Castillo said Lopez was a native of Veracruz, Mexico, who had lived in the U.S. for many years and formerly worked for the city of Bartlett, Miss., and more recently operated a small mechanic’s shop across the street from his home. He said Lopez was a father figure to him and mentored him when he was a troubled teenager.

Castillo said the slain man’s wife was too upset to talk, but that she’d told him things that contradicted the official account. He said Lopez had two guns: a Glock pistol, which he usually kept in the bedroom, and a .22 caliber rifle, which he usually kept in the front room.

He said Lopez’s wife told him that after the shooting, the rifle was in its usual spot.

Castillo said he couldn’t imagine that Lopez would have come out aiming a gun at police. “It don’t make sense at all,” he said.

He said Lopez knew English and would not have misunderstood commands to put down a gun — but he said Lopez’s wife said she didn’t hear such commands.

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“She said when he got up, she heard the footsteps all the way up to the door, she heard the doorknob turn, and then after the doorknob turned it was just gunshots from there.”

A pit bull named Coco seemed docile around the small crowd of people, though it startled the visitors at one point by bolting away. Castillo said Coco was chasing a squirrel.

On Tuesday, an attorney representing Lopez’s family said his law firm would conduct its own investigation into the shooting.

During a news conference Tuesday, Murray Wells, of law firm Horne and Wells, said police searching for a suspect went to the wrong address.

“They should have never been on the property in the first place,” he said.

Wells, contradicting Champion’s earlier account, said Lopez, a gun owner, did not have a gun in his hand when he was shot.

Contributing: Yolanda Jones, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal. Follow Daniel Connolly on Twitter: @DanielConnolly