Slain Dallas man feared being witness
Neighbor who testified was wounded in another incident
DALLAS — A man who was slain after testifying in the murder trial of a former Dallas police officer had feared being a witness because of another incident in which he was shot and wounded outside a nightclub, an attorney for his family said Monday.
Police said Monday that detectives were continuing to investigate the fatal shooting Friday of 28-yearold Joshua Brown, who testified in Amber Guyger’s trial. Guyger was convicted three days earlier in the death of her neighbor, Botham Jean, whose apartment she said she mistook for her own.
Brown, who lived in the same apartment building, had testified about what he’d heard that night. Lee Merritt, an attorney representing Brown’s family, said Brown’s mother told him about her son’s reservations about his visibility in the high-profile trial. In November, Brown was wounded in the foot in a shooting that left a 25-yearold man dead outside a Dallas nightclub, The Dallas Morning News reports.
“He was concerned that the people who shot him there still wanted to do him additional harm,” said Merritt, who also represents Jean’s family.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and other officials have asked the public to refrain from speculating about the killing of Brown while police investigate. Meanwhile, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. requested an independent investigation into Brown’s slaying, calling it “deeply alarming and highly suspicious” in a news release.
At the time of Jean’s shooting, Brown lived in the same apartment building as Guyger and Jean. Authorities say Brown was killed at a different complex.
Brown testified that on the night of Jean’s killing, he was in a hallway on the fourth floor, where he and Jean lived, and that he heard what sounded like “two people meeting by surprise” and then two gunshots.
Brown testified that he was originally from Jacksonville, Florida, and had moved to Texas in 2008. He testified he graduated from the University of South Florida.