A report on the fatal shooting of a Moultrie man could take some time to complete as investigators await the result of tests, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, many in the black community are angered at the Labor Day shooting of Walter Wayne Peterson by a law enforcement officer.

On Wednesday, Moultrie Police Department Chief Frank Lang referred all questions about the fatality to the GBI. He said that one of the department’s officers is on administrative leave, but refused to say whether that is the officer who fired the fatal shots.

The department will not conduct its own internal investigation into the shooting until after the state agency completes its report, he said.

“We will start our internal investigation as soon as we get a final report from the GBI, so there will be no interference at all” in the agency’s probe, Lang said.

The chief said he is aware of the frustration felt by the community, but that he is not able to release more information at this time.

“I would say any citizens (should) make sure that they allow the investigation to take its course,” he said. “The GBI is a very creditable agency. I think they will do a very thorough job.”

Steve Turner, special agent in charge of the GBI’s Thomasville office, said that Peterson was shot after he “came at” an officer with a butcher knife. A single officer fired all five shots, striking Peterson twice.

The two agencies earlier said that Peterson, 51, broke a window of a convenience store on Labor Day and afterwards went home and refused to come out. After a couple of hours, officers entered the Seventh Street Northwest house.

The shooting occurred after the officers went inside.

Turner said he could not give a timetable on when the report will be completed. He said he would not identify the officer.

“It will take a while, (with) all the tests that have to come back,” Turner said.

The report will be turned over to the district attorney’s office, Turner said. The agency will not make a determination on whether the shooting was justified.

Once the prosecutor’s office has the report, it will decide on what course of action to take, Assistant District Attorney Brian McDaniel said Wednesday. McDaniel did not discuss this specific case.

“As a general course of action, we review it, just like we review any file,” he said. “We review for whether we think charges ought to be filed. If law enforcement turns in a report to us, obviously they investigated something.

“If there’s any question or doubt, we have the authority to take it to the grand jury and let the citizens make a decision.”

McDaniel said he could not give a time for when his office might receive a report from the GBI.

In two other shootings by Moultrie police in recent years, no charges were filed and the cases were not brought to a grand jury. The men shot in those incidents were both black, as was Peterson.

The latest of those occurred on Nov. 16, 2006, when former Moultrie Police Sgt. Bruce Hamm shot Willie J. Banks three times in the chest. Police said that they were trying to serve a warrant on Banks for a theft charge when he ran toward one of them with a knife.

The GBI conducted an investigation into that case.

Based on the evidence, no charges were pursued, McDaniel said.

In the late 1990s, Hamm fatally shot a man with a firearm outside a restaurant.

Former Assistant District Attorney Charlie Stines said that Moultrie police conducted an internal investigation, but that he does not recall any report being produced by the GBI in that case. Evidence indicated that the shooting was justified, he said.

A group that met Monday to discuss the shooting plans to meet again next week, and some expressed interest in bringing the matter up at Tuesday’s Moultrie City Council meeting.

Gibson Talbert, one of those who attended the Monday meeting, said he met the next day with Lang, accompanied by City Council member Susie Magwood-Thomas.

Talbert described it as a “good meeting,” but said he still has questions and was “not satisfied” with the answers.

“I’m trying to let him (Lang) know the community is a time bomb,” he said. “They’re really upset. The family is very angry because they feel like we have the right to know who did this. The police said to give them time.”

Many in the black community are not familiar with officers, Talbert said, causing distrust.

“What we’re hearing sounds like the same thing that’s been said when shootings have happened with black people in the past,” he said. “The people are extremely upset and angry. People are very dissatisfied, and it sounds like another brush over.”