Eric Carter testified Monday that when he walked into a Hobart gas station on May 27, 2022, he joked to Zakira Porter that she almost hit him with the door.
When he walked out, he told her to have a blessed day. That brief interaction “triggered” something in her, he said. They traded words. Porter maced him twice and ended up shooting at his vehicle. She missed.
With his son and daughter in the SUV, he took off, before he heard a second shot. No one was hurt.
Porter, 38, of Gary, is on trial this week.
She is charged with battery by means of a deadly weapon, three counts of criminal recklessness, one count of intimidation, pointing a firearm, and three misdemeanors.
Porter has pleaded not guilty.
It is her second recent trial. She has refused to leave her jail cell for months and did not appear Monday.
Deputy Prosecutor Chris Bruno said their conversation quickly “turned aggressive” by the time Porter and Carter got outside.
After the pepper spray and first shot, the gas station video appeared to show Porter following the vehicle on foot, before she fired a second time.
When she was pulled over by the cops, she was “uncooperative” and acted “inconvenienced,” Bruno said. Investigators later found mace and a gun in her vehicle.
Defense lawyer Sonya Scott-Dix told jurors the picture of what happened could be interpreted differently than what prosecutors said.
They hadn’t “(met their) burden,” she said.
The situation went quickly from “zero to 10,” Carter told Bruno.
Jurors watched a silent security video from the Luke gas station, 3211 W. 37th Ave., where Carter, near his vehicle, appeared to react, as if getting pepper sprayed, then quickly jumped in his vehicle to drive off.
On cross-examination, Scott-Dix asked Carter if he hadn’t provoked Porter, who was nearly a foot shorter.
There was nothing “aggressive between me and her,” he replied.
He admitted not remembering, for example, some of what he specifically said to cops at the time. He hadn’t heard from police or prosecutors for over two years and didn’t know the case would get this far.
“If they would have contacted me,” he said, “I would have said, ‘Get her some help.’”
When she got pulled over, cops saw Porter’s daughter, then 8, had signs she was beaten over time with an electrical cord. That led to a second criminal case for battery and neglect.
After her conviction, Porter was sentenced in absentia to 17.5 years in December.
In that case, Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Jatkiewicz argued the child had been tortured. Scott-Dix asked for leniency, saying Porter had no criminal history and struggled with mental illness.
