A former police officer in Dallas who was convicted of murdering a man in his apartment six years ago is now eligible on parole.
On Sunday, Amber Guyger officially became eligible for parole since she’s served half of her original sentence, which was set at 10 years.
In September of 2018, Guyger shot Botham Jean after she entered his apartment in Dallas, and he died as a result.
The white officer told authorities when interviewed that she mistakenly entered Jean’s apartment, as she believed it was her own apartment. She tried to claim that she was justified in shooting since she assumed that she would have to defend herself.
She was not on duty at the time that this happened, which is why she said she didn’t have her body-worn camera on.
After Jean was killed, outrage ensued throughout Dallas. The case also caught national attention as another incident of a white police officer killing a Black man.
About one year after the shooting, Guyger was convicted by a jury of murder and sentenced to spend 10 years in jail. That conviction was later upheld by an appeals court in 2022.
Yahoo News reported that it wasn’t clear when a decision will be made by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles will decide whether Guyger will be set free five years before the end of her original sentence.
There was a lot of irony that Sunday was the day in which Guyger first became eligible for parole, since that would have been Jean’s 33rd birthday.
Jean’s family is strongly opposed to Guyger being granted parole and being released from prison early. Speaking with The Dallas Morning News recently, Alissa Charles-Findley, Jean’s sister, said if Guyger were paroled it would be “very traumatic” for the entire family.
If it would’ve happened on Jean’s birthday, it would be like “losing Botham all over again.”
Jean’s mother, Allison, told CBS News last week that what Guyger did caused “tremendous pain” to their family. She believes Guyger should stay in prison for the entirety of her sentence, saying the term she received was “well below a sentence that one receives for murder.”
Guyger isn’t the only former police officer who has been sentenced to jail after being convicted of murder in the city of Dallas.
In 1973, Darrell Cain forced 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez to play Russian roulette while in the back of his squad car. He was sentenced to spend five years in jail for murder in that case, but only served half of the sentence.
Teddie Lynn Whitefield, a former officer with the Wichita Falls department, served only two years of an eight-year sentence for three counts of manslaughter after killing two women and an unborn baby in a crash back in June of 2011.
A toxicology report showed Whitefield was under the influence of prescription drugs while he was driving the car.