WILMINGTON - A former sheriff's deputy who shot a Durham teen to death during a raid this month might still be charged with a crime, the New Hanover County district attorney said Thursday.

The announcement brought harsh words from leaders of a statewide police organization who urged the prosecutor to leave their fellow lawman alone.

District Attorney Ben David said, "This case is still open. The investigation is ongoing. Further court action is anticipated."

David indicated that he will ask a different grand jury to consider charging Christopher Long in the shooting death of Peyton Strickland during a Dec. 1 raid to arrest Strickland and recover a stolen PlayStation 3 video game console.

David announced Monday that a grand jury had voted to charge Long with second-degree murder. Twenty-two hours later, the foreman of the grand jury alerted a judge that he had accidentally checked the wrong box on the indictment form. The grand jury had fallen at least seven votes shy of the needed 12 to indict Long, one juror said this week.

Leaders of the N.C. Fraternal Order of Police said David should let the grand jury's action stand.

"The grand jury decision should be respected," president Donald B. Penix said in a statement. "In routine criminal cases against citizens throughout the state, grand jury decisions are not second-guessed; rather, they are respected."

It is rare but not unheard of for prosectors to try to secure an indictment after failing the first time, seasoned prosecutors said. Tom Lock, district attorney in Johnston, Harnett and Lee counties, said he had done it a few dozen times in his 16 years as a prosecutor.

"I've done it when I thought the grand jury was just flat wrong or I thought calling another witness might have made a difference," Lock said.

Sometimes, said Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby, it is important to seek an indictment again to show the public that the case is being handled properly.

The foreman's errant slash of a pen on the indictment form was not the only problem with the grand jury's handling of the Long case.

One of the grand jurors who voted had a conflict. Malinda Murphy is married to one of Long's former fellow deputies at the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office. It's not clear how Murphy voted; her husband, Detective Kenneth West Murphy, told Sheriff Sid Causey that he didn't ask her.

It is also not clear whether the grand jurors knew they could consider a lesser homicide charge, such as manslaughter. One grand juror, Sharika Hankins, said she thought the jurors would have been more apt to indict Long of involuntary manslaughter, something they didn't consider.

Long's attorney, Michael McGuinness, told reporters Thursday that he assumed members of the grand jury had considered a lesser homicide charge and declined to indict Long. McGuinness interpreted the jury's move as clearing Long of all criminal suspicions.

McGuinness said he is eager for his client to be able to share his side of the story, something David and a judge blocked during the grand jury session.

"Let Chris testify," McGuinness said. "He was there. He's a critical witness, and it's necessary for any grand jury to hear from him."

Long told agents with the State Bureau of Investigation that he fired through Strickland's front door after mistaking the hammering of a battering ram for a gun blast, David has said. Long's job that night, David said in court Monday, was to secure the home if deputies had to barge in with the battering ram.

UNC-Wilmington police suspected Strickland and two friends of beating and robbing a student of two PlayStation consoles Nov. 17. Two weeks later, 16 law enforcement officers -- 10 highly trained deputies and six officers from the campus police department -- went to Strickland's home.

Campus police feared the young man and his friends would be hiding out amid a small armory after finding an Internet photo of one of them, Ryan David Mills of Durham, posing with friends and firearms, according to the search warrant.

The case has drawn statewide attention and has put David, a novice district attorney, in a tough spot. In high-profile cases, veteran prosecutors say, the public is prone to hand out criticism.

"On one hand, some say we're going too far," said Willoughby, the Wake prosecutor. "On the other hand, some say we're not doing enough. It's sort of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears: The porridge is never quite right."

A grand jury of 18 New Hanover County residents, nine of whom already have been picked, will likely share David's burden come January.

(Staff writer Matthew Eisley contributed to this report.)

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