Allen Kee / ESPN(NEW ORLEANS) — A Louisiana sheriff on Tuesday defended his department’s four-day delay in arresting Ronald Gasser, the man accused of shooting and killing former NFL player Joe McKnight in an apparent road rage incident.

Gasser was arrested and charged with manslaughter on Monday, according to Jefferson Parish records, four days after the Thursday afternoon shooting.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand on Tuesday confirmed Gasser’s arrest, saying, at about 5 p.m. local time Monday “we collectively came together and decided that we were prepared to draft an arrest warrant for the arrest of Mr. Gasser.”

Gasser had an initial court appearance Tuesday morning, and bond was listed at $500,000. He was assigned a public defender, and it’s unclear whether he entered a plea. The public defender’s office declined to comment.

At a news conference Tuesday morning, Normand defended his arrest of Gasser on Monday rather than on the day of the shooting, saying if he had made the arrest last week, some witnesses would not have come forward. The case was still developing as of Tuesday morning, Normand added.

“Justice has no time period. Justice is not a sprint, it is a marathon. These investigations are marathons,” he said, adding, “our arrest is only as good as a prosecution.”

Normand thanked the McKnight family for its patience, restraint and trust.

“People don’t think that we know what we’re doing strategically … tough. I don’t care,” the sheriff said.

As he did Friday, Normand said officials were going forward in a “deliberate and definitive way.” They have conducted over 160 interviews, he said.

“We identified 260 folks that we had an interest in talking to based on license plate recognition camera hits of multiple cameras,” he said. “We talked to over 70 business owners in an attempt to retrieve video.”

Normand also conveyed more information about the shooting Thursday afternoon in Terrytown, Louisiana, located about 5 miles south of New Orleans across the Mississippi River, that killed McKnight, 28.

He said Gasser and McKnight’s cars were in an altercation, cutting in front of one another, and Gasser got in front of McKnight’s car at a red light. He said McKnight pulled “around on the right-hand side, comes to a stop on the side of Mr. Gasser’s car.”

There were several other cars around Gasser, Normand said, and “Mr. Gasser is hemmed in and does not have an avenue for retreat.”

With their windows rolled down, Gasser and McKnight had a verbal altercation while in their own cars, Normand said. Then, McKnight got out of his car and went to Gasser’s car, and “there continues to be a verbal altercation,” the sheriff said.

At some point “Mr. Gasser pulls his weapon … and fires three shots at Joe McKnight, killing him,” the sheriff said.

Gasser got out of his car after the shooting “to see what actually happened to him,” the sheriff said.

Norman said there was a gun in the car that McKnight was in, clarifying that it was McKnight’s stepfather’s gun and McKnight’s stepfather’s car.

Normand said both of the men were “engaged in unacceptable behavior” and “did not understand how to deal with conflict resolution.”

Normand called it “incredibly tragic consequences over bad driving behavior and bad spoken words.”

Gasser, 54, stayed at the scene after the shooting, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office said.

Gasser allegedly admitted to fatally shooting McKnight and cooperated with the investigation, the sheriff’s office said.

Gasser, who relinquished his gun, was taken into custody and questioned by authorities Thursday before he was released later that night without charges, officials said.

McKnight, who went to high school in Louisiana, headed west for college in 2006 and became a football star at the University of Southern California.

After USC, McKnight played for the New York Jets and the Kansas City Chiefs.

A spokesman for the McKnight family said in a statement last week that “the family is distressed, distraught.”

“This tragedy is something that changes all of our lives so dramatically,” the statement said. “We are in the process of trying to deal with the grief and what we need to go through legally. We want to give Joe his just due.”

McKnight’s death marks the second time an NFL player was shot and killed in a motorist incident in the New Orleans area this year. In April, former New Orleans Saints player Will Smith was fatally shot while driving in New Orleans’s Lower Garden District. The trial for Smith’s accused killer begins Tuesday.

Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.