DALLAS (AP) — Opening statements began in the murder trial of a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man in his Dallas apartment
Amber Guyger arrived at a Dallas court Monday morning, where she will stand trial for the killing of 26-year-old Botham Jean last year.
Botham Jean, a native of St. Lucia, was an Arkansas resident who graduated from Harding University in 2016.
The case has attracted intense national scrutiny for its strange circumstances and as one in a chain of shootings of black men by white police officers. Guyger was fired after Jean’s death.
Lawyers for Guyger are likely to argue she fired in self-defense based on the mistaken belief that she was in her own apartment and Jean was a burglar.
A jury will decide whether 31-year-old Guyger committed murder, a lesser offense such as manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide, or no crime at all.
