Act Daily News
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The former Fort Worth police officer who fatally shot 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in her own residence in 2019 didn’t see her holding a gun within the split-second earlier than firing at her by way of a again window, prosecutors mentioned in opening statements of his homicide trial Monday.
“This is not a circumstance where they’re staring at the barrel of a gun and he had to defend himself against that person or to protect his partner,” Tarrant County prosecutor Ashlea Deener mentioned. “The evidence will support he did not see the gun in her hand. This is not a justification. This is not a self-defense case. This is murder.”
Yet the protection legal professional for former officer Aaron Dean mentioned he had seen an armed silhouette with a inexperienced laser pointed at him and later discovered a firearm mendacity subsequent to Jefferson’s physique.
“In that window he sees a silhouette,” legal professional Miles Brissette mentioned. “He doesn’t know if it’s a male or female, he doesn’t know the racial makeup of the silhouette. He sees it, he sees the green laser and the gun come up on him. He takes a half-step back, gives a command and fires his weapon.”
The contrasting opening statements come initially of a trial which is able to characteristic fraught problems with race, police violence, gun rights and body-camera footage.
Dean, who’s White, has pleaded not responsible to homicide for killing Jefferson, who’s Black, after firing into her dwelling in October 2019 in entrance of her younger nephew. The cost carries a attainable sentence of 5 to 99 years.
The taking pictures befell after police responded to Jefferson’s home round 2:25 a.m. on October 12, 2019, in response to a neighbor reporting her doorways have been open in the midst of the evening. The neighbor referred to as a nonemergency police quantity to ask for a security examine at Jefferson’s home.
Deener, the prosecutor, emphasised Dean and his associate didn’t at any level determine themselves as police when scoping out Jefferson’s dwelling. Jefferson took out her personal gun as a result of she heard noises outdoors and noticed a flashlight in her yard.
“She had no idea it was someone who was supposed to serve and protect,” Deener mentioned.
Brissette, the protection legal professional, mentioned the officers have been treating the state of affairs like a possible theft in progress and never, as has been beforehand reported, a welfare examine, so they didn’t announce their presence. He described the taking pictures as a “tragic accident” however one which was “reasonable” for an individual in Dean’s place.
Heavily edited physique digital camera footage launched to the general public confirmed an officer peering by way of two open doorways, however he didn’t knock or announce his presence. Instead, he walked round the home for a couple of minute. Eventually, the officer approached a window and shined a flashlight into what seemed to be a darkish room.
“Put your hands up! Show me your hands!” the officer yelled earlier than firing a single shot, in accordance with the physique digital camera footage.
The prosecution’s first witness was Zion Carr, who was 8 years previous and within the bed room along with his “Aunt Tay” when she was shot.
Now 11, he testified they’d by chance burned hamburgers earlier within the evening, in order that they opened the doorways to air the smoke out of the home.
He and his aunt have been up late enjoying video video games when Jefferson heard a noise outdoors, and she or he then went to her purse to get her gun, he testified. He didn’t see her elevate her firearm towards the window, he testified.
Zion mentioned he didn’t hear or see something outdoors the window, however he noticed his aunt fall to the bottom and begin crying.
“I was thinking, ‘Is it a dream?’” he testified. “She was crying and just shaking.”
He was confused by what occurred and solely later discovered his aunt had been killed. “I was very upset,” he mentioned.
Prosecutors famous to the court docket that a few of his testimony was totally different from an earlier assertion he had given to a police investigator. On cross-examination, Zion mentioned he didn’t keep in mind that earlier assertion.
The trial is predicted to final about two weeks, and Judge George Gallagher has issued a gag order. Monday’s court docket day shall be abbreviated so individuals can attend the funeral of lead protection legal professional Jim Lane, who died abruptly in late November.
The taking pictures was extensively condemned, with the National Black Police Association saying in an announcement the killings of Black residents by White officers had “reached critical mass.”
Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price on the time mentioned Jefferson’s killing was unjustified and “unacceptable.”
Police initially mentioned the officer fired his gun after “perceiving a threat.” Officers offered medical care after the taking pictures, in accordance with police.
Police mentioned officers discovered a firearm once they entered the room the place Jefferson died. Video launched by police confirmed two largely blurred clips, which appeared to indicate a firearm inside the house.
Dean, 34 on the time of the taking pictures, was employed in August 2017 and commissioned as a licensed officer in April 2018, police mentioned.
Two days after the taking pictures, Dean resigned from the police drive and was arrested and charged with homicide, the crime for which he was indicted in December 2019.
The day after Dean’s arrest, Lane instructed Act Daily News his shopper “is sorry and his family is in shock.”
Jefferson was attempting to guard her nephew from what they each thought was a prowler, in accordance with an legal professional for Jefferson’s household.
She had moved into her ailing mom’s Fort Worth dwelling a number of months earlier to handle her, household legal professional S. Lee Merritt mentioned on the time. She additionally took care of her nephews.
Jefferson graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2014 with a level in biology and labored in pharmaceutical tools gross sales, in accordance with her household’s legal professional.
The premed graduate, often called “Tay,” was eulogized as a loving, caring and reliable aunt who completed many issues in life.
Her nephew, Zion Carr, who witnessed the taking pictures, suffers from post-traumatic stress dysfunction, Merritt mentioned. Since her demise, members of the family mentioned they’ve struggled to observe movies of different police killings.
Jefferson’s father, Marquis Jefferson, suffered cardiac arrest and died in November 2019, simply weeks after Dean fatally shot his daughter. He was 59.
Jefferson’s mom, Yolanda Carr, died at her dwelling in Fort Worth in January 2020 after turning into in poor health, in accordance with Merritt. Carr had been ailing and couldn’t attend her daughter’s funeral.
Instead, the Rev. Jaime Kowlessar learn a letter from Carr on the service.
“You often said you were going to change the world,” Carr wrote. “I think you still will.”