Murder was right charge in Fort Worth killing

There are moments that mark not just turning points in history, but points where it is evident that leaders must step forward and do the work to change the course of history.

The murder charge against former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean, who this weekend shot and killed Atatiana Jefferson in her home, is one of these moments. The charge Dean now faces is what the facts, as they are known, appear to demand. Our community as a whole must see this as a crucial moment.

We don’t pretend to know how this case will play out. Dean will now face a fair trial. And there will likely be twists and turns yet to come as we, as a community, come to grips with this tragedy and before the final chapter of this story is written.

Part of that story now, according to the police, includes that Jefferson may have pulled a pistol from her purse as she determined what was happening in her backyard. This is Texas, after all, where a person has a right to self-defense, especially at home, and why many people are still asking why the officer didn’t knock on the front door and make himself known before entering the backyard. As this case advances, we will likely yet learn more about what happened.

But what we do know is that for the third time in two years, our region has seen a police officer charged with murder in the slaying of an innocent African American resident. All were incidents involving officers in different departments — Balch Springs, Dallas and Fort Worth. And each victim was very different than the other two. One, Jordan Edwards, was a 15-year-old honor student at a high school party. Another, Botham Jean, was a 26-year-old accountant and immigrant in his own apartment. And now, Jefferson, 28, a woman sitting in her house playing video games with her nephew and caring for an ailing parent.

All of these people are now names in tragic stories.

We fully expect that each of these cases will now be woven into training at police academies and for more experienced officers. We also expect leaders within our communities to step into the fray with reasoned responses driven toward viable solutions. To unfairly castigate officers is to undermine our community in profound, if often invisible, ways. Doing so destroys the trust that is crucially important for a department to police a city, and it frays the bonds that enable officers to be connected to the community. Those bonds help residents better understand the role of police officers, and they help police officers better understand and stay in tune with concerns and issues facing the community.

If this sounds like we believe that in the aftermath of these shootings we should find ways to be better connected to our police departments, it is because that is what we are calling for. We are also calling for police departments to expand efforts to absorb the concerns of the community and take steps to reinforce the kind of culture and practices that can prevent these shootings.

It is possible to prevent these shootings. It is possible to build trust. But with each shooting, the hard task of doing such work falls farther out of reach.

The Dallas Morning News