Amber Guyger, the former Dallas police officer who was handed a 10-year prison sentence for fatally shooting Botham Jean, has been denied parole. As previously reported by Face2Face Africa, Jean, an unarmed Black man, was in his apartment when Guyger shot and killed him in 2018.
Guyger was convicted in October 2019 on the charge of murder. Her attorneys had argued that she shot Jean on September 6, 2018, as a means of self-defense. Authorities said Guyger will now be eligible for parole in 2026, CBS News reported.
“My family feels a sense of relief having gone through the process and made a strong petition for denial,” Jean’s mother, Alison Jean, said in response to Guyger being denied parole. “So news coming in that the board considered our petition is a sense of elation, a sense of relief.”
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In an interview with CBS News Texas, Alison Jean also emphasized that Guyger “needs to serve her entire 10-year term, which is well below a sentence that one receives for murder.” “Murder of an innocent man in the comfort of his home, doing nothing wrong,” she added.
In the wake of the fatal incident, Guyger said she had returned from work to the apartment she thought was hers. She claimed she found the door to the apartment ajar and found Jean inside, watching the TV from the couch and eating ice cream. She opened fire, killing him on the spot. But Jean’s apartment had been directly above Guyger’s.
At her sentencing, Guyger was famously forgiven by Brandt Jean, a brother of the man she killed. Brandt hugged Guyger for a while in a photographic moment that has come to be synonymous with the case.
But Brandt’s absolution of Guyger’s sins was greeted with disbelief and anger by many Black people who took to social media. At the time, Brandt told CNN he wanted “to lead by example” as part of efforts to heal a country that is deeply divided along racial lines.
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