The worst police shooting
It is hard to think of a more tragic, more senseless shooting in America than the killing last week of Botham Shem Jean, a young black risk-assurance associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers and a member of Dallas West Church of Christ.
This is what we know so far. Mr. Jean was home alone in his apartment in the South Side Flats complex in Dallas when police officer Amber Guyger entered and shot him dead. The precise chain of events is somewhat disputed. The affidavit supporting Ms. Guyger’s arrest warrant states that she believed she was entering her own apartment, which was directly below Mr. Jean’s and laid out almost identically. When she placed her key in the lock, the door pushed open, the apartment was dark, she saw a “large silhouette” across the room and she believed she was facing a burglar. She “drew her firearm” and “gave verbal commands,” which she claims Mr. Jean ignored. She fired twice, and only then, she says, entered the apartment, called 911, turned on the lights and realized she’d made a terrible mistake.
These statements, however, don’t square with other testimony. One witness reported hearing a woman yelling, “Let me in! Let me in!” before the gunshots and a man’s voice saying, “Oh my God. Why did you do that?” after them.
Aside from the horrific details of the shooting itself, there are already troubling indications that Ms. Guyger’s identity as a police officer is providing her with actual, undeserved advantages in the prosecution of this case.
Police sources are reportedly indicating that Ms. Guyger may actually try to raise the fact that Mr. Jean didn’t obey her commands as a defense. It’s not a defense. The moment she opened the door to an apartment that wasn’t her own, she wasn’t operating as a police officer clothed with the authority of the law. She was instead a criminal. She was breaking into another person’s home. She was an armed home invader, and the person clothed with the authority of law to defend himself was Botham Shem Jean.
So far, Ms. Guyger is only charged with manslaughter. But all the available evidence indicates that she intentionally shot Mr. Jean. This wasn’t a warning shot gone awry. The pistol didn’t discharge during a struggle. She committed a crime by forcing open Mr. Jean’s door, deliberately took aim and killed him.
Finally, it’s troubling that Ms. Guyger wasn’t arrested and booked until three days after the shooting. Reportedly, Dallas police had prepared a warrant the day after the killing, but they handed the investigation over to the Texas Rangers, who put a hold on the warrant.
There is need for vigorous debate about the extent of police misconduct toward black men. I am unconvinced by the “open season” rhetoric, and the data supporting claims that police are more trigger-happy when confronting black men is controversial and conflicting. Without question, that’s an issue worth serious inquiry and study, and no one single incident or handful of incidents is dispositive or even all that relevant to settling it.
At the same time, however, each individual incident demands fair inquiry and the impartial administration of justice. Yet this has too often proved difficult. Juries credit officers for their fear without properly determining whether that fear was “reasonable.” And thus we’ve seen the sad spectacle of a mistrial after a cop shot an unarmed, running man in the back; the acquittal of the Minnesota cop who shot Philando Castile as Mr. Castile was doing his best to comply with the cop’s panicked, conflicting demands; and the acquittal of the cop who shot a sobbing Daniel Shaver as he crawled on his hands and knees, begging for his life.
Indeed, the justice system is often so stacked in officers’ favor that they enjoy qualified immunity, a judge-made rule that blocks even civil lawsuits against those who make dangerous and deadly mistakes.
We ask police officers to be brave. We ask officers to face a much higher degree of danger than civilians. We ask them to show restraint even in the face of provocations and tense confrontations. There are countless among them who do all we ask, and more. But we also ask something else: that police officers be subject to the very laws they’re sworn to enforce.