Police Groups Are Critical of Quickly Filed Charges Against Charlotte Officer Travis Dove for The New York Times Top, a memorial near the site where Jonathan Ferrell was fatally shot by Officer Randall Kerrick. CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Hours after one of its police officers fatally shot an unarmed man, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department made a rare move: it charged the officer with voluntary manslaughter. Most police departments, including the one in Charlotte, usually take weeks - sometimes months - to complete an investigation of a shooting involving an officer. But the decision to quickly charge Officer Randall Kerrick is drawing sharp criticism from police groups and being followed closely by law enforcement departments across the country. Critics call the department's move a rush to judgment and say it will have a chilling effect on officers in the field. "What it does is it shakes their confidence because, like it or not, most cops like to think their department has their back," said Randy Hagler, the president of the North Carolina Fraternal Order of Police. That's not to say the department is going to cover anything up. They just want the department to give them a fair shake. That's all we ask for. And officers in our community don't necessarily all feel that way. Daniel Trelka, the police chief in Waterloo, Iowa, said he had been following the case and warned that filing charges quickly could put officers at risk. "My concern is we're going to have an officer - any officer someplace in the country - hesitate when they are justified in taking action and lose their life," he said. In Charlotte, the officer charged in the shooting is white; Jonathan Ferrell, the unarmed man who was shot, is black. He was a former football player for Florida A&M University. Mr. Ferrell's encounter with the police was set in motion at 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 14, when his car ran off the entrance road to a suburban neighborhood about 15 miles from downtown Charlotte. After crashing into trees, Mr. Ferrell kicked out the back window of his car and headed up a hill to a nearby cluster of houses. The police said Mr. Ferrell knocked on a door seeking help. The woman inside called 911, thinking he was trying to break into her home. Officer Kerrick and two other officers responded to the call. They found Mr. Ferrell on a road that led only to the neighborhood's pool. Mr. Ferrell ran toward the officers, who tried to stop him with a Taser. The officers said he continued to run toward them, and Officer Kerrick fired 12 shots, hitting Mr. Ferrell with all but two. He died at the scene. Officer Kerrick, who has been with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police since April 2011, and the two other officers at the scene were at first placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation into the shooting. But later that day, Officer Kerrick, 27, was charged with voluntary manslaughter and was released on a $50,000 bond. Chief Rodney Monroe said that while Mr. Ferrell did advance on Officer Kerrick, the shooting was excessive. Chief Monroe said the department's investigation showed that the officer did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during the encounter. Officer Kerrick's lawyers said the shooting was justified because Mr. Ferrell did not obey commands to stop. But the lawyer for Mr. Ferrell's family said the shots were fired from such a close distance that Mr. Ferrell never had a chance to respond. Civil rights leader have praised the police for quickly filing charges. Mr. Ferrell's family said he moved to Charlotte about a year ago to be with his fiancée and was working two jobs. He wanted to go back to school to be an automotive engineer, they said. He had no criminal record. The North Carolina attorney general's office is handling the case. Experts say it usually takes weeks or longer for agencies to complete investigations into shootings involving an officer and decide whether to file charges. Investigators usually wait to interview officers at length so they can decompress and process information. But that did not happen with Officer Kerrick. "People are presumed innocent until proven guilty," said James Pasco Jr., the national executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, "and police officers are no exception. You don't check your civil rights at the station house door. He said most departments took their time with investigations because they wanted to be thorough. They go very carefully. One thing to remember in the case of a shooting, generally speaking, the most accurate information will come out over a period of time," Mr. Pasco said. "Another thing," he continued, "is that participants in a shooting - whether they were the shooter, whether they were shot or whether they were just there - all tend to suffer to a degree from post-traumatic shock for at least a short period of time. And that's why the best and most accurate information is usually gathered from these folks 48 to 72 hours after the event.