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Fort Worth Police Shooting: Officer Who Shot Woman in Her Home Resigns Fort Worth Police Shooting: Officer Faces Criminal Inquiry for Killing Woman in Her Home
(about 3 hours later)
FORT WORTH — The Fort Worth police officer who shot and killed a 28-year-old woman as she was playing a video game with her nephew in her home resigned only hours before he was going to be fired, the authorities said on Monday. FORT WORTH — Atatiana Jefferson was a homebody. At 28, she had recently moved home to take care of her mother, who was struggling with health issues. She worked out of their modest, blue-paneled house in Fort Worth, selling medical equipment while she studied to apply to medical school.
Ed Kraus, the interim Fort Worth police chief, identified the officer as Aaron Dean and said the department expected to provide a “substantial update” by Tuesday on the criminal investigation it has launched into the shooting. While the rest of the country followed the recent trial of a white Dallas police officer who had shot and killed her unarmed black neighbor inside his apartment, Ms. Jefferson had little appetite for the national story playing out some 30 miles away, her family said. She spent her time taking care of a gaggle of cats and dogs and playing video games and basketball with her nephews.
Mr. Dean, who was hired in August 2017 and became an officer in April 2018, is not cooperating in the inquiry and has not answered questions from investigators, Mr. Kraus said. “She was enjoying a life in her home, where no one would have expected her to be in harm’s way,” said her sister, Amber Carr.
He said that he had also asked the F.B.I. to review the shooting for possible civil rights violations, but it was unclear whether the bureau would take up the case. But over the weekend, Ms. Jefferson, who is black, became the victim of the latest national police controversy when she was shot to death through her bedroom window by a white officer who was responding to a concerned call from a neighbor. Her sudden death — while playing Xbox with her nephew — stunned a North Texas community still reeling from a similar case in nearby Dallas and ruptured what was an already strained relationship with the Fort Worth Police Department. Since June, officers in Fort Worth have shot and killed six people.
Mr. Dean, who is white, shot and killed Atatiana Jefferson, who is black, through her bedroom window, killing her with a single shot, the police said. He and another officer were responding to a report from a neighbor that two doors in the home had been left open for several hours. Amid growing community anger and frustration, officials announced on Monday that the officer who shot Ms. Jefferson had resigned hours before the chief had planned to fire him. Ed Kraus, the interim Fort Worth police chief, said the department was conducting a criminal investigation into the officer’s actions and would have a “substantial update” on the case on Tuesday. He said he had reached out to the F.B.I. about the possibility of starting a civil rights investigation.
“I get it,” Mr. Kraus said of the widespread outrage across the community and around the country after the release of footage from the officer’s body camera showing that Ms. Jefferson had been given no warning that it was a police officer who was walking around her back yard with a flashlight and a gun. “I get it,” Chief Kraus said of the widespread public outrage that followed the release of body camera video showing that Ms. Jefferson had been given no warning that it was a police officer who had crept into her backyard, shined a light into her bedroom window and shouted, “Put your hands up! Show me your hands!” immediately before firing a single fatal shot.
“Nobody looked at that video and said there was any doubt that this officer acted inappropriately,” the chief said. “I get it. We’re trying to train our officers better.” “Nobody looked at that video and said there was any doubt that this officer acted inappropriately,” the chief said.
Ms. Jefferson’s family on Monday said the officer should face criminal charges. But the developments on Monday did little to appease Ms. Jefferson’s family and community leaders, who called for the officer, Aaron Y. Dean, to face criminal charges.
“This man murdered someone,” Ms. Jefferson’s brother, Adarius Carr, said at a news conference on Monday. “He should be arrested.” “This man murdered someone,” Ms. Jefferson’s brother, Adarius Carr, said at a news conference. “He should be arrested.”
The family also demanded that an outside agency investigate the shooting, saying they did not trust the Fort Worth Police Department to conduct an impartial inquiry. Mr. Dean had been with the Fort Worth Police Department since April 2018, the chief said. He had graduated from the police academy a month earlier, according to documents provided by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, a state regulatory agency.
“Why this man is not in handcuffs right now is a source of continued agitation for this family and for this community, and it must be addressed,” said S. Lee Merritt, a lawyer for the family. When Ms. Jefferson was killed, she had been up late playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew. Her house drew the attention of a neighbor, who called a nonemergency line at 2:23 a.m. Saturday because he was concerned that its front and side doors had been open for several hours.
Ms. Jefferson had been up late playing Xbox with her 8-year-old nephew, who was still in the room when she was shot. Ms. Jefferson died in her bedroom after officers tried to provide medical assistance, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office.
Two police officers drove to her home after the neighbor called a nonemergency line at 2:23 a.m. Saturday and reported the open doors. The officers parked about a block away and quietly crept around outside the house, passing by the two open doors and opening a gate to the back yard, according to the body camera video. “I can’t stop crying,” said Lillie Biggins, a longtime community leader in Fort Worth who had recently served on a race and culture task force for the city. “My heart is absolutely crushed.”
The officer identified as Mr. Dean shone a light through Ms. Jefferson’s bedroom window and, seeing Ms. Jefferson, shot her just seconds after he shouted, “Put your hands up! Show me your hands! He never identified himself as a police officer, the police said. The department said in an initial statement that the officer had perceived “a threat,” but did not elaborate. Ms. Jefferson died in her bedroom after officers tried to provide medical assistance, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office. Michael Bell, the senior pastor at Greater St. Stephen First Church in Fort Worth, was among those who criticized the officers for not knocking on the door or otherwise identifying themselves to give Ms. Jefferson a chance to respond.
Mr. Kraus said he regretted that the Police Department had released photographs of a gun that he said officers found on the floor below the window in Ms. Jefferson’s bedroom after she was killed. He declined to say if she had been holding the handgun, but he and other officials have said she had every right to have a gun in her bedroom. “They approached it as if it were a tactical exercise, even though it was a welfare check,” he said, adding that the latest shooting only added to distrust of the police in a community that had experienced a “cumulative effect” from multiple episodes of police force.
“We’re homeowners in the state of Texas,” he said. “I can’t imagine most of us — if we thought we had somebody outside our house that shouldn’t be and we had access to a firearm — that we wouldn’t act very similarly to how she acted.” In 2009, a man with a history of mental illness died after he was Tasered by the Fort Worth police, which his family had called for help.
Mr. Kraus said the only notable entry in Mr. Dean’s personnel file was for a traffic accident. Several years later, in 2016, a mother called the police to report that a neighbor had choked her young son for littering, but the mother herself ended up getting arrested. In an encounter that was captured on video and widely shared, the mother, Jacqueline Craig, was forced to the ground and placed in handcuffs; her teenage daughters were also arrested.
Mayor Betsy Price apologized on behalf of Fort Worth and repeatedly said the city would seek justice for the killing. Community members also cited the seven police shootings since early summer, six of them fatal, including the killing of a man who the police thought was carrying a rifle but was actually pointing a flashlight at officers after barricading himself inside a house.
“Atatiana was a beautiful, smart, amazing young woman by all accounts, who was unjustly taken from her family,” the mayor said. “The entire city is in pain. As a mother, a grandmother, a sister an aunt, I can’t imagine anything worse and I’m so sorry.” “We’re beyond anger,” said the Rev. Kyev Tatum, a pastor at New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth. “It’s trauma now. It’s unaddressed, toxic stress.”
Frustration continued to grow in the city on Monday, an anger that community leaders said had developed after decades of abuse by the city’s Police Department, particularly against black residents. Officers have shot and killed six people, of various races, since June. In the controversy that followed the arrest of Ms. Craig and her daughters in 2016, the City Council appointed a task force to examine issues of race and culture in Fort Worth. The task force presented a series of recommendations last year, including an avenue to involve citizens in oversight of the Police Department and recommendations to diversify the police force.
“We were waiting for years for someone to hear our cries for help about the Fort Worth Police Department,” said the Rev. Kyev Tatum, a pastor at New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth who said he was at Ms. Jefferson’s house on Saturday morning when her body was removed. The City Council in September authorized several of the task force recommendations, including a police monitor position, a police cadet program and the creation of a diversity and inclusion program.
“We’re beyond anger,” he said. “It’s trauma now. It’s unaddressed, toxic stress.” Ms. Jefferson was killed weeks after the sentencing of Amber R. Guyger, a white former Dallas police officer who shot her unarmed black neighbor in his apartment last year and was sentenced to 10 years in prison this month. The case was one of a handful of police shootings to go to trial in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in recent years. In another case, a police officer shot an unarmed black 15-year-old as he sat in the passenger seat of a car; the officer was sentenced to 15 years in prison last year.
In 2009, a man with a history of mental illness died after his family called the police for help and he was Tasered by the police for nearly a minute. In 2016, a mother called the police to report that a neighbor had choked her young son, and a Fort Worth police officer ended up wrestling her to the ground in an encounter that was widely shared on video. “Between these shootings and the trials of all of these different things, we literally have not had a chance to recover,” said Omar Suleiman, an imam and activist in the Dallas area. “There is just this deep anger and hurt in the streets that you can’t be safe in your apartment, you can’t be safe in your home, you can’t be safe in your car.”
Mr. Tatum said residents would not be satisfied until the officer who killed Ms. Jefferson was charged. “No ifs, ands or buts about it,” he said. “We’re asking, if the mayor is serious, that they arrest this officer for murder.” Chief Kraus said he regretted that the Police Department had released photographs of a gun found on the floor below the window in Ms. Jefferson’s bedroom after she was killed — though he declined to say if she was holding it, or if the officer saw it before he shot her.
Michael Bell, the senior pastor at Greater St. Stephen First Church in Fort Worth, said the latest shooting exacerbated a history of mistrust with the police and city leadership. “The feeling is that we have to look out for ourselves,” he said. “You can’t even do a nonemergency call, because we may end up dead or assaulted.” She had every right to have a gun in her bedroom, the chief said. “We’re homeowners in the state of Texas,” he said. “I can’t imagine most of us — if we thought we had somebody outside our house that shouldn’t be and we had access to a firearm — that we wouldn’t act very similarly to how she acted.”
Mayor Price also said Monday that the city was planning to bring in a panel of national experts to conduct a review of the Police Department and its policies. About 500 people gathered on Sunday night at a vigil for Ms. Jefferson near her mother’s home, as Ms. Jefferson’s cat peeked out from behind the house’s blinds. Some protesters split off from the vigil and marched down a road, peacefully confronting police officers who had stayed away from the vigil, but remained nearby. Fort Worth is at least a 30-minute drive from Dallas and very much its own community, with its own local politics, cultural identity and history of relations with the police. But the two cities — flashy Dallas and down-home Fort Worth — are the anchors of a sprawling metroplex, where people commute from the smaller suburbs for work and meet in the middle for Dallas Cowboys games.
Ms. Jefferson, who went by Tay, had studied biology at Xavier University of Louisiana and was studying to apply to medical school. Her friends said they thought her compassionate nature would have made her a good doctor. She had returned to Fort Worth from Dallas in the past year to take care of her mother, who was in declining health and is currently in the hospital, her family said. On Sunday, activists who only earlier this month stood outside the Dallas County courthouse to demand justice in the case against Ms. Guyger also came to Fort Worth for a vigil for Ms. Jefferson. “I saw many of the same faces,” Mr. Suleiman said.
Amber Carr, an older sister of Ms. Jefferson, said Ms. Jefferson was a loving aunt to her nephews, sometimes being confused for their mother. She would play basketball with them, wash the cars and teach them how to mow the lawn. Ms. Jefferson, who went by Tay, graduated in 2014 from Xavier University of Louisiana, the country’s only black Catholic college, with a degree in biology. After living in the Dallas area, she recently moved to Fort Worth to help care for her mother and her 8-year-old nephew, whom she had been showing how to mow and weed-whack the yard. He was in the room when his aunt was killed.
Ms. Carr said it was her son who was in the room when Ms. Jefferson was shot, and that she only learned of the shooting from him when she picked him up from a social worker. On Monday, the boy was playing along a sidewalk in downtown Dallas while his family held a news conference nearby. He wore a long-sleeve shirt with a BMX biker graphic and bluejeans, flexing his knowledge of sports cars, including a Corvette.
Many residents compared the circumstances of Ms. Jefferson’s death to the killing of Botham Shem Jean, a black accountant who was shot to death by a white off-duty police officer in nearby Dallas last year. That officer, Amber Guyger, was fired and convicted of murder earlier this month. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Ms. Jefferson’s mother, Yolanda, was missing from the family’s news conference. She had been in a hospital being treated for health issues when the police told her that an officer had shot her daughter, and that is where she remained on Monday.
The county medical authorities have not yet listed the official manner and cause of Ms. Jefferson’s death. Roger Metcalf, the chief of identification services, said examiners would conduct additional tests, get videos from the Police Department and speak with officers before making those determinations. “She feels helpless,” Ms. Carr said.
Marina Trahan Martinez reported from Fort Worth, and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Sarah Mervosh from New York. Dave Montgomery contributed reporting from Austin, Texas. Marina Trahan Martinez reported from Fort Worth, and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Sarah Mervosh from New York. Dave Montgomery contributed reporting from Austin, Texas.