Mother questions race role in shooting
United States
The mother of a black man who was gunned down at his home by a white Dallas police officer who said she mistook his apartment for her own suggested that her son might still be alive if he were white.
Allison Jean, the mother of 26-yearold Botham Jean, wondered whether race was a factor when the officer shot and killed her son after she returned home in uniform from her shift on Friday.
‘‘I didn’t know she was white until now. If it was a white man would it have been different? Would she have reacted differently?’’ Jean said.
Dallas police yesterday identified the officer as Amber Guyger, a four-year veteran of the force.
Dallas’ police chief, U. Renee Hall, said that her department was seeking to charge the officer with manslaughter. But Hall said yesterday during a criminal justice panel livestreamed on Facebook that the Texas Rangers, who took over the case, asked her department to hold off issuing an arrest warrant because they needed more time to look into information Guyger provided during an interview with investigators.
‘‘The ball is in their court,’’ Hall said. She acknowledged that many questions remain about the shooting and asked the public to give investigators enough time to get to the answers.
A lawyer for Jean’s family said after a prayer vigil at a Dallas church that an arrest warrant should be issued for the officer.
‘‘This family is frustrated. This family is upset,’’ said attorney Lee Merritt. ‘‘This family is grieving that that has not happened yet,’’ he said of the wait for investigators to act.
Dozens of people including Jean’s mother attended the vigil at the Dallas West Church of Christ.
Hall said that the officer’s blood was drawn to be tested for drugs and alcohol.
Allison Jean, who has held government posts in St Lucia, where she lives and where her son grew up, said her son’s death ‘‘just feels like a nightmare’’.
The island country’s government issued a statement at the weekend expressing ‘‘shock’’ at the killing and extending condolences to the Jean family. It said officials at its embassy in the US would provide assistance to the family.
Botham Jean attended Harding University in Arkansas and, after graduating in 2016, he had been living and working in Dallas at accounting and consulting firm PwC. The private school said that he often led campus worship services while he was a student.
Family and friends described Jean as a devout Christian and a talented singer. His uncle Ignatius Jean said the slaying left relatives devastated and looking for answers.
‘‘You want to think it’s fiction . . . and you have to grapple with the reality,’’ he said. – AP