Family disputes official account of the moments before Amber Guyger shot Botham Jean
Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger saw only a silhouette across the room in a dark apartment Thursday before she shot 26-year-old Botham Jean, according to an arrest-warrant affidavit made public Monday.
Jean, who lived on the fourth floor of the South Side Flats in the Cedars, was home alone when Guyger mistook his apartment for hers, the affidavit says. Guyger lived on the third floor, directly beneath his apartment, and mistakenly parked on the fourth floor after finishing a shift at the Dallas Police Department, the affidavit says.
When she arrived at Jean's door, Guyger entered a unique door key with an electronic chip into the keyhole, the affidavit says. The door was already ajar, so the force of pushing the key inside opened the door, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit says the apartments' "respective interior floorplans are in most ways identical or extremely similar."
The apartment was dark and when she saw "a large silhouette," Guyger thought she was being burglarized, the affidavit says.
The affidavit says Guyger drew her gun, "gave verbal commands that were ignored" and fired twice. Jean was struck once in the torso.
Guyger then called 911 from her cellphone and started performing first aid. She turned on the lights, then went to the front door again and realized the apartment wasn't hers, the affidavit says.
She told the 911 operator as well as responding officers that she thought she was at her apartment when she shot Jean, according to the affidavit.
Jean was taken to Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, where he died.
The attorneys for Jean's family disputed the narrative in the arrest-warrant affidavit at a news conference streamed live by WFAA-TV (Channel 8) Monday evening, saying Jean was a meticulous man who wouldn't have neglected to close and lock his door.
One of the attorneys, Lee Merritt, said two independent witnesses had come forward to say they heard knocking on the door in the hallway before the shooting. One of the witnesses said she heard a a woman's voice saying, "Let me in, let me in," Merritt said. Then, they heard gunshots.
After the gunshots, one of the witnesses said she heard what she thought was a man's voice saying, "Oh my God, why did you do that?"
Merritt believes those were Jean's last words.
One witness said she didn't report what she had heard to law enforcement, but she did reach out to Jean's family because she thought what she heard contradicted with the prevailing theory.
"This affidavit is very self-serving," said attorney Benjamin Crump, who is also representing the family. "Botham Jean is not here to give his version of what happened because he's dead."
The Texas Rangers got a search warrant for Jean's apartment because after interviewing Guyger, they believed "a possibility exists that Subject Jean was expecting an unknown visitor," and a cellphone or laptop may show evidence of that, according to an affidavit.
A return for the warrant shows the Rangers seized an iPhone from the living room. They didn't take Jean's laptop, which they noted was damaged.
Guyger was
arrested on a charge of manslaughter Sunday night and was booked into the Kaufman County Jail. She posted bond and was released the same night.
Neither affidavit detailed the length of the shift Guyger worked before the shooting, but a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the case
said the officer had just finished a 15-hour day before she parked on the wrong level of the parking garage at the apartment complex.
It's not unusual for members of a special team to work long days, Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata said. On the day of the shooting, Guyger and other members of a team that targets high-crime areas had helped arrest multiple suspects linked to robberies.
"[Supervisors] try to make sure you have at least six hours worth of rest before you come in," though that's not written policy, Mata said.
He noted that staffing gaps at the Dallas Police Department have made overtime work commonplace as officers continue to leave for higher-paying jobs in the suburbs.
Many Dallas officers also work part-time jobs to supplement their income, Mata said. Those off-duty jobs have to be approved by the department, and under local policy, the workday can't exceed 16 hours — including the off-duty work.
However, the police chief or the division commander can approve longer workdays.
The arrest-warrant affidavit provided the first official account of what happened the night Jean died. Without an official account of how Guyger got into Jean's apartment, misinformation swirled on social media.
In just one example, social media users
ripped a photo from Jean's Instagram account and misidentified a woman pictured with him as Guyger, in an effort to prove that the two knew each other before the shooting. They did not.
Mata said he is concerned about people on social media passing along false narratives and rumors.
Guyger has received threats online and through her phone.
"Someone got her cell and was sending her texts," Mata said. "And her address is on the arrest warrant."
He said "she is somewhere safe, away from that address."
Mayor Mike Rawlings said in an interview Monday that he was also trying to sort through the misinformation and the strange details of the case.
Initially, the mayor said, he was also told Guyger had been working an off-duty job — "and that was wrong," Rawlings said.
More misinformation spread throughout the weekend, to the point where Rawlings is now all but pleading with people "to stay off social media."
And then he said his "mind starts to work like every other citizen's in town about how could that happen, what does that mean she got the wrong apartment, what's the key situation, how do they get in? You become a detective right there.
"And then you say, 'That's not my job.'"
