BALTIMORE — In the West Baltimore neighborhood where Freddie Gray lived and where his fatal encounter with police began, neighbors are hoping for justice in the trial of Officer William Porter, the first of six officers facing charges in Gray’s death.
A jury was seated Wednesday.
“Everybody’s following this; everybody wants to see if there’s going to be a change now,” says Gary Scott, a 61-year-old musician/vocalist returning to visit family in the neighborhood where he grew up.
“It’s not just this Freddie Gray incident; this is the culmination of so many acts like this,” Scott says. “I just hope the Freddie Gray incident is the fuse that lights the fire of change.”
At North Avenue and Pennsylvania, not far from the Gilmor Homes project where Freddy Gray lived, rioters cut a terrible swath, burning down the CVS, which remains an empty brick shell.
“I don’t want a repeat of April; we only tear ourselves up … [and] we have to go all out of our way to get our medicines. … I hope that the trial is fair and justice served,” says Kathy Washington, catching a bus on North Avenue.
It’s a familiar refrain in the neighborhood: a call for equal justice and equal treatment of the six officers facing charges in Gray’s death.
“I want everybody to have a fair trial. I want him (Porter) to have the same rights we have when we get arrested. … I don’t want them to do something that they wouldn’t do for us,” says Jefferson Johnson, a 19-year-old warehouse worker who says Gray was a friend of his from the projects.
“I want them to be treated how I would be treated,” Johnson says.
“I hope every one of them get what they deserve … because if they did that crime and did what they did they’re supposed be punished like everybody else,” says Michelle Carter, 53, who works in nursing services.
Porter faces charges including manslaughter and assault, and prosecutors want to use him as a witness against other officers in upcoming trials.
Scott, who says he’s followed developments in the case from the very beginning, is confident that justice will prevail in the officers’ trials because of all the attention.
“The eyes of the whole world is on [this] — not just this country, not just this city, the eyes of the whole world is on this,” Scott says.
Trials for the other five officers are expected to begin in January.
