Ms. Guyger, a white former Dallas police officer, fatally shot her unarmed black neighbor in his apartment.
Video
DALLAS – A white former Dallas police officer was sentenced on Wednesday to10 years in prison for fatally shooting her unarmed black neighbor in his apartment.
The former officer, Amber R. Guyger, was off duty when she came home from work last year and shot her neighbor, Botham Shem Jean, in a case that was one of the latest, and also one of the most unusual, in a series of confrontations between police officers and unarmed black men.
A Dallas County jury deliberated forabout an hour and a half before deciding upon a sentence that was well short of the maximum 99 years in prison Guyger could have received – but also longer than the two years jurors might have imposed.
Prosecutors had asked for a prison term of no shorter than 28 years, the age that Mr. Jean, whose birthday fell during the trial, would have been if he were alive today.
In the moments after the sentence was announced, protesters shouted chants of “no justice, no peace “In the courtroom hallways. But when Mr. Jean’s brother took the stand to address Ms. Guyger, he offered only forgiveness.
“I wasn’t going to ever say this in front of my family or anyone, but I don’t even want you to go to jail, ”said his brother, Brandt Jean. “I want the best for you.”
When he finished, he turned to the judge: “I don’t know if this is possible, but can I give her a hug, please? ”
When the judge agreed, Guyger stood up, walked toward Mr. Jean’s brother and threw her arms around him. As the two embraced, sobs filled the courtroom.
Ms. Guyger was off duty on the night in September 2018 that she came home from work and entered the wrong apartment, one floor directly above hers. Believing she had found an intruder in her apartment, she said, she pulled her service weapon and opened fire. In fact, she had entered Mr. Jean’s apartment and fatally shot him in his own home.
“How could this happen to him?” Jean’s father, Bertrum Jean, testified on Wednesday, gripping a tissue in his hand and pausing several times to cry. “My family is brokenhearted. How could this be possible? I will never see him again. I won’t see him. ”
Image
The testimony from Mr. Jean’s family and friends drew tears from several jurors, and at one point, from Judge Tammy Kemp, who paused to collect herself and wipe her own tears.
The jury also heard from Ms. Guyger’s mother and sister, who testified that Ms. Guyger had been molested as a child by her mother’s boyfriend. In the year since the shooting, they said, Ms. Guyger’s normally upbeat and outgoing personality had faded, and she had expressed the desire to trade places with Mr.
“She feels bad spending time with her family because he can’t be with his,” her sister, Alana Guyger, said.
The shooting of Mr. Jean ignited protests and calls for justice in Dallas, a city with a history of racial tensions with the police. Activists concerned about preferential treatment complained that Ms. Guyger was not immediately arrested at the scene, and was initially charged with the lesser charge of manslaughter. A grand jury later returned with the charge of murder.
Tuesday’s guilty verdict stood apart from other cases across the country in which police officers have been cleared of wrongdoing in the deaths of unarmed black men . Activists looked to the unique circumstances in the case, as well as the diverse jury panel. Of the 12 jurors, five are black, five are Hispanic or Asian, and two are white.
“When you have that many people of color on a jury as opposed to a majority-white jury, the narrative shifts, ”said Changa Higgins, the head of the Dallas Community Police Oversight Coalition. “If this jury was all white, I think definitely we would not be celebrating the victory of justice.”
During closing arguments on Wednesday afternoon, Toby Shook, a defense lawyer for Ms. Guyger, asked the jury not to connect the case with public protests over other shootings involving on-duty police officers who did not face punishment.
) “No matter how you feel about those cases, don’t bring that into the jury room in this case,” he said, adding that Ms. Guyger “didn’t go there seeking to kill him.”
Marina Trahan Martinez reported from Dallas and Sarah Mervosh from New York. John Eligon contributed reporting from St. John’s
Sarah Mervosh is a national reporter based in New York, covering a wide variety of news and feature stories across the country.@smervosh
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings