19-Year-Old’s Retrial Begins for 2019 Fatal Shooting

By Andrew Michaels - September 8, 2022
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

Homicide defendant Tracy Jones returned to Baltimore City Circuit Court for his retrial on Sept. 8, nearly 10 months after his mistrial in the fatal shooting of 21-year-old Davron Dorsey.

Jones, who was 16 years old at the time of the incident, is charged with first-degree murder and three weapons charges for allegedly shooting Dorsey outside the Ez-Shop Grocery store on the 3100 block of W. Belvedere Avenue on June 27, 2019. The defendant’s first trial concluded in December 2021 but was ruled a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

Following jury selection, Jones, now 19, walked into Judge Jennifer Schiffer’s courtroom on Thursday afternoon, wearing a burgundy dress shirt under a black suit and bowtie. He stood by his defense attorney, Michael Tomko, as the prosecutor began her opening statements, describing the scene moments before the fatal shooting.

Shortly after 9 p.m. that summer evening, she said, Jones was riding a fat tire bicycle up and down W. Belvedere Street near Ez-Shop and Pimlico Race Course. He rode up to Dorsey roughly 20 minutes later, shot the victim in the head, and rode away, all of which the prosecutor said was captured on video surveillance.

“When you look at the video, it’s pretty clear this was a planned execution,” she said to the jury.

However, Tomko described the incident as “a modern-day whodunit.”

During his opening statements, the defense attorney told the jury that they would be unable to identify the shooter based on the quality of the video evidence and that officers with the Baltimore Police Department did not “do their homework,” citing the lack of witnesses as well as the suspect’s clothes, bicycle, and the murder weapon.

The prosecution then called her first witness, a crime lab technician from the police department.

Testimony is expected to continue Thursday afternoon.