A man called 9-1-1. The police shot him while he was still on the phone.

Charles Frederick Sharp III had called police to his home in southwestern New Jersey in the middle of the night to report intruders in his backyard. One of them was carrying a gun, Mr. Sharp, who spent more than 20 years in the US Air Force, told an 911 call center.

According to government officials and images of body cameras worn by police officers.

Mr Sharp, 49, was still on the phone with police when he was beaten.

On Wednesday, the state’s attorney general announced that a grand jury this week voted to take the rare step of indicting the officer, Salvatore Oldrati, on manslaughter charges.

Thomas J. Eicher, executive director of the Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity, said Agent Oldrati gave Mr. Sharp no verbal orders or warnings before opening fire. A “detailed replicaof a .45-caliber handgun was found near Mr. Sharp, according to the Attorney General’s office.

“Less than five seconds elapsed between the moment Officer Oldrati got out of his police car and the moment he started shooting at Mr. Sharp,” said Mr. Sharp. Eicher in a statement.

Christopher St. John, Agent Oldrati’s attorney, was not immediately available for comment. If convicted, the officer risks 10 years in prison.

A largely rural community in Gloucester County, Mantua is about 15 miles east of the Delaware River and the Pennsylvania border.

Mr. Sharp, who had one son, was known as Chuck and was remembered as a “funny guy” and a talented carpenter who worked for a New Jersey remodeling company for years after leaving the Air Force, according to his obituary.

In a five-minute conversation with two law enforcement officials on September 14, 2021, Mr. Sharp told officers he saw two men from his window at about 1 a.m. The other tried to get into his truck.

He explained that he had thrown firecrackers at the men to scare them away, but that hadn’t worked. And he said he owned a gun, passed down to him from his grandfather.

“I don’t know what to do with it,” he said in the recorded call. So I threw a few quarters at them. Maybe that’s not the professional thing to do, but…”

Then a volley of gunfire is heard on the 911 recording.

Officer Oldrati is at least the second police officer this year to face criminal charges by New Jersey prosecutors for an on-duty shooting. In February, Jerry Moravek, a Paterson Police Department officer who was recently acquired by the state, was charged with aggravated assault after Khalif Cooper was shot in the back as he ran from officers.

Mr. Cooper survived, but his injuries left him paralyzed.

All deadly police encounters in New Jersey are investigated by the state’s Attorney General’s office and must be presented to a grand jury. Images from body-worn cameras must also be released publicly.

Last month, a grand jury indicted two corrections officers from the Atlantic County jail for manslaughter in connection with the death of an inmate who took methamphetamine and ecstasy and died after being beaten and forcibly held in jail.