Former Dallas cop indicted on charge of murder in shooting of unarmed black neighbor in his own apartment

Reporting from Dallas —  A grand jury on Friday indicted a former Dallas police officer on a charge of murder in the death of her unarmed black neighbor, whom she says she shot after mistakenly entering his apartment, thinking it was her own.

Amber Guyger was arrested on a manslaughter charge three days after the Sept. 6 shooting of her 26-year-old neighbor, Botham Jean, a native of the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia who attended college in Arkansas and had been working in Dallas for accounting and consulting firm PwC.

Guyger told investigators that after finishing her shift, she returned home in uniform and parked on the fourth floor of her apartment complex’s garage, rather than the third floor, where her unit was located, according to an affidavit prepared by the Texas Rangers. She said she got to what she thought was her apartment — Jean’s was directly above hers — and found the door ajar. She opened it to find a figure standing in the darkness. She said she pulled her gun and fired twice after the person ignored her commands.

Guyger has since been fired from the department, and Jean’s family has filed a lawsuit against Guyger and the city of Dallas. The federal suit argues Guyger used excessive force in the shooting and contends the department did not give her adequate training.

The circumstances of the shooting sparked outrage and led many to question Gugyer’s account of what happened. Critics, including Jean’s family, also wondered why it took three days for Guyger to be charged, why she wasn’t taken into custody immediately after the shooting and whether race played a factor in her decision to use deadly force.

Responding to criticism that the original manslaughter charge was too lenient, Dallas County Dist. Atty. Faith Johnson said the grand jury could decide on the more serious charge of murder, which it did.

Jean’s killing thrust Dallas into the national conversation on the intersection of race and law enforcement, a dialogue revived by the high-profile trials of officers charged with murder in police shootings.

In October, white Chicago officer Jason Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2014 on-duty shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald. Van Dyke shot McDonald 16 times.

And in August, former Dallas-area officer Roy Oliver, who is white, was convicted of murder after firing into a car filled with black teenagers leaving a house party in 2017 and fatally shooting 15-year-old Jordan Edwards.