December 8, 2025
Portland Man Acquitted After Stabbing White Man Who Used Racial Slur Against Him
Gary Edwards was acquitted after a jury heard Gregory Howard Jr. use the slur on police body camera footage
A racial slur by a white man was the catalyst for a Portland jury to acquit a Black man, Gary Edwards, of assault charges after he stabbed a white man who uttered the N-word during the incident.
According to Oregon Live, Edwards, who was charged with second-degree assault for stabbing Gregory Howard Jr., will not be going to jail, once a jury saw a video of the assault and also heard Howard say the offensive word, on police camera video, although he denied saying it. The incident occurred earlier this year, during the morning hours of July 7, near a public transportation station. Edwards faced a sentence of five years and 10 months in state prison.
Edwards did admit to stabbing Howard in self-defense, but it was based on his aggressiveness toward him and calling him the N-word upon approaching him. Howard denies using the racial slur. Cameras from the station showed Edwards, with a knife at his side, approaching his adversary from behind while Howard was sitting on a bench. The video shows Howard getting up and pushing Edwards after sighting him, as the two start fighting. There was no audio, but it showed Howard being stabbed in the shoulder by Edwards.
Edwards’s attorney, Daniel Small, told the jury during the trial that Edwards was going to Howard to offer him his knife in exchange for some cigarettes. He also stated that, although Howard said he didn’t use the N-word against his client, video evidence from police officers after they arrived on the scene disproved that. However, police officers’ body cameras recorded Howard clearly saying the word when he told officers what transpired before they arrived on the scene.
“What other than racism could explain why Mr. Howard perceived hatred, animosity, and aggression from a complete stranger?” Small asked the jury.
Both men, who have struggled through homelessness, are not strangers to the prison system, as they each have been arrested multiple times over the years. In 2012, Edwards was convicted of attempted second-degree assault and was sentenced to three years in prison for another stabbing at the Skidmore Fountain MAX platform in May 2020. After being accused of fourth-degree assault for an incident with a clerk at Old Town’s Helen’s Market, his case was dismissed in June because there were no public defenders available to take his case.
Meanwhile, Howard has been arrested numerous times in recent years, and he was also convicted of felony rape of a child in Washington’s Kitsap County in 1997.
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