“Oh my God, why did you do that?” were the victim’s last words.
Demonstrators outside Dallas PD demanding more serious charge than manslaughter be brought against the officer.
If you believe the story told by the victim’s family’s lawyer, that the killer banged on the door of the victim demanding to be let in, what is the rest of the story? That this was an intentional murder, a fatal domestic dispute? She knew the victim, and she returned home after a long day intending to kill him? Has anyone come forward with evidence that the two people knew each other?
The latest reports of witnesses throws a new wrinkle into this situation. There are at least two reports of “ear” witnesses hearing someone banging on the door and demanding to be let in. The lawyers for the victim’s family seem to be pushing this narrative.
Honestly, I can’t see why this would be worse for the perpetrator than her affidavit stating that she had entered through an open (ajar) door. This would place the contact at the threshold of the door, raising all sorts of questions about how he was shot. I am guessing the witnesses are mistaken, but again this incident is a head-scratcher.
Edit - @“Cardinal Fang” just saw your post #181 and I agree that these reports throw a wrench into the works. I don’t think there is any evidence from anywhere credible that these two knew each other. I did see a report somewhere that the police investigators were seeking access to the victim’s computer and/or phone to try to ascertain whether he was expecting someone that night, which would account for why the door was allegedly left open (ajar).
Banging on the door & demanding to be let in might indicate that any reasonable person should have realized that he or she was at the wrong apartment.
Technically if the officer forced her way into the apartment, this might constitute the crime of breaking & entering which could lead to a felony murder charge which might include the death penalty as a possible punishment.
P.S. As things stand now with the information available to the public, the officer might face a charge of murder (second degree murder in most jurisdictions) which carries a penalty of 5 years to 99 years in Texas. But “capital murder” & “felony murder” might both include death in the possible range of penalties, plus the minimum penalties could be much higher then 5 years for these two charges.
Banging on the door & demanding to be let in would prove that she knew she was at someone else’s apartment. If a person came to the door of their own apartment where they lived alone and discovered their key didn’t work, they wouldn’t bang on the door to be let in. Who would they be talking to? They live alone; they don’t think there is anyone inside to let them in.
But if she knew she was at Jean’s apartment and was there intentionally, why?
Better to assume incompetence than malice, in my view. She returned “home”, pushed open the door, saw an “intruder,” screamed something unintelligible that he had no chance of responding to, and immediately shot him.
Breaking and entering requires, in part, an intent to commit a crime inside inside. I don’t think that applies here.
Breaking & entering is a crime in & of itself. Technically the underlying crime, if needed, would be trespassing–but I doubt that it would be required. The officer had no legal right or permission to be in that apartment.
This is different than a fireman breaking down a door to put out a fire in the interest of public safety.
But if you don’t have a specific intent to commit some crime, isn’t breaking and entering simply trespass (maybe even criminal trespass) at worst?
Depends upon the jurisdiction. Some have a crime called “felonious breaking & entering”. Others may refer to it as a type of “home invasion”.
A quick google check shows that Texas does not have a crime called “breaking & entering”. So it might be trespassing. In this case the intent seems to be to trespass in order to commit an assault with a deadly weapon.
If she pushed open the door, or forced open the door, on purpose in order to murder Jean, we don’t have to quibble about breaking and entering. First degree homicide is the crime there.
First degree murder requires premeditation. Could be present here, but might not. We just do not know at this time (and we may never know all the facts).
“I am guessing the witnesses are mistaken, but again this incident is a head-scratcher.”
Mistaken how? Someone else was knocking at a different door? If so that person is likely to come forward. Otherwise how could this “mistake” have occurred?
If you push open a door to go in and murder someone, that’s premeditation. (I do not think this is what happened.)
Reports could be inaccurate for all sorts of reasons. Could be a different door entirely, though I’d think this is unlikely. More likely in my opinion is a situation in which some witnesses heard the shouts and sounds of responding police officers and/or medical personnel after 911 was called and then “grafted” those onto the narrative that they later heard, namely that an officer had entered an apartment and shot an innocent man. It has been reported that the first responders arrived within 4 minutes of the shooting, so there is proximity in time to the actual shooting. Memory is a very funny thing, and something like this possibility of mistaken recollection would not be uncommon at all.
Also, there is a chance that witnesses are deliberately lying. In any prominent case - especially one with racial overtones - some witnesses will deliberately misrepresent what happened.
If you think either misperception or misrepresentation are outlandish possibilities, I urge you to read pages 44-77 of the DOJ’s report on the Michael Brown shooting, which detailed no fewer than 24 witnesses whose recollection ranged from ostensibly innocent mistakes of fact or perception right through to deliberate lies. https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf
Eyewitness (earwitness, in this case) reports are notoriously inaccurate. Memory is indeed a funny thing. This can be, and has been, repeatedly demonstrated in tests. When people are exposed to a confusing, unexpected situation and then later asked to recall details, they are terrible at it. Their confidence in their recollections does not correlate with the accuracy of their recollections.
These earwitnesses, if they exist, might have an axe to grind. Or they might be the kind of people who like to feel that they are in the center of something, so they (perhaps unintentionally) exaggerate or misrepresent what they heard.
We know that late at night, when many were asleep, neighbors would have heard shots, heard sirens, and had police and paramedics swarming over their building. Recollections of this event are not going to be particularly reliable.
Another possibility is that the earwitnesses heard an unrelated incident that happened at approximately the same time.
In my opinion, if the killer’s account is true, which I think it probably mostly is, this incident throws light on the uselessness of the kind of “verbal commands” the killer gave. The point of those verbal commands is supposedly to allow people to comply, and thus not end up shot.
But here, the victim was completely innocent, and had every reason to comply to prevent himself from ending up dead. And yet, he did not do whatever he needed to do to prevent the shooting. If the “verbal commands” don’t work in a situation where the shooter would not want to shoot, when do they ever work? What is the point?
I do believe she went to the wrong apartment unintentionally, but I don’t believe her account of what happened next, and I find it appalling that she was allowed to spend 3 days with attorneys crafting her story before being placed under arrest.
Residents from the same apartment complex have posted video on Facebook showing that their doors swing closed automatically and are not easily left ajar.
Wait, if she went to the wrong apartment unintentionally, how did she get in? She would either have to bang on (what she thought was) her own door, which makes no sense, or have realized that she was at the wrong apartment and nevertheless banged on the door, which also makes no sense, or broken down the door, in which case the police would know because the door would be broken down.
The victim would undoubtedly have been caught off guard by the entire incident. It’s not surprising to hear that he didn’t respond in a manner consistent with the officer’s expectations of her verbal warnings. Unfortunately he wasn’t in her apartment, as she apparently thought. So her perception of the situation was inconsistent with reality. The reactions of a surprised burglar would be entirely different than those of a surprised tenant.