Family seeks answers after police kill Texas woman at home
- by Virginia Carter
- in World Media
- — Oct 14, 2019
The clip shows officers circulating the perimeter of the residential property and spotting a figure at the window.
Atatiana Jefferson was killed by a single shot from a police officer who fired through a window into the home while responding to a call to check on the well-being of those inside, police said in a statement. "Show me your hands!" and then nearly immediately fires a shot through the window.
Jefferson died on the scene.
Memories are still fresh in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of a Dallas police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black man inside his own apartment after she walked in accidentally, thinking it was her home.
The officer involved in the shooting, who has been on the force since 2018, was placed on administrative leave during the ongoing investigation, the paper said.
Civil rights lawyer S. Lee Merritt, who is reportedly representing Jefferson's family, criticized the police department for releasing an image of the firearm without providing context.
Police said in a press release that officers provided Jefferson with first aid, but the medical examiner said Jefferson was pronounced dead at 3:05 a.m.
Police announced Saturday that Jefferson was shot and killed when officers responded to an Open Structure call.
James Smith, Jefferson's neighbor, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram he called a non-emergency police number when he saw her doors open and lights on in the early morning hours.
"I called my police department for a welfare check". 'No domestic violence, no arguing, nothing that they should have been concerned about as far as them coming with guns drawn to my neighbor's house'. "Show me your hands!" he yells. The similarities between the two cases were striking and was the latest incident of a police officer in Texas being too quick on the draw in circumstances that didn't require any gunplay at all.
The woman has been identified as 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson.
Texas is an open carry state and it's unclear whether the gun found in Jefferson's residence and in the body cam footage was on her at the time of the shooting.
But Attorney Merritt said police had provided no connection between the gun found inside the home and the shooting. He said he was surprised to hear a gunshot a few minutes later. The officer does not appear to identify himself as police before firing his weapon.
Price promised a "complete and thorough investigation" to be conducted by Police Chief Ed Kraus, which will then be forwarded to the Tarrant County District Attorney Law Enforcement Incident Team. "If I had never dialed the police department, she'd still be alive". "Call. The. Police. Police see ALL Black people as 'a threat, '" wrote bishop and activist Talbert Swan. Just our presence. are we the threat?'
"They tell you, 'If you see something, say something".
'Let's tell it what it is, ' one community member said in a separate video, 'she was massacred in her own house'.