The latest high-profile prosecution of a police officer for a fatal shooting ended in an acquittal on Wednesday, as jurors cleared a Milwaukee officer of wrongdoing in the death of a 23-year-old man, Sylville K. Smith.
Officers chased Smith on foot after he ran from a traffic stop near 44th and Auer.
The ex-cop's attorneys argued that he acted in self-defense.
The criminal complaint, which cites a special agent with the Wisconsin Department of Justice, said that body camera footage showed Smith turn toward officers while approaching a chain-link fence between two houses.
Heaggan-Brown had previously said he believed Smith "was reaching for his waist so he discharged his weapon a second time".
After Smith was shot, he fell backwards on to the ground and into a fetal-like position due to the momentum of the fall, his family says.
The shooting sparked two nights of unrest and violence in the Sherman Park neighborhood last August.
Heaggan-Brown was sacked from the Milwaukee force in October over unrelated sexual assault charges, which are set to go to trial in August.
Similar rulings were issued by grand juries in the deaths of Eric Garner on Staten Island, Tamir Rice in Cleveland and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, all of them controversial cases that prompted a national debate about race relations and the use of force by law enforcement.
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MCEVERS: What's happened to Officer Heaggan-Brown since the shooting? Heaggan-Brown fatally shot Sylville Smith after a traffic stop and a short pursuit. Heaggan-Brown was charged in December with first-degree reckless homicide.
The shooting triggered two days of turbulent protests that saw cars and businesses in the city set on fire, and police targeted with gunshots, rocks and bottles. The videos, and Heaggan-Brown's statement to state investigators two days later, became central evidence to the state's case.
Patrick Haynes reacted outside the courthouse in Milwaukee where Dominique Heaggan-Brown had just been found not guilty in Smith's death.
In Heaggan-Brown's bodycam video, he began chasing Smith immediately after stepping out of his patrol vehicle.
Earlier Wednesday, Smith's family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Heaggan-Brown and the city of Milwaukee.
Malafa then went back to talk to Smith. If convicted he could face 60-years in prison.
The defense argued that Heaggan-Brown had been trained to think that Smith could have had a second weapon, and emphasized that the entire encounter took only a few seconds. Nine women and three men sat on the jury, and four of them were African Americans.
Heaggan-Brown was sacked from the police force in October after being charged with sexual assault in an unrelated case.
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