When undercover detectives asked uniformed officers to arrest Antronie Scott, 36, setting off the chain of events that ended when an officer shot Scott dead, they didn’t know he was unarmed but apparently knew of his criminal history.

Two officers were dispatched and were told it was a felony stop, a San Antonio Police Department report released Wednesday states.

Officers are trained to stay behind the open doors of their cruiser in such situations, parked 15 to 20 feet away from the vehicle they’re approaching, said police procedures expert Chuck Drago, a former police chief in Florida.

But Officer John Lee emerged from his marked patrol unit and was walking towards Scott’s car, weapon drawn, when he ordered him to “show me your hands” and Scott swung his car door open and spun to his left, the police incident report states.

Lee saw something in Scott’s right hand, thought it was a weapon and fired, hitting Scott in the chest, the report said. Scott was holding a cell phone, not a weapon, and died in the parking lot of his North Side apartment complex despite Lee’s attempts to revive him. His wife was in the car, police said.

“An officer doesn’t have to wait for a gun to be pointed at him or for the gun to be fired, as long as the officer reasonably believes (a suspect is) pulling a gun,” Drago said. But the risk of having to make such a decision is increased when an officer walks up to a suspect and “puts himself in no-man’s land,” he said.

“If the officer turns out to be wrong, typically the courts are lenient on that because the U.S. Supreme Court has said that officers have to make split-second decisions,” though he said he has noticed recently that officers in such situations have started to be prosecuted more often, he said.

The incident report does not describe what actions the other officer, identified as B. Bilica, took during the attempted arrest. Lee was placed on paid administrative leave. Bilica was not, an SAPD spokesman said.

Thomas J. Henry, the lawyer representing Scott’s family, said he plans to sue the city as early as today.

“Of course, it will be a constitutional claim, (listing) violations of his civil rights,” Henry said. “I think the use of force is extremely suspect … The claim that the officer made of him being in fear of his life is not based on the reality of (Scott) having any weapons on him.”

Scott had been to jail or prison for at least four drug convictions, though little in the way of violence appears in his court record.

After police found he had stuffed a bag of crack cocaine in an SAPD patrol car’s back seat in 2009, he offered $5,000 in an unsuccessful attempt to bribe his way out of an arrest. Last year, he was picked up in an SAPD sting, accused of selling an undercover officer crack cocaine, a gun recovered from the car he was in. Released on bond, Scott skipped his court dates, so warrants were issued for his arrest, records show.

“If (the officer) believes that person is pulling a gun out of his pocket, it really doesn’t matter what the criminal history is,” Drago said. “The courts have found the officer has to reasonably believe that there’s a threat.”

Ben Lively, who trained officers and cadets at the SAPD academy for 28 years, also said officers don’t have to wait to get shot at, but must be in fear of imminent serious bodily injury or death in order to react with lethal force. In a case such as Scott’s, the events can unfold quickly, he said.

“You don’t have much time,” said Lively, who retired in 1992. “A lot can happen in, ‘One, Mississippi.’”

Henry argued that it appears too many officers, including in San Antonio and Bexar County, are wrongly being trained on the legal standard in using deadly force.

“What we’re seeing is officers being trained in, ‘All I have to say is, ‘I was I was in fear of my life,’” Henry said.

“We don’t want officers being trained to kill people. We want officers (to act) from an objective perspective, if there is an imminent threat, then they can use deadly force — not that you throw this blanket statement down and it’s OK. If you go reinforce that training, what will you get? More killings and more officers saying, ‘I thought I was in fear.’ That is an institutional problem in law enforcement, and that affects every person in this country.”

In response to questions this week, Police Chief William McManus said in a short statement that the case was undergoing a “thorough review. We will provide updates as they become available.”

The local FBI office said McManus notified its agents about the Scott case “immediately after the shooting” and that the police department “continues to be open, transparent and cooperative regarding the progress of their investigation.”

“If in the course of the local investigation, information comes to light of a potential federal civil rights violation, the FBI is prepared to investigate,” it said.

Federal prosecutors and the FBI confirmed they have been paying more attention to police use of force cases since the issue was brought to the national forefront by the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and subsquent cases of unarmed men killed in encounters with police.

District Attorney Nico LaHood, meanwhile, said he doesn’t know details of Scott case and will wait for the SAPD investigation for be completed. He said his office doesn’t have the staff to conduct its own probe. It has 50 investigators but their main role is to help prosecutors prepare for trial and to monitor the handling of evidence.

“We can’t function that way because of manpower,” LaHood said. “It’s a role of law enforcement. We are not typically the investigatory branch.”

The Scott family’s lawyer, Henry, was also the biggest donor to LaHood’s 2014 campaign for DA. LaHood said the two are friends but that that “it will have no effect on how this case is handled.”

“Tom’s going to do his job under his ethical and legal obligations to his clients, and I’m going to do my job under my ethical and legal obligations and under my oath as a prosecutor to seek justice,” LaHood said.

And to anyone who questions whether that relationship presents the appearance of a conflict of interest, LaHood said: “This office is focused on justice, and we have a system that applies to everybody, whether you’re a member of law enforcement or not. The system should be fair and equal and...we’re focused on making sure our part and our responsibility within the justice system is handled fairly and consistently.”