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Joshua Brown, Witness in Amber Guyger Trial, Was Killed in a Drug Deal, Police Say Joshua Brown, Witness in Amber Guyger Trial, Was Killed in a Drug Deal, Police Say
(about 2 hours later)
DALLAS — He testified against a former Dallas police officer on trial for murder, and 10 days later, he was dead.DALLAS — He testified against a former Dallas police officer on trial for murder, and 10 days later, he was dead.
The slaying of Joshua Brown, a neighbor who had heard gunshots on the night last year when 26-year-old Botham Shem Jean was killed across the hall from his apartment at the hands of a white police officer, rattled many in Dallas and around the country who had followed this month’s high-profile trial. There was speculation that he had been killed in retaliation, or that perhaps the trial had brought him dangerous publicity. The slaying of Joshua Brown, a neighbor who had heard gunshots across the hall on the night when 26-year-old Botham Shem Jean was killed in his apartment by an off-duty police officer, rattled many who had followed the recent high-profile trial. There was speculation that he had been killed in retaliation, or that perhaps the trial had brought him dangerous publicity.
But on Tuesday, the Dallas Police Department offered a far different explanation: Mr. Brown, 28, was killed during a drug deal, they said, and detectives were pursuing capital murder charges against three suspects. One of the suspects was in custody, and the others were at large, the police said. But on Tuesday, the Dallas Police Department offered a far different explanation: Mr. Brown, 28, was killed during a drug deal, it said, and detectives were pursuing capital murder charges against three suspects. One of the suspects was in custody, and the others were at large, the police said.
“There has been speculation and rumors that have been shared by community leaders claiming that Mr. Brown’s death was related to the Amber Guyger trial and that somehow the Dallas Police Department was responsible,” Avery Moore, an assistant chief who oversees criminal investigations, said at a news conference. “I assure you that is simply not true.”“There has been speculation and rumors that have been shared by community leaders claiming that Mr. Brown’s death was related to the Amber Guyger trial and that somehow the Dallas Police Department was responsible,” Avery Moore, an assistant chief who oversees criminal investigations, said at a news conference. “I assure you that is simply not true.”
Mr. Brown, who like Mr. Jean is black, found himself in the public eye after he became a witness in the case against Amber R. Guyger, an off-duty police officer who shot Mr. Jean in his own apartment. Ms. Guyger, who lived downstairs at the South Side Flats apartment complex in Dallas, claimed she mistook the apartment for her own and Mr. Jean for an intruder. Mr. Brown testified for the prosecution at her murder trial, and she was sentenced to 10 years in prison last week. Mr. Brown, who like Mr. Jean was black, found himself in the public eye after he became a witness in the case against Amber R. Guyger, a white police officer who was heading home from work last year on the night of the original shooting. Ms. Guyger, who lived downstairs at the South Side Flats apartment complex in Dallas, claimed she mistook the apartment for her own and Mr. Jean for an intruder. Mr. Brown testified for the prosecution at her murder trial in September, and she was sentenced to 10 years in prison last week.
Mr. Brown was shot late Friday night, two days after the trial came to a close. He was found gunned down outside a new apartment he had moved to in another part of the city, where witnesses had seen a silver sedan speeding away from the scene. Late on Friday night, two days after the trial ended, Mr. Brown was shot. He was found injured outside a different apartment he had moved to in another part of the city, and died later at a hospital. Witnesses saw a silver sedan speeding away from the scene.
The timing of Mr. Brown’s death immediately led to public speculation and attention. Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and a Democratic candidate for president, called for transparency in the investigation. A Houston businessman and high-stakes poker player, Bill Perkins, offered a $100,000 reward in the case. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund called for an independent state or federal investigation into Mr. Brown’s killing, calling it a “deeply alarming and highly suspicious murder.” The timing of Mr. Brown’s death immediately drew attention and led to public speculation. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund called for an independent state or federal investigation into Mr. Brown’s killing, calling it a “deeply alarming and highly suspicious murder.” A Houston businessman and high-stakes poker player, Bill Perkins, offered a $100,000 reward in the case. Lee Merritt, a lawyer who represented Mr. Jean’s family and began working with Mr. Brown’s relatives, said that “the possibility of law enforcement involvement” could not be ruled out.
At the news conference on Tuesday, Assistant Chief Moore sought to allay concerns and restore the public’s confidence. “I thank you for trusting us to provide you with true and accurate information,” he said. At the news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Moore, the assistant police chief, sought to allay concerns about the case and restore the public’s confidence. “I thank you for trusting us to provide you with true and accurate information,” he said.
The police identified three men who they said had traveled from Louisiana to buy drugs from Mr. Brown and got into an altercation in the parking lot. One of the men, Jacquerious Mitchell, told the police that Mr. Brown shot him in the chest, and that afterward, he heard two more gunshots. The police said they had identified three men who they believed had traveled from Louisiana to buy drugs from Mr. Brown.
The police said Mr. Mitchell, 20, was in custody at a hospital and faced a charge of capital murder. The authorities had also issued warrants for two other men, Thaddeous Charles Green, 22, and Michael Diaz Mitchell, 32, who were still at large. One of the men, Jacquerious Mitchell, who was in critical condition at a hospital, told the police that Mr. Brown shot him in the chest, and that he heard two more gunshots afterward. An autopsy found that Mr. Brown was shot twice in the lower body, the authorities said.
Mr. Mitchell, 20, was in custody at the hospital and faced a charge of capital murder, the police said. The authorities also issued warrants for two other men, Thaddeous Charles Green, 22, and Michael Diaz Mitchell, 32, who the police said were at large and thought to be armed.
Mr. Brown had been a witness in not one but two murders last year in Dallas. The developments were only the latest whiplash moment in a case that from the start did not fit neatly into the narrative of other police shootings of unarmed black men, but nevertheless stirred racial tensions and stoked longstanding mistrust of the police.
In November 2018, more than two months after the shooting of Mr. Jean, Mr. Brown was shot in the foot during a shooting outside a strip club that left another man dead. Even after Tuesday’s announcement about an arrest in Mr. Brown’s shooting, not everyone was ready to believe the department’s account, with skeptical questions quickly emerging on social media.
Mr. Brown believed he had been the intended target in that shooting, so he kept a low profile in the months that followed. He only reluctantly agreed to testify for the prosecution at Ms. Guyger’s trial, according to a civil rights lawyer who represented Mr. Jean’s family and who is now working with Mr. Brown’s relatives. The Dallas police chief recently announced an internal affairs investigation into complaints about the department’s handling of the Guyger case, including the deactivation of a squad car camera on the night of the shooting and the deletion of text messages Ms. Guyger exchanged with a fellow officer.
“He didn’t want any part of this trial,” said the lawyer, Lee Merritt. “He was intimidated by the idea of being out there in the public. And unfortunately, in the black community, cooperating with the state — even in the prosecution of a white police officer — is frowned upon.” On Tuesday, Mr. Merritt, the lawyer working with Mr. Jean’s and Mr. Brown’s relatives, continued to call for an independent third-party investigation.
When Mr. Brown took the witness stand on Sept. 24, the second day of the trial, he was worried about being in the public eye, Mr. Merritt said. Perhaps in a sign of his reluctance to testify, Mr. Brown was not exactly dressed for court: He wore blue athletic shorts and a mint-green graphic T-shirt, which he used to wipe his eyes occasionally as he spoke about his former neighbor. “It will be nearly impossible to conduct a reliable investigation in a climate where the investigating agency has been implicated in the murder itself,” Mr. Merritt said in a statement on behalf of Mr. Brown’s family, adding that while the Dallas Police Department was leading the investigation, “a cloud of suspicion will rest over this case.”
Mr. Brown and Mr. Jean were in some ways living parallel but separate lives across the hall from each other at the South Side Flats. Mr. Brown, who had a complicated history of his own, was worried about being in the public eye when he took the witness stand on Sept. 24, the second day of the Guyger trial, according to Mr. Merritt.
“He didn’t want any part of this trial,” he said. “He was intimidated by the idea of being out there in the public. And unfortunately, in the black community, cooperating with the state — even in the prosecution of a white police officer — is frowned upon.”
Mr. Brown was from Florida and managed Airbnb locations; Mr. Jean was from the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia and worked for a major accounting firm. The night Mr. Jean was killed, they had separately made plans to spend the evening the same way — watching the first N.F.L. game of the season, when the Philadelphia Eagles played the Atlanta Falcons. Mr. Merritt thought Mr. Brown’s hesitance may have had something to do with his involvement in a prior shooting in November 2018. In that encounter, Mr. Brown was shot in the foot outside a strip club in an altercation that left another man dead. Mr. Brown, who believed he had been the intended target in that shooting, had kept a low profile in the months that followed, Mr. Merritt said.
Mr. Brown told the jury he had met Mr. Jean for the first time earlier on the day of the shooting, when officials from the leasing office came by to knock on their doors about a noise complaint. Perhaps in a sign of his reluctance to testify, Mr. Brown was not exactly dressed for court on the day he appeared for the Guyger trial: He wore blue athletic shorts and a mint-green graphic T-shirt, which he used to wipe his eyes occasionally as he spoke about his former neighbor.
Later that night, after going to a bar to watch the first half of the football game, Mr. Brown said, he came home to a commotion in the hallway. He heard something “like two voices mixing together at the same time,” he told the jury during the trial, followed by gunshots. Mr. Brown confirmed to the jury that he had been living across the hall from Mr. Jean at the time of the shooting.
Crucially, he said he did not hear loud verbal commands before the gunshots, which was contrary to Ms. Guyger’s testimony that she had ordered Mr. Jean to show his hands before she pulled the trigger. The two men, both in their mid-20s, had met but once, and Mr. Brown knew his neighbor mostly by the sound of his voice, as Mr. Jean sang gospel music and Drake lyrics in his apartment across the hall.
Later, from his balcony, Mr. Brown said, he could see Ms. Guyger pacing while crying on the phone. On the night of the shooting, Mr. Brown testified, he heard something “like two voices mixing together at the same time.” Gunshots quickly followed, he said. Crucially, he said he did not hear loud verbal commands before the gunshots, which was contrary to Ms. Guyger’s testimony that she had ordered Mr. Jean to show his hands before she pulled the trigger.
“She was crying, explaining what happened, what she thought happened, saying she went into the wrong apartment,” he said. Later, from his balcony, Mr. Brown said, he could see Ms. Guyger pacing outside and talking on the phone. “She was crying, explaining what happened, what she thought happened, saying she went into the wrong apartment,” he said.
Mr. Brown was raised in a military family who moved from city to city, including stints in Jacksonville, Fla., and Lancaster, Texas, outside of Dallas, according to Mr. Merritt. He played football at the University of South Florida, where former colleagues remembered him as a competitive and outspoken player with a love of video games, according to The Tampa Bay Times. Mr. Brown, who played football at the University of South Florida and later worked as a roofing contractor, had started a business renting out residences for Airbnb.
After college, he worked as a roofing contractor for a few years before starting a business renting out residences for Airbnb. He acknowledged during his testimony that he had previously had run-ins with the police, including a 2011 misdemeanor theft conviction and a 2016 drug conviction. He acknowledged during his testimony that he had previously had run-ins with the police, including a 2011 misdemeanor theft conviction and a 2016 drug conviction.
On Tuesday, the police said they had executed a search warrant at Mr. Brown’s apartment and found 12 pounds of marijuana, more than 140 grams of THC cartridges and $4,000 in cash.
It was unclear whether Mr. Brown had previously known the three suspects identified by the police as taking part in the fatal drug transaction, but the police said there was no reason to believe that the violence had anything to do with Mr. Brown’s testimony in the Guyger case.
The police said their investigation showed that one of the suspects stole Mr. Brown’s gun and backpack, a robbery that elevated the case to a capital murder charge.
Marina Trahan Martinez reported from Dallas, Sarah Mervosh from New York and Manny Fernandez from Houston.Marina Trahan Martinez reported from Dallas, Sarah Mervosh from New York and Manny Fernandez from Houston.