mobanmarketWashington: A former Texas policewoman went on trial Monday for shooting dead a neighbor in his home last year in what her lawyer claimed was a “tragic mistake.”
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The case has inflamed racial tensions since former Dallas, Texas police officer Amber Guyger, 31, who is facing murder charges, is white, while the victim, Botham Jean, was black.
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Guyger claimed after the September 6, 2018 shooting that she mistakenly believed she had returned to her own apartment and that the 26-year-old Jean was an intruder.
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In fact, Guyger had entered Jean’s unlocked apartment located in the same building but one floor above her own home.
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Guyger, who was off-duty at the time after working a nearly 14-hour shift, lived in apartment 1378 on the third floor of the building, while Jean lived in apartment 1478 directly above her on the fourth floor.
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“She knows she’s made a tragic mistake, but it’s not out of evil,” Guyger’s lawyer, Robert Rogers, told the court, describing it as “human error” and an act of “self-defense.”
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Guyger, who had been a police officer for four years and was fired following the shooting, “thought firmly and reasonably that she was in her apartment,” Rogers said.
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Prosecutor Jason Hermus countered that Jean, a native of the Caribbean island of St. Lucia who worked for an accounting firm, “paid the ultimate price” for her errors.
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“She walks past 16 different apartments and fails to register the number four on any one of them,” Hermus said.
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Guyger was initially charged with manslaughter, but a grand jury indicted her on the more serious charge of murder following public protests in Dallas.
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Guyger could face life in prison if convicted.
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