A former Dallas police officer convicted of murdering her Black neighbor after walking into his apartment thinking it was her own was granted early parole on Thursday after serving seven years of her 10-year sentence.
Amber Guyger, 38, who is white, was convicted of murdering 26-year-old Botham Jean, an accountant from St Lucia. Jean was eating ice-cream and watching television when Guyger mistakenly entered his home and shot him on 6 September 2018.
Guyger was arrested three days after the shooting and was fired before her murder trial. She had faced up to life in prison or as little as two years. Prosecutors initially asked the jury for a minimum sentence of 28 years, a symbolic reference to the age Jean would have been at the time. Guyger was in the end given 10 years behind bars.
The Texas board of pardons and parole rejected Guyger’s initial parole request in 2024, but approved her case over the objections of Jean’s family the first time she was eligible to ask again.
The shooting drew widespread national attention because of the unusual circumstances and inflamed racial tensions as one in a string of shootings in the US of Black men by white police officers. Jean’s mother, Allison, pondered days after his death: “If it was a white man would it have been different? Would she have reacted differently?”
Guyger’s sentencing hearing also included stunning courtroom scenes when, after the sentence was handed down, Jean’s younger brother, Brandt, offered Guyger his forgiveness. “I forgive you, and I know if you go to God and ask him, he will forgive you. I’m speaking for myself, not my family, but I love you just like anyone else,” Brandt told Guyger. He then asked the judge’s permission to hug Guyger and the two embraced for about a minute.
The Black judge, Tammy Kemp, also embraced Guyger, whom she gave a Bible after the trial had ended. Kemp said Guyger had asked her if she thought God would forgive her, to which Kemp replied: “Yes, God can forgive you and has.” She rejected criticism, saying after the trial: “I could not refuse that woman a hug.”
At trial, Guyger testified that after a long shift at work and still in uniform, she had walked up to Jean’s apartment – which was on the fourth floor, directly above hers on the third – and found the door unlocked. She said she mistook the apartment for her own and thought that Jean was an intruder when she drew her service weapon and entered.
A lawyer for Jean’s family, civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, said in a statement that the family was “deeply disappointed by the decision”.
“A 10-year sentence was already a fraction of what was lost,” Merritt said. “Releasing Ms Guyger after seven years makes that loss feel even smaller in the eyes of the system. It is not. The family still lives with this loss every day.”
In 2024, a jury ordered Guyger to pay Jean’s family nearly $100m in damages in a federal civil trial. The jury found that she had used excessive force and violated Jean’s constitutional rights when she shot him.
In granting Guyger’s parole on Thursday, the board said the panel conducted “a thorough review and consideration of a plethora of information”. Her record did not include a documented pattern of violent arrests or convictions and she had “maintained a satisfactory institutional adjustment” and completed programs in her prison treatment plan to obtain and keep a job when she is released, it said.
It is unclear when Guyger will be released. The board said the state prison system would determine that timeline.
Dallas police said in a statement to NBC News Dallas-Fort Worth that the department played no role in Guyger’s request for parole or the decision to release her.
“The Dallas Police Department understands this decision may bring renewed attention and emotion surrounding the tragic death of Botham Jean. Our thoughts remain with the Jean family and all those impacted by his loss,” the department said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
