Dallas police officer who shot neighbor dead arrested on manslaughter charge

US A white Dallas police officer who says she mistook her black neighbor’s apartment for her own when she fatally shot him was arrested on a manslaughter charge.

Officer Amber Guyger was booked into the Kaufman county jail after being taken into custody on Sunday, the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a news release. The department said the investigation in the offduty shooting is ongoing and that no additional information was available. A jail employee said Guyger was released on bond. Online records initially showed she was in custody, but she later was not listed on the jail inmate roster.

Guyger fatally shot 26yearold Botham Jean on Thursday at Jean’s apartment. Lawyers for Jean’s family had been calling for Guyger’s arrest, saying the fact that she had remained free days after the shooting showed she was receiving favorable treatment. They held a news conference last weekend, shortly before the arrest was announced, making another plea for the officer to be taken into custody and saying their team had presented new evidence a witness and video footage to prosecutors. They didn’t provide details. The family attorneys weren’t available for comment after the arrest came.

Last weekend, one of the attorneys, S Lee Merritt, said the man’s loved ones were not calling on authorities to jump to conclusions or to deny Guyger her right to due process. But he said they wanted Guyger “to be treated like every other citizen, and where there is evidence that they’ve committed a crime, that there’s a warrant to be issued and an arrest to be made.”

(The Guardian)