“This is not Ferguson.”

That was the assessment of Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham on Aug. 6, a day after Keshawn D. Hargrove, 20, was shot and killed by a Richmond Police officer in the alley beside DJ Market and Deli at Cary and Meadow streets in the West End.

His funeral service was held Wednesday at Joseph Jenkins Jr. Funeral Home, just two blocks away.

Initial accounts of the incident by witnesses support reports that two officers fired at Mr. Hargrove only after he first shot at them as he ran.

This is the first incident in which a Richmond Police officer has fatally shot someone since Chief Durham took the top job in February.

The chief insisted the shooting was not racially charged. The officers — one white and one African-American — were responding to reports of an armed man in the neighborhood and identified Mr. Hargrove, an African-American, as the suspect, based on information from a dispatcher.

Officer Ryan Bailey, who is African-American, was wounded in the arm during the gunfire exchange. He was treated at a hospital and released.

The other officer, Jacob DeBoard, is white.

Officials are still investigating the shooting and have not yet determined which officer fired the lethal shot, police spokesperson Gene Lepley stated Tuesday in response to a Free Press query.

Chief Durham said the officers have been placed on paid administrative leave, pending the outcome of the investigation. He said results will be forwarded to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, which will determine whether the shooting was justified.

A man who said he was homeless and only identified himself as Musa told a Free Press reporter Wednesday he was sitting in front of the store as the incident unfolded.

“I saw two boys coming around the store and I said to myself, ‘They’re up to something.’ ’’

He said Mr. Hargrove told the other man he was going into the alley to evade the police because he had a gun.

Musa said he was inside the store when gunfire erupted.

“The next thing you know, there were police everywhere, about 20 of them,” he said.

He said he was not surprised that Mr. Hargrove lost his life in the incident. “If I came out here with a gun and was shooting at police, what do you think would happen?

“A man is due justice according to his ways and actions,” he added.

Linwood Crump, who lives near the shooting scene, said he didn’t fault police.

“A policeman has to do his job,” he said. “You can’t shoot at them and expect something good to come out of it.”

Mr. Hargrove, who lived in the 2100 block of Parkwood Avenue, only recently had returned home after serving nearly five years behind bars on convictions of malicious wounding and possession of a firearm by a felon after he confessed to shooting a woman he was romantically involved with following an argument.

Police disclosed that Mr. Hargrove was wanted for questioning in connection with a July aggravated assault case in which a victim was shot and survived.