A former Alabama police officer has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Stephen Perkins, a black man who confronted a tow truck driver who was attempting to retrieve his truck.
Morgan County District Attorney Scott Anderson said in a press conference Friday that Mac Bailey Marquette, 23, a former Decatur Police Department officer, turned himself in to the county jail Thursday on a grand jury warrant for murder. announced that it had been charged.
“It's not easy to be in a position to prosecute a police officer, but it's the right thing to do in this situation,” Anderson told reporters.
Before being released from the Morgan County Jail on $30,000 bail late Friday morning, Marquette was pictured grinning in a mug shot.
Marquette's arrest comes less than two weeks after the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) submitted the results of a months-long investigation into the officer-involved shooting to the prosecutor's office.
Anderson said three other officers involved in the incident, Christopher Mukadam, Joey Williams and Vance Summers, were not criminally charged because they did not fire at Perkins.
Perkins, 39, was shot and killed by a police officer, later identified as Marquette, outside his home in Decatur on September 29. This was because the tow truck driver who came to pick up the victim's car told the accompanying police officer that he had been “threatened.” gun.
ALEA said in a statement in September that Perkins was armed with a lighted handgun and “brandished the weapon at officers” before opening fire.
Surveillance video from a neighbor's house WAFF issued In November, it caught a barrage of bullets fired at Perkins.
The video also showed the victim's truck lying on the ground, near death, just a stone's throw from his home, as it was brutally towed away.
Lawyers for Perkins' family argued, based on the video, that officers immediately opened fire on the homeowner, who did not appear to be aware of the presence of officers on his property.
The man's family also said the payments on the GMC Sierra truck were up to date, which is why they were trying to block the repossession.
Perkins was a married father of two who worked for a pet food manufacturer and had a mostly clean criminal history, except for a drunk driving arrest more than a decade ago. NBC News previously reported.
After Perkins' killing, months of protests and marches ensued in Decatur.
The man's family has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the police officers and Decatur city officials involved in the shooting.
Three officers, including Marquette, were fired last month and a fourth was suspended without pay.
All four executives have appealed their employment decisions, and hearings on those appeals were scheduled to begin later this month.
