FORT WORTH POLICE OFFICER JAILED ON MURDER CHARGE AFTER RESIGNING, IN SHOOTING THAT KILLED [BLACK] WOMAN IN HOMEThe white Fort Worth police officer accused of shooting a black woman inside her home over the weekend, killing her, has been jailed on a murder charge, online court records revealed Monday.
The murder charge against Aaron Dean was made public hours after the officer resigned from the force. Bond was set at $200,000.
Atatiana Jefferson, 28, was gunned down early Saturday after police were summoned to her Fort Worth home to conduct a welfare check by a neighbor who reported seeing Jefferson's front door open. Bodycam footage released by police showed two officers canvassing the property before one officer, later identified by investigators as Dean, shouted, "put your hands up, show me your hands," and fired through a window.
Jefferson's family was "relieved" that Dean was behind bars, attorney Lee Merritt said, adding that the family "needs to see this through to a vigorous prosecution and appropriate sentencing."
Interim Police Chief Ed Kraus announced Monday that Dean was placed on detached duty and stripped of his badge and firearm after he was served with his written administrative complaint yesterday.
"My intent was to meet with him today to terminate his employment with the Fort Worth Police Department. However, the officer tendered his resignation this morning before we met," Kraus told reporters Monday. "Even though he no longer works for the city, we will continue the administrative investigation as if he did. The case will be completed and reviewed by the chain of command.
"Had the officer not resigned I would have fired him for violations of several policies including our use of force policy, our de-escalation policy and unprofessional conduct," Kraus added.
Mayor Betsy Price, appearing next to Kraus, said Jefferson was "unjustly taken from her family" and that city leadership has set in place motions to bring a "third party panel of national experts" in to review the city's police department.
"To Atatiana's family: It’s unacceptable," she said. "There is nothing that could justify what happened on Saturday morning. Nothing."
Kraus also said he expected a "substantial update" by tomorrow on whether criminal charges will be filed against Dean.
Dean's letter read: "Effective immediately I am tendering my resignation from the Fort Worth Police Department." The letter was released by the state's largest police union, the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas. The group’s executive director, Charley Wilkison, said that Dean has not yet hired an attorney but that one will be provided with financial support from the union.
The shooting also has led politicians to question the officer's use of force.
"It seems like this police officer made a very quick judgment to shoot her through this window and that makes absolutely no sense at all," Rep. Marc Veasey, a Democrat, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Sunday night during a candlelight vigil at Jefferson’s home, which hundreds of people reportedly attended.
"Our welfare check turned into a death, and that should never have happened," Fort Worth City Councilwoman Kelly Allen Gray told the newspaper. "Our people, our citizens who call the police, should know the police are going to come and answer their cares and concerns in a way that does not result in a tragedy."
Fort Worth police said in a statement that after "perceiving a threat, the officer drew his duty weapon and fired one shot, striking the person inside the residence." Officers then entered the house, located a firearm and started performing emergency medical care, investigators said.
The department released bodycam footage of the incident "to provide transparent and relevant information to the public as we are allowed within the confines of the" investigation, it stated. Any video taken inside the house could not be distributed due to state law.
However, the bodycam video released to media included blurred still frames showing a gun inside a bedroom at the home, The Associated Press reported. It's unclear if the firearm was found near Jefferson, and police have not said that the officer who shot her thought she had a gun.
Police Lt. Brandon O’Neil said yesterday afternoon that the officer had been on the force since April 2018. At a brief news conference at police headquarters, O’Neil confirmed that the officer did not announce he was a police officer before he fired the deadly shot and that the failure to do so was part of the department’s investigation.
O’Neil also said Jefferson's 8-year-old nephew was in the room with Jefferson when she was shot. He said representatives of the police department have spoken with the woman's family and "shared our serious and heartfelt concern for this unspeakable loss." Jefferson's family members have said she was watching her nephew at the time.
The Fort Worth Police Officers Association, in a statement released to media, announced it was "urging the Fort Worth police department to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation, and through that investigation, we hope to gain clarity and understanding of what exactly transpired."
"Police officers take an oath to protect and serve all citizens in our great city and it is every officers’ worst fear to use deadly force in the line of duty," it added. "We are thankful for our community leaders who seek to unite during times of grief instead of divide and we hope that collaboration and peace will help guide us forward."
Jefferson was a 2014 graduate of Xavier University in New Orleans and earned a bachelor's degree in biology, the university said.
"Our prayers and thoughts are with her family and friends as we gather as a community in prayer," President Reynold Verret said in a letter to the Xavier community. "As we wait for details of this incident to unfold, let us cling to our mission of justice and humanity and seek answers to this tragedy."
Her sister, Amber Carr, described the shooting as "another one of those situations where the people that are supposed to protect us are actually not here to protect us."
"You know, you want to see justice," she told KXAS, "but justice don’t bring my sister back."
Another one of her sisters, Ashley Carr, described Atatiana Monday as a "smart, ambitious, kind person with a nurturing spirit" that "any parent would be proud to call her their daughter."
An extenuating circumstance is that the woman shot pointed a gun at the officer through the window, and not out of malice or racism, but in perceived self-defense in a split second, fired his weapon at her. It was a split second call, in that split second he could have just moved away from the window and put a wall between them. But in the split second, he made a bad call.
And as usual, the liberal media is all over this because it's a white-on-black shooting. There are so many cases like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, etc., where I initially believed the news media portrayal of it as a racist motivated event, and over a few days the facts came out and made clear that they weren't. But the damage to race relations nationwide is already done, compounded by a liberal media that absolutely refuses to acknowledge they got the story wrong, and continue to push a racist narrative even when the facts no longer support it.
And the half of America that trusts those sources for their news go on believing that narrative, and hating the other half, based on false narrative.
Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean made a mistake that got a woman killed. But it should certainly be taken into consideration that she was pointing a gun at him, before he had a chance to do anything!
As a result, Aaron Dean has already lost his job, I think he should serve some time in jail, but not more than 5 years. It was arguably self defense. It disturbs me that Fort Worth's police department basically threw this officer under the bus, instead of impartially saying we'll do a full investigation and we're committed to following the facts, wherever they lead.
It reminds me again of the black Salt Lake City police officer who shot an unarmed white 19 year old, within the same few weeks as the Michael Brown shooting. The officer who shot Brown was completely exonerated as having done nothing wrong, by Eric Holder's partisan DOJ no less, and he
still lost his job. The incident with the black police officer in Salt Lake City was just swept under the rug and ignored by the media.
LESSON TO POLICE NATIONWIDE: Don't extend yourself to do the right thing and follow your instincts to protect the public, if anything goes wrong your own department will throw you under the bus and you'll likely end up in jail. So don't try so hard to protect the public, just stay in your car and protect your job and your pension.
