A white Montgomery, Alabama, police officer was charged with murder on Wednesday after he fatally shot a black man named Gregory Gunn on the block that's home to Gunn's mother.
The officer, 23-year-old Aaron Smith, was on patrol around 3 a.m. on Feb. 25 when he came across Gunn. It's unclear why there was an altercation, but Smith wound up firing several shots. His bond was set at $150,000, which he posted with the help of other officers.
Montgomery Police Chief Ernest Finley initially said Smith had stopped a "suspicious" person that night, though he didn't elaborate on why Smith viewed Gunn as suspicious.
Montgomery police officer charged with murder in fatal shooting of #GregoryGunn https://t.co/eBwjeCy8Eg pic.twitter.com/0VoAxPrLdj— ~Gal~ (@StlGal_36) March 2, 2016
Gunn may have been carrying a long metal pole used for painting, though that detail is disputed. Residents reportedly say it's not uncommon to carry some type of stick at night for self defense in the Mobile Heights neighborhood.
Gunn, 58, had been playing cards in an area where his family's attorney said he was "well known and well loved." He's the son of one of the area's first black police officers.
“I know he was racially profiled,” Gunn's younger brother Franklin told The Washington Post. “They thought he was a low-life nothing, walking the street. They didn’t see a man."
Protesters called for the officer's arrest in the days that followed, and demonstrators made their presence felt at a recent city council meeting. An activist at one point stood at the meeting's podium and held up a "Black Lives Matter" sign, according to The Guardian.
The Alabama State Bureau of Investigation is looking into the shooting.