There is this week, in a Baltimore courtroom, a rare trial taking place.
A city police officer, Tommy Sanders, is on trial for manslaughter for shooting a 27-year-old unarmed man in the back at the Hamilton Park Shopping Center in January 2008.
Almost lost amid the fury of Saturday's shooting by a police officer of an unarmed ex-Marine outside a bar in Mount Vernon is that Sanders is the first city officer charged in an on-duty fatal shooting since 1996.
Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy moves carefully when dealing with officers who pull the trigger. Most of the time, her office concurs with police that a shooting is justified.
And there have been several police officers charged and convicted in domestic-related shootings over the years.
But few officers, on duty or off, have ever been arrested or indicted for pulling the trigger when they act to prevent a crime or protect themselves or someone else.
The details of the Mount Vernon shooting are still a bit murky. Police have said the victim, Tyrone Brown, patted Officer Gahiji A. Tshamba's female companion on her rear end. Tshamba took exception and the two got into a physical altercation. Police say Tshamba identified himself as an officer. The victim's sister says he did not and that Brown tried to apologize and walk away. Either way, police say they have not found evidence to suggest that the officer's life was in danger when he squeezed off 13 of the 14 rounds in his Glock handgun, hitting Brown nine times.
Jessamy's office is now reinterviewing key witnesses and could decide within days whether to issue charges or present the case to a grand jury. Based on prior cases, it's difficult to predict what she will do.
One of the more famous cases involved Officer Edward T. Gorwell III, whose 1993 fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boy sparked citywide protests. Gorwell had been chasing the youth through Gwynns Falls Park, heard what he thought was a gunshot but what authorities said was a branch snapping, and fired a round in the dark. It hit the boy in the back.
One manslaughter trial ended in a mistrial, and six years after the shooting, in 1999, Gorwell was unexpectedly cleared when new evidence surfaced minutes before the start of a second trial. A forensics expert, using more sophisticated tests, found gunshot residue had been on the boy's left hand, indicating he may have had a gun after all, though no gun was ever found.
In 1996, prosecutors charged Sgt. Stephen R. Pagotto with manslaughter in the shooting death of a young man during a traffic stop. Pagotto had argued the shooting was an accident, that his gun had discharged when Barnes' car lurched backward, hitting his hand holding the weapon.
A jury convicted Pagotto and a judge sentenced him to 20 months in prison, but the state's highest court overturned the decision, ruling that while the sergeant violated department rules and training standards by having his gun drawn in one hand and grabbing the driver with his other, the actions were not negligent enough to amount to a crime.
There have been many controversial police shootings since, including one by a Housing Authority officer who several witnesses said shot an unarmed teen as he surrendered with his hands up.
But an autopsy discovered the boy had a bullet hole in his left hand, which was in his pants pocket. That bolstered the officer's story that he shot the boy when he had his hand in his pocket, as if reaching for a weapon, and not in the air. Jessamy did not prosecute that case.
Perhaps Jessamy's most controversial case came in 1997 when she decided not to prosecute a city officer who shot a knife-wielding man outside Lexington Market.
The shooting by Officer Charles M. Smothers II was captured on videotape and broadcast nationally. It showed a group of officers with their guns drawn surrounding a man holding a knife. Officers repeatedly demanded he drop it, but the man refused.
At one point, Smothers fired a single shot, killing James Quarles in front of dozens of horrified bystanders. The officer argued that Quarles appeared to be ready to drop the weapon but suddenly gripped the handle tightly, gritted his teeth and moved his left foot forward.
Smothers interpreted the move as a threat — by then the standoff had lasted six minutes — and most of the 18 witnesses concurred, though one described the move as a stumble. A police spokeswoman told reporters at the time that Quarles "lunged" at the officer, which compounded protests and mistrust because there was no lunge evident on the video.
But Jessamy stood firm: "I will not send a message to police officers that I will impose my judgment in place of theirs when they act within the scope of their training and the law," she said at the time. "I will not, because of personal or political consideration, create a climate where police officers hesitate to protect a citizen or themselves."
Now, as she tries one officer in court, Jessamy will soon be asking similar questions about the actions of Tshamba, who has yet to give his version of events.
This case, however, is more troubling. Tshamba was off duty, in a bar, with his gun. Police are trying to determine whether he had been drinking, and it appears from the evidence thus far that while rightfully angry over what Brown did to his companion, he may have acted more as a protective boyfriend than an officer trained to mitigate rather than instigate disputes.
Once again, the city is watching Jessamy.