Prosecutor calls Dallas ex-cop’s testimony ‘absurd’ and ‘garbage’

DALLAS —  A former Dallas police officer’s claim that she believed she was in her own apartment when she fatally shot a neighbor in his home was absurd, a prosecutor said during closing arguments at her murder trial Monday.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Jason Fine told the jury that Amber Guyger was “an intruder” in Botham Jean’s home when she killed him last September.

Guyger tearfully testified last week that she mistook Jean’s apartment for her own after a long shift. Speaking publicly for the first time about the events of that night, she said she found the door of what she believed was her apartment unlocked and was afraid that someone had broken in. She said she feared for her life and opened fire using her service weapon when a silhouetted figure walked toward her in the dark.

Guyger should have known she was in the wrong apartment, Fine said Monday, calling her claims “absurd” and “garbage.”

Defense attorney Toby Shook said Monday that Guyger made “a series of horrible mistakes” that were entirely understandable. He noted that other residents had also gone to the wrong apartments in that complex.

Prosecutors disagreed.

“It’s not a mistake. It’s a series of unreasonable decisions,” Fine said.

In her testimony Friday, the 31-year-old Guyger, who is white, repeatedly apologized for killing Jean, a black accountant from the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia who lived a floor above her.

“I hate that I have to live with this every single day of my life, and I ask God for forgiveness, and I hate myself every single day,” she said as she looked across the courtroom at Jean’s family.

Prosecutors said Jean was unarmed and eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream in his living room when Guyger killed him.

Guyger was arrested on a manslaughter charge three days after the killing. She was later fired and charged with murder .