A White Dallas cop who shot and killed a Black man in his apartment after claiming she thought it was her own was arrested and charged with manslaughter, according to the Texas Rangers, per CNN.
Officer Amber Guyger, 30, fatally shot St. Lucia native Botham Shem Jean, 26, Thursday night, police confirmed. Jean was unarmed and succumbed to his injuries at a hospital.
Guyger, who was off-duty at the time of the shooting, was released from the Kaufman County Jail on a $300,000 bond Sunday, CNN reports.
“A female Dallas police officer returned to what she believed to be her apartment after her shift ended — she was still in uniform when she encountered Mr. Jean inside the apartment,” said Dallas Police Chief Ulysha Renee Hall on Thursday.
Authorities added that they were unsure how Guyger and Jean interacted at the time of the incident, but “at some point she fired her weapon striking the victim.”
Prior to her arrest, Jean’s family held a news conference on Sunday wanting to know why it took days for Guyger to be arrested. They claimed that she was receiving favorable treatment, CBS reports.
We don’t need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt at this point,” Jean family attorney S. Lee Merritt told reporters. “At this point, we need probable cause of a crime. And the existence of probable cause is painstakingly clear to everyone.”
The Dallas Police Department announced on Saturday that they were not investigating the shooting to “eliminate the appearance of any potential bias” and handed the case over to the Texas Rangers.
Merritt added that Guyger and Jean did not have a known relationship before the shooting, per CNN.
Jean graduated with his bachelor’s degree from Arkansas’s Harding University in 2016 and worked at the accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Cooper in Dallas as a risk assurance experienced associate, per his LinkedIn page, CNN reports.
— PwC US (@PwCUS) September 7, 2018
“He had no criminal history. He was an amazing student. He was an amazing citizen. He loved God,” said Benjamin Crump, another lawyer representing the family. “We’re still dealing in America with black people being killed in some of the most arbitrary ways, driving while black, walking while black and now we have to add living while black.”
She was involved in another shooting May 2017 where she tried to identify a woman in a car when another passenger got out of the vehicle and took Guyger’s taser. Guyger shot and injured the suspect, per CNN.
