

According to the Baltimore Sun newspaper, the US Department of Justice is carrying out a review of complaints about Baltimore's Police Department.

It follows the paper's investigation that claimed taxpayers had paid nearly $6 million since 2011 to settle more than 100 lawsuits alleging police brutality and other misconduct.

Coming home alive

Since the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last August, a series of police killings of unarmed black men has prompted protests and led to accusations of racism.

It's less than three weeks since a white police officer in South Carolina was charged with murder for fatally shooting 50-year-old Walter Scott.

Derrick Janx, a blogger and author from North Carolina, was surprised when this tweet went viral.

He told the BBC: "When I posted the image I didn't expect it to get the traction it did."

"When it went viral, [there were] hundreds of thousands of comments that a lot of parents are having that conversation with their children just out of fear and wanting them to come home alive.

"This is a conversation that every black family is having," he said.

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