Arrests and prosecutions of police officers are nearly always controversial. I am sure every step of the process will be thoroughly considered and reviewed.
This is a trendy, fairly upscale apartment building in an up and coming neighborhood. It can’t be more than two or three years old (google overhead satellite view still shows the brownfield construction site). I bet there is video of all the common areas and hallways, and might contain some relevant information about what happened here.
Botham Jean, the 26-year-old man killed in his own apartment by a Dallas police officer, held a professional job at PricewaterhouseCoopers, a top accounting and consulting firm. He was also a beloved figure in his church where he taught a Bible study class every Wednesday, and at the private Christian university where he got a BBA degree in accounting and management information systems and where he was an intern in a campus ministry, sang in a Christian a capella group, and frequently was invited to lead worship for chapel and campus events, according to the school. By all accounts he was a devoutly religious man from a devoutly religious family, and he was universally loved among those who knew him for his infectious enthusiasm and upbeat personality. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings told reporters that Jean was “exactly the sort of citizen we want to have in the city of Dallas.” He was apparently unarmed at the time of his slaying, he apparently had no police record, and no one who knew him identified any violent or disruptive behavior in his past.
He also happened to be black. Neighbors told local news media that to their knowledge Jean had never met or otherwise interacted with his killer. One neighbor said she herself had once mistakenly entered the wrong floor in the apartment building where all the floors are laid out identically, but she quickly realized her mistake when she saw that the floor mats outside the doors were different from those on her floor. Jean had a distinctive bright red semi-circular mat outside the door where he was slain.
These details shouldn’t matter: no innocent person should be shot in their own home, regardless of age, race, employment status, level of academic attainment, religion, or personality type. But given the picture that emerges from the facts as presently known, Botham Jean doesn’t seem like the type who would be a threat to anyone. So I can’t help but think it mattered here that Botham Jean was a young black man, and that racial stereotyping contributed to his killer’s leaping to the erroneous assumption, without the slightest evidence, that he must be a burglar, a rapist, or both. That is all too familiar a pattern. And it’s got to change. I would think for their own professional integrity, and for their own safety and the safety of those they are charged with protecting, the police would want it to change. But some continue to push back against any suggestion that something is wrong.
There is obviously much more to this story!!
IMO unless there is a outlandish back story it went like this (assuming she believed it was her apt how is that??) she entered saw a man and SHOT!
No questions, no anything, just remove threat the same right any homeowner is provided in the countrythe kicker is it was her HOME
Truth will come out and she will get at least Manslaughter as well.
All of this is speculation. It may or may not be related to racial issues . She may have shot whoever she encountered, regardless of race. Who knows. Maybe drugs or alcohol involved. If so, the scary part is that off duty police, whether tired , drunk, trigger happy, on drugs, or genuinely fearful, have their weapons on them. And they make mistakes… Lots of opportunity for mistakes when people have access to guns, either police or private citizens. Very sad for the victim and his family.
Any cop will tell you that tasers often have no effect. Here’s an article that mentions their being ineffective 47% of the time in subduing an arrestee: http://www.staradvertiser.com/2016/04/01/breaking-news/tasers-often-dont-work-review-of-lapd-incidents-finds/ No cop goes to a taser in a close quarters situation because she knows the chances of its being ineffective are too high. When a potential threat is within 3 feet of you and the taser doesn’t work you can easily be killed. If anyone wants a link to video of a police shooting after ineffective taser use, PM and I’ll send.
No disrespect meant to any posters but it is always so obvious in these sorts of threads that hardly anyone has any real experience in close quarters fights or with weapons. Police will be trained to draw guns whenever a suspect is within 30-40 feet. Also, in a close quarters situation - say, at the threshold of a door where there is no way to retreat (victim could not have escaped if the officer drew her weapon) - a natural response by many men will be to try to grab the weapon and redirect any potential fire. It’s instinctual. (For this reason, long guns are actually a lot less effective in close quarters than handguns, because a long barrel can be grabbed in the middle and redirected and the entire weapon often twisted out of the shooter’s grip.) You will also often see a variant of this behavior with knives and bats. If you can grab someone’s hand firmly (in the case of a knife) or the barrel of a bat you stand a much better chance of minimizing the damage.
As I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that happened here. Physically weak female officer is startled upon confronting a much larger man opening the door to what she thought was her apartment (reports are that she was fumbling at the door with the key and he opened it up to check out what was happening). Victim is terrified when who he sees as an intruder instinctually goes for her semiautomatic pistol (a taser couldn’t even be used at this distance), and tries to grab the gun to redirect. It all happens in a split second. I bet when all the facts come out something like this is what we are going to see.
She is still responsible, but this is probably manslaughter in my opinion. Again, this is a truly sad situation and a promising young man has been lost.
Amber Guyger has been charged with manslaughter:
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2018/09/09/dallas-officer-amber-guyger-arrested-fatally-shooting-botham-jean-apartment
Such devices are easily forced open by someone attempting to commit a home invasion. That is why peepholes are typically used to enable seeing who is there before opening the door. These days, camera and speaker devices are increasingly common.
What amazed me is the fact that it takes this long for her to be charged? A human life was taken, and she is still a cop up until today?! And we were not even allowed to find out her identity when the victim was long identified? Just because she is a cop who committed a crime, she is special?! What is wrong with our justice system? I don’t know what Texas Rangers hopes to achieve by delaying this. All it did for me is to lose faith in them!
I don’t think this is a good thing, but yes, “because she is a cop who [might have] committed a crime, she is special” is exactly what is going on.
I am sorry, but @rosered55 , under what set of circumstance, is there any doubt that crime was not committed? When the other party is unarmed in his own home? Why it is shooting to kill for the victims and always reasonable doubt for the killers? This is the part I never understood about American justice system.
Unless there is some kind of personal relationship (jilted lover stuff), the Blue Wall of Silence will not help here. If she somehow beats the charge, protestors will tear the city apart. Since the gun laws are liberal (open and concealed carry), it could get very bloody.
I wonder is she was a bad cop the good cops wouldn’t rat out.
I think a crime was committed, but our justice system does have a presumption of innocent until proved guilty. There is also generally a bias in favor of police officers (one I don’t agree with, but it exists), and in many places there is a bias in favor of people who use guns, and in many places there is a bias against black people. All of these will affect whether this police officer is convicted of a crime.
@ucbalumnus: My point is that with a chain lock or slide bar which allow the door to open just a few inches, the officer would have realized her mistake. Your scenario assumes that the officer has the mindset of one committing a home invasion.
Newest information out contradicts the earlier reports that the victim opened the door and encountered the officer there.
If that is how it went down, this is clearly reckless disregard at the least. Open and shut case for manslaughter.
I have absolutely no doubt whatever that we will hear the usual : he went for her weapon.
@SatchelSF: Bet that we will hear & read a lot about the “bright red floor mat” as this proceeds through the legal system.
Definitely seems to warrant a second degree murder charge (manslaughter would be a lesser included offense). Bet that there will be an outcry for an upgraded charge.
Texas calls “second degree murder” = “murder” ; and Texas labels “first degree murder” as “capital murder”.
Read the definition of “murder” & “manslaughter” under Texas law. This was clearly “murder” (second degree murder in most jurisdictions).
I’m glad she has finally been charged. I don’t know if this was racially motivated or not which is why I didn’t mention it in my initial post. My guess is that since she had the prior run in with a black man she may have had some bias against black men, now who knows if it was conscious or unconscious?
I can’t help but think that if this young man didn’t have the bio/resume that he had,we may have seen a different outcome. It shouldn’t matter his background but we all know that it plays a part. I’m sure they spent quite a bit of time trying to find something nefarious about him.
End of a 15 hour shift probably means that fatigue was a factor (not excuse or justification).
There was a case years ago when an officer fell asleep while driving and caused a deadly traffic crash. The change to daylight time had shortened his rest just before the shift from the minimum to below the minimum.
A quick internet search indicates that the penalty range for manslaughter in Texas is 2 to 20 years while the penalty for “murder” (really second degree murder) in Texas is 5 years to 99 years.
Can charge “murder” & let jury decide whether it is “murder” or the lesser included offense of “manslaughter” if they determine that the officer is culpable.