A white security guard fatally shot an unarmed black man in the chest while listening to loud music. Now he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

A former security guard will spend the rest of his life behind bars for murdering an unarmed black man at a supermarket gas station in Memphis, Tennessee.

Gregory Livingston was found guilty of first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of 48-year-old Alvin Motley Jr. on August 7, 2021, after the couple had an argument due to loud music playing in Motley’s automobile.

At the time, Livingston was working as a contract security guard for Kroger. Motley was visiting Memphis with his girlfriend Pia Foster. Livingston was patrolling a convenience store gas station when Motley and Foster pulled up to the pump. He got here face to face with Motley and shouted at him to turn down the music.

They argued for a short while before Foster let Motley back into the automobile. As Foster began to drive away from the station, Motley got out and approached Livingston, telling him he wanted to “talk like men.”

Livingston had his gun drawn and told Motley to “stand back” before shooting him point blank in the chest. Motley only had a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. He died on the spot.

Surveillance videos captured the shooting from multiple angles. Several witnesses were also at the scene of the shooting, including Motley’s girlfriend.

Livingston’s trial lasted lower than per week. His lawyers based their trial defense on a self-defense claim, saying he feared for his life and had no idea what Motley would do when he approached him. Prosecutors showed jurors video footage and argued that Motley posed no threat, noting what items he had on him as he approached Livingston.

One prosecutor told the court that Motley was also blind and will not have seen the gun Livingston was carrying. After the shooting, Livingston called police but never provided medical attention.

One witness testified and stated that it didn’t appear that the music playing in Motley’s automobile disturbed anyone. During her testimony, Foster described Livingston’s behavior as hostile, stating that she felt he was teasing her and Motley during the dispute.

Livingston was sentenced to life in prison. Court records show his lawyers filed a motion for a brand new trial, ABC News reports.

He was initially charged with second-degree murder, but a grand jury indicted him on first-degree murder in December 2021 after reviewing cellphone and surveillance videos.

“They said what this family had felt all along – that it was not only unnecessary, not only unjustified, but it was the callous murder of a young man, armed only with a can of beer and a cigarette,” she added. attorney Ben Crump said after the 2021 hearing, as previously reported by the Atlanta Black Star.

Before becoming a security guard, Livingston worked as a police officer in Horn Lake, Mississippi, for nearly three years. He resigned in 2001.

Motley, who lived in Chicago and owned a clothing company, visited Memphis to do business and meet with relations. He had just arrived in town before he was shot. He was an aspiring actor, artist and media personality.

“My God tells me to forgive and I forgive him” – Alvin Motley Sr. he said from Livingston to WREG. “But every day for the rest of my life, every morning when I wake up, I want him to be in prison and wake up that same morning and we both think about what he did.”

Like Motley, Jordan Davis was also fatally shot for listening to loud music at a gas station in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2012. The 17-year-old’s death comes just eight months after George Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin and sparked protests across the country , deepening a national reckoning over racial profiling and the deaths of black teenagers. Michael David Dunn, the man who shot Davis, is serving a life sentence for the teenager’s murder.