A North Baltimore community activist's home was firebombed only after drug dealers decided that shooting her in the head would not intimidate her neighborhood enough, federal prosecutors said yesterday.
Nakie Harris, 30, Richard Royal, 21, and Terrence Smith, 24, have spent the past week on trial, charged with murder conspiracy and witness intimidation in the attack on Harwood Community Association President Edna McAbier on Jan. 15.
Closing arguments from attorneys in the case yesterday meant the jury should begin deliberating this morning.
Defense attorneys challenged almost every aspect of the case, zeroing in on the truthfulness of co-defendants who testified as part of plea agreements.
But authorities insisted that Smith, a reputed gang leader, was incensed about McAbier's calls and e-mails to police about drug dealers in her neighborhood, witnesses said. In retaliation, Smith "wanted to put a shotgun to her head," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kwame Manley told jurors yesterday.
Smith and his Blood "warriors" dismissed the idea because the method wouldn't be dramatic enough to instill fear in the community, according to prosecutors. Instead, prosecutors say, they filled empty beer bottles with gasoline, stuffed cloth wicks in the top and threw the flaming bottles onto McAbier's windowsill and steps just before 1:40 a.m.
Both of the exits to her home were to be engulfed in flames, according to prosecutors.
"She stood up" to the drug dealers, Manley said of McAbier, who listened in the courtroom yesterday. "And what does she get for standing up?"
Gang members also considered targeting a second firebombing victim but never followed through, according to one witness.
Manley implored jurors to remember the heinousness of the crime and to "do justice in this case."
Other defendants in the case - Jackie Brewington, 26, Isaac Smith, 19, and Andre Wilkins, 32 - pleaded guilty to avoid trial. They each testified against their fellow Blood gang members.
But breaking ranks so disturbed Brewington during his testimony that he banged his head against the wall and gave himself a bloody nose after punching himself in the face.
The case is the latest in Baltimore's continuing struggle over witness intimidation. Last year, the Stop Snitching DVD became an underground phenomenon that rippled across the county, promoting the idea that cooperating with the police was an unforgivable sin.
