This undated handout photo provided by the Little Rock Police Department shows former Little Rock Police Officer Joshua Hastings. (AP Photo/Little Rock Police Department)

Attorneys in the wrongful-death lawsuit against a former Little Rock police officer used a map, photographs and — at one point, some physical exercise — to outline their arguments Tuesday morning.

Joshua Hastings sat in Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller's courtroom as lawyers presented their opening arguments in his case. In August 2012, Hastings shot and killed 15-year-old Bobby Joe Moore III, who was suspected of breaking into cars in the parking lot of a Little Rock apartment complex.

Hastings was fired and tried twice in 2013 by a Pulaski County Circuit Court jury on a manslaughter charge, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously reported. Both juries deadlocked, leading prosecutors to decline trying Hastings a third time.

Moore’s mother, Sylvia Perkins of Little Rock, filed the lawsuit June 1, 2015, against Hastings, the city and former Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas. All the defendants but Hastings were dismissed in January.

On Monday, Perkins’ attorney Austin Porter began by outlining the reported facts from the day Moore was shot.

Hastings reportedly arrived at the Shadow Lake Apartment Complex at 13111 W. Markham St. around 5:30 a.m. after he and another officer were called to a possible car break-in. Hastings then staked out a spot by the dumpster and said he witnessed three young men breaking into vehicles, Porter said.

Hastings told investigators those people got into a gray Honda and drove toward him at a speed between 15 mph to 30 mph. He fired three shots while about 5 feet from the vehicle, Porter said.

One of those shots went through Moore’s middle finger into his right shoulder and another went through his left temple, Porter said. Moore, who was driving the car, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Hastings told investigators that after he fired the shots, the Honda jumped a curb and rolled up on some rocks before it retreated, Porter said.

But the physical evidence from the scene shows that Hastings was “in essence, lying about the situation,” Porter told the jury.

For one, Hastings is about 6 feet 3 inches tall and 250 pounds, Porter said, so it would not be possible for him to get out of the way of a car going at that speed.

“Not unless he’s Speedy Gonzales or something like that,” he said.

Porter said the plaintiffs will argue the car was not heading straight at Hastings but was turning right. Hastings violated his department's use of deadly force policy by putting himself directly in front of the vehicle and is “sorta like a rogue cop, a Clint Eastwood type,” the attorney said.

Hastings' attorney, Keith Wren, opened by telling the jury that his opponents will likely bring up “sideshow evidence” such as Hastings’ tenure as a cop or his hiring history, which have nothing to do with the shooting.

Wren also told the jurors that Hastings did not deliberately put himself in front of the Honda in violation of the department’s policy. “But even if he did, that does not mean he can’t defend himself. That does not mean Bobby Moore could just mow him down."

He showed jurors enlarged photographs taken of the bottom of the Honda and of the rocks the car rolled up on. Some of those photos were never thoroughly examined as evidence by the police department in its internal investigation, Wren said. He told the 12 jurors that they should evaluate the scene for themselves to reach the truth.

Wren then told the courtroom that Hastings was in a “tense, uncertain, rapidly changing” situation that forced him to make a split-second decision. To illustrate his point, Wren held up a enlarged photograph of a dark car with shining headlights, held it aloft and sprinted across the courtroom toward the seated jurors.

“It was a horrible decision he had to make,” Wren said. “And unfortunately, he had to make it.”

Read Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.