It’s been three years since then-Albuquerque police officers Keith Sandy and Dominique Perez made national news after fatally shooting homeless camper James Boyd, and more than two years since they became the first Albuquerque police officers to face charges for a shooting in at least 50 years.

Their cases ended Friday afternoon.

Bernalillo County District Attorney Raúl Torrez announced his office will not retry the officers, who faced a murder trial that ended in a hung jury last year. Torrez said there were a number of mistakes made the day of the shooting, but that laws make it difficult to prosecute police officers for on-duty shootings. At no point during his announcement did he endorse or praise the officers’ actions the day of James Boyd’s death.

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Torrez announced the decision during a news conference at his office, which had closed early Friday and was heavily guarded by Bernalillo County Sheriff’s deputies in case there was some form of protest or demonstration. Metropolitan and district courthouses also closed early Friday afternoon in case there was public outcry to the dismissal.

But all was calm in Downtown as the highly charged and dramatic murder case that, in 2014, sparked large protests in the street came to an anticlimactic end.

“There is no reason to believe the case against Detective Sandy and officer Perez could be tried better or more exhaustively at a second trial, or that a second jury could reach a different outcome,” Torrez said.

“There were a number of mistakes that were made, I think,” Torrez said. “If you asked or talked to people that were there that day, if they could go back and do things differently, I would imagine that everyone would tell you that they would try to do something differently. Hopefully the police department can learn lessons from what went wrong and we can develop a situation where we’re not in that situation again.”

Former District Attorney Kari Brandenburg filed murder charges against the two officers in January 2015. But a judge disqualified her from prosecuting and attorney Randi McGinn was appointed as a special prosecutor. The 12-day trial late last year ended in a hung jury.

“I respect the decision,” she said after Torrez’s announcement. “I would hope there would be the same decision if it was reversed and a homeless man killed a police officer.”

Both Torrez and McGinn said the case brought needed changes to the Albuquerque Police Department. McGinn pointed out that since a judge found there was enough evidence for the officers to stand trial for murder, the number of police shootings in Albuquerque has dropped significantly. Since the shooting, the police department has also started an ongoing, year-long reform effort that was the result of a Department of Justice investigation which found Albuquerque police had a pattern of excessive force, which included police shootings.

Last year, city police officers were involved in seven shootings, the fewest number of police shootings in at least seven years.

And the department’s SWAT team, which was controlling the scene when Boyd was shot, hasn’t fired a weapon in the line of duty since July 2014.

“The community has seen that APD can actually do its job without killing people,” McGinn said.

Luis Robles, Perez’s attorney, said when his client learned that the case was over it was as if “clouds had lifted.”

“It’s finally over,” Robles said. “It wasn’t until today.”

Torrez said he hoped the case motivates people in the community to advocate on behalf of the homeless and people with a mental illness.

“It revealed hard and uncomfortable truths about how we deal with, and often fail to deal with, people with mental health issues,” he said of the shooting. “It also served as a necessary catalyst for needed reform within the Albuquerque Police Department.”

Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Eden said in a statement that the police department has learned from the Boyd shooting, which he said was a “difficult event” for the community. “We have learned much from it. Through our ongoing reform efforts, we strive to be the banner police department in the nation and will continually grow and improve policing in Albuquerque.”