The shooting of a former Forth Worth officer in the house where she saw a scream and jumped into a house with a possible armed attacker

A former Forth Worth police officer was convicted of manslaughter in the shooting of 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson.

The former officer, who was 38 at the time, thought he saw a silhouette as he heard the second phrase. “I was looking right down the barrel of a gun, and when I saw the barrel of that gun pointed at me, I fired a single shot from my duty weapon.”

“I observed the person that we now know is Ms. Jefferson. Dean gestured in a downward motion, saying he heard her scream and saw her fall. “And I knew that I’d shot that person.”

He admitted many of his actions that night were bad police work, including firing without seeing her hands or what was behind her, not telling his partner he saw a gun and rushing into the home without fully ensuring it was safe.

“You’ve got another fellow officer from the Fort Worth Police Department entering a home which you have determined to be a burglary in progress with a possible armed assailant, and you didn’t think to tell your partner, ‘Hey there’s a gun inside?’” prosecutor R. Dale Smith asked.

The trial featured body-camera footage of the shooting and testimony from the primary witnesses, Jefferson’s nephew and Dean’s police partner. The case was brought to a close after three days of testimony.

The verdict comes more than three years after the deadly encounter in which Dean and his partner responded to Jefferson’s house around 2:25 a.m. on October 12, 2019. After a neighbor called a non emergency police line, they went to her house.

The officers did not at any point identify themselves as police when scoping out the home, and Dean then shot into a back window at Jefferson, who was up late playing video games with her young nephew.

Heavily edited body camera footage released to the public showed an officer peering through two open doors, but he didn’t knock or announce his presence. He walked around the house for a few minutes. Eventually, the officer approached a window and shined a flashlight into what appeared to be a dark room.

A friend of Dean and his partner Zion Carr tells him he saw a window and robbed Jefferson, saying he wasn’t there

Dean, who is White, resigned days later and was arrested and charged with murder for Jefferson’s death. He has pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, which could lead to a sentence of up to 99 years.

Dean claims to have seen a person in the window while they were in the backyard. He thought the person was a burglar and shouted out commands for the person to show their hands. Dean said he could not identify the gender or race of the person in the window.

He said they ran around the front door and got into the home after he tried to open the window, but it wouldn’t open. He and Darch went into the bedroom and saw a child there.

He said he found a gun between Jefferson’s feet, and it had a green laser on it. He exhaled audibly at that moment. “I was thinking that’s how close we came to dying,” he testified.

During the cross-examination, Smith asked Dean if he had good police work, as he walked through each of his actions that night.

Smith was able to see the mistakes Dean and his partner took while around Jefferson’s home. Dean didn’t call for a backup because he didn’t want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Jefferson did not receive cardiopulmonary assistance for a full minute after he reached her. Dean tried to stop Jefferson’s bleeding by holding an item to his chest.

He and his aunt were up late playing video games when Jefferson heard a noise outside, and she then went to her purse to get her gun, he testified. He did not witness her pointing her gun at the window.

Gill said the state could not prove to you that this was self-defense. It is not an offense in Texas.

“In that window he sees a silhouette,” attorney Miles Brissette said. “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.”

Zion Carr was the first witness for the prosecution, he was in the bedroom with his aunt when she was shot. Now 11, he testified they had accidentally burned hamburgers earlier in the night, so they opened the doors to air the smoke out of the house.

She said she believed the home was being burglarized because two doors were open, lights were on inside, cabinets were wide open and things were strewn about the living room and kitchen area.

She had her back to the window when Dean began to yell out commands for Jefferson to put her hands up, she testified. Darch said she looked over Dean’s shoulder, and could see a face in the window that looked as big as saucers.

An attorney for the family of Jefferson said that she was trying to protect her nephew from what they thought was a prowler. She had moved into her ailing mother’s Fort Worth home a few months earlier to take care of her, family attorney S. Lee Merritt said at the time. She took care of her siblings as well.

Jefferson obtained a degree in biology from Xavier University of Louisiana, and later worked as a pharmaceutical equipment sales person.

The Tarrant County manslaughter conviction of an officer who was on duty for a year in the life of a Lafayette cop

He had pleaded not guilty to murder, a charge which carried a possible sentence of five to 99 years. The jurors were told to consider the lesser included offense of manslaughter. The sentencing phase is scheduled to begin on Friday.

Members of Jefferson’s family were expressionless in the courtroom as the judge announced the verdict, WFAA reported. There was no reaction from family members.

“But there’s so much work to be done… How he is sentenced is going to send a message not only to him but to other law enforcement to not be so trigger happy when you see somebody of color.”

Jurors deliberated for more than 13 hours before announcing the verdict. The manslaughter conviction of a police officer who was on duty is a first in Tarrant County, the station reported.

Jurors got the case Wednesday afternoon following closing arguments in which the state portrayed Dean as a power-hungry former cop whose preconceived notions about the neighborhood where Jefferson lived tainted his conduct the night of the shooting.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/us/aaron-dean-trial-verdict-atatiana-jefferson/index.html

The Fort Worth Police Officer’s Brother in Blue vs. Self-defense in his defense of a third person, and if so, when do you feel safe?

“If you can’t feel safe in your own home, where can you feel safe?” Tarrant County Prosecutor Ashlea Deener told jurors in closing arguments on Wednesday. “When you think about your house, you think about safety. It’s where you go to retreat, to get away from the world.”

When you get that uniform on, you say you are going to serve and protect us all. That means her as well, Deener said.

She said the Fort Worth police officers didn’t have preconceived notions about the former officer, that they were ashamed to call him a brother in blue.

If you have a reasonable suspicion that he was defending a third person, and if you believe he was doing so, then you are to acquit him. And you don’t have to agree that it was self-defense or defense of a third person. You just have to decide whether he thought he was doing something or not.