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CINCINNATI — A white police officer was not following proper procedures when he shot a fleeing, unarmed black man to death, a killing that led to riots this spring, a prosecutor said Monday. 

Officer Stephen Roach, 27, was indicted in May on misdemeanor charges of negligent homicide and obstruction of official business in the April 7 shooting death of Timothy Thomas, 19. 

If convicted of both charges, he could face up to nine months in jail. 

Roach agreed to have the trial heard without a jury. After hearing testimony, Municipal Court Judge Ralph E. Winkler may take the case under review and issue his verdict later. 

The death touched off the city’s worst racial violence since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, and prompted a citywide dusk-to-dawn curfew to restore order. Dozens of people were injured and more than 800 were arrested. 

Roach was the only one of at least five officers pursuing Thomas who took his revolver out of his holster, prosecutor Michael Prisley told the judge. 

Before firing, Roach should have used other methods to stop Thomas, who was wanted on traffic violations and charges of fleeing police, Prisley said. He also should not have put his finger on the trigger before he intended to use the gun, Prisley said. 

The obstruction charge stems from the differing accounts of what happened that Roach gave to detectives investigating the shooting, Prisley said. 

Defense lawyer Merlin Shiverdecker said that in all of Roach’s accounts of what happened, he repeated his assertion that Thomas made a move to his waistband. 

“He perceived that move to the waist and feared it as a threat to his safety,” Shiverdecker told the judge. 

Testimony also got under way Monday. Three officers involved in chasing Thomas testified for the prosecution that they did not take out their guns. 

When officer Thaddeus Steele was asked how often suspects flee police in the area, Steele replied, “Every night.” 

Shiverdecker said defense witnesses, including police supervisors, would testify that Roach is a mature, dedicated officer. Other testimony would be about the poor lighting in the alley where the shooting took place. 

Thomas was the 15th black male to die at the hands of Cincinnati police since 1995. Police union officials have said 10 of those men fired or pointed guns at police officers, and two drove at or dragged officers from cars. 

The shooting led the mayor to request a federal investigation of the city’s police department, which is under way. 

Two other Cincinnati officers await trial in October in the case of another black man, Roger Owensby Jr., who died in November when police took him into custody. The coroner concluded that Owensby died of suffocation.