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A black male recently admitted in court that he stabbed a white male over the summer, but a Portland jury acquitted the black male after learning the victim uttered a racial slur — and spoke the word following the stabbing.
Gary Edwards was charged with second-degree assault for knifing Gregory Howard Jr. on Northwest 5th Avenue in Portland's Old Town neighborhood on the morning of July 7, OregonLive reported last week.
'Beyond inconceivable.'
A conviction could have handed Edwards a sentence of five years and 10 months in state prison, OregonLive said.
However, even though Edwards admitted on the witness stand to the stabbing, he said it was self-defense due to Howard's aggression, the outlet said.
Edwards testified that Howard yelled the racist slur as soon as he saw him, the outlet reported, adding that Howard denied the claim.
More from OregonLive:
Transit cameras showed Edwards, a fixed-blade knife clasped at his side, approaching Howard from behind as he sat on a bench. The video has no sound, but Howard springs up and pushes Edwards as soon as he sees him. The duo scuffle against a wall for a brief moment, ending with Edwards stabbing Howard in the shoulder.Defense attorney Daniel Small said the most relevant evidence was recorded later when security officers heard the wounded man shouting the racist slur and captured it on their body cameras as he described the incident.
Small added that Edwards, 43, was just approaching Howard, also 43, and offering a simple trade: his knife for cigarettes, the outlet said.
"What other than racism could explain why Mr. Howard perceived hatred, animosity, and aggression from a complete stranger?" Small asked the jury on Oct. 30, the outlet reported.
Prosecutor Katherine Williams countered that what Howard said after the knifing was irrelevant and that Edwards was always "in control" during the altercation, OregonLive said.
"The defendant is not scared for his life. He didn’t retreat; he sauntered up — and he sauntered away after he stabbed someone," Williams told the jury, according to the outlet. "The defendant created the situation."
Despite the prosecutor's argument, the jury soon acquitted Edwards, OregonLive said.
More from the outlet:
Edwards, who declined to comment through his attorney, spent about three months in custody before the trial, after prosecutors successfully argued he shouldn't be released.Their memo noted that Edwards was convicted of attempted second-degree assault in 2021 and was sentenced to three years in prison for another stabbing at the Skidmore Fountain MAX platform in May 2020. He was accused of fourth-degree assault for fighting with a clerk at Old Town's Helen's Market, but the case was dismissed in June because no public defender was available to take his case.
Howard, meanwhile, has been arrested several times in recent years and was convicted of felony rape of a child in Washington's Kitsap County in 1997, records show. He couldn't be reached for comment.
The New York Post's Facebook entry about the acquittal generated well over 1,000 comments — and they're the exact kinds of reactions you would expect. The following are a few of them:
- "Always remember if you're shot or stabbed, you must give some type of positive affirmation to your attacker so you don't sound hateful," one commenter wrote. "Otherwise your attacker will be acquitted."
- "It was probably a mostly peaceful stabbing," another user quipped.
- "That's wild. So let me get this right ... He got attacked then said the N word, and the attacker got away with it cause he said it after he was already attacked?" another commenter asked. "That makes no sense."
- "Beyond inconceivable," another user stated.
- "What a funny world we live in," another commenter observed.
- "Staying out of Portland ..." another user shared.
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