About a hundred people marched to Phoenix police headquarters a day after the department strongly defended the decision by the officer who shot dead 34-year-old Rumain Brisbon on Tuesday night.

"This one went bad from the standpoint of how it ended, but the officer was doing exactly what we want him to do," Sgt. Trent Crump, a Phoenix police spokesman, said at a news conference Wednesday.

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Friends and family said Brisbon, who was unarmed, was simply delivering dinner to his four children.

Critics and community members likened Brisbon's killing to the deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York.

Crump told reporters that the officer and his partner were responding to a burglary call about 6 p.m. Tuesday (8 p.m. ET) when a local resident told them that men in a black sport-utility vehicle were dealing drugs.

The license plate number given by the resident matched a vehicle owned by a resident of a block where police were already investigating a report of loud music, Crump said, so the officer approached the SUV, whose driver got out.

When the officer told the driver, later identified as Brisbon, to show his hands, the driver instead put his hands into the waistband of his pants, at which point the officer drew his gun, Crump said.

Brisbon began to run away, but the officer chased him down, and they began struggling, Crump said.

"The officer believed he felt the handle of a gun while holding the suspect's hand in his pocket," Crump said. Unable to keep his grip on Brisbon's hand, the officer fired two shots, Crump said.

He added the object in Brisbon's pocket was later discovered to be a bottle of pain pills, but an unspecified weapon and what appeared to be marijuana were found in the SUV.

The Rev. Jarrett Maupin, an organizer of Thursday night's march, said Brisbon was probably justified in fearing for his life and trying to flee when the Phoenix officer approached him and his friend Tuesday night. "The Phoenix Police Department does not treat white people this way," Maupin said. "What that officer did was harass and accost them."

TagsRumain Brisbon, Phoenix, Eric Garner, michael brown