A steamy chat distracted an officer when she entered the wrong apartment and killed a man

[IronLionZion]

A steamy chat distracted an officer when she entered the wrong apartment and killed a man, prosecutors say

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/09/24/steamy-chat-distracted-an-officer-when-she-entered-wrong-apartment-killed-man-prosecutors-say/?wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1



As she walked to her apartment on the night of Sept. 6, 2018, Amber Guyger missed a series of signs that she wasn’t on the right floor, prosecutors say.

The off-duty Dallas police officer didn’t realize that the illuminated unit numbers contained fours instead of the threes of a floor below, where she lived. She didn’t recognize the doormats were all different. And, in the final seconds before she turned the doorknob to apartment 1478 and opened fire on the man who lived there, 26-year-old Botham Jean, she didn’t notice the doormat he’d placed outside. It was red — his favorite color.

During opening statements Monday in Guyger’s murder trial, prosecutors offered a reason: She was distracted by the sexually explicit conversation she had been having with her partner on the police force, Martin Rivera.

They had been in an intimate relationship for the past year, prosecutors say, and spent hours swapping messages about being “super horny” and wanting to meet later that night. After a 16-minute phone call with Rivera, Guyger was so consumed that she didn’t process the “repeatedly obvious signs” that something wasn’t right, Assistant Dallas County District Attorney Jason Hermus told jurors.

“All of these things that she’s aware of, she just doesn’t let them get here,” he said, gesturing toward his head. “And that failure cost Bo his life.”

If a woman feels super horny she kills a man? Sounds like a praying mantis or black widow spider.

[Newest Reality]

1. That was a creative narrative.

If I ever did hear one.

Even if it is true, it is novel on the level of romance fiction and a title seems to waft around in there somewhere.

Ah, but not so horny that the gun didn't come out and the man was shot, though. That's a bit of a hole in the story.

[brush]

12. What do you mean? She admitted she had been on the phone with her lover.

She made several mistakes—on wrong floor, didn't notice Jean's red doormat, didn't notice wrong apartmen numbers. She was obviously distracted and the final mistake was going into the wrong apartment and killing an innocent man.

You're aren't trying to excuse her are you?

[Newest Reality]

16. What?

How did you read that into what I said?

I bet you have heard of a crime of passion defense. They used to actually get people exonerated long ago, especially in some other countries. This story reminds me of a variation on that.

Where did my allusion to that give you the impression that I am trying to excuse her? I don't get that.

[brush]

17. Sorry if I misunderstood but it seems she was distracted by the call with her lover.

That of course is no excuse for killing a man.

[Newest Reality]

18. I agree.

I don't buy it either.

[NCLefty]

25. Right. She was on the phone.

But she murdered someone "by accident."

[Thomas Hurt]

2. I can believe she went to the wrong apt, I just don't understand how a police...

officer just blasts away instead of arresting the "burglar" who wasn't a burglar.

[2naSalit]

3. So what?

She fucking killed a man in HIS HOME!!!! She needs to be convicted and jailed for quite a while. She apparently was way too reliant on her firearm.

I think her story is BS and I don't buy any of her claims.

[exboyfil]

4. I am starting to think the DA is sandbagging

First was the interview right before the trial even though the judge issued a gag order.

Now what is effectively slut shaming to mitigate the I was tired and made a mistake defense. Not sure that is the correct direction to go.

The finding that the door was improperly installed and did not latch I think is critical. I still have my doubts, but it does serve the interests of both the defense and the family of the victim if they are seeking a financial settlement from the apartment complex.

For better or worse the castle doctrine is absolute in Texas (I have my issues with it, but you are never getting over that bar). She was criminally negligent in entering the wrong apartment thinking it was her own. It seems like manslaughter is more appropriate.

I utterly detest how she was showed favorable treatment by law enforcement from the start. it tainted the case and should be a much bigger deal. Because of that we may never know what actually did happen.

[OneBro]

28. That was my first read.

DA is sandbagging. The defense would totally agree that she was distracted and hen suddenly frightened (by the black man in her apartment). If it’s okay to kill Trayvon Martin for manufactured fear then surely it’s okay to kill if you have a (sincerely held believe Ed) that it’s your apartment.

‘Merica

[dalton99a]

5. Defense is trying to get her off - She "firmly and reasonably" acted in fear for her own life:

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2019/09/24/jurors-in-amber-guyger-s-murder-trial-watch-officers-desperate-efforts-to-revive-botham-jean/

Her attorneys have argued that she "firmly and reasonably" acted in fear for her own life when she shot her upstairs neighbor, while prosecutors questioned how she missed several visual cues that indicated she was in the wrong apartment.

Guyger, who was later fired, looks panicked when she appears briefly in Officer Michael Lee’s body-cam footage.

The lights in the apartment were on by the time first responders arrived, and Lee testified that Jean’s TV and laptop also were on. The footage shows a bowl of vanilla ice cream on his ottoman and an ironing board and iron set up nearby.

Ear buds lay on the floor near Jean and prosecutor Jason Hermus, a former police officer himself, suggested that he could have been wearing them when Guyger arrived. ...

On the counter also sat a bag of cookies, which he had crumbled into his ice cream. It had still been frozen when first responders arrived.

Three men who lived on the fourth floor of South Side Flats near the apartment where Jean was killed took the stand Tuesday afternoon.

One was Joshua Brown, who lived across the hall from Jean. He had been coming home the night of Sept. 6, 2018, when he heard what he thought sounded like "two people meeting by surprise."

He testified that he couldn't make out what they were saying and they were speaking at the same time. The prosecution asked if Brown had heard loud commands like "Hey, put your hands up!" or "Show me your hands!"

He said he had not. The two other neighbors who took the stand said the same.

[TheCowsCameHome]

7. Her partner was trying to get her off, too.

Now she's really fucked.

[dalton99a]

8. +1

[IronLionZion]

10. Her blood left her brain and went somewhere else

Because of the basic four F's of life: fighting, fleeing, feeding and fornicating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Fs_(evolution)

[customerserviceguy]

15. Good one! n/t

[WhiteTara]

6. I just learned that firefly females will send

out a signal that females of a different species use and then when the unsuspecting male responds, she eats him.

[IronLionZion]

9. Martin Rivera, her hot and steamy lover

See, she can't be racist!

I get that the shooting was a terrible accident. I don't accept the ridiculous excuses or favorable treatment she got from her fellow police letting us know whose lives matter. The instinct to see a black person and immediately start shooting, is a symptom of profound sickness in our society, even if she dates a brown Latino.

[Stargazer09]

11. I hope she goes to prison for decades

A normal person, upon seeing a stranger in her apartment, would shut the door and run. At the very least, call 911 and leave the scene.

Simple burglary is not punishable by death!

[IronLionZion]

14. That's the prosecutor's case

that her actions go against her police training for such a situation. Her defense is completely ridiculous.

She would get more understanding if she admit to wrongdoing based on being exhausted after a long day, not these nonsense excuses.

[Stargazer09]

24. Agreed

“I was tired, I was distracted, I forgot my training.”

Shouldn’t really be a defense, but a lot of police have adopted a “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality.

[exboyfil]

21. It is in Texas unfortunately

I agree with you since she had a path of retreat that she should not have shot him (even assuming it was her apartment).

[Stargazer09]

26. You're right

Texas law is a bit too lenient, in my opinion, about letting people murder so-called intruders. Every time I hear about someone shooting their spouse in the middle of the night, I wonder if it was really an accident. I admit that I’m probably a bit too jaded.

In this case, though, it’s hard to see how she could justify killing someone when she had an easy way to escape and wasn’t threatened in an way.

I hope the jury does the right thing. She deserves to be punished for killing him.

[Tipperary]

13. Sex has nothing to do with this horrid crime.

I hope she goes to prison for a long time.

[Catherine Vincent]

19. That is just...sad. I feel so bad for that guy's family. :(

[Horse with no Name]

20. I want to share what a friend wrote about Botham Jean

Yesterday, I attended the funeral of Botham Shem Jean. It was one of the most moving experiences I have ever had. Botham was a man of God, a graduate of Harding University, a worship leader, and a brother in Christ. We shared the same city and the same small religious tribe. He attended our church a few times.

8 days ago, Botham was murdered in his home. The shooter was not taken into custody until 3 days later. And yesterday, while I was sitting at his memorial service, those in power prepared to release the results of what often happens when African-American men are murdered: a thorough investigation into the life of a victim to criminalize him and somehow help others come to the conclusion that he, because of some flaw, "deserved" the bullet that took his life in his own home.

We don't just murder African-American men. We murder their character. And we continue to justify systems that have continually devalued black bodies from the moment they arrived on our shores on slave ships.

I am a white minister in Dallas. My family has lived here for generations. I have benefited from so much that this city has offered me. But my experience is not the experience of everyone in Dallas.

And I refuse to be silent and complicit any longer. Botham's Memorial Service, along with many other events over the past few years, have unstopped my ears and cleared my eyes.

In his "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke words that still ring true in our day:

"I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice..."

I want to challenge my white brothers and sisters in Christ to be willing to speak up for justice. May we be willing to stand in solidarity. May we be willing to listen without being defensive.

The voice of our brother's blood cries out to us from the ground. May justice roll down like a river. Let us do what we must to tear down any dam constructed to block the flow of that river.

[HipChick]

29. Except Botham Jean was not African-American ..

He was St.Lucian...

[rainbow4321]

22. Stage is being set for her to get away with it

Living locally, I’ve been following it via our local media/live streams.

What has come testified about via witnesses:

25% of the residents from the 3rd/4th floor told investigators that they have parked on the wrong parking garage level and gone to the wrong apartment floor (with at least one witness admitting trying to access the wrong apartment). As a whole, 15% of residents building-wide told those same investigators that they have gone to the wrong floor at some point.

Mr Jean’s door key fob latch was found by crime scene people to have been “installed incorrectly”...this is why the door didn’t lock the way it should have when he closed the door that night...and Guyger was able to push open the door after putting in HER fob key (despite a red light blinking on the entry that indicated the wrong key was used).

The lead TX Ranger investigator said today in the courtroom (NOT in front of the jury, though) that he didn’t feel she committed a crime when she shot him.

All this and it’s only the 3rd trial day. It’s expected to last 2 weeks. She is going to take the stand at some point, per her lawyer.

[TeamPooka]

23. I read this as her lover wouldn't cover up her crime and since she's going to jail she's going

to ruin him too.

[dewsgirl]

27. Who amongst us hasn't been so horny and distracted

We didn't recognize the obvious signs of being in the wrong home?
Honestly, I have done this a couple times with my vehicle. I highly doubt it was because I was too horny. What an odd defense?