Police say that when the man refused to stop throwing rocks at them and the stun gun didn't work, they decided to pull out their guns and shoot him.

An inquest has been ordered into the fatal shooting of a man who was throwing rocks at officers in Washington state, which was captured on video and caused a public outcry.

Franklin County coroner Dan Blasdel ordered the inquest to determine whether police were justified in gunning down Antonio Zambrano-Montes during a confrontation in the city of Pasco, 200 miles southeast of Seattle in the tri-cities region of the state, according to a Reuters report.

It is rare for the coroner’s office to make such an inquest, and it will be just the third in Blasdel’s 20 years as state coroner.

The case has attracted the interest of Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, as Zambrano-Montes, who worked in a Washington orchard, was originally from southern Mexico. The ministry called for an investigation into his killing.

The shooting prompted protests in Pasco, which is home to 68,000, including a large Hispanic community who often work in local apple orchards. It also comes amid heightened tensions with police nationwide after the killings of unarmed black men by white police officers in Missouri and New York.

Zambrano-Montes was not armed with a knife or gun during the Tuesday altercation in a grocery store parking lot that eventually spilled onto a busy street corner. The man was pelting officers with rocks and ignored commands to stop.

When a stun gun didn’t work and he continued to refuse commands to stop, the officers pulled out their guns and shot him to death.

A 22-second video by a nearby driver captured the incident, which does appear to show Zambrano-Montes throwing rocks, but shows that he was running away from the officers when he was finally killed. After apparently throwing one rock, several shots can be heard, and then he crosses the street, turns to face the officers, raises his arm as if to throw another rock, and then he is shot and collapses on the sidewalk.

The officers are currently on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. Two of the officers were treated at the scene after being hit by rocks.