FORT WORTH, Texas – Tarrant County prosecutors rested their murder case Wednesday against former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean, who shot and killed Atatiana Jefferson in her mother’s home. Ten witnesses testified for the prosecution over three days in the much-delayed trial.
The length of the case put on by prosecutors surprised lawyers and observers packed into the courtroom and angered activists. Court ended before noon on Monday so people could attend the funeral for one of Dean’s lawyers, and testimony ended mid-afternoon Wednesday.
Jurors must determine whether Dean, 38, was justified as a police officer to shoot Jefferson, a Black woman, on Oct. 12, 2019. Jefferson’s killing by Dean, who is white, sparked nationwide outrage and became a watershed moment previewing 2020′s widespread social justice protests. Jefferson, who lived in a predominantly Black neighborhood, was playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew when a concerned neighbor called a nonemergency police line because two doors to the home were open at 2:30 a.m. Although some of the 12 jurors and two alternates are people of color, none is Black.
