Dante Lamont Barksdale, 46, was a widely respected outreach coordinator for Baltimore’s Safe Streets program, known for mediating conflicts and mentoring at-risk youth after turning his own life around. Nicknamed Tater, he spent nearly a decade working to reduce gun violence and was described by community members and officials as the heart and soul of the program.

On the morning of January 17, 2021, Barksdale was found shot in the head in a courtyard of the Douglass Homes housing project in Southeast Baltimore. He was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital and pronounced dead shortly after his arrival. The daytime killing shocked the community and left many mourning his loss.

Police later charged 28-year-old Garrick L. Powell Jr. with first-degree murder, citing cellphone data that allegedly placed him near the shooting and a gun found under a car seat weeks after the incident. Powell’s defense disputed the sufficiency of the evidence, noting others had been in the vehicle and that no witness identified him as the shooter; a jury acquitted Powell in May 2022.

Did anyone in the Douglass Homes area see or hear anything that morning that could help explain what happened?