Posted on 10/13/2019 2:40:14 PM PDT by Meatspace
FORT WORTH — Minutes before she was shot and killed by a Fort Worth police officer, Atatiana K. Jefferson was playing video games in her bedroom with her 8-year-old nephew, a lawyer for her family said Sunday.
Ms. Jefferson, 28, was proud of being the “cool auntie” to her siblings’ children, and had stayed up into the wee hours of Saturday morning with her nephew, Xbox controllers in their hands, according to S. Lee Merritt, the family’s lawyer. But the pair grew concerned around 2:25 a.m., he said, when they heard rustling outside the house and saw flashlights.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
According to the Fort Worth police, which released a still photo of a handgun, the handgun was recovered in the bedroom where the deceased was shot and killed. In the still photo, you can see all of the handgun except the handle, which is blurred out by the police. It makes a big difference as a matter of law if the deceased was holding a handgun when she was shot. I’m not saying the victim has any blame. What I am saying is that if a police officer gets called out to a house, it’s 2:30 in the morning, and the front door has been wide open for 20 minutes, I can understand why the police were on edge, and I can more fully understand why the officer fired the gun if the deceased was on with a handgun.
Obviously it is not OK for a police officer to shoot an innocent person. But let’s put some perspective on this case. The police got called out to the house by a neighbor who reported that the front door of the house was open. It was 2:30 in the morning. You could drive down 1000 neighborhoods at 2:30 this morning and not find one front door open, especially open for 25 minutes before the police arrived. Obviously, the police truly believed that a burglary was in progress. If the officer was caught by surprise, and saw a figure in the house holding a handgun, with the gun perhaps pointed towards the police officer, I can more fully understand this case from the officers perspective. Two things can be true: the deceased was blameless AND the officer is not a murderer.
The police were wearing body cameras, so I seriously doubt that the gun was planted. This was in a high crime area. The front door was open for 25 minutes. At 230 in the morning. We don’t know all the facts. I suggest we wait before we Lynch the cop.
The homeowner is well within her rights to have a handgun out while inside her house with a kid and there are people a prowling around her yard and outside her window. And we don’t even know if she was holding a video game controller or a gun or nothing at all yet. So unless more substantial facts come out, this is a case of murder, not premeditated, but murder none the less.
Do persons in a high crime area have less of a right to sit in their home at 2:30 a.m.?
I predict he will get 10 to 20. It will be a good lesson for cops that are too stupid to learn any other way.
Agree.
“Cops are civilians, just like us. They need to be held to the same standards..”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If they want to consider themselves on par with the military, then maybe we should abolish their unions and put them under the UCMJ. Then impose the same penalties on cops as they would on military personal.
That would clean up the rank and file right quick.
Do you know what happened to that cop who shot and killed a child when he answered the door with a game controller in his hand? It was a lady cop who was serving a court summons, I believe.
I don’t remember anything involving a 9-year-old and a video game controller and a cop. I do remember this “9-year-old shoots 13 y/o sister over a video game controller dispute” incident:
Found it. Looks like the cop got off.
https://reason.com/2014/02/19/cop-fatally-shoots-teen-who-opened-door/
Good find...these cases becoming more common...time for a “re-training stand down” for a lot of police departments?!?
The people training cops to be de facto murderers need to be prosecuted too. Even police shooting range targets encourages misconduct.
First, the front door was open but the screen door was closed. It was the first cool weekend evening of the year. I always leave my door open with the screen door closed to air out the house when we need neither heat not a/c.
Second, it doesn't matter if she had a gun in her hand or not. She was in her bedroom, looking out the window to check out a possible prowler in the backyard which was accessible only through a closed gate. She had every right to point a handgun at whatever the disturbance was. Texas law even allows the use of deadly force to defend property during nighttime, not just defense of your life.
The officer was not responding to a crime, nor to a 911 call, as the neighbor called the regular police number. He was responding to a health and welfare check, parked out of view of the house, approached the front door, looked in past the screen door, drew his gun, creeped around the yard, opened the rear gate, entered the back yard, and peeked in the bedroom window. At no time did he announce himself, nor knock on the door to ask if everything was OK, nor even park in such a manner that his patrol car would be visible. The victim was playing video games with her nephew when she heard the prowler in the back yard, went to the window and lifted the blinds, then was shot by the policeman.
There is NO justification for him shooting her, even if she had a gun and had it pointed at him. She was in her house, in her bedroom, in a state that allows deadly force to defend yourself or your property at night. The officer is 100% wrong here and needs to be held for capital murder.
Our older next door neighbor called us and said he thought someone was messing around in his front yard. Hubby grabbed his gun and headed out through the garage. Neighbor across the street called the next door neighbor and said....there’s someone messing around in your front yard. lol Next door neighbor tells her yeah, that’s Jose. All around no one out there but Hubby. Thank God no one called the police!
The officer is now out of work.
“ I predict he will get 10 to 20. It will be a good lesson for cops that are too stupid to learn any other way.”
The cop got fired today.
Sounds like FWPD is not standing behind him.
I’m not sure he will be convicted.
Had you or I shot an innocent woman in her house, we would get 99 years.
However, if we wore the magic blue uniform, we could subtract 90 years from the sentence.
You do not shoot a person who is unable to harm you, whether that person has a gun or not.
She was in her house, he was outside.
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