The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement has drawn wide public attention to the problem, and to the institutionalized racism present in law enforcement and prosecutors’ offices. As the shootings have gained more attention, particularly since the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, activists have called for accountability. 992 people were killed by police in 2018. This year alone, 660 people have been shot and killed by police. The epidemic of police violence is undeniable. In a rare instance, a Dallas jury made clear it wouldn’t accept this excuse. This fear of black male bodies has been used as justification for their killings again and again.
Such was the case in the killings of Jean, Michael Brown, Terence Crutcher, Laquan McDonald, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Stephon Clark, and countless others. The story fit a familiar pattern: a police officer claiming they were “scared” and using that as an excuse to shoot an unarmed black man who posed no immediate threat-and, in most instances, no threat at all. Jean was unarmed, and rather than leave or attempt to diffuse the situation, her first reaction was to shoot. It is plausible that Guyger walked into the wrong apartment by accident, but her subsequent actions were inexcusable. At trial, Guyger testified that she was returning from a long shift, accidentally went to the wrong floor of the apartment complex, walked in, and fired within seconds upon seeing a “silhouetted person” approach her at a “fast-paced” walk. The shooting rightfully provoked outrage, as it is among the most heinous instances of police killing unarmed black men across the country. Guyger lived in the same apartment complex as Jean, and after she walked into Jean’s apartment and shot him, unprovoked, she claimed she thought she was entering her own apartment and he had broken in. Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger was convicted of murder on Tuesday and sentenced to 10 years in prison, just over a year after shooting and killing a 26-year-old black man named Botham Jean sitting in his apartment.