Posted on 09/11/2018 2:21:41 PM PDT by billorites
Amber Guyger’s killing of Botham Shem Jean is an unspeakable tragedy. It also highlights the need for officers like Guyger to face impartial justice.
It is hard to think of a more tragic, more senseless shooting in America than the killing last week of Botham Shem Jean, a young black risk-assurance associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and a member of Dallas West Church of Christ.
This is what we know so far. Jean was home alone in his apartment in the South Side Flats complexin Dallas when police officer Amber Guyger entered and shot him dead. The precise chain of events is somewhat disputed. The affidavit supporting Guyger’s arrest warrant states that she believed she was entering her own apartment, which was directly below Jean’s and laid out almost identically. When she placed her key in the lock, the door pushed open, the apartment was dark, she saw a “large silhouette” across the room, and she believed she was facing a burglar. She “drew her firearm” and “gave verbal commands,” which she claims Jean ignored. She fired twice, and only then, she says, entered the apartment, called 911, turned on the lights, and realized she’d made a terrible mistake.
These statements, however, don’t square with other testimony. One witness reported hearing a woman yelling, “Let me in! Let me in!” before the gunshots and a man’s voice saying, “Oh my God. Why did you do that?” after them.
Aside from the horrific details of the shooting itself, there are already troubling indications that Guyger’s identity as a police officer is providing her with actual, undeserved advantages in the prosecution of this case.
First, police sources are reportedly indicating that Guyger may actually try to raise the fact that Jean didn’t obey her commands as a defense. It’s not a defense. The moment she opened the door to an apartment that wasn’t her own, she wasn’t operating as a police officer clothed with the authority of the law. She was instead a criminal. She was breaking into another person’s home. She was an armed home invader, and the person clothed with the authority of law to defend himself was Botham Shem Jean.
Which brings us to the second troubling element of the story. So far, Guyger is only charged with manslaughter. But all the available evidence indicates that she intentionally shot Jean. This wasn’t a warning shot gone awry. The pistol didn’t discharge during a struggle. She committed a crime by forcing open Jean’s door, deliberately took aim, and killed him.
Texas law defines murder quite simply as “intentionally or knowingly caus[ing] the death of an individual.” Manslaughter, by contrast, occurs when a person “recklessly” causes death. Guyger’s warning and her deliberate aim scream intent. She may have “recklessly” gone to the wrong apartment, but she very intentionally killed Jean. There is a chance that the grand jury will increase the charge to murder, so the early manslaughter charge is tentative. But I ask you: If Jean had mistakenly gone to Guyger’s apartment and then gunned her down in cold blood after demanding that she follow his commands, would he face a manslaughter charge?
Finally, it’s troubling that Guyger wasn’t arrested and booked until three days after the shooting. Reportedly, Dallas police had prepared a warrant the day after the killing, but they handed the investigation over to the Texas Rangers, who put a hold on the warrant.
What’s done is done, and the delayed arrest shouldn’t have any ultimate impact on the prosecution, but when all the available evidence indicates that a cop acted outside of her lawful authority, she should receive none of the courtesies and advantages so often extended to members of law enforcement. She’s a citizen, like any other, and it is hard to imagine — again — that if the roles had been reversed Jean would have enjoyed several days of relative freedom before he was arrested and booked. He’d have been in handcuffs that night, and rightfully so.
There is need for vigorous debate about the extent of police misconduct toward black men. I am unconvinced by the “open season” rhetoric, and the data supporting claims that police are more trigger-happy when confronting black men is controversial and conflicting. Without question, that’s an issue worth serious inquiry and study, and no one single incident or handful of incidents is dispositive or even all that relevant to settling it.
At the same time, however, each individual incident demands fair inquiry and the impartial administration of justice. Yet this has too often proven difficult. Juries credit officers for their fear without properly determining whether that fear was “reasonable.” And thus we’ve seen the sad spectacle of a mistrial after a cop shot an unarmed, running man in the back; the acquittal of the Minnesota cop who shot Philando Castile as Castile was doing his best to comply with the cop’s panicked, conflicting demands; and the acquittal of the cop who shot a sobbing Daniel Shaver as he crawled on his hands and knees, begging for his life.
Indeed, the justice system is often so stacked in officers’ favor that they enjoy qualified immunity, a judge-made rule that blocks even civil lawsuits against those who make dangerous and deadly mistakes.
We ask police officers to be brave. We ask officers to face a much higher degree of danger than civilians. We ask them to show restraint even in the face of provocations and tense confrontations. There are countless among them who do all we ask, and more. But we also ask something else: that police officers be subject to the very laws they’re sworn to enforce.
That’s where the system has failed in all too many cases, wounding a family that’s already suffering and breaking the public’s trust each time. At present there’s no evidence that Amber Guyger woke up Thursday morning intending to kill anyone. One can certainly feel a degree of sympathy for a person who makes a terrible mistake. But sympathy must not be allowed to cloud the quest for justice. Guyger’s blue uniform should not grant her a single advantage in the investigation and prosecution to come.
She deserves to be found guilty of some form of negligent homicide. I don’t think she went there with the intent to harm this individual in his home.
None the less she caused his death.
Some of the comments in this article are downright silly.
You don’t fire off warning shots. You shoot to kill, if you are in fear of imminent attack on your person or the person of another. The fact she didn’t fire a warning shot, doesn’t prove she was wrong. It proves the writer is wrong.
What proves her wrong is attempting to enter a home that was not her own, mis-perceiving the homeowner as a burglar, and then barking orders he naturally wouldn’t follow, and then shooting him dead. He wouldn’t follow her orders, because to him she was an armed invader. She appeared to be an armed robber.
She deserves to do some serious time in prison.
Warning shots in a home setting like this, could kill an individual in another unit of the building.
There is also the question of whether she was in fact in fear for her life. Did he approach her in a threatening manner? How as he dressed? Was he barefoot and casual? Could this have tipped her off, he wasn’t likely a burglar?
She really screwed up her.
I suspect the lady officer would have just as quickly shot a white man as occurred with this situation. Race is not the issue.
Actually, she might get off Scott free if she says, “I thought he was a white guy.”
“But if she did,*in fact*,accidentally enter the wrong apartment...”
Hang on,
You mean we now have accidental breaking and entering?
Pretend that the cop wasn’t a cop but a female bank teller with a concealed carry permit coming home late from a bar. What would be the charge.
I’d still get in the ring with Ronda just so I could say we were together once. Then I’d run away cause she’d break my arm
She should fry.
Good shootin’ I suppose (until that state turns blue).
Define “breaking and entering”.
Perhaps she wanted to try his key in her lock. Hell hath no fury...
I think there is more to the story and I waiting to see what else comes out.
As to your example:
If under the same circumstances she gets charged. If she is coming into her own home, she gets off. It’s complicated.
In Texas, Section 9 of the Texas Penal Code provides legal justifications for the use of force in a limited set of circumstances when a person has no duty to retreat. For example, a homeowner in his own home does not have a duty to retreat and may use deadly force to protect himself against an armed intruder. This would be the same for a business owner in his place of business and a truck driver in his own truck.
Texas law provides for a justifiable defense at trial when using deadly force if the person claiming self defense:
1.Reasonably believed the deadly force was immediately necessary;
2.Had a legal right to be on the property;
3.Did not provoke the person against whom deadly force was used; and
4.Was not engaged in criminal activity at the time the deadly force was used.
If they had some sort of relationship and he was breaking up with her, who knows. I still want to see the Tox screen.
“Define “breaking and entering”.”
The entry into a person’s home without the consent of rightful occupant.
That’s it.
That’s what the 3 day wait before the arrest was for... she could have drugs/alcohol in her system and claim they were ingested after the fact in “ a bout of grief”
Also I understand that she was also on the wrong floor; her apartment was on the second and his was on the third (forgot where I read that).
“Sounds like an armed home invasion...”
It was an armed home invasion.
Did she have a legal reason to be there?
No.
Did she have a valid warrant?
No.
Was she giving lawful “verbal commands”?
No.
All other questions are moot.
Put this stupid cow in prison for the rest of her natural life.
L
having said that, our cops are taught to be too aggressive
..they are not taught to think before reacting..
.they reach for their gun far too quickly...
when did it become normal to shoot to kill rather than to shoot to maim or injure?
Scond-degree murder is ordinarily defined as: 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion"; or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life.
Note : as a trained police officer she can't claim "heat of passion" unless there is some sort of relationship, prior or ongoing, to the victim that we don't yet know about.
Perhaps an unintentional, armed home invasion, but still....
Toting a gun does carry certain responsibilities though.
She had to have been drunk.
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