Woman killed by FT Worth PD officer

[03Lightningrocks]

What's the mixed feeling? Both were testified to and both were supported by the fact pattern. The problem a lot of people have is she wasn't a bad guy. There weren't any "bad guys" in this instant. Sadly, that happens regularly. The facts, including Dean's testimony would back up her justified use of force if she was the one left standing.

My problem was the ungodly malpractice by the prosecutors and a feckless defense. Watching this and a few other trials gavel to gavel scared the daylights out of me. I dropped the trigger on some insurance.

The mixed feeling is that she, like Jerry Waller, were in their homes doing nothing wrong and both ended up dead at the hands of a police officer. To believe that is OK is to believe that there is not a reason for someone to have a self-defense handgun on the outside chance that a police officer will show up at their house and kill them because of it.
1. The police have operate on the premise that the home owner might be legally armed if there is not a direct reason to KNOW otherwise. The suspicion of a POSSIBLE burglary is not sufficient Was the chance of catching a burglar in the act worth an innocent person's life? That as exactly the same premise as Waller.
2. The police testimony in the Waller case was as iron clad as it was in this one. Unfortunately, there is no badge came (at least that I've seen or heard about) to corroborate those statements. I'm sorry but to believe that she was well versed in the use of a laser and he didn't enve know how to turn that laser off is a stretch of imagination for me.

Like others on this forum, I'm a strong supporter of the police. That does not mean that I agree with every thing that they do. I imagine myself in this same situation as this woman that that scares me.

I agree 100%. It is not unusual for me to be carrying a firearm through my house. Heck, I could be simply cleaning one of them and walking back from my gun safe. I have also sat on my living room sofa and pointed my laser at an outside wall with it to check if it is lining up with my sights. When I let my dog out at night, I carry a handgun to the door with me and stand there watching while he does his business. No cop should ever start blasting away at a person holding a gun in their own home. Now if I am firing the gun out my window, that is a whole different situation. This officer needs jail time and to forever be forbidden any kind of law enforcement job for life and this includes being a mall cop. His judgement skills are that of a scared child. Laser or not, he could simply have taken cover and shouted inside that he was the police. Then waited for her to confirm it with a 911 call.

[Ruark]

Another possible element of this picture is the nature of the original phone call. Just possible. Did the caller say something like, "I noticed my neighbor's door was open, any chance you could stop by and take a look?" Or did he say something like, "Help! Somebody's burglarizing my neighbor's house! Hurry, they're still in there!!"

Sounds to me like this officer was definitely at fault in several different ways, but in any case, this might be a significant component of the picture.

[03Lightningrocks]

Another possible element of this picture is the nature of the original phone call. Just possible. Did the caller say something like, "I noticed my neighbor's door was open, any chance you could stop by and take a look?" Or did he say something like, "Help! Somebody's burglarizing my neighbor's house! Hurry, they're still in there!!"

Sounds to me like this officer was definitely at fault in several different ways, but in any case, this might be a significant component of the picture.

It is a fact that idiots make 911 calls creating very serious situations out of nothing.

[philip964]

Another possible element of this picture is the nature of the original phone call. Just possible. Did the caller say something like, "I noticed my neighbor's door was open, any chance you could stop by and take a look?" Or did he say something like, "Help! Somebody's burglarizing my neighbor's house! Hurry, they're still in there!!"

Sounds to me like this officer was definitely at fault in several different ways, but in any case, this might be a significant component of the picture.

It is a fact that idiots make 911 calls creating very serious situations out of nothing.

What happened to take a protective position, gun out at the front door and shout “ police. Is everything ok”

If I see someone creeping around my back yard at 12am, what should I do? Ignore continue watching TV? Get up go to the window? Get a weapon?

And yeah 911 callers can color a situation badly. The Las Vegas Costco CHL murder by police is a classic example. “there is a man with a gun in our store”. No signs preventing concealed carry. Not told to leave, when he bent down and security noticed the barrel of the gun exposed. They just called 911 and 10 units responded. Video cameras that showed the event were not working that day. Had a cell phone in his hand. West Point grad in the store with his girlfriend.

[Ruark]

What happened to take a protective position, gun out at the front door and shout “ police. Is everything ok”

Well... yeah.... so a burglar's going to say, "no, it's not OK, I'm burglarizing the house...." ???

[03Lightningrocks]

What happened to take a protective position, gun out at the front door and shout “ police. Is everything ok”

Well... yeah.... so a burglar's going to say, "no, it's not OK, I'm burglarizing the house...." ???

You are kidding, right? In high crime areas, calling 911 for a cop will always get a reaction from the cops based on the 911 complainant. Usually a negative reaction with extreme caution and maybe even a little fear involved. For instance, a recent police shooting where the caller said, " there is a man out front firing his rifle at his house while he screams something at it". Then of coarse we have the human factor of what the dispatcher relays to the police. That always has a translation gap as well. I am not saying the cop was right. Quite the contrary, he screwed up big time IMHO. There is NOTHING illegal about carrying a weapon around the inside of your home, even with the laser sight on full blaze. It is the cops job to make sure it is not just an innocent homeowner before shooting. Especially when said homeowner is not firing at them. Laser pointers are not punishable by lethal force.

You know it is funny. During nice or mild weather I leave my back door hanging open while my dog is out back doing his business. When I do this, I am holding my handgun in my right hand in case anyone is stupid enough to see the door open and try to do a home invasion. Well what if my neighbor calls in and tells them my back door is hanging open and the lights in my house are off. Which they usually are when I do this. I smoke in my house. I live alone with no kids. I like to air out the house when I can. I cannot imagine a Plano Police officer standing out in my yard and blasting me inside my house. Even if he sees I am holding a gun. This cop way over reacted and is now going to pay a price for it. Maybe his mens jewels were way to small for that job.

[Excaliber]

The problem here is that the officer set up a situation where he then felt in fear of his life by using really bad tactics and judgment and violating agency rules and training while doing it.

This is somewhat akin to starting a fight and then claiming self defense for shooting the other party.

I think the manslaughter conviction was a very fair verdict.

[chasfm11]

I watched part of the Andrew Branca analysis of the closing arguments to this trial. I trust his judgement that the prosecution's approach was pure emotion and not founded in the actual laws and that the defense did an extremely poor job in letting the prosecution get away with what they did. It was Mr. Branca's solution that concerned me.

That solution focused on suing the police department over the failed procedures that the officer followed. Paraphrasing that part of the analysis conversation, the officer was in a no-win situation where if he didn't follow Ft. Worth SOP, he was going to be on his own for anything that happened. But he ended up on his own anyway. I've held that if the procedures in the Ft. Worth department had appropriately changed after the Waller incident, this one might not have occurred. But I see little hope of a successful civil suit against the department for this outcome.

I do agree with Mr. Branca that we all should be terrified about a legal system that is based on a mob mentality and not the law. But the legal system has been twisted in this way for a long time and there has been little progress in making corrections. I don't see any new catalyst for that on the horizon.

[carlson1]

Fox 4 News

Former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean will spend behind bars 11 years, 10 months and 12 days for the killing of Atatiana Jefferson on Tuesday afternoon.

[03Lightningrocks]

Fox 4 News

Former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean will spend behind bars 11 years, 10 months and 12 days for the killing of Atatiana Jefferson on Tuesday afternoon.

After watching that video, I am wishing I had watched the trial. Mr. Branca seems set that this was an unjust conviction and sentence based on the facts of the situation. I wondered from the beginning why the officers didn't call for back up and set up a perimeter around the house. It seems like this would have been more clear cut had they confronted her standing in the yard with an arm load of valuables. For now, all I can think of is how it could be me a cop shoots while standing in my own home holding a handgun. There is nothing illegal about standing in my home with a gun in my hand.

[Dragonfighter]

What's the mixed feeling? Both were testified to and both were supported by the fact pattern. The problem a lot of people have is she wasn't a bad guy. There weren't any "bad guys" in this instant. Sadly, that happens regularly. The facts, including Dean's testimony would back up her justified use of force if she was the one left standing.

My problem was the ungodly malpractice by the prosecutors and a feckless defense. Watching this and a few other trials gavel to gavel scared the daylights out of me. I dropped the trigger on some insurance.

The mixed feeling is that she, like Jerry Waller, were in their homes doing nothing wrong and both ended up dead at the hands of a police officer. To believe that is OK is to believe that there is not a reason for someone to have a self-defense handgun on the outside chance that a police officer will show up at their house and kill them because of it.
1. The police have operate on the premise that the home owner might be legally armed if there is not a direct reason to KNOW otherwise. The suspicion of a POSSIBLE burglary is not sufficient Was the chance of catching a burglar in the act worth an innocent person's life? That as exactly the same premise as Waller.
2. The police testimony in the Waller case was as iron clad as it was in this one. Unfortunately, there is no badge came (at least that I've seen or heard about) to corroborate those statements. I'm sorry but to believe that she was well versed in the use of a laser and he didn't enve know how to turn that laser off is a stretch of imagination for me.

Like others on this forum, I'm a strong supporter of the police. That does not mean that I agree with every thing that they do. I imagine myself in this same situation as this woman that that scares me.

Oh please don't misunderstand me. There's a lot wrong here; not the least of which is an innocent homeowner is dead at the hands of the government. And had she won the gunfight, I'd expect her to be found justified.

There's probably a long and bumpy road and growing pangs that FWPD will have to undergo to review and/or change their policies. But the call was legitimate and the entrance to the yard was legitimate, by law at any rate, and the reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily harm.

Regardless of how bad any <insert Dean shortcoming(s) here>, was he reasonable in his belief and was he within the law? IMHO, he was. But so was she. The failings and shortcomings that created the perfect storm need to be curry combed and probably changed. The most obvious one is the pairing of rookies on a response but that is largely a by-product of senior personnel exodus across the country.

He might also be a jerk, I don't know but indulge me, but that doesn't mean he should necessarily spend the next 12 years in prison. It certainly doesn't mean a DA should be allowed to misstate the law and the burden of proof and thanks to an inadequate defense have no appeal.

I don't have mixed emotions. It sickens me that a young woman is dead for no other reason than attempting to defend her home and nephew. It scares me that a man can be railroaded despite a pretty obvious self defense fact pattern. Texas has great laws, but if prosecutors are allowed to act that way and judges don't do anything about it, there's no hope for the innocent unless they have excellent and probably expensive attorneys.

At least, with competent counsel, there'd be issues preserved for appeal. I have no faith that, with this ADA and judge, anyone could reasonably hope for an acquittal.

[/rant]

[chasfm11]

I'll say again that I'm a supporter of the police. I am. I mean it. But I hold no hope at all that the FWPD leadership will learn anything from this incident. Am I happy that the officer was sent to jail for more than 10 years? Absolutely not. I believe that the verdict further assures a chasm between the FWPD and the community that it serves.

I'm not smart enough to know what the right policies regarding these types of calls need to be. How do we make sure that this outcome isn't repeated? But what I believe is that FWPD leadership is strongly anti-armed citizen. They are not alone within the police ranks in that feeling and I believe that it clouds their thinking at that operational level. And their officers end up paying the price for that mindset when the public pushes back. On the opposite side, this was more politics than reality. The ethnicity of those involved was the main component. I also blame the PD leadership, along with the PD leadership in other places where it has treated Waller-like situations without careful consideration. The public then comes to view this as the second in a pattern and not a unique matter.

I'm strongly opposed to no-knock raids. I won't cause thread drift by going into that here. I realize that there can be bad consequences for the police announcing themselves under some circumstances. But it would seem that is a better path than the one we are on. Maybe that is only me.

[03Lightningrocks]

I'll say again that I'm a supporter of the police. I am. I mean it. But I hold no hope at all that the FWPD leadership will learn anything from this incident. Am I happy that the officer was sent to jail for more than 10 years? Absolutely not. I believe that the verdict further assures a chasm between the FWPD and the community that it serves.

I'm not smart enough to know what the right policies regarding these types of calls need to be. How do we make sure that this outcome isn't repeated? But what I believe is that FWPD leadership is strongly anti-armed citizen. They are not alone within the police ranks in that feeling and I believe that it clouds their thinking at that operational level. And their officers end up paying the price for that mindset when the public pushes back. On the opposite side, this was more politics than reality. The ethnicity of those involved was the main component. I also blame the PD leadership, along with the PD leadership in other places where it has treated Waller-like situations without careful consideration. The public then comes to view this as the second in a pattern and not a unique matter.

I'm strongly opposed to no-knock raids. I won't cause thread drift by going into that here. I realize that there can be bad consequences for the police announcing themselves under some circumstances. But it would seem that is a better path than the one we are on. Maybe that is only me.

I agree completely and would like to add in a serious consequence that maybe you were getting at but not specific about of situations like this. Police officers start to become hesitant to enforce the law out of the concern/fear of it escalating or even hesitate when confronting an armed criminal and get killed out of the fear of not only losing their jobs/livelihood but possibly going to jail. Many of us say the police mostly just arrive in time to make a report of the crime. It is not going to change with things like this occurring. That is for sure.

Like you, I won't pretend to have the answers but here we are. Now what is coming next? It is not likely to get better.

[Dragonfighter]

<SNIP>

Like you, I won't pretend to have the answers but here we are. Now what is coming next? It is not likely to get better.

I believe another wrote that Dean violated all sorts of policies and made several tactical mistakes. I'd agree 100% on the latter. As to the former not one supervisor, training officer or street officer could be found to assert Dean made ANY mistakes. The only one to assert that was the Colorado import that had previously defended the officer in a case with worse facts than Dean (that was an entertaining cross and about the only thing Dean's team did right).

The policy I would like to see addressed is treating an open structure as a burglary in progress. That sets up a tension that doesn't necessarily need to be there. The neighbor was concerned because it was so uncharacteristic and he was afraid to investigate any further. The cops see a messy house and presume it's been ransacked... with all of the lights on? God help me if they show up at my house and see inside I wouldn't drop my guard but I'd be a lot less wound up if a house is standing open with all of it's lights on as opposed to a door ajar and a dark house. Most burglars I don't think turn on any lights when they're in a home.

I have "investigated" neighbors' houses that were left unsecured unusually. There are ways to do that without exposing oneself.

I think where we talk past each other is labeling her "carrying" her handgun with the laser on netting her the death penalty. That ignores that she pointed the weapon at dean, albeit justifiably. Her nephew even said he saw a badge when she pointed the gun. Had she won that gunfight and FWPD didn't go all Las Vegas on her, she would have been completely justified. But the policies, tactical errors and lack of experience... even twitchiness shouldn't matter in the criminal case. Civil is another matter.

What matters is:

• Was it lawful for him to be there? He was on duty and dispatched on an open structure that policy dictated be treated as a burglary in progress.
• Was proceeding through an unlocked gate lawful? He was investigating the property to see if anyone was there. A locked gate may have altered that analysis.
• Was he in REASONABLE fear of imminent death or great bodily harm? He saw a "silhouette" pointing a gun at him with the laser sight hitting the glass. A fact verified by the nephew in the contemporaneous forensic interview.

Where a lot of our heartburn lives, in my opinion, was there was an innocent who lost her life and the police took it. We can argue how suited he was for the job, the hiring crisis that put two very inexperienced officers in that situation and we can Monday morning quarterback his "errors" until we're blue in the face. But if we get to a state where we are judged by our non-criminal errors leading up to the imminent threat, we're doomed.

I don't have any love for Dean, don't know the man. And it's not a factor of supporting cops, etc. It's that an aberrant ADA and feckless defense buried this guy with little, if any, hope for his appeal to be taken up. That we're at a place that a lawyer can literally sleep through a lot of the case and not be appealable for ineffective counsel scares the water out of me. That such a gross malpractice by a prosecutor can be allowed to stand and there's no recourse because your representation didn't object on time, every time diminishes the presumption of innocence. Yes, I realize that an appeal starts from the assumption of guilt but maybe a little more balance should be sought.

For me, it's not whether he was a scared and sloppy cop operating under problematic response policies and models. Or whether he woulda, shoulda, coulda in 20/20 hindsight. It's whether he was supposed to be there and was the self defense justified. If you take out the fact that an innocent was killed and hypothesize the same fact pattern with a bad guy, would he have been justified? I think we'd mostly say yes.

Eddited multiple times for fat fingers.

[03Lightningrocks]

I like your analysis.