Trial Opens for Teen Charged with Murder In Shooting Death of Motorist Who Confronted Him and Other Squeegee Workers with a Metal Baseball Bat

By Gary Gately

The trial of a teenage boy in Baltimore who fatally shot a baseball bat-wielding motorist who confronted the teen and other “squeegee boys” opened in Circuit Court Monday.

The defendant, now 16, is being tried as an adult on first-degree murder and related charges.

With Judge Jennifer B. Schiffer presiding, prosecutors and an attorney representing the teen questioned more than 100 potential jurors about their feelings about squeegee workers and how much coverage they had seen about the fatal shooting.

Schiffer warned the five men and seven women chosen for the jury, which begins hearing opening statements from attorneys on Tuesday, to avoid reading about or watching coverage of the trial in the press or on social media.

The judge said she expected the trial to conclude by the end of next week.

Baltimore police said Timothy Reynolds, a 48-year-old from Hampden, got out of his SUV after a heated exchange with the squeegee workers around 4:30 p.m. on July 7, 2022, near Light and Conway streets alongside the Inner Harbor, Baltimore police said.

The teen pulled a handgun from his backpack and fired multiple shots at Reynolds, who later died at a hospital, police said.

J. Wyndal Gordon, an attorney representing the teen, said outside the?Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse?Monday that he and fellow defense attorney Warren Brown would challenge the evidence the prosecution has presented to establish that his client shot Reynolds.

If it does so, Gordon said, the defense team would argue that the teen, who is being held without bond, shot Reynolds as he wielded a baseball bat in self-defense.

Gordon noted that all the jurors had said they’ve encountered squeegee workers, but said that based on their responses during questioning, he’s “100 percent confident” they would be fair.

Gordon said the defense was “100% confident” that the jurors selected could be fair “based upon how they answered the questions.”

Thiru Vignarajah, an attorney for the Reynolds family, told reporters after jury selection, “Today moved us one step closer toward justice.”

Vignarajah said Reynold’s family is grateful for the “outpouring of support from communities across Baltimore” and is “hopeful and confident that once the facts are shown and heard that justice will be done.”

In the wake of the shooting, some said the lack of jobs leads desperately poor youths to resort to washing windshields to help their families get by, while others called them nuisances and said they scare some motorists.

In November, Baltimore began enforcing a ban on squeegee workers along busy roadways as part of a plan that also offered paid training for employment for those who give up their squeegee businesses. After two warnings, youths can receive citations for a third offense.

The plan grew out of deliberations by the “Squeegee Cooperative ” — a group consisting of city youth, government officials, healthcare and business leaders and nonprofits — appointed by Mayor Brandon Scott.

“The Baltimore I and so many of us envision is a Baltimore where no one has to stand at an intersection, asking for money,” Scott said at the time.

(Read this?BmoreArt story? about a Maryland Public Television documentary on Baltimore’s squeegee workers, “By Any Means Necessary: Stories of Survival.”)

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