RALEIGH, N.C. — A police officer fatally shot a man during a foot chase as he was trying to arrest him on drug charges Monday, the Raleigh police chief said.

In the hours after the shooting, local television coverage showed police forming a line in the street near the downtown neighborhood where the shooting took place as a number of people gathered behind yellow crime-scene tape that blocked off the area and began chanting “No justice, no peace!”

The chant has been used repeatedly across the nation in recent years to protest the deaths of black men following encounters with law enforcement officers.

Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown did not reveal the man’s race during a news conference at City Hall. She said a firearm was found near the man’s body, but did not say whether it was his. She also said the man was wanted on a felony drug charge. Deck-Brown declined to provide any other details about the circumstances of the shooting pending a customary investigation by the state Bureau of Investigation.

Bishop Darnell Dixon, who for 20 years has served as pastor of the Bibleway Temple church about a quarter-mile from where the shooting happened, said neighborhood relations with the police have generally been good, and he believed calm would prevail.

“This is very different for this community, the actual shooting,” he said. “I’m interested in knowing: ‘Why did it escalate to this point?”‘

Tamekia Richardson said she saw a male police officer chasing a man into the backyard of one of the street’s modest homes. The men disappeared from view, and then she heard shots. She said she then ran down a side street away from the shooting.

Copy the Story Link