Police Officer 'Mistakenly' Shoots And Kills Black Man Inside His Own Home
A police officer shot and killed a man after she walked into an apartment she claims she thought was her own
A white Dallas police officer shot and killed a 26-year-old black man when she mistakenly walked into his apartment thinking it was her own. Now, police are grappling with how to handle this tragic murder.
Last Thursday, Amber Guyger headed home after her shift at the police department. She entered an apartment that she said she thought was own, and saw Botham Jean inside. It turns out that she had accidentally walked into Jean’s apartment, but Guyger shot the young man before realizing her mistake. Sadly, Jean died after he was taken to the hospital.
Dallas Police Chief Ulysha Renee Hall said in a statement that it’s unclear what “the interaction was between [Guyger] and the victim…at some point she fired her weapon striking the victim.”
The police department seems to be struggling to figure out how to deal with this case. At first, a warrant was going to be distributed for manslaughter charges. But then the Texas Rangers, a division within the Texas Department of Public Safety, stepped in and decided to delay the warrant. They apparently need more time to investigate the case.
“Right now there are more questions than we have answers,” Hall noted. “We are working as vigorously and as meticulously as we can to ensure the integrity of this case.”
Meanwhile, Jean’s family wants a resolution to this travesty and they want it now. “The one fact that we have, which has hit our family like a nuclear bomb, is that our Prince, Botham Shem is dead,” Ignatius Jean, one of the victim’s uncles, told BuzzFeed News. “We want answers. We want justice!”
People across the internet expressed outrage and sadness that, once again, an innocent unarmed black man has been killed at the hands of a white police officer. And in the safety and privacy of his own apartment, no less. Many expressed complete confusion over how Guyger got into the apartment in the first place and didn’t register immediately that it wasn’t her apartment when she walked in — a completely valid point.
Jean’s mother Allison is still grappling with how and why her son was murdered. The story just doesn’t quite add up, she said. “Somebody has to be crazy not to realize that they walked into the wrong apartment. He’s a bachelor. Things are different inside,” she told NBC. “I don’t want to judge her. We are Christians. We forgive. But I need to look into her eyes and ask her why did she do that to my son. She took away my heart. My soul. He didn’t deserve to die. The explanation does not make sense.”
