Officer Invades Apartment, Shoots Resident

[philip964]

TV news is reporting, she tried her key, it didn’t fit, but found the door unlocked, opened the door and found a dark figure walking towards her, drew and fired, killing him.

To me manslaughter is the charge, not murder.

I’m assuming at night. Dark figure in her apartment, coming towards her, most likely in fear of her life, she fires. Afterwards finds out she was in the wrong apartment, not her residence, to me a duty to retreat, not use deadly force.

We’ve had a lot of husbands shooting their wives at night after the wife leaves the bed for a midnight snack. To me this is a odd variation on that one. Not a know your target, but a know your residence.

I’m seeing a potential lawsuit against building owners for making floors and apartment entrances too similar.

[chamberc]

TV news is reporting, she tried her key, it didn’t fit, but found the door unlocked, opened the door and found a dark figure walking towards her, drew and fired, killing him.

To me manslaughter is the charge, not murder.

I’m assuming at night. Dark figure in her apartment, coming towards her, most likely in fear of her life, she fires. Afterwards finds out she was in the wrong apartment, not her residence, to me a duty to retreat, not use deadly force.

We’ve had a lot of husbands shooting their wives at night after the wife leaves the bed for a midnight snack. To me this is a odd variation on that one. Not a know your target, but a know your residence.

I’m seeing a potential lawsuit against building owners for making floors and apartment entrances too similar.

To be fair, she at least violated one basic rule- know that target and what lies beyond it... if she had identified the backstop, she'd know it wasn't her apartment.

[Jusme]

There are still a lot of details not, in the reporting. Did she give voice commands to halt, freeze, etc? If she did, since he was an immigrant, would he have understood English commands? If she did not? why not? That was, for me, basic, armed, encounter 101. Not only does, it give the target, an opportunity, to comply, and not be shot, it forces, the shooter to breathe, preventing, breath holding. How close was she, to the victim? If she is standing in the doorway, she is at a tactical disadvantage, since, it is, more than likely, the only exit, and she would be back-lit.
I see that there are already those, ready to turn this into a racial, issue, but, I would postulate that had it been, anyone else's apartment, no matter their ethnicity, they would be just as dead. JMHO

[srothstein]

There are still a lot of details not, in the reporting. Did she give voice commands to halt, freeze, etc?

The story i read today, based on the arrest warrant affidavit, said she came home after working 14 hours serving arrest warrants. She mistakenly parked on the wrong floor of the garage. From the description, it looks like the apartment building has a garage that goes for each floor. She lives on the third floor and parked on the fourth. She went to the apartment that was located where hers was. She used her key but the door pushed open from the force of inserting her key. She entered the dark apartment and saw someone moving. She gave verbal commands which were not obeyed and she shot him thinking it was a burglary. She realized she was in the wrong apartment while talking to 911 when she turned on the lights. She then went back out the door to get the right apartment number.

I think this could be a murder charge but I do feel that manslaughter might be more appropriate. The details for murder (from 19.02 in the Penal Code) are:

(b) A person commits an offense if he:
(1) intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual;
(2) intends to cause serious bodily injury and commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual;

Unfortunately, by using a firearm, which is legally defined as deadly force, she meets the definition of both halves of this law. I know she did not intend to kill the person, but the law won't see it that way. A grand jury will see more about what happened and make a decision. I bet they will stick with the manslaughter charge over murder.

On a side note, i think the Dallas PD chief handled this correctly too. She started it as an officer involved shooting and when they found the basic details out, she asked the Rangers to take over the investigation. She publicly stated that it was not an officer involved shooting how they meant the term, but a citizen shooting where the citizen happened to be an officer. Then she referred everything to the Rangers.

[TomS]

i think it was a mistake, she was tired and not thinking clearly. Sadly, someone died and her life is ruined.

[Paladin]

Very tragic shooting

My prayers to Botham Shem Jean's family and friends. All reports show he was a good man who didn't deserve any of this.

The police officer's statement contradicts 2 eye-witnesses:

According to two neighbors, who spoke to the media, they can access their units with a regular key or through a keypad code.

Caitlin Simpson said she heard the shooting and the police officer asking Botham to open the door.

The woman revealed: “It was, like, police talk: ”Open up! Open up!”’

Yazmine Hernandez, who also heard the noise the night of the incident, stated: “We heard cops yelling, but otherwise had no idea what was going on.”

link

If the police officer lived alone, I don't understand why she would be yelling to open the door?

The whole thing seems senseless. With the police officer caught in a lie and bizarre, dangerous, and deadly conduct, I don't have any confidence in her ability to conduct her duty. Perhaps she should plead guilty to manslaughter, as that conviction is probably the best she could hope for.

This event is being reported in England as a "Wrong Flat" Killing by the BBC... Apparently the Brits don't know we don't have "Flats" in Texas.

[ScottDLS]

Just imagine how many "wrong flat" murders we will have when anyone can carry with a LTC....oh, never mind.

[Paladin]

The authorities took a blood sample from Officer Guyger to test for drugs and alcohol, but the results have not been released.

NY Times

Having personally experienced a drunk trying to force entry into my hotel room several years ago, I have to wonder what the motive is for not releasing these test results in a timely manner.

Delay, Deny, Defend?

[Excaliber]

From all the information I've seen so far, I see this tragic situation as having two major causal factors:

1. Fatigue from a 14 or 15 hour shift serving warrants at night - a dangerous duty that takes a higher toll on the officer than routine patrol does.
'
2. A "Can I shoot him" deadly force decision approac when she observed the subject instead of a "Is shooting him the only reasonable way to protect innocent life" approach.

The latter is much safer for all involved, and is the one strongly recommended by Mas Ayoob, who knows a thing or two about this topic.

[ScottDLS]

Since we're all speculating until the facts come out (which is fine IMO as long as we acknowledge such) I'll put this out there... Officer's mug shot has the 'crazy eyes look'. Wouldn't be surprised if more bizzare behavior comes out later.

[Killadocg23]

Being tired from working a 14hr shift is no excuse. How many thousands of people work 14hr shifts everyday and don’t go to the wrong apartment and shoot somebody in their OWN apartment. Just wow.

[chamberc]

Some information now, that she had filed a lot of complaints for "noise" from him, as she lived directly beneath him. Not sure if this is fact or more fake news...

[Jusme]

Some information now, that she had filed a lot of complaints for "noise" from him, as she lived directly beneath him. Not sure if this is fact or more fake news...

The investigation, is now in the hands, of the Texas Rangers, I doubt, that there will be any (true) information forthcoming, until they have completed the investigation. There are a lot of people, who are trying to tie these two people together, as having some kind of "history" to promote the narrative, that she acted out of malice. I will await, the completion, of the investigation, before rendering an opinion.

[ScottDLS]

Being tired from working a 14hr shift is no excuse. How many thousands of people work 14hr shifts everyday and don’t go to the wrong apartment and shoot somebody in their OWN apartment. Just wow.

That's enough cop bashing. This post should be banned!! (Yes, I'm being sarcastic).

[ELB]

Being tired from working a 14hr shift is no excuse. How many thousands of people work 14hr shifts everyday and don’t go to the wrong apartment and shoot somebody in their OWN apartment. Just wow.

Not an excuse, and jury still out on what exactly happened here, but fatigue is not a trivial factor either. The military and commercial air services came to grips with this a long time ago because when a pilot makes a fatigue-induced error that kills, it's immediate, spectacular, and takes a lot of people and $$$ with him. Hence flying hour restrictions are in place. The commercial trucking industry has sleep/drive restrictions. It appears to me the work shifts for doctors in training and in ERs are often pretty brutal, actually, and it's been accepted for a long time that it's part of being a doctor in those circumstances. Coincidentally perhaps, there seem to be a high rate of errors in hospitals. But the results of erroneous medicine happen to individual patients, one at a time, and are not always fatal,, and thus are handled individually. So short of cutting off the wrong leg they don't make a newspaper headline like crashing an airliner does.

Cops would seem to be in a similar situation as doctors -- long shifts, sometimes double shifts, probably most fatigue-induced errors are small and not very noticeable to the public at large. Applying duty hour restrictions to cops (and medical personnel) will drive up costs substantially, so I don't see anyone making a push for this any time soon.