Motorist Who Shot a Protester in Austin Claims Self-Defense

Mr. Broden said the police had interviewed witnesses who were marching with Mr. Foster and who had confirmed that he had raised his rifle “in a direct threat to Sgt. Perry’s life.” Immediately after the shooting, he said, a person in the crowd began firing on Mr. Perry’s car, so he “drove to safety and immediately called the police.”

Mr. Foster’s family said they were certain that he had not threatened the motorist.

“Everyone who was standing around said Garrett never raised his weapon,” his mother, Sheila Foster, said in an interview on Friday. “That man took away one of the best people on this planet.”

A person who appeared to be Mr. Perry had posted in the past on Twitter about using violence against protesters. The Twitter account has since been deleted.

In June, President Trump posted a warning to protesters the day before his rally in Tulsa, Okla., writing on Twitter that any “protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!”

The person who appeared to be Mr. Perry responded on Twitter: “Send them to Texas we will show them why we say don’t mess with Texas.” In another tweet in June, he wrote that shooting someone in the “center of mass,” or chest area, was the best way to take the person down.

Mr. Broden defended his client’s tweets, saying they were being taken out of context by protesters. “I think they’re being misused to serve an agenda,” Mr. Broden said, adding that Mr. Perry supports First Amendment rights and has defended those rights as a member of the military.

Mr. Foster’s comments before the shooting are also being scrutinized. Earlier that evening at the demonstration, Mr. Foster was interviewed by an independent journalist on Periscope about why he brought his rifle, and he said that “all the people that hate us” were too afraid to “stop and actually do anything about it.”