The officer, Aaron Smith, was white, and the victim, 58-year-old Greg Gunn, was black, leading many to suspect the shooting may have been racially motivated.
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Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey announced Wednesday that after an investigation that lasted just under one week, it was determined that there was probable cause to arrest officer Aaron “A.C”.
Gunn was in his own neighborhood, near his mother’s house, when the shooting occurred, his family says. Smith thought it was suspicious and approached Gunn on foot, police said. “I care about my brother”, Gunn’s brother Franklin Gunn said at the tense press conference Monday, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. Smith is charged with murder in the shooting death of Greg Gunn, a black man, outside a neighbor’s home, in Montgomery, Ala.
Their attorney Mickey McDermott says his client is not guilty.
“I can assure you that most of the things you have heard reported by the news and on social media are completely untrue”, he said.
Franklin Gunn asked the mayor and Finley to bring someone from outside the state to investigate.
Local attorney Tyrone Means, who represents the Gunn family, told the Associated Press that Gunn regularly played cards with a neighbor after work and would walk home when he was finished.
Means said he had not been told the nature of the suspicious activity. At the time of the shooting, he was living with his mother following a divorce.
New York City Police officers pause as they visit a makeshift memorial at the site where two of their fellow police officers were fatally shot in the Brooklyn borough of New York, December 25, 2014.
“This is a misuse of the process”, he said, saying that usually a grand jury would weigh whether an officer’s actions demanded arrest. As Gunn came closer to his home, where he lived with his 87-year-old mother, Smith got out of his patrol vehicle.
“We want police officers to maintain peace in the community, not shoot someone down simply because they are walking down the street”, Holmes said.
“The State Bureau of Investigation has been working non-stop since Thursday, thoroughly investigating the shooting death of Gregory Gunn”, Bailey said.
Gunn may have been carrying an extendable painter’s pole – for reaching eaves with a paint roller, but reports are conflicting.
Protests culminated Tuesday at a city council meeting where protesters arrived holding signs that read “Black Lives Matter”. “In fact, 99.9% of the Montgomery police officers do an exceptional job on a daily basis protecting us and our community”.
“We understand this is a sensitive case, and it’s politically sensitive”, McDermott said.
The Montgomery Police Department told BuzzFeed News the Alabama State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) is now looking into the case, and they were unable to comment further.
“We said from the outset that we would follow the facts where they led us”, the mayor said. “He was executed”, Gunn said. Finley said it was possible.
Kenneth Gunn, Greg’s brother, backed that claim.
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Growing up in Montgomery, Ala., Gregory Gunn was raised with a healthy respect for law enforcement.
