Dallas officer who killed neighbor may face stiffer charges

HOUSTON — A white Dallas police officer charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting last week of a black neighbor in an apartment she apparently mistook as her own could face more serious charges, authorities said Monday.

The case will be presented to a grand jury after all evidence related to the shooting Thursday night is collected, Dallas County Dist. Atty. Faith Johnson said.

Officer Amber Guyger, 30, a four-year veteran, was arrested late Sunday in connection with the shooting, booked and freed on $300,000 bail. The Texas Rangers announced the arrest Sunday night but declined to provide details about the case.

The arrest followed outcry from family and friends of victim Botham Shem Jean, 26, a native of the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia, scion of a prominent, politically connected family.

Police Chief U. Renee Hall said over the weekend that the Texas Rangers asked police not to charge Guyger until they investigated further. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings posted a tweet thanking investigators and residents for being “respectful of the investigative process.”

According to police, Guyger shot and killed Jean after going in uniform from the police department after her shift to the nearby South Side Flats apartment complex. After the shooting, she contacted dispatchers and told responding officers that she had mistaken Jean’s apartment for her own. Her blood was drawn at the scene for alcohol and drug testing, the police chief said, but the results had yet to be released.

The Dallas County medical examiner’s office said Monday that Jean died of gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen. His death was ruled a homicide.

Last year, Guyger shot and wounded a man named Uvaldo Perez while she was on duty after he wrested her Taser away during a struggle. Guyger was not charged in connection with that shooting.

Jean’s relatives and friends had been calling for the officer’s arrest and still had questions Monday about what role race played in the shooting.

At a briefing before the officer’s arrest, the Jean family’s attorneys said they had provided prosecutors with new evidence — a witness and video — that they declined to share publicly.

“Black people have been killed by police in some of the most arbitrary ways in America,” said family attorney Benjamin Crump, who also represented the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

“Blacks have been killed for ‘driving while black’ in their automobiles, ‘walking while black’ in their neighborhoods and now ‘living while black’ in their own apartment. Each time it is more shocking than before,” Crump said. “This crime was not only a shock for the Jean family but also one that continues to astonish most sensible Americans.”