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Fort Worth police officer shoots and kills black woman inside her home

Oh, I agree that training won't help at all in cases where blacks are killed because they are black. I'm just saying that no every incident where blacks are killed comes down to that.

Think about the wealth disparity in this country. A universal basic income is designed to help improve the lives of poorer people. It wouldn't do anything for the wealth gap between white and black people, but it absolutely would help a lot of black people. What I'm saying is that better training for police would not necessarily change the fact that blacks get treat worse by cops than whites, but it would likely improve the way people in general are treated by the police which would in turn help blacks even if it didn't cure the disparity.



It's only giving them an out if people are saying that's the only thing that needs to be done. No serious person is saying that though. Only the cop lovers and apologists think its a training issue and only a training issue.

If the whole wealth thing is injected into society black folks would still be getting treated unfairly, how many black ppl that have money today are treated unfairly?? It does not come down to any of those things.

Given black folks extra money means that we will have a few more dollars in our pockets, which will still have us at the bottom still being treated how we are treated now.

The late 1800s, there were many black millionaires and that didn't stop white folks from white folking. Better training should never come out of a black man or woman's mouth ever.

Your military personnel are more aware to not to shoot and kill off instinct and they are put in way more dangerous situations than cops and deal with more dangerous folks than what cops deal with. Black folks, many of times, are un-armed, some are kids, and women, pregnant women etc, but yet blacks folks out here talking and saying them tired ass talking points that white folks uses to justify their actions or soften the situation??

Better training won't change the fact on how blacks are treated "so why even yell out training" but it will improve the way people in general are treated by the police which would help blacks. (who is getting this improvement, if the training won't help change how we are treated)

This is straddling the fence captain, talking in safe soft tone, that makes no sense.

How does your last statement you mentioned work??

That statement contradicts itself so badly.
 
If the whole wealth thing is injected into society black folks would still be getting treated unfairly, how many black ppl that have money today are treated unfairly?? It does not come down to any of those things.

Given black folks extra money means that we will have a few more dollars in our pockets, which will still have us at the bottom still being treated how we are treated now.

The late 1800s, there were many black millionaires and that didn't stop white folks from white folking. Better training should never come out of a black man or woman's mouth ever.

Your military personnel are more aware to not to shoot and kill off instinct and they are put in way more dangerous situations than cops and deal with more dangerous folks than what cops deal with. Black folks, many of times, are un-armed, some are kids, and women, pregnant women etc, but yet blacks folks out here talking and saying them tired ass talking points that white folks uses to justify their actions or soften the situation??

Better training won't change the fact on how blacks are treated "so why even yell out training" but it will improve the way people in general are treated by the police which would help blacks. (who is getting this improvement, if the training won't help change how we are treated)

This is straddling the fence captain, talking in safe soft tone, that makes no sense.

How does your last statement you mentioned work??

That statement contradicts itself so badly.

tenor.gif
 
Uploaded October 18, 2019


Fort Worth community members expressed concern and outrage at a tense city council meeting Tuesday night in the wake of a police shooting that left a 28-year-old black woman dead in her own home. One woman came to the stand to share her story of police officers in her backyard & white privilege.

ReasonableSeparateAsianconstablebutterfly-small.gif
 
Uploaded October 18, 2019


Fort Worth community members expressed concern and outrage at a tense city council meeting Tuesday night in the wake of a police shooting that left a 28-year-old black woman dead in her own home. One woman came to the stand to share her story of police officers in her backyard & white privilege.

View attachment 180564


shit been rigged from jump man. smfh..
 
Uploaded October 18, 2019


Fort Worth community members expressed concern and outrage at a tense city council meeting Tuesday night in the wake of a police shooting that left a 28-year-old black woman dead in her own home. One woman came to the stand to share her story of police officers in her backyard & white privilege.

View attachment 180564

A call about a barking dog (which is 911 abuse btw) but these cowards wander around the back of her house instead of just knocking on the front door. Pigs have a serious God complex
 
If the whole wealth thing is injected into society black folks would still be getting treated unfairly, how many black ppl that have money today are treated unfairly?? It does not come down to any of those things.

Given black folks extra money means that we will have a few more dollars in our pockets, which will still have us at the bottom still being treated how we are treated now.

The late 1800s, there were many black millionaires and that didn't stop white folks from white folking. Better training should never come out of a black man or woman's mouth ever.

Your military personnel are more aware to not to shoot and kill off instinct and they are put in way more dangerous situations than cops and deal with more dangerous folks than what cops deal with. Black folks, many of times, are un-armed, some are kids, and women, pregnant women etc, but yet blacks folks out here talking and saying them tired ass talking points that white folks uses to justify their actions or soften the situation??

Better training won't change the fact on how blacks are treated "so why even yell out training" but it will improve the way people in general are treated by the police which would help blacks. (who is getting this improvement, if the training won't help change how we are treated)

This is straddling the fence captain, talking in safe soft tone, that makes no sense.

How does your last statement you mentioned work??

That statement contradicts itself so badly.

The bold suggests you don't understand the point being made at all. What I'm saying is that there are basically two different sets of things that lead to problems between blacks and the police. Once set is just general problems that affect everyone including black people. The other set is problems that are specific to black people. Training is in that first set, so while it may not solve anything int the second set, it being fixed will still help. In other words, I'm not at all saying that training is the solution for problems with the police that are born from racism against blacks. I'm saying that general shitty policing is also a threat to blacks and better training could help with some of that. There is no straddling the fence there. Like I said, you dudes are oversimplifying a complex problem.

Which statement are you saying is contradictory? The last statement in my response to you or the last statement in my post?
 

D.A. seeks murder charge against former Fort Worth officer who fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson

"We will prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law," the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office said.


Prosecutors in Tarrant County, Texas, said Friday they intend to ask a grand jury for a murder charge against the former Fort Worth police officer who fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson in her home.

"We have completed an initial review of the case, and based on the evidence we intend to ask the Grand Jury for an indictment of murder against Aaron Dean," the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office said in a statement. "We will prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law."

Dean, who is white, fatally shot the 28-year-old black woman through a bedroom window early Saturday.

The district attorney's office said Friday that to ensure a fair trial, as the case proceeds, “our statements will be limited in keeping with the rules of ethics for Texas attorneys."

The agency said its sympathies and prayers remain with Jefferson's family and friends.

Jefferson was playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew, whom she was babysitting, late at night when a neighbor noticed the front door of the house ajar. The concerned neighbor called the Fort Worth police department's nonemergency line to request a welfare check.

Jefferson’s nephew told authorities that she had taken a handgun from her purse when she heard noises outside and pointed it toward the window, according to an arrest warrant released on Tuesday.

Body camera footage shows the perspective of an officer outside the home, peering into a window using a flashlight and spotting someone inside standing near a window and telling her, "Put your hands up — show me your hands," before firing one shot through the glass seconds later.

The two officers responding to the call did not identify themselves to Jefferson before she was killed, and therewas no evidence Dean knocked on the door. He resigned and was charged Monday with murder.

Interim police Chief Ed Kraus said during a press conference earlier this week that he intended to fire Dean but the 34-year-old resigned first.

"Had the officer not resigned, I would have fired him for violations for several policies, including our use of force policy, our de-escalation policy and unprofessional conduct," Kraus said.

The killing comes less than two weeks after Amber Guyger, a former police officer in nearby Dallas, was convicted of murder for fatally shooting a man last year in his home that she testified she mistook for her own. In both cases, the officer is white and the victim black. Jefferson's death has raised nationwide questions about policing practices and racial profiling.

An attorney for Jefferson's family, Lee Merritt, has said her relatives were "relieved" over Dean's arrest.

"We need to see this through to a vigorous prosecution & appropriate sentencing," he tweeted this week. "The City of Fort Worth has much work to do to reform a brutal culture of policing."
 

Dallas-Fort Worth have police shootings in common, but prosecutions may be worlds apart

In Texas' Metroplex, a pair of similar police shootings have residents wondering if justice can be equally served.



FORT WORTH, Texas — What happened in two North Texas cities just 32 miles apart was unnerving: Two white police officers. Two black people fatally shot by those officers in their homes. One officer convicted of murder; the second now charged with murder.

But the shared threads between the shooting last year of Botham Jean by former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger and the shooting last weekend of Atatiana Jefferson by former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean may end there.

For community members and activists in Dallas and Fort Worth, major cities that together anchor what is known in the state as the Metroplex, the cases are emblematic of inequality for people of color in the criminal justice system.

And while Guyger, 31, was convicted and sentenced earlier this month to 10 years in prison by a Dallas County jury, some in Fort Worth remain cautious over how prosecutors in Tarrant County will handle the murder charge against Dean, 34.

The Tarrant County District Attorney's Office announced Friday that it intends to ask a grand jury for a murder indictment against Dean, saying in a statement, "We will prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law."

But how the case played out in Dallas doesn't mean it will be the same in Fort Worth, said Albert Roberts, a local defense attorney.

"We're close in proximity," he said, "but light years apart."

Dallas and Fort Worth like to emphasize their differences. Dallas has its glitzy glass skyscrapers downtown, while Fort Worth is known for its "Cowtown" culture. A view of the cities as being two sides of the same coin extends to the district attorneys: John Creuzot in Dallas County and Sharen Wilson in Tarrant County.

Creuzot, who unseated the incumbent Republican district attorney last November, was lauded for winning a murder conviction against Guyger for Jean's killing.

In contrast, Wilson's prosecution in the case of a black woman named Crystal Mason, who was sentenced in 2018 to five years in prison after voting illegally, drew widespread criticism from across the country.

That conviction and other prosecutions by Wilson's office have ingrained perceptions by many in the black community, and some white residents, that the local justice system does not treat people of color the same.

A spokeswoman for Wilson's office declined a request for an interview.

Dean, who resigned from the Fort Worth Police Department two days after the shooting, is "probably going to get off for it," said Cory Gray, 34, a black resident of Fort Worth and pharmacy student. "Out here? Back the Blue."

Do differences make a difference?

Pamela Young, a lead organizer of the Tarrant County Coalition for Community Oversight, a group advocating for stronger police oversight, considers Dallas "newly progressive" after Creuzot took over in January.

Creuzot, who is African American, ran on a platform of ending mass incarceration.

Wilson, who is white and Republican, was elected as Tarrant County's district attorney in 2014, making her the first woman to serve as its top prosecutor. She was re-elected in 2018 after a race that was the first in 12 years in which a Republican candidate had faced a serious general election challenger.

Wilson is regarded as a law enforcement advocate in a county that despite its demographic shift remains a GOP stronghold.

"You can count on one hand the number of officers who have been prosecuted," said Roberts, who worked in Wilson's office and also spent time in the Dallas County District Attorney's Office. Roberts, a Democrat, challenged Wilson in the 2018 election.

Many officers involved in shootings are cleared and never arrested, he said.

The Rev. Kyev Tatum, an activist and president of the Tarrant County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, has called for a federal investigation and monitoring of the Fort Worth Police Department. Tatum, a pastor at the New Mount Rose Baptist Church in Fort Worth, said he respects Wilson, "but sometimes political pressure will cause you to do the wrong thing when you want to do the right thing."

Tatum called Wilson a "fair-minded" person, and although he has disagreed with her on past issues, she "made the right choice" to pursue a murder indictment.

"I know she would not have filed murder charges if she didn't think she would win," he added.

Wilson's office faced backlash last year after a former justice of the peace, Russ Casey, who is white, received five years' probation after pleading guilty to forging signatures to get his name on an April ballot.

Wilson told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Mason and another woman, Rosie Ortega, a Mexican national whom Wilson successfully prosecuted on voting fraud, declined plea deals. But in the eyes of her critics, plea deals are representative of the county's racist justice system.

Mason, who had previously been convicted of tax fraud, said she was unaware that she could not vote when she cast a provisional ballot in 2016 — a vote that ended up not being counted because her name was already purged from voter rolls. Mason is appealing her conviction.

In a statement last year, Wilson shot back that Mason's defenders were trying to politicize the case.

"No one has anything to fear from our office unless the person chooses to break the law," Wilson said.

Prosecutors wield great power in the process of bringing an officer to trial and determining what charges an officer will face.

Grand juries hand up the indictments, but their decisions are based on what evidence prosecutors present, how they present it and the charges they recommend. Like police arrests, prosecutions are vulnerable to racial bias and political influence.

Faith Johnson, the Dallas district attorney when Guyger killed Jean, asked a grand jury to indict the former police officer for manslaughter. Instead, a grand jury upgraded the charge to murder, which Creuzot, as a candidate running against Johnson, had said was the more appropriate charge. Johnson was the GOP incumbent and also African American.

"The grand jury came back and said, 'Based on what you presented and told us, it looks like murder,'" said Chris Jenks, director of the criminal clinic at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law in Dallas.

In Dallas County, with more than 2.6 million residents, about 42 percent of the population is Latino, 24 percent is black, 30 percent is white and about 3 percent is Asian.

Akhi Johnson, a member of the Vera Institute for Justice's Reshaping Prosecution Project, said it is trying to draw attention to systemic racial disparities to help remove bias from prosecutions. As the country grapples with mass incarceration, scrutiny has increased on prosecutions.

The Vera Institute wants prosecutors to take a broader view by examining over-policing, failure to take into account the contributions of systemic poverty and historic discrimination and racism, as well as how slavery relates to poverty.

"They should be conscious of that in decision-making and recognize who they are charging, what they are charging them with and what they are going to ultimately do with the case," Johnson said.

Jennifer Lynn Eberhardt, a professor at the department of psychology at Stanford University, has extensively studied racism in the criminal justice system, and her work has included examining the association of "criminality" with black people and the effect those perceptions have in policing and the courts.

That sort of association can be at play in police-involved shootings or cases of police brutality, and continue through the criminal justice process and decision-making by prosecutors, Johnson added.
 
A 'friend of law enforcement'

But Tarrant County is changing as well.

Its population of more than 2 million is 53 percent Latino, black and Asian, and the evolving minority demographics are believed to be starting to drive political change. State Democrats now see it as a battleground county.

Still, an attorney for Jefferson's family, Lee Merritt, who is one of Wilson's harshest critics, said via his Facebook page not to assume Dean will face a murder charge at a trial.

Dean and another officer were responding to a house call from a neighbor who was concerned after noticing a front door of the home Jefferson was inside was left ajar. Jefferson, a 28-year-old pre-med graduate student, was babysitting her 8-year-old nephew and playing video games. According to police and bodycam video, Dean failed to identify himself before firing a single shot into the home, striking Jefferson.

Jefferson's funeral is scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

"Anybody who's paying attention knows the Tarrant County district attorney … is a friend of law enforcement and is not a friend of those fighting against police brutality," Merritt added.

An indictment would require "vigorous prosecution" from the district attorney to get a conviction, said Merritt, who has represented several black families killed by police. Wilson's record makes some critics wary that will happen.

In 2016, a white police officer wrestled Jacqueline Craig, a black woman, to the ground and arrested her and her daughters, even though she had called police to report that a neighbor had choked her 7-year-old son.

The officer was not prosecuted. The case led the city to form a committee to review police procedures and make recommendations.

Other instances of Fort Worth officers killing or injuring black people in recent years have ended in no charges, lesser charges or a decision by the district attorney not to retry the officer.

But Jenks said such cases are challenging for police and district attorneys as well. Police must contend with life-and-death scenarios that require a use-of-force response, while district attorneys' jobs are centered around finding the truth and seeking justice, he added.

"But let's be honest, district attorneys work with police and there needs to be some baseline trust in the working relationship between police and prosecutors," he said.

'We don't feel safe'
How quickly Wilson is taking the case to a grand jury, whether the grand jury returns a murder indictment and her office's potential prosecution of the case are potential flash points for the community over racial inequality.

"We don't feel safe" was the chant from people who packed the Fort Worth City Council chambers on Tuesday night as tempers flared during protests of police conduct and what residents say is failed city oversight of the department.

The sentiment was echoed by those who live in Jefferson's Hillside Morningside neighborhood, a historic section of Fort Worth that is largely black and Latino and is home to residents of varying income levels.

In response to calls for more police oversight, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price outlined the city's plans this week, and said a public forum would be held at the end of the month.

"The tragic death of Ms. Jefferson has left this city broken," she said in a statement. "Some of the sentiments we heard last night — Citizens don't feel safe, they are scared, tired and hopeless."

The Fort Worth Police Officers' Association acknowledged the "deep loss" after Jefferson was killed and asked the department to conduct a "thorough and transparent investigation." The union did not respond to a request for further comment.

Earlier in the week, the neighborhood where the shooting occurred was filled with furniture, remodeling supplies and old appliances sitting on the curb awaiting trash pickup. Resident Dianne Boone, 65, said those were supposed to have been removed a week earlier.

"It's always like that," sighed Boone, who has lived in the city for 60 years.

Sitting on an antique metal swing bench on her porch, Boone spoke of the long plight of black Americans, how her mother went hungry as a young girl and tore up her hands picking cotton.

"They didn't care nothing about us then," she said. "They don't care nothing about us now."
 
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