Accountability a must
We join with our community in trying to make sense of the senseless. Another of our innocent citizens, 26-year-old Botham Jean, was shot and killed Thursday by a Dallas police officer in Jean’s own apartment. Officer Amber Guyger, returning home from a 15-hour shift, reportedly mistook his apartment for hers and shot him in the chest.
Guyger, on the force for nearly five years, was arrested Sunday and charged with manslaughter.
Even if it was a heartbreaking mistake, too often a shoot-first mentality prevails in these incidents. An arrest was just. Time, and evidence, will tell if the manslaughter charge is the right one.
We still have a lot of questions that need answers. We don’t know if race played a role. Jean was black; Guyger is white.
Why did Guyger work such a long shift? How could she not have realized she was in the wrong home? Why do these police shootings of black citizens keep happening across our nation?
For the sake of this community’s healing, we praise Police Chief U. Renee Hall for bringing in the Texas Rangers to investigate. Only a fair and unbiased determination of the truth will assure our community that officers will be held accountable for their actions, especially when they have lethal consequences.
What we do know is that, by all accounts, Jean was one of our bright lights.
The Pricewaterhouse-Coopers accountant with the beautiful voice moved to Dallas after graduating from Harding University in Arkansas. He devoted himself to the ministries at Dallas West Church of Christ. A church member at services Sunday told his grieving mother, Allison Jean, that he was the “spiritual tip of the spear . . . the epitome of ‘send me and I’ll go.’”
It’s sickening that we won’t get a chance to know what Botham Jean could have accomplished in his life.
From what we know so far, there’s also room for sympathy for Guyger. Mistakenly shooting an unarmed man must be the ultimate horror for any selfrespecting officer.
Most important, there has to be accountability in Botham Jean’s death if this community has any hope of moving forward—together.