A sheriff’s deputy in the US state of Georgia shot and killed a man who threw stones at him, officials have said.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said in a statement that it was examining the shooting on Saturday of 47-year-old Yassin Mohamed near the town of Claxton.
Deputies were called to the scene at about 1am on Saturday to reports of a man walking in the middle of a road, and an Evans County sheriff’s deputy arrived to find Mr Mohamed.
The GBI said that deputies had “had several encounters with Mohamed over the previous 12 hours” leading up to his death.
When the deputy tried to make contact with Mr Mohamed, investigators say he began throwing several stones, hitting the deputy once.
He then charged the deputy with a larger rock and the unnamed deputy shot him, said the GBI statement.
The 47-year old was pronounced dead at the scene, and an autopsy will be conducted at the GBI crime laboratory in Pooler, Georgia.
The deputy was not seriously injured during the incident.
The investigation will be turned over to the district attorney for review once completed before a prosecutor decides whether to file charges against the unnamed deputy.
It is the 38th officer-involved shooting that GBI has been asked to investigate so far this year.
According to the GBI, another officer was referred on Sunday following a shooting in Cobb County.
It came as Georgia’s attorney general requested a US Department of Justice investigation into the handling of the Ahmaud Arbery case, which has caused anger after the emergence of new video showing the fatal incident in February.
The slaying of the 25-year-old, who was shot while out jogging, has become the focus of nationwide protests over shooting deaths of young black men.
Police charged two men with murder on Saturday. On Sunday, the state’s attorney general said: ”The family, the community and the state of Georgia deserve answers, and we will work with others in law enforcement at the state and federal level to find those answers.”
Additional reporting by Associated Press
