Fort Worth Police Department / AFP
ANNOUNCEMENTS•
A former Texas police officer has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for killing 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson. The black woman was killed in the same house as her in 2019.
The former agent faced a prison sentence of up to twenty years, but a jury in court also had the option of sentencing him to probation only. That the agent was sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence is a rarity; few U.S. agents have been convicted of shooting someone carrying a gun.
The white police officer then came to a report from a neighbor of Jefferson. He called the police because his front door was open. Jefferson was inside playing video games with his 8-year-old nephew. He had opened his front door hours earlier to ventilate the house after his nephew burned some hamburgers.
The officer and his partner crossed Jefferson’s yard. When she went to see where her strange sounds were coming from in her garden, the officer shouted at her to put her hands up. Almost immediately afterwards he shot her dead.
Gun on the floor
In the lawsuit against the police officer, the question of whether he saw Jefferson with a gun was crucial. She claimed the woman pulled a gun on him, but she also admitted that she only mentioned a gun to her colleague when they saw the gun lying on the floor inside. CCTV footage also showed the officers had not identified themselves when they entered Jefferson’s yard.
Several American celebrities have drawn attention to the fate of women in recent years, including preacher Jesse Jackson and CNN commentator Van Jones.
