Ex-Dallas cop missed clues before shooting man eating ice cream in own home: prosecutor

[True Dough]

DALLAS (Reuters) - A Dallas police officer missed clues, including the smell of marijuana, when she entered an apartment she believed was her own and shot dead a man eating a bowl of ice cream, a prosecutor said Monday at the start of the former officer’s murder trial.

Amber Guyger, who is white, has told investigators she mistook 26-year-old Botham Jean, a black man, for a burglar after she mistakenly entered his central Dallas apartment one floor above her own.

A defense attorney said in his opening statement that the officer was so exhausted she was “on autopilot” and that dozens of other people who live in the same apartment complex reported they had confused floors because all of them are virtually identical. Assistant District Attorney Jason Hermus told the jury of four men and 12 women that Guyger had a 16-minute phone conversation with her former partner, with whom she had a romantic relationship, on the way home from work that night after a 13-1/2 hour shift.

“Whatever is on her mind after that conversation has consumed her attention entirely,” Hermus said in his opening statement.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-crime-amber-guyger/ex-dallas-cop-missed-clues-before-shooting-man-eating-ice-cream-in-own-home-prosecutor-idUSKBN1W80XN

[demtenjeep]

1. what a joke

but …………...

[BigMin28]

2. I think it's

Possible she had some prior issue with Mr.Jean. The local news here in Dallas discussed her social media accounts before they were deleted. She clearly had a bit of a racist streak. She had to know it was not her apartment. Mr. Jean at least had the tv on if not other lights. It wasn't pitch dark. And she sure was quick in drawing and using her weapon. There was enough light for her to make her shot. Deadly accurate.

I hope she gets life.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

4. It has been reported many times

that the two did not know each other, even in passing.

[rainbow4321]

19. No...people saw him in a picture, posing with a blonde female *co-worker*

And social media,being what it is, was all “LOOK...here they are together!”. They were posing with other co-workers at a social gathering.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

3. What complete horse shit.

[JI7]

5. the prosecution is trying to get her off easy

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. I may be the only one who thinks long shifts are a truly terrible idea.

I am not exactly excusing this woman, but 13 1/2 hours? Really? Have you ever worked that long yourself? In a stressful job?

I was an airline ticket agent at National Airport in Washington DC from 1969 to 1979. There were many times when I worked 10 or 12 hours. On my feet. In high heels. On a concrete floor. With passengers insulting me the whole time. It was exhausting.

But at least I wasn't a cop and didn't have a gun. Okay, so I also never walked into the wrong apartment, but overwork and fatigue is probably a huge issue here.

Oh, and it's common these days for nurses to routinely work a 10 or 12 hour scheduled shift. I don't know about anyone else, but I honestly do not want to be cared for by a nurse 9 or 11 hours into her shift. I really don't.

[Downtown Hound]

10. I've worked 18 hour shifts before

At a very physical job. Never shot anybody, and managed to go home to the right place.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. I rather doubt that the last eight or so hours of your shift

you were actually productive. Although an important question would be, how many 18 hour shifts in a row did you work?

A while back I read an interesting article on this topic. Several points.

Back in the 1930s when 8 hour shifts replaced 12 hour shifts, absolutely all of the heads of industry and companies said they couldn't possibly survive, especially given that they would now have to pay as much for 8 hours as they did for 12. To their honest astonishment, their workers, especially in factories, were far more productive than ever. Hmmm. Who'd'a thunk it?

Other research has shown that it's not entirely unreasonable to work the occasional long shift. But that needs to be compensated, and fairly quickly, by time off to rest up.

One huge problem with Silicon Valley is that it was founded and then populated by people who had absolutely no life outside of the job. And zero understanding of anyone doing anything but working. That same article said that the original Iphone would probably have come to market two years earlier (emphasis mine) had the people working on it put in normal shifts, not the 100 hour weeks that were actually involved.

When I was at DCA, there were times when flights were exceptionally screwed up, night shift (normally the last person was off at 11pm) would call up morning shift at 3am and say, "Can you guys come in a bit early so we can go home?" They always came in for us. And that was not a very physical job. Yeah, we were standing, not sitting, but for the most part we weren't lifting heavy things.

Again, I'm not really justifying what that woman did. But learning that she'd just come off a 13 1/2 hour shift makes a difference to me, someone who has done shift work and who has put in more involuntary overtime than I like to recall, makes me see what happened a bit differently. I would think that as soon as she was inside that man's apartment, not hers, she'd have immediately seen she was in the wrong place. I'm guessing that she was hyper-focused, wasn't really looking at her surroundings, and made a truly stupid and fatal mistake.

[DiverDave]

12. Could you give me

All the winners in college and pro football games this week?
You seem to know the unknowable. How can you say that he was non
Productive? Were you there?
I drive 9-11 hours a day, never had an accident in 26 years.
I'll split my winnings with you on the football games

[Downtown Hound]

14. Actually, I spent the entire shift

stacking boxes of bottles on a conveyer belt. But thanks for making assumptions about things you know nothing about.

[Horse with no Name]

17. I am a nurse and I guarantee you that you will get the very

Best I can give whether it’s 1 hour into my shift or 14 hours into my shift.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. I know you will do your best, but 14 hours

or even 10 hours into a shift there is no way you, or any other person, is at top form. You're tired. You're going to make mistakes. It happens. I want well rested people caring for me in that kind of a setting.

[Snake Plissken]

7. So now walking into a person's home and gunning them down is an honest mistake

It's like we're in the Twilight Zone

[JI7]

8. only if it's a white person shooting a POC

[customerserviceguy]

9. Glad to see that

the trial has begun. Manslaughter at the very least.

Autopilot = bullshit.

[Captain Stern]

13. I believe it was an honest mistake.

However, I think the police should be treated the same way, or harsher, for their 'honest mistakes' as the rest of us. After, all they have far more training than we do.

I'm pretty sure that if I mistakenly walked into the wrong apartment and killed the person that lived there, I'd be going to prison. So, that's what should happen here.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

15. 🐂💩

[pwb]

16. A cop made a mistake? No

Lock her up. She killed that man she should go to jail. No free pass for cops anymore.

[HipChick]

20. Exactly...

I've worked late long shifts as a nurse...dragged myself home, and never killed anyone..