Family questions shooting of Fort Worth woman
FORT WORTH, Texas — A white police officer who killed a black woman inside her Texas home while responding to a neighbor’s call about an open front door “didn’t have time to perceive a threat” before he opened fire, an attorney for the woman’s family said.
“You didn’t hear the officer shout, ‘Gun, gun, gun,’” attorney Lee Merritt said after viewing video taken from a Fort Worth officer’s bodycam during Saturday’s shooting of Atatiana Jefferson, 28. “He didn’t have time to perceive a threat. That’s murder.”
Her family told KXAS television that Jefferson was watching her 8-year-old nephew when she was killed early Saturday.
The Fort Worth Police Department said in a statement that officers saw someone near a window inside the home and that one of them drew his weapon and fired after “perceiving a threat.” The video released by police shows two officers searching the home from the outside with flashlights before one shouts, “Put your hands up, show me your hands.” One shot is then fired through a window. Police Lt. Brandon O’Neil said Sunday that the officer, who’s been on the force since April 2018, is on administrative leave.
Trump backers watch graphic parody
WASHINGTON — The New York Times reports that a graphically violent parody video was shown at a meeting of President Donald Trump’s supporters at his Miami resort. It depicts a likeness of the president shooting and stabbing his opponents and members of the news media in a church. In the video, the fake Trump strikes the late Sen. John McCain in the neck, stabs TV’s Rosie O’Donnell in the face and lights Sen. Bernie Sanders’ head on fire. The Times reported that the video was shown last week at an American Priority conference at Trump’s Doral Miami resort. Trump wasn’t there.