A Providence County grand jury yesterday cleared a Pawtucket police officer who shot and killed a 30-year-old man, saying his actions were “lawful and legally justified.”

Patrolman Wallace Martin shot and killed Jason Swift on Feb. 12 in the third-floor apartment Swift shared with his mother, Betty Swift, at 71 Lupine St., in Pawtucket, after what the police said was a violent struggle. The shooting was the fourth fatal shooting by Pawtucket police in two years.

“I expected it,” Betty Swift said yesterday, crying. “I just can’t believe it. I wonder if they heard the same story. I requested the transcripts but they said they are private. I wanted to know what was said that they could come to this conclusion. I’m just shocked that they basically said my son deserved to die.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect this. I expected someone to pay for my son’s death. It was a call for help and they didn’t help him at all. They killed him. To me, they can do whatever they want. They can just get away with it.”

On the morning of Feb. 12, Betty Swift called Pawtucket police because her son was talking to himself. She said her son had had what she described as a “nervous breakdown” a few months earlier. She called 911 for help getting him to Butler Hospital, a private psychiatric facility in Providence.

Swift said she was waiting outside the building for the police when her son came out. She warned them that her son, who stood 6-foot-4 and weighed 300 pounds, was big and might think they were going to hurt him.

The police have not released an incident report of the shooting but say that two officers responded to a call about an “emotionally disturbed individual with a knife.” The police said they found Jason Swift acting “erratic” and “threatening” and swinging a sword.

Betty Swift said her son held the sheathed sword in his right hand down at his side and that he never raised it or swung it as the police have said.

“When police arrived and saw him, they drew their guns and told him to drop the sword and he did so immediately,” she said.

Michael Healey, spokesman for the attorney general, said that according to the report to the grand jury:

Martin and Patrolman Anthony Lucchetti struggled with Swift, even using pepper spray on him, but he ran inside to his apartment. After backup arrived, three officers went upstairs, where they heard screams and banging. Two of the officers had their guns drawn. When Martin kicked in the door, the police saw Swift in the kitchen naked. He obeyed orders to get down on the floor and when he was prone, the officers holstered their guns. When Patrolman David Dolan tried to handcuff Swift, he resisted, got up and put Lucchetti in a choke hold. Martin struck Swift repeatedly to make him let go. But Swift managed to get Martin in a choke hold and pulled Martin’s leather jacket over his head, got Martin’s baton away from him and beat him on the head with it, the police said. As Lucchetti and Dolan struggled to get Swift off Martin, they fell into the living room near a coffee table. Martin, exhausted from the struggle, drew his gun.

Swift, who now had complied with the officers’ orders to stay down, charged Martin when he saw blood on himself. Swift got to within a foot of him before Martin fired two shots and killed him, Healey said.

Police Chief Michael Kelley III said that he would not comment on the grand jury decision because he had not seen it.

He said Martin has been assigned to station duty. Kelley said that after the shooting, the Pawtucket Police Department has looked at what other departments have done when dealing with people who are emotionally disturbed, but has not seen the need to change its policies.

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island Affiliate Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that four shootings in two years did not appear to be raise red flags in the Police Department. “My biggest fear is that it will encourage complacency within the department,” he said.

tpina@projo.com