CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Three times since a police officer fired 10 bullets into her son Jonathan last September, Georgia Ferrell has made the long journey from the family home in Tallahassee, Fla. Each time, she sought to understand why her son, a former Florida A&M football star and a homebody who wanted to take his mother with him to the junior prom, was gunned down when he was just asking for help.

On Monday, she got closer to her answers. A grand jury indicted Officer Randall Kerrick, 28, who joined the city’s animal control division in 2010 as a pathway to his police job, on a charge of voluntary manslaughter. He was the first Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer charged in a fatal shooting in more than 30 years.

Mrs. Ferrell said one thought came into her head when her lawyers told her Monday afternoon that the Mecklenburg County grand jury had indicted Officer Kerrick: “God’s will must be done.”

It was the second time a grand jury had heard the case. The first panel, which convened a week ago, did not indict the officer, but suggested instead that prosecutors come back with a lesser charge. Community outrage was strong. Roy Cooper, the attorney general and a likely Democratic candidate for governor, decided to present the case again, this time with four witnesses instead of two, and to a full panel of 18 jurors instead of 14.