Trial opens for ex-officer in mistaken-identity killing

DALLAS — Botham Shem Jean posed no threat to the off-duty police officer who shot and killed him as he was watching television in his Dallas apartment last year, and in the final startled moments of his life, he had no chance to tell the officer she had entered the wrong apartment, a prosecutor told jurors Monday, the opening day of the officer’s murder trial.

The former officer, Amber Guyger, 31, was returning home from her patrol shift in September 2018 when she entered what she said she believed was her own apartment.

While standing at an apartment exactly one floor above her own, she fired her weapon twice at Jean, her 26-year-old neighbor, striking him once in the torso and killing him.

The shooting, another case of a white police officer killing an unarmed black man, has angered, puzzled and captivated the city for months. Guyger told police she was under the mistaken impression that she was standing in her own doorway and thought Jean was an intruder who was actively threatening her.

But in his opening statement, Jason Hermus, a prosecutor with the Dallas County district attorney’s office, told the jury that Guyger had made a series of fatal errors, violated police protocols and shot Jean when he had made no move toward her. Guyger

“He was sitting in his living room, in shorts and a T-shirt, watching TV and eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream, what any one of us would have been doing,” Hermus told the jury, referring to Jean by his nickname of Bo.

“When all of sudden, Amber Guyger comes through his front door uninvited. The light from the hallway must have flooded his apartment; the noise from the door must have scared him to death,” Hermus said. “As Bo was trying to get up off the couch to find out what this intruder is doing coming into his home, she is leveling off her gun having acquired her target. And she shoots at him twice. No opportunity for de-escalation. No opportunity for him to surrender.”

Officers confronted with such a perceived threat are supposed to stay outside the residence and wait for backup.

Guyger should have realized she was at the wrong apartment, he said, when she saw the large, bright-red doormat Jean had outside his apartment door — a clear distinction from Guyger’s apartment, which had no doormat.

But one of Guyger’s lawyers, Robert Rogers, said Jean was not seated or cowering when he was shot but was coming toward Guyger. The officer, in fear for her life, shouted “Hands!” he said, while Jean was saying, “Hey! Hey!”

Rogers said Guyger had worked a 13

shift on the day of the shooting and was tired.

Also, he said, there had been 46 cases in which tenants in the complex had mistakenly placed their keys in the wrong doors.