On Friday, an Alabama grand jury indicted Montgomery Police Officer Aaron Smith on murder charges for the fatal shooting of Greg Gunn, who was killed just a few yards from his front door.
Smith stopped Gunn while he was walking through his own neighborhood, and friends said that Gunn was returning home after a weekly card game with his mother. Smith’s lawyer Mickey McDermott claimed that Smith stopped him because he looked suspicious.
During the incident, Gunn was hit with a stun gun three times, beaten with a baton, and shot five times. However, McDermott and Smith have maintained that Smith acted properly in his use of force.
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“It was Mr. Gunn’s actions that resulted in his death,” McDermott insisted, later calling the decision to call Smith the result of “emotion and politics.”
The incident was not captured on camera, as Smith did not activate his patrol lights. Cameras automatically begin recording in police cars when patrol lights are switched on.
During a press statement Friday, Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey announced the indictment but stressed that it was not an indictment of the police department as a whole, calling police “the thin blue line between a peaceful community and anarchy.”
