Judge Sentences White Cop Only 12 yrs in Prison for Murdering Atatiana Jefferson. After Unlawful Entry Into Home Officer Shot Her as She Played Video Games w/Her 8 yr Old Nephew, Gave No First Aid

From [HERE] A former Texas police officer who fatally shot Atatiana Jeffersonthrough a rear window of her home in 2019 was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years and 10 months in prison for his manslaughter conviction.

Aaron Dean, 38, had faced up to 20 years in prison, but jurors also had the option of sentencing him to probation. The same jury that convicted him of manslaughter last Thursday also determined the sentence.

The white Fort Worth officer shot the 28-year-old Black woman while responding to a call about an open front door. His guilty verdict was a rare conviction of an officer for killing someone who was also armed with a gun.

During the trial, the primary dispute was whether Mr. Dean knew Ms. Jefferson was armed. Mr. Dean testified that he saw her weapon; prosecutors claimed the evidence showed otherwise.

The jurors obviously did not find the white officer to be credible.

Mr. Dean shot Ms. Jefferson on Oct. 12, 2019, after a neighbor called a nonemergency police line to report that the front door to Ms. Jefferson’s home was open. She had been playing video games that night with her 8-year-old nephew and it emerged at trial that they left the doors open to vent smoke from hamburgers the boy burned.

The case was unusual for the relative speed with which, amid public outrage, the Fort Worth Police Department released video of the shooting and arrested Mr. Dean. He had completed the police academy the year before and quit the force without speaking to investigators. 

Since then, the case had been repeatedly postponed amid lawyerly wrangling, the terminal illness of Mr. Dean’s lead attorney and the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Police body camera footage showed that Mr. Dean and a second officer who responded to the call didn’t identify themselves as police at the house. Mr. Dean and Officer Carol Darchtestified that they thought the house might have been burglarized and quietly moved into the fenced-off backyard looking for signs of forced entry. 

There, Mr. Dean, whose gun was drawn, fired a single shot through the window a split-second after shouting at Ms. Jefferson, who was inside, to show her hands. 

Mr. Dean testified that he had no choice but to shoot when he saw Ms. Jefferson pointing the barrel of a gun directly at him. But under questioning from prosecutors he acknowledged numerous errors, repeatedly conceding that actions he took before and after the shooting were “more bad police work.” 

Ms. Darch’s back was to the window when Mr. Dean shot, but she testified that he never mentioned seeing a gun before he pulled the trigger and didn’t say anything about the weapon as they rushed in to search the house. 

Mr. Dean acknowledged on the witness stand that he only said something about the gun after seeing it on the floor inside the house and that he never gave Ms. Jefferson first aid.