I don’t live there. I’ve never lived in a place like that. But I imagine it’s similar to electronic keys that are handed to you when you check into a hotel. Or a card that you apply to a plate to get a gate to open for a private parking lot.
So, she tries to use the electronic thingy. It glows red, instead of green or whatever, and instead of automatically thinking she’s in the wrong, she naturally suspects it’s the electronic thingy acting up. I’ve worked in enough hotels before, and had enough key problems from guests, that blaming the gadget first seems natural to me. The fob I use to push button remote open my condo’s gate is acting up, and I need to change it’s battery tonight.
The point is, these things probably fail a lot, and therefore your first thought when it doesn’t let you in, might be that it’s a piece of shit, and not the WTF?! you would get when your mechanical keys don’t even go into the lock of your apartment.
Another thing to consider, when evaluating everyone’s narrative to this point, is that Officer Guyger and her counsel have had several days to come up with this story. Counsel’s investigator (if her attorney is in the least competent) has looked to whether there were any videos of the hallway or apartment, any audio recording devices, and any witness statements: all in order to, in the words of one of my more pungent professors, “Figure out just how much we can lie.”
I think blaming the victim here, if that’s what the powers that be are doing, is absolutely reprehensible. But not surprising.
EDIT: Was the doormat there before the shooting? I’ve read where that’s uncertain. But yeah, if that was already there, then it’s another piece of evidence that she completely wasn’t paying attention to anything that an ordinary person would use to consider that they weren’t in the place they thought they were.
There appear to only be 4 floors. The building might not have an elevator. I don’t know what the minimum number of floors you need to have an elevator, but the Metroplex is covered with 3 story apartment developments that don’t have them.
She already got to experience that the year before, when she shot a guy trying to grab her Taser. Though I wonder what “he was trying to grab my Taser,” entailed? Did he get stuck with it already, and was grabbing at the electrode wire? Or was he fighting with her and tried to grab it out of her holster?
No matter. For the vast majority of people interviewed after a self-defense shooting, they agree that the whole thing uniformly sucked. The cops in your face, retaining and talking to a lawyer, the cost, the fear that you’ll lose your job because of this, the even worse fear that you somehow fucked up and now get to go to jail, even when you know you did everything the right way. Very few who’ve been through it want to go through it again.
I don’t know her, but I’d wager that she, like most police, like the cops I’ve personally known, isn’t bloodthirsty or is seeking to go shoot someone. She is in a profession, however that often requires that force be used to obtain compliance with her lawful commands. Rarely, that force can be lethal. They need to be cognizant of that possibility in order to do the job that we the citizenry have given them.
Accordingly, they are in a profession that can have really big consequences when they screw up. Especially if they screw up with a gun. And they shouldn’t be shielded from those consequences because of the nature of their profession.
she walked into the apartment of 26-year-old Botham Jean, shot him twice in the chest, and killed him.
she said she mistook Jean’s apartment for her own, which was a floor below in the same complex. Weird, given he had a red welcome mat at the door (she didn’t) and presumably different stuff in his place, but okay.
In an affidavit released Monday, she made several shady new claims. She said Jean’s door was open; she didn’t know it was the wrong apartment until after she shot him; she saw “a large silhouette” - cue myth of the big black dude - as she entered; and Jean “ignored” her “verbal commands” - in, lest we forget, his own apartment. At least two witnesses refute her …
Given the contradictions in Guyger’s story, officials say she could face stiffer charges once her case goes to a grand jury. …
Authorities did not release Guyger’s name or photo for days after the shooting, sending social media users on a mission to identify the officer. Wannabe detectives held up photos ripped from the victim’s Instagram that appeared to feature both Guyger and Botham as evidence of a relationship between the pair, but officials have denied they knew each other before the shooting.
Correct, sort of. They lie and cover for each other and try to shift guilt to the victim. Too often. That is conspiracy and perjury, all too often.
“Risk and danger?” if it’s so scary, QUIT!
Too many cops and civilians are hiding behind that “I was scared” bullshit - from unjustified cop shootings, to “stand your ground”, to Zimmerman. All you need to do is say “I was scared” and you have a license to kill. Enough already.
There are far more dangerous jobs - farming, oil rig roughneck, coal mining, Bering Sea crab fisherman, etc etc etc.
And this particular asshole went to the wrong apartment, and killed the guy who lived there, JUST FOR BEING THERE. She should already be in lock up.
And he ended up catching a 20 year sentence for being the piece of shit that he was. Yay for allowing not proven beyond a reasonable doubt allegations into sentencing. You can’t shoot them if the only reason you’re shooting them is because they’re running.
Guyger’s previous shooting was around several other witnesses, I thought. I was just curious how it happened, and I wasn’t able to find anything besides, “he grabbed for my Taser.”
No doubt it’ll be dissected ad nauseum when she get tried for whatever the Dallas D.A. feels they can prove.
I do associate with a few cops. Not as close friends, but as acquaintances, clients, and as police as they do their jobs.
I do not need to walk a day in their shoes to say that they should not be abusing their authority and terrorizing the people that they are paid to protect. Do you feel that you should have to walk a day in the shoes of a terrorist before you can criticize acts of terror?
Everyone is the hero of their own narrative, so, if I were to walk a day in the shoes of these abusive cops, then all I would get would be rationalizations for their behavior, justifications for their abuse.
What you are doing is defending cops being assholes, by saying that there are assholes everywhere, and that there just isn’t anything at all that can be done to prevent them from begin a badge, a gun, and the authority to use those as they see fit.
In a similar case, though I don’t think Tom Coleman actually planted cocaine on the poor people he sent to prison, Coleman ended up getting 10 years probation and a $7500 fine. Which is nowhere near enough, IMHO. Tulia, Texas - Wikipedia under “Drug Arrest Scandal” has more information.