![]() The encounter was "not about hate," she said. And many police officers came to the defense of Guyger, who was fired nearly three weeks after the shooting.ĭuring her testimony, Guyger seemed to cast aside race as a factor. ![]() Civil rights groups rallied behind Jean, a native of the Caribbean island of St. Some have described the facts of the case as the latest example of a white police officer killing an unarmed black man. Under Texas law, convicting a defendant of murder requires proving someone intentionally killed another person, as opposed to manslaughter, in which prosecutors have to show someone was killed because of recklessness.īotham Jean's mother, Allison Jean, rejoices in the courtroom after fired Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger was found guilty of murder. In deciding that she was guilty, the jury, about half of whom were African American, sided with the prosecution's argument for murder. Was the shooting a noncriminal accident equal to a "tragic mistake," as Guyger's lawyers argued? Or were Guyger's mistakes so reckless that they constituted manslaughter, or so intentional that it amounted to murder? The case transfixed observers around the country for the delicate questions it presented. Guyger called 911 and told the operator over and over: "I thought it was my apartment." One of the bullets struck him in the chest, killing him. Within seconds of opening the door, she fired two shots at Jean. Prosecutors countered that nobody in the apartment complex heard her instruct Jean to raise his hands. Guyger said she ordered Jean, "Let me see your hands," and that he instead started to move toward her. ![]() Thinking someone had broken in, she drew her gun and entered the apartment. Guyger testified that she had put her key in the door and realized it was unlocked. "What was going through Amber's mind was just, 'I'm going home,' " defense lawyer Robert Rogers said. 6th, 2018, when she mistakenly opened Jean's door. Her lawyers said she was in uniform and had just finished a 13-hour workday on Sept. Guyger lived on the third floor of an apartment complex just south of downtown Dallas. "No police officer would want to hurt an innocent person." "I was scared whoever was inside my apartment was going to kill me," she told the jury. Prosecutors maintained that Guyger, who is white, committed murder when she overlooked signs that the apartment she entered wasn't her own - the wrong floor, the smell of marijuana coming from the apartment, a bright red doormat - and shot Jean, a 26-year-old black accountant who was sitting in his living room eating ice cream when Guyger killed him last September.Īssistant District Attorney Jason Hermus shows Botham Jean's red doormat to the jury during opening statements in the murder trial of former Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger.īut in tearful testimony last week, Guyger said she was "scared to death" when she opened what she thought was her own apartment door and saw the silhouette of a man she mistook for an intruder. She is the first Dallas police officer to be convicted of murder since the 1970s. Guyger faces a possible punishment of five to 99 years in prison. Jurors heard testimony Tuesday afternoon in the sentencing phase of the trial. The jury took five hours to decide Guyger had committed murder, rather than a lesser charge of manslaughter. She had testified that she entered Botham Jean's unit after a long day at work, thinking it was her own home and that he was an intruder. She told police she thought his apartment was her own and that he was an intruder.Ī Dallas jury has found former police Officer Amber Guyger guilty of murder for fatally shooting a neighbor who lived in the apartment directly above hers last year. ![]() Guyger shot and killed Botham Jean, an unarmed 26-year-old neighbor, in his own apartment last year. Fired Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger leaves the courtroom after a jury found her guilty of murder Tuesday.
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