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 Montgomery police officer Aaron "A.C." Smith, 23, is free on
$150,000 bond after investigators found "probable cause" that he
broke the law when he shot and killed Gregory Gunn last Thursday,
Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey said.
The case now goes to a grand jury, he said.
Police killings of African-Americans, many of them unarmed, have
sparked repeated protests over excessive use of force in the past
few years.
An attorney for Smith told a reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser
newspaper that the officer had stopped Gunn and started to search
him "for his own safety" when Gunn broke from him and ran, according
to an interview posted on the reporter's Twitter feed.
 The attorney, Mickey McDermott, told the newspaper that Smith tried
six times to use non-lethal force, including using his Taser and
baton, to subdue Gunn, but that Gunn picked up a weapon and Smith
had to use deadly force "as he was trained."
McDermott could not be reached by Reuters on Wednesday.
In remarks to reporters earlier Wednesday, Montgomery Police Chief
Ernest Finley declined to confirm initial reports that Gunn had
brandished a stick-like weapon.
"It's possible," Finley said. "At the end of the day, we're going to
wait for the entire report from the DA's office or the SBI (State
Bureau of Investigation)."
Mayor Todd Strange said he was not aware if there is any video of
the incident.
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Strange said the police department, composed of about 500 officers
and 45 percent black, has made big strides in community relations
over the years and will continue to reach out to citizens in the
wake of the shooting.
"We have bridges to build again, but let's don't tear down what we
have done," Strange said.
In front of the family home in Montgomery, a woman identified as
Gunn's mother spoke to reporters.
"God is still in charge. And heaven knows what happened," she said
in a video posted by the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper. "Man may
not know. Only one that did it and one that got done to. But heaven
knows."
(Reporting by Karen Brooks in Fort Worth, Texas and Letitia Stein in
Tampa, Florida; Editing by Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker)
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