A former Dallas officer who says she fatally shot an unarmed black man in his own home after mistaking his apartment for her own made a series of "unreasonable errors" and worried more about how the incident would affect her than about the man she shot, a prosecutor said in opening statements of her murder trial Monday.
Amber Guyger, who is white, is standing trial for the killing of 26-year-old Botham Jean last year.
Guyger was returning to the Dallas apartment complex where she lived in an apartment on a different floor from Jean after working a 13-and-a-half-hour shift September 6, 2018, a prosecutor said. Guyger was off-duty but still in uniform when the shooting happened. She told investigators that she parked on the fourth floor of her apartment complex's garage — rather than the third floor, where she lived — and found the apartment's door ajar.
Jean, an accountant from the Caribbean nation of St. Lucia, "was doing no harm to anyone, which was his way," Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Jason Hermus said in an opening statement. He noted that Jean was in his living room eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream when Guyger entered the apartment, which was one floor directly above her apartment.
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5 comments:
Was she also under the influence?
Did I read somewhere that she may have been involved with this victim in some way?
I just find it strange that she didn't know it wasn't her apartment, esp. since there were cited differences that should have clued her in.
She definitely deserves to be charged. What she did was so inconceivably careless it is hard to believe. She murdered a man who was minding his own business in his own living room, portray it how you want. I would be extremely surprised if there wasn't more to this story. She should be nowhere near a firearm, not to mention carrying one on her everyday...
So far there is not more to this story.
She did not know the man.
She did not have drugs or alcohol in her system.
She parked on the fourth floor instead of the third floor.
Other residents in this newer apt complex have said they did the same thing when coming home at night.
One of the main problems with this case is the fact that she was able to unlock the door.
The lock was removed and examined by experts and they will testify something malfunctioned and the door did not
lock correctly and so she was able to enter. I believe her story. She had worked 13 hours. Citizens in Dallas want to make it a racial thing because of the tension there between cops and the black community. You must remember that 5 cops were killed by a sniper in Dallas only a few years ago. Their force is way understaffed and they only recently passed a budget to increase the pay to attempt to prevent too many more from retiring.
Do I think she made a horrible mistake? Absolutely......but had nothing to do with his race. She honestly thought a man was in her apartment. Had she not worked a 13 hour shift would she have been thinking more clearly. I believe so.
However had the door lock been correctly installed she would not have gotten into the apartment and he would still be alive. The judge insisted on a gag order before the trial and the night before the District attorney went on the news to talk about the trial which started Monday. The judge is livid because she knows that now the defense will have grounds to appeal no matter what the outcome because the prosecution broke the gag order. The officer’s professional life in law enforcement is over. She is 31 years old. There is nothing a jury can do that will bring back the man that was shot.
She will probably do time but I don’t know how they can give her life based on what we know at this time.
September 24, 2019 at 9:05 PM:
You attempt to rationalize a man's cold-blooded murder in his own home. Good Lord! She walked into his apartment and shot him dead. That's the cold hard facts. The lock wasn't broken, they only examined it because she said she unlocked the door to get in. That was a lie developed by her and her fellow officers to try and cover up the fact she just walked in and shot him on sight. She will rightfully go to prison, as she should. She was bound to kill somebody, someday, justified, or not. They call cops like her "trigger happy," and they can't wait for a reason to shoot somebody. The only question for the jury is whether it was premeditated(1st degree), or second degree murder. Murder is what she did, and the penalty should be for murder. It was not an accidental shooting. She MEANT to do it. It's not an accidental death, due to negligence (manslaughter). Murder, plain and simple. Make all the excuses that you want. I only wonder why you defend the indefensible. Sounds like you might be a cop that condones this sort of thing by cops. Would you condone it if it was just any other citizen with a right to carry? Somehow, I think not.
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