In many ways, the lives of the two central figures in the case, Officer Porter and Mr. Gray, have mirrored each other. They were born within months of each other. Both grew up in Baltimore. And the evidence in the case shows their paths crossed; Mr. Gray, a slender, easygoing young man who was well known in his neighborhood and liked partying and girls, had a lengthy arrest record, mostly for drug charges and minor crimes. Officer Porter, two years out of the police academy, told investigators, “It was always a big scene whenever you attempted to arrest Freddie Gray.” 
 
 Mr. Gray’s mother, stepfather and sister sat quietly inside the courtroom Wednesday. The women cried softly as Mr. Schatzow laid out the state’s case against Officer Porter, telling the jury that the officer was on trial “for what he did — and much more importantly, what he did not do.” He vowed that the state would prove Officer Porter guilty of “gross indifference to whether Mr. Gray survived.” 
 
 Officer Porter, who has pleaded not guilty to four counts — manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office — is expected to take the stand in his own defense. He sat — dressed in a gray suit, blue shirt and dark tie — erect at the table with his lawyers, and said nothing publicly. But before the morning session got underway, he hugged two women seated in the courtroom, who said they were his mother’s friends, and chatted briefly with Lt. Gene Ryan, the president of the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, who is attending the trial. 
 
 “I’m well,” he said when Lieutenant Ryan inquired. “About as well as I can be.” 
 
 The trial has gripped Baltimore, still struggling to recover from the riots during the spring. Black Lives Matter activists, both here and nationally, are watching it closely as a test of the criminal justice system. City officials are preparing for more protests — and, if there is an acquittal, possible unrest. 
 
 In their opening statements, lawyers for the prosecution and defense alike emphasized the training, protocol and regulations for police officers on dealing with potentially injured people, and made conflicting arguments on whether it had been clear to Officer Porter that Mr. Gray was injured. They clashed, as well, over whether Officer Porter heard Mr. Gray say, “I can’t breathe” — a remark Mr. Proctor, the defense lawyer, insisted Mr. Gray had uttered before the officer arrived on the scene. 
 
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 Mr. Proctor said that Mr. Gray had shown no signs of needing a medic and asserted that Mr. Gray had been well enough to rock the van back and forth by banging himself around in it. He suggested as well that Mr. Gray had been trying to show signs of distress to avoid jail — a practice he said officers referred to as “jail-itis.” 
 
 The first witness also took the stand Wednesday: Officer Alice Carson-Johnson, a veteran police officer who trained Officer Porter in emergency medical care when he was at the Police Academy in 2013. Her appearance, against her fellow police officer, suggested possible disagreement in officers’ ranks over whether Officer Porter acted in line with police rules. 
 
 “I always teach the officers: If someone requests for a medic, then you call for a medic,” she testified. 
 
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 The Porter case could have huge implications for the trials of the other officers; experts say if Officer Porter is acquitted, the other five will be harder to convict. The driver of the van, Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., faces a more serious charge, second-degree depraved-heart murder — but Officer Porter is being tried first, legal experts say, because he made a statement to investigators that prosecutors view as critical evidence against him. They consider him a “material witness” against Officer Goodson and at least one other officer. 
 
 The trial opened Wednesday with the defense lawyers and prosecutors agreeing on a jury that reflects the racial makeup of Baltimore, a city where blacks outnumber whites two to one. The panel of 12 jurors is composed of eight women, five black and three white, and four men, three black and one white. The alternates are three black men and one white man. 
 
 “I think that shows a good and an accurate reflection in Baltimore,” said Tessa Hill-Aston, president of the Baltimore branch of the N.A.A.C.P., who is attending the trial. Still, she said, the case was “not a black thing, it’s not a white thing, it’s not a racial thing.” 
 
 But if there was any doubt that the trial does, in fact, have racial overtones, it was erased with Mr. Proctor’s opening statement. Proclaiming his client innocent, he wrapped up by playing off a rallying cry of the Black Lives Matter movement here, only with the opposite message: “Let’s show Baltimore the whole damn system is not guilty as hell.” 
 
 Hours later, a small group of protesters gathered in the dark at a police station here and took aim at Mr. Proctor’s words. “The whole damn system,” they chanted, “is guilty as hell.” 

 A protester confronts deputies from the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office outside the courthouse in Baltimore. A Maryland judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the trial of Officer William G. Porter, charged in the death of Freddie Gray. The jury had deliberated for 16 hours on whether the officer was guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Gray’s death from injuries suffered while in police custody. After the jury reported it was unable to reach a verdict, Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams issued his ruling. 
 
 Dec. 16, 2015 A protester confronts deputies from the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office outside the courthouse in Baltimore. A Maryland judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the trial of Officer William G. Porter, charged in the death of Freddie Gray. The jury had deliberated for 16 hours on whether the officer was guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Gray’s death from injuries suffered while in police custody. After the jury reported it was unable to reach a verdict, Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams issued his ruling. Bryan Woolston/Reuters 
 
 Circuit Judge Barry Williams announced that the jury couldn’t reach a decision after three days of deliberations in the manslaughter trial of Baltimore Officer William G. Porter, charged in the April death of Freddie Gray. 
 
 Baltimore officer William G. Porter is one of six police officers charged in the April death of Freddie Gray, who was severely injured while in police custody. 
 
 Baltimore officer William G. Porter is one of six police officers charged in the April death of Freddie Gray, who was severely injured while in police custody. 
 
 Officer William G. Porter had five chances to help Freddie Gray. Again and again, prosecutors said, he failed to call for paramedics or buckle Gray into a police van, actions they said would have prevented the 25-year-old’s death from a spinal injury. 
 
 Porter’s attorney said the officer lifted Gray from the floor of the police wagon onto a seat and asked him if he needed medical help. Gray had a reputation of feigning injury to avoid arrest, the defense attorney said, and Porter thought that he was yelling and acting out because he didn’t want to go to jail, not because he had been seriously hurt while being driven to Central Booking. 
 
 During the first of six trials for officers charged in the Freddie Gray case, prosecutors and defense attorneys Wednesday laid out sharply differing narratives of the events that led to the young man’s death and set the city aflame in April. Which account jurors ultimately believe is at the heart of the case. Was Porter so indifferent and negligent that his actions amount to involuntary manslaughter? Or was Gray’s death a tragedy but not a crime? 
 
 Prosecutor Michael Schatzow didn’t pinpoint precisely when Gray was hurt, but he said that he probably struck his head when the van was in motion. Gray’s neck was broken as if he dived into a shallow pool, Schatzow said. 
 
 The prosecutor described Porter as callous, saying his failure to buckle in Gray or call for help showed that he simply “didn’t care.” 
 
 Freddie Gray (Baltimore Sun) 
 
 “He had a duty to keep safe persons who are in custody,” Schatzow said. “Evidence shows that this defendant criminally neglected his duty to keep Mr. Gray safe.” 
 
 Porter’s attorneys, however, insisted that the officer did what any other officer would have done when dealing with Gray, who they said initially showed no signs of injury. They painted a portrait of an officer who cared about the residents in the neighborhood where he patrolled and grew up. Porter, 26, has never fired his gun and has no major blemishes on his record. They said that many officers did not routinely buckle up people in custody in police wagons and that Porter didn’t know about a recent policy change mandating such restraints. 
 
 Porter “didn’t become a police officer to swing a big stick,” Gary Proctor, an attorney for the officer, said. “He became a police officer to help people.” 
 
 The competing theories were laid out in opening statements, which followed 21/ 2 days of jury selection. Judge Barry G. Williams seated the panel of 12 men and women — eight of whom appear to be black and four white — from a pool of roughly 150. 
 
 Attorneys told the jury that during the trial, they will be presented with various pieces of evidence and witness testimony from each of the stops involved in Gray’s arrest and transport. That evidence will include video surveillance from cameras in the city, recordings of radio dispatches among police officers and cellphone videos taken by bystanders. They also will be taken to see the van Gray was riding in when he was injured. 
 
 The defense told jurors that they also would hear directly from Porter. 
 
 Legal experts have said that the case is a difficult one for prosecutors, who allege that Porter and five other officers bear the blame for Gray’s death not because of their actions but their inaction. During this arrest and transport, prosecutors say, Gray was improperly placed in the van and his pleas for help were repeatedly ignored. 
 
 Here’s what you need to know as the trial of William G. Porter, one of six police officers charged in the case of Freddie Gray’s death, starts in Baltimore. (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post) 
 
 Gray’s mother, Gloria Darden, and other family members were in court Wednesday, listening quietly and leaning on each other for support as attorneys presented their cases. 
 
 The account Schatzow gave the jury largely followed the allegations presented months ago in charging documents that Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby read aloud to a city rocked by riots. 
 
 [A city on edge as first trial in Freddie Gray case begins] 
 
 Gray ran from Baltimore officers on the morning of April 12 but was eventually caught, found to be carrying a knife and put into a police van for transport, he said. The van stopped at several points after his arrest, and Porter was at five of the six stops. 
 
 “I can’t breathe,” Gray told Porter during the fourth stop, according to Schatzow. Porter asked Gray if he needed a medic but never received help, shirking his training and department guidelines, Schatzow said. 
 
 Gray was barely conscious by the time the police van stopped for a fifth time, Schatzow said, to pick up an unrelated suspect at the intersection of Pennsylvania and North avenues. 
 
 “Mr. Gray was in a lot of trouble, and every minute that he was delayed . . . meant that his chances of survival were growing dimmer and dimmer and dimmer,” Schatzow said. 
 
 Porter got out of his police car at that fifth stop, Schatzow said, and again asked Gray if he needed a medic. Again, Gray said yes, according to Schatzow, but Porter did nothing. 
 
 “He’s slumped way over to the right . . . crumpled to his knees, he’s just laying there limp,” said Schatzow. He added that Porter told investigators that Gray was in the same position when he was taken out of the van at the final stop, the Western District police station. 
 
 But Porter’s attorneys said it was unclear that Gray was suffering a medical emergency. Instead, Proctor said, Gray was known among officers for faking injuries to get out of arrests. 
 
 Gray was not showing any “outward sign of injury” when Porter checked on him during two stops of the police van, so the officer did not seek care, Proctor said. Porter knew that “it was always a big deal when they tried to arrest Freddie Gray,” Proctor said. “He knew he didn’t go quietly.” In a previous arrest, Proctor alleged, Gray tried to kick out the windows of a police car. 
 
 The only time Porter put a hand on Gray, Proctor said, was “to help him up.” 
 
 City officers also rarely buckled detainees into police vehicles, Proctor said. Porter’s attorneys said they expect to call an officer who will testify that out of 2,000 arrests, only a handful of those detained were put in seat belts. 
 
 [Freddie Gray and William Porter: Two sons of Baltimore whose lives collided.] 
 
 Both sides agree that Gray was rocking the van once inside. Schatzow said that after the second stop, Gray climbed to his feet and was “shaking the van” and kicking the door from the inside. After a third stop, the van driver requested help from additional officers to check on Gray’s condition. 
 
 If Gray appeared lethargic or breathless, Porter thought it was because Gray had been vigorously shaking the van, the attorney said. Proctor quoted Porter’s statement to police on his assessment of Gray’s condition: “I thought he was having an adrenaline dump.” 
 
 Proctor highlighted the statement of someone who was in custody in the back of the police van with Gray for part of the trip. He quoted Donta Allen, who initially told authorities that Gray was acting like a “crazy man” and was banging his head into the wall of the van. Allen later recanted his statement to police. 
 
 Porter, who has been a police officer for less than two years, grew up in the same neighborhood as Gray. In addition to involuntary manslaughter, he faces charges of second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. 
 
 The trial is expected to continue until mid-December in a city that is still on edge. At the end of his opening statement, Proctor implored the jury not to be swayed by fears of further riots. 
 
 “Let’s show Baltimore the whole damn system is not as guilty as hell,” Proctor told the jury. “Mr. Gray’s death is a tragedy. So is charging someone who did not precipitate it.” 
 
 Michael S. Rosenwald contributed to this report.
– The first of six trials in the death of Freddie Gray—who suffered a broken neck while in police custody last April—got underway Wednesday in Baltimore, the Washington Post reports. Officer William Porter is charged with involuntary manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment. Five other officers have also been charged in connection with the 25-year-old's death. According to the New York Times, prosecutors for the state claim Porter ignored Gray's pleas that he couldn't breathe and requests for a medic or to go to the hospital. They accuse Porter of "criminal negligence" and “gross indifference to whether Mr. Gray survived." The Post reports officers are trained to get help for any arrestee who says they can't breathe. Meanwhile Porter's attorney claims Gray never said he couldn't breathe around Porter, the Times reports. According to the Post, the defense also points to Gray's history of resisting arrest and the habit of arrestees in general of faking injuries to get out of going to jail. His attorney told the jury they may want to find Porter guilty to "hold someone accountable," but the facts don't support it and it would be a "tragedy." Gray broke his neck while inside a police van, where he was not buckled in. How he broke his neck and the fact that he wasn't wearing a seat belt are both points of contention between the prosecution and defense. Gray went into a coma before reaching the jail and died a week later. The Times reports his death led to the worst riots in Baltimore since Martin Luther King Jr. was killed 47 years earlier.