The killing of Greg Gunn occurred on the morning of February 25, 2016, in

Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...

. Gunn, a 58-year-old

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

man, was shot and killed near his home after fleeing from a

stop-and-frisk Frisking (also called a patdown or pat down) is a search of a person's outer clothing wherein a person runs their hands along the outer garments of another to detect any concealed weapons or objects. U.S. Law In the United States, a law enforce ...

initiated by Aaron Cody Smith, a white police officer. Smith was charged with murder and indicted by a

grand jury A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a pe ...

in 2016. The case came to trial in late 2019 following a

change of venue A change of venue is the legal term for moving a trial to a new location. In high-profile matters, a change of venue may occur to move a jury trial away from a location where a fair and impartial jury may not be possible due to widespread public ...

Ozark, Alabama Ozark is a city in and the county seat of Dale County, Alabama. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city was 14,907. Ozark is the principal city of the Ozark Micropolitan Statistical Area, as well as a part of the Dothan-Ozark Combi ...

. Smith was found guilty of

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th cen ...

, and, in January 2020, was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Background

Gregory Gunn lived with his mother in the Mobile Heights neighborhood in

. He graduated from St Jude High School in 1976 and from Alabama State University in 1981 with a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting and Finance. He is also a member of the

Kappa Alpha Psi Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. () is a historically African American fraternity. Since the fraternity's founding on January 5, 1911 at Indiana University Bloomington, the fraternity has never restricted membership on the basis of color, creed ...

Fraternity. The neighborhood had experienced a number of burglaries around the time of the incident. According to Montgomery Police officer Aaron Cody Smith, Gunn matched the description of a burglary suspect: "dark clothing, black male".

Confrontation

Around 3:20am on February 25, 2016, Gunn was walking home unarmed from a card game when he encountered Smith, who was patrolling the neighborhood. Smith stopped Gunn and performed a

; during the encounter, Gunn fled. Smith pursued, initially attempting to use a

Taser A taser is an electroshock weapon used to incapacitate people, allowing them to be approached and handled in an unresisting and thus safe manner. It is sold by Axon, formerly TASER International. It fires two small barbed darts intended to ...

to disable Gunn, and when that failed he began striking Gunn with his baton. According to Smith's later testimony, Gunn then picked up a painter's pole, which caused Smith to fire his service weapon in what he described as self-defense. Smith shot seven times, hitting Gunn five times and killing him.

Trial

Smith was placed on administrative leave following the incident and was arrested and charged with murder a week later following an Alabama Bureau of Investigation inquiry. A grand jury indicted him for murder in November 2016. He was originally going to be tried in Montgomery, but the trial was moved to

Ozark The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant portio ...

in the white-majority Dale County at the request of his defense attorneys. In the request to move the trial, Smith's defense attorneys said that racial prejudice in Montgomery, media coverage of the shooting, and the actions of city officials would all affect the jury. They also described Smith as "the first and only Montgomery Police Officer ever to be arrested and charged immediately after an officer-involved shooting." Eight judges

recused Judicial disqualification, also referred to as recusal, is the act of abstaining from participation in an official action such as a legal proceeding due to a conflict of interest of the presiding court official or administrative officer. Appli ...

themselves from the trial. During the trial, Smith testified that Gunn had grabbed a metal painter's pole during the fight, at which point he escalated to using his gun. Prosecutors argued that Gunn could not have picked up the pole based on photographs from the crime scene which showed a hat in Gunn's hand. A state investigator also testified that Gunn's fingerprints were not found on the pole. They also emphasized that Smith had given several different accounts of the fight in the years between the shooting and the trial. Smith had not turned on his

body Body may refer to: In science * Physical body, an object in physics that represents a large amount, has mass or takes up space * Body (biology), the physical material of an organism * Body plan, the physical features shared by a group of anima ...

or dashboard cameras before the stop, so several details of the incident were unclear. On November 22, 2019, a jury found Smith guilty of the lesser included charge of manslaughter. Following the verdict, Gunn's brother Franklin said: "They brought this case to a very conservative county, expecting a different outcome...But I believe that we have seen the best of Alabama today. One bad apple in a bunch has been weeded out." On January 29, 2020, Smith was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He was released on an

appeal bond A supersedeas bond (often shortened to ''supersedeas''), also known as a defendant's appeal bond, is a type of surety bond that a court requires from an appellant who wants to delay payment of a judgment until an appeal is over. This is a featu ...

in March 2020 while appealing the conviction. In May 2021 the appeal was denied.

Wrongful death suit

The Gunn family filed a

wrongful death Wrongful death claim is a claim against a person who can be held liable for a death. The claim is brought in a civil action, usually by close relatives, as enumerated by statute. In wrongful death cases, survivors are compensated for the harm, l ...

lawsuit in federal court against the city of Montgomery in February 2016. The suit was settled in April 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunn, Greg 2016 controversies in the United States 2016 in Alabama African-American history of Alabama African-American-related controversies Deaths by person in Alabama February 2016 events in the United States History of African-American civil rights Law enforcement in Alabama Mass media-related controversies in the United States Montgomery, Alabama Race and crime in the United States 21st-century American trials

Background

Confrontation

Trial

Wrongful death suit

See also

References