Trial for man accused of killing Baltimore Safe Streets leader Dante Barksdale to begin Monday

The trial for the man accused of fatally shooting beloved Safe Streets leader Dante Barksdale in Southeast Baltimore a year and a half ago is set to begin Monday.

Garrick Powell, 29, is charged with first-degree murder and three gun offenses. He was arrested last May, five months after Barksdale was killed in the Douglass Homes housing projects.

Known to many as “Tater,” Barksdale was the face of the violence intervention program, and his death Jan. 17, 2021, stunned the city. Elected officials credited him for saving lives by getting young men from Baltimore to put down their guns. More than 700 people attended a vigil in his honor the day after he died, and Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott ordered the City Hall dome to be lit orange, a color identified with the Safe Streets program.

The violence reduction program has operated in Baltimore since 2007. It uses people with street knowledge, and often criminal histories, to be “violence interrupters” and tasks them with mediating disputes in communities before someone starts shooting. Lately, officials have been considering how to protect the peacekeepers, who put themselves in harm’s way with their work.

Since Barksdale’s slaying, two more Safe Streets workers have been gunned down: Kenyell Wilson was killed July 1, and DaShawn McGrier was one of three killed in a shooting Jan. 19.

Police have not made arrests in either of those homicides and Detective Donny Moses, a Baltimore Police Department spokesman, said “there have been no new developments.” City police ask that anyone with information about the shootings call investigators at 410-396-2100 or leave a tip with Metro Crime Stoppers by dialing 1-866-7Lockup.

While authorities haven’t disclosed a motive for Barksdale’s killing, they relied on several pieces of circumstantial evidence to seek to pin the shooting on Powell, also known as “Whammy.”

When Baltimore police arrested him in East Baltimore, he was wanted on a warrant for absconding from home monitoring while awaiting trial on a gun charge in Anne Arundel County. Officers confiscated a gun they allegedly found underneath Powell’s seat in a car several other people occupied Feb. 3, 2021. Homicide detectives had that firearm compared to the nine 9 mm shell casings and a single projectile recovered by a pool of blood where Barksdale was shot, according to charging documents. Police wrote that the handgun matched the casings.

Powell’s attorney, John Cox, has filed a motion to exclude the gun as evidence.

“He’s looking forward to his day in court,” Cox said of his client.

Investigators believe Barksdale was talking with Powell when Powell shot him, according to the charging documents. Detectives wrote that they reviewed surveillance footage that led them to identify Powell and consider him a person of interest.

Through Powell’s Instagram account, detectives were able to obtain his cellphone number, the charging documents show. They wrote that cell site data showed his phone was in the area where Barksdale was killed before the shooting, and captured it moving away quickly afterward.

At the time, Powell was no stranger to Baltimore Police: He had been previously charged with and cleared of murder. Also, he had been convicted of intimidating someone who was a juror or a witness in 2015, receiving a sentence that was largely suspended.

Powell was arrested in 2017, allegedly with drugs, during a traffic stop in Baltimore County. Accused of violating his probation, a city judge gave him the balance of the punishment for the intimidation conviction. However, that sentence was overturned because the Maryland Court of Appeals said the state had failed to call a chemist as a witness in the drug case.

Powell’s fate will again be decided in the courtroom, by 12 jurors who will be selected Monday. Seating a jury could take all day.

No matter how the case plays out, Barksdale’s legacy persists for those committed to stemming pervasive violence in Baltimore.

As of the most recent police statistics Friday morning, there had been five more homicides this year — 125 — than at the same point in 2021. Two people were killed and seven others were injured by gunfire over the weekend. Nonfatal shootings were outpacing last year’s tally by 18, with 262 this year. Baltimore is on track to surpass 300 people killed for the eighth consecutive year.

Speaking at a recent forum for gun violence survivors at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, James “JT” Timpson said that after losing Barksdale, his close friend and colleague, he almost wanted to walk away from anti-violence work.

“Jan. 17, 2021, was when this became my reality,” said Timpson, director of community partnerships at Roca Maryland, an anti-violence organization that focuses on mentoring youth. “My first reaction was, ‘To hell with this work, I’m done.’”

But then he remembered the advice he so often gives the young people he mentors.

“How am I gonna respond in the face of this trauma? What’s the example I’m gonna set?” he said. “Because we will have setbacks. But we’ve got to keep pushing through — as traumatic as it is.”

Ultimately, Timpson said, the experience strengthened his resolve.

“We have to continue to have hope, because in the eyes of hope comes victory. I will not be defeated,” he said. “These young people are worth it. This city’s worth it.”

Baltimore Sun reporter Lea Skene contributed to this article.