A U.S. Army sergeant who fatally shot a protester in 2020 at an Austin demonstration against police brutality and racial injustice was convicted Friday of murder.

A Travis County jury found Daniel Perry, 35, guilty in the death of Garrett Foster, 28.

Sentencing for Perry, who faces up to life in prison, will be held at a later date.

Perry, who was led away in handcuffs after the verdict was read, will appeal, defense attorney Clint Brode said.

“We are disappointed in the verdict both as it relates to Daniel Perry and as it relates to a citizen’s ability to defend themselves,” Brode said by text. “We are hopeful that the case will ultimately be overturned.”

Police said Perry, based at the time 70 miles north at Fort Hood, was driving in downtown Austin on the evening of July 25, 2020, when he encountered demonstrators in the street and came to a stop.

Witnesses told NBC affiliate KXAN of Austin that Perry aggressively accelerated before stopping.

Foster was legally carrying a semiautomatic rifle when he approached the intersection where protesters had gathered, police said, and was fatally shot by Perry, who stayed in the vehicle and used a handgun.

Perry claimed to police that Foster, a U.S. Air Force veteran, had pointed the weapon at him, inspiring him to shoot in self-defense, officials said after the violence. Foster was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The day of his arrest more than a year later, after a county grand jury returned a murder indictment against him, Perry was freed on $300,000 surety bond, Travis County District Attorney José Garza Garza said at the time.

Perry’s standing in the Army is unclear. He had remained on active duty during his prosecution, and he had been reassigned to duty at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, according to the publication Stars and Stripes.

Foster had been at the demonstration in Austin with his fiancée, Whitney Mitchell, his mother, Sheila Foster, told "Good Morning America" a few days after his death.

The couple, dating since they were 17, were fixtures at protests against police abuse that spring and summer, she said.

The May 25, 2020, killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer who knelt on his neck for 9½ minutes sparked protests across the nation.

Members of the jury and relatives of both the victim and the defendant all reacted emotionally to the decision Friday.

"There's no winners in this," Garrett Foster's father, Steve Foster, said outside the courtroom Friday. "Just glad it's over."

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com