A handful of media and police intermingled with the usual groups of bus and subway riders at the corner of Pennsylvania and West North avenues Monday after the verdict came out in the trial of Baltimore police Officer Edward Nero.
The area was the center of the looting and burning that followed Freddie Gray's funeral.
A few protesters from the People's Power Assembly held a yellow banner, as news of the verdict slowly spread to the neighborhood's stoops and corners.
Mike Smith, 51, a limousine driver who lives in Woodbrook, was resigned about the outcome.
"I kind of knew it was going to happen," he said of Nero being acquitted. "I'm kind of angry too, man. It's not right."
With the six officers charged in Gray's death being tried separately, he said frustration will compound if the officers receive acquittal after acquittal.
"They're stringing it out longer and longer," he said. "The public is going to get angrier and angrier."
Theo Grayson, 27, said he knew it was unlikely all six officers would be convicted of every charge they faced, but couldn't believe any would get off scot-free.
"All of them was wrong from the beginning," said Grayson, who grew up in West Baltimore and lives in Cherry Hill. "All of them should be held accountable."
"Even if it was one count," he added. "All of the officers played a part in it. Everybody had a part."
Kevin Moore, a friend of Gray's who filmed the cellphone video of his arrest, said watching the first two trials end without a guilty verdict "weighs extra heavy on me."
Following the mistrial of Officer William Porter, Nero's acquittal "shows how flawed the system is" in favor of police, Moore said.
"If it was anybody else in that situation, the verdict would have been guilty," he said.
Darren Cole, 45, of Sandtown-Winchester, who volunteers at the Penn-North Kids Safety Zone, said he has been following Nero's trial and agreed with the verdict.
"He didn't do nothing but help the man," Cole said. "I don't think he should" have been convicted.
Cole said he — and the rest of the city — will be much more concerned about what happens in the trial of Caesar Goodson, the officer who was driving the van in which Gray suffered his fatal injuries.
"That's who is liable," he said.
Joseph Johnson, 56, another volunteer, focused on one of the most contentious parts of Nero's trial: "Did he have probable cause to stop him?"
Johnson, of Northwest Baltimore, acknowledged the complexity of the case, but said it comes down to the officers answering for Gray's death.
"It's a tight wire," he said. "You're talking about justice, right and wrong, being held accountable to your actions."
Moore remains convinced that Gray sustained injuries on the sidewalk during his arrest and was further hurt in the back of a police transport van. Gray's autopsy concluded that he was fatally injured inside the van, comparing it to a diving injury in a shallow pool.
"I feel like most of his damage came before that paddy wagon," he said. "He was already messed up."
Moore criticized Billy Murphy, the attorney for Gray's family, for commending the judgment and asking for calm from the community.
"Why should we not be upset?" he asked. "Is this not a reason to be upset?"
Michael Falcon, 57, of East Baltimore, blames Gray's death on Goodson, the van driver.
"That's whose fault it is," he said. "They should've strapped him down."
As he fixed a flat bicycle tire for a friend on a stoop in Gilmor Homes, Falcon said he couldn't predict how neighbors might react to the acquittal. But he stressed that Gray was well-liked in the public housing complex.
"I don't know," he said. "He had a lot of friends out here. That's all I can tell you."
Dayna Thomas, 52, of Fallstaff, said she thought it was unfair for Nero to walk free, because she felt all the officers should share the blame for Gray's death.
But she shared many residents' skepticism in prosecutors' ability to convict the police.
"Truthfully, I don't think any of them are going to go to jail," she said.