# Dallas cop kills innocent man **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 10, 2018, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119 "2018-09-10T19:32:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/241 "2018-09-13T17:26:30Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Let’s agree to disagree on that. > BTW, killer’s sister proudly has her picture taken with a shirt that reads, in huge lettering, ALL LIVES MATTER. Would I guess right that you disagree that’s a racist slogan? (What do I win?) No, in fact you would have guessed wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Roy\_Batty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Roy\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roy_Batty)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/242 "2018-09-13T17:26:53Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > IF it’s true that he had a distinctive red doormat, it’s quite implausible that she didn’t notice it if she was sober. Your video shows changes to an unfamiliar environment; we are much more sensitive to changes in a familiar environment. You aren’t checking messages when you get your key out to put it in a lock, at which point the doormat is prominent in your peripheral vision. Agreed. If the doormat were brown/tan or of a color that was equally bland/mainstream, I could see her not noticing this - if her doormat were similar (unless she didn’t have a doormat). But, to ignore a RED doormat?! Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever even been to a house with a red doormat, so this type of thing should immediately stand out to anyone…unless she also had a red doormat - and there’s no indication that she did (I think that would have been mentioned by now). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/243 "2018-09-13T17:36:39Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Let’s agree to disagree on that. > BTW, killer’s sister proudly has her picture taken with a shirt that reads, in huge lettering, ALL LIVES MATTER. Would I guess right that you disagree that’s a racist slogan? (What do I win?) The other thing, is that it would also be an amazing coincidence. The photo was taken in 2016 at Joe’s Crab Shack. I don’t know her dad’s name, but I found a William Guyger in Dallas who is 71, and for whom Amber Guyger is listed as a relative. That would line up with him being 69 (if that is her dad) at the time the photo was taken. What makes more sense here? That he’s flashing white supremacist signs that happen to look like a 69 (from the brother-in-law’s perspective) at a 69th birthday party family photo, or that he is, simply, flashing the age of the father? It would also be dead simple for the media to look up the age of the dad and contradict the story if the age doesn’t line up with his explanation for the 2016 photo. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/244 "2018-09-13T17:42:12Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > If you don’t think she walked into someone else’s apartment by mistake, what do you think actually DID happen? A planned assassination of the man who just happened to be living directly above her apartment? Both of the above scenarios seem like a stretch. More likely to me, is that she went to his apartment with a beef and it escalated. She’s a cop, so she had a gun on her. From the Yahoo! article Roy linked to earlier: > [@](#): > > And Merritt himself has disputed a number of Guyger’s claims in the police affidavit. In an interview on CNN, Merritt argued that Jean’s door could not have been ajar, as doors in the apartment complex building close automatically. Though he declined to offer a theory about what actually took place, Merritt did reveal that the same day as the shooting, someone in the apartment immediately below Jean’s — which happens to be Guyger’s place of residence — made a noise complaint about Jean’s apartment; furthermore, he said, it was not the first noise complaint. So the same day that a noise complaint was filed against an apartment, someone living in the apartment the noise complaint was made from accidentally enters the apartment the complaint was made against…and shoots someone living there? A little hard to buy. Consider that with reports that witnesses heard a woman in the hallway shouting “Let me in, let me in” seconds before the gunshot. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/245 "2018-09-13T17:44:35Z")
> [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > Both of the above scenarios seem like a stretch. More likely to me, is that she went to his apartment with a beef and it escalated. She’s a cop, so she had a gun on her. Yeah, this is what it smells like to me right now, and what seems to make the most sense, given what bits and pieces we know. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/246 "2018-09-13T17:49:47Z")
So are they ever gonna release the lab results to see if she was drunk or not? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/247 "2018-09-13T18:06:44Z")
> [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > Both of the above scenarios seem like a stretch. More likely to me, is that she went to his apartment with a beef and it escalated. She’s a cop, so she had a gun on her. > > From the Yahoo! article Roy linked to earlier: > > So the same day that a noise complaint was filed against an apartment, someone living in the apartment the noise complaint was made from accidentally enters the apartment the complaint was made against…and shoots someone living there? A little hard to buy. Consider that with reports that witnesses heard a woman in the hallway shouting “Let me in, let me in” seconds before the gunshot. Yup, this is a plausible theory. There has been a beef about noise. She comes back tired from a long shift at work, contemplates coming back to noise again, decides that going to see him in uniform might intimidate him into taking her noise complaint seriously. She deliberately parks on his level and goes to his apartment. If there’s evidence that she made such a noise complaint, especially if it’s the same day, I would think that’s enough for a jury to dismiss her story that she thought she was in her own apartment as bogus. And it makes her look very bad, because she could have come clean about going to confront him about the noise beef if the shooting was remotely justifiable in a context other than defense against an intruder into your own apartment. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/248 "2018-09-13T18:07:29Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Did I misunderstand? I thought the whole point was that Officer Guy-gurr _thought_ it was her apartment and therefore _thought_ she was in danger. If LEO fears had to be founded in reality, there are dozens of killings I’ve seen on YouTube that would be criminal. Maybe I’m misunderstanding. I thought that in Bricker’s hypo, it actually was her apartment, not that she only thought it was. If it’s her actual apartment, and Mr. Jean is wandering around it in his undies at 10 PM with all the lights out, then her killing him when he won’t show his hands (or whatever else he did that’d give a reasonable person in her situation the reasonable apprehension of immediate serious bodily harm—a home intruder who won’t show his hands, and is much bigger than you to boot, counts) is justifiable in Texas. Instead, he’s in his own apartment, and she is making a Mistake of Fact about which apartment she’s sitting in front of. Mistake of Fact is a term in the Texas Penal Code, and its effects as a defense to criminal prosecution may be found at § 8.02. [https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-8-02.html](https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-8-02.html) Which reads: > [@](#): > > (a) It is a defense to prosecution that the actor through mistake formed a reasonable belief about a matter of fact if his mistaken belief negated the kind of culpability required for commission of the offense. > > (b) Although an actor’s mistake of fact may constitute a defense to the offense charged, he may nevertheless be convicted of any lesser included offense of which he would be guilty if the fact were as he believed. So, for this to help Guyger avoid responsibility for Murder, which is the appropriate charge when you knowingly or intentionally unlawfully kill someone, the mistake must “form a reasonable belief about a matter of fact,” and that the mistake must “negate the culpability required” for the offense. In short, she’s not setting out to go confront Jean, like she would be if the theory holds water that she was going to his apartment to yell at him about his music volume, and then in that encounter got so pissed off at him that she blasted him. That would be Murder. Instead, if her story in the affidavit is true, she’s trying to defend herself from an intruder in her place. Which is a mistake. Rather than remove all criminal responsibility from her, I’d argue that her mistake that she was at her own apartment is the result of her negligence, and that this negligence is so overwhelming that it constituted a reckless disregard for the facts. Therefore her killing of Jean was the result of reckless conduct, despite shooting him being a intentional volitional act, and Manslaughter would be the appropriate charge. If you instead think that her negligence was only ordinary, not reckless, then Criminally Negligent Homicide would be the appropriate charge. I don’t think she should avoid criminal liability for what she’s done, given the evidence we have so far. I just think that she lacks the mens rea for murder, and that Bricker’s hypo was helpful to establish why. Also, nothing says that you have to believe her story that she made a mistake in thinking it was her apartment. If you disbelieve her story, such that there’s no reasonable doubt in your mind that she could think she was in her own place, because it just doesn’t make sense to you, then there’s no mistake of fact. If there’s no mistake of fact, then what we have is a voluntary act in shooting Jean, where you know there’s a very high probability that he’ll die as a result. Which means she knowingly unlawfully caused his death, which means Murder. ---
**Author:** ![Roy\_Batty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Roy\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roy_Batty)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/249 "2018-09-13T18:54:51Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > If you don’t think she walked into someone else’s apartment by mistake, what do you think actually DID happen? A planned assassination of the man who just happened to be living directly above her apartment? Nope, i don’t think that’s what happened. However, what may have happened was this: She got home after a difficult, long, stressful shift & the guy directly upstairs happened to be making a lot of noise (so she couldn’t sleep/rest). So, she went upstairs, yelled to him to open the door, and then things immediately escalated to the point that she shot him. Completely plausible. Then, she turned around and made up the “wrong apartment” story to explain the shooting. Obviously I have no way of knowing whether this is what happened…but, given the initial story & the neighbors’ testimony - it makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/250 "2018-09-13T19:04:42Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > Actually this has been mentioned over and over again here, despite the fact that there’s actually no evidence that her floor’s hallway looked any different than the victim’s hallway, and she could easily have been checking messages on her phone while she was walking to the door. You don’t even know what her doormat looked like either. > > There’s also tons of evidence that people usually don’t notice changes in their immediate visual environment: While people can certainly be amazingly oblivious, the problem with this theory is her banging on the door demanding to be let in. That simply makes no sense if she thought it was her apartment, where she lived alone. Her story simply isn’t logical, and I absolutely disbelieve her. It is obvious she knew it was Jean’s apartment. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/251 "2018-09-13T19:12:38Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > While people can certainly be amazingly oblivious, the problem with this theory is her banging on the door demanding to be let in. That simply makes no sense if she thought it was her apartment, where she lived alone. Obviously you are correct _if_ what they heard was Guyger. But we need to be a little bit circumspect when we don’t have these claimed witness accounts first hand, or any kind of critical analysis of those accounts - so far as I’m aware at this stage it’s hearsay from Jean’s attorney. For all we know this could have been much later, it could have been other cops or paramedics arriving and the door had swung shut. But ultimately if Jean’s attorney is right, it sounds like there’s likely to be enough at trial between witness accounts and prior noise complaints to take apart her implausible story about thinking she was in her own apartment. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/252 "2018-09-13T19:22:01Z")
I think what makes the most sense is after a long shift she had a little down time with her crew. Maybe they imbibed a little. They sent out the 15hr shift story to accommodate the timing and not raise questions about where she was, and what she was doing, in the time after her maybe 12hr shift. This is an very easy thing to fudge I suspect. The report I read, said they delayed doing the drug/alcohol test, but not mentioning by how long. That seems suspicious if true. Being a little impaired would go a long way to explaining the series of oversights, the wrong parking spot, wrong floor, red doormat, wrong apartment. And the instant firing of her weapon into a dimly lit room. I think it’s probably pretty easy to fudge the drug/alcohol test too, if you’ve got friends on the force. (Who were maybe having a few with you.) I think this most readily explains all the facts. But I also think if this is true, she’ll be cleared when the d/a test comes back negative. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/253 "2018-09-13T19:31:52Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > I think what makes the most sense is after a long shift she had a little down time with her crew. Maybe they imbibed a little. > > They sent out the 15hr shift story to accommodate the timing and not raise questions about where she was, and what she was doing, in the time after her maybe 12hr shift. This is an very easy thing to fudge I suspect. > > The report I read, said they delayed doing the drug/alcohol test, but not mentioning by how long. That seems suspicious if true. > > Being a little impaired would go a long way to explaining the series of oversights, the wrong parking spot, wrong floor, red doormat, wrong apartment. And the instant firing of her weapon into a dimly lit room… Right, but all of your first 3 paragraphs are also consistent with the idea that after this long shift and a few drinks, she decided to go and confront him about a prior noise beef, thinking that if she went in uniform she could intimidate him. Even with alcohol and fatigue, that’s still far more plausible than the idea that she really didn’t notice she was on the wrong floor. And the intoxication issue would still be highly pertinent in explaining how a plan to give him a lecture about noise turned into shooting him. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/254 "2018-09-13T20:09:52Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Thing is, the alternate explanation, that he’s throwing gang signs at father-in-law’s birthday family photo is equally, and I would say even more, silly. Not that i find the gang sign theory plausible but do they know what the nature of his tattoos are? Any sign of white supremacy sympathy in them? > [@Roy\_Batty](#): > > Nope, i don’t think that’s what happened. However, what may have happened was this: > > She got home after a difficult, long, stressful shift & the guy directly upstairs happened to be making a lot of noise (so she couldn’t sleep/rest). So, she went upstairs, yelled to him to open the door, and then things immediately escalated to the point that she shot him. Completely plausible. Then, she turned around and made up the “wrong apartment” story to explain the shooting. > > Obviously I have no way of knowing whether this is what happened…but, given the initial story & the neighbors’ testimony - it makes sense. A man alone at night, at home, in his underwear, in the dark, making excessive noise. That, on its face, seems unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/255 "2018-09-13T20:16:11Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > A man alone at night, at home, in his underwear, in the dark, making excessive noise. That, on its face, seems unlikely. Maybe he was yelling “Woooooo! I’m masterbating like a motherfuck!” ? ---
**Author:** ![Roy\_Batty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Roy\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roy_Batty)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/256 "2018-09-13T20:40:25Z")
Again, we don’t know what happened. But it’s possible he had the radio/music on loud - that sound really carries in apartments. However, you’re right that this is all speculative. That being said, I don’t believe the story about the door being ajar & her firing into the apartment at the “dark shape”. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/257 "2018-09-13T20:53:55Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > I think what makes the most sense is after a long shift she had a little down time with her crew. Maybe they imbibed a little. > > They sent out the 15hr shift story to accommodate the timing and not raise questions about where she was, and what she was doing, in the time after her maybe 12hr shift. This is an very easy thing to fudge I suspect. > > The report I read, said they delayed doing the drug/alcohol test, but not mentioning by how long. That seems suspicious if true. > > Being a little impaired would go a long way to explaining the series of oversights, the wrong parking spot, wrong floor, red doormat, wrong apartment. And the instant firing of her weapon into a dimly lit room. > > I think it’s probably pretty easy to fudge the drug/alcohol test too, if you’ve got friends on the force. > (Who were maybe having a few with you.) > > I think this most readily explains all the facts. But I also think if this is true, she’ll be cleared when the d/a test comes back negative. Because shooting an innocent man is just fine if you’re sober? Oh wait, cop shoots black man. That explains it all away. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/258 "2018-09-13T20:55:52Z")
> [@Roy\_Batty](#): > > Again, we don’t know what happened. But it’s possible he had the radio/music on loud - that sound really carries in apartments. Especially that “bass-heavy noise” that the blacks listen to. /sarcasm ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/259 "2018-09-13T22:15:14Z")
The police searched Jean’s apartment for narcotics. > **[Why Did Dallas Police Search a Man's Home for 'Narcotics' After One of Their...](https://reason.com/2018/09/12/frfrfr/)** > > Many unanswered questions surround this case. ---
**Author:** ![MarvinKitFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MarvinKitFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarvinKitFox)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2018, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/260 "2018-09-13T22:41:09Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Every level of a parking deck looks identical. > > I can understand someone parking on the wrong level. Walk through the glass doors, into the hallway, and your apartment is the sixth door on the left. Even the colors of the doors are the same on each floor. > > Except it’s not because you’re on the wrong floor. > > Usually that results in fumbling with a key that refuses to work in the lock. > > Been there, done that. Several times. > > It’s extremely tragic that door was ajar or unlocked. One life taken and the other’s future destroyed. > > The off duty officer should have glanced around and realized it wasn’t her apartment. She screwed up and will probably get prison time for that stupidity. All this is clear and understandable. It is likely she made a simple mistake, and reacted by shooting the “intruder”. So far, a routine if tragic mistake. . But. WHY was she not arrested and charged for _ **several days** _ after the killing? Quote from the article: " **Thursday** ’s fatal shooting by Dallas officer Amber Guyger, who told authorities that she had mistaken the neighbor’s apartment for her own. She was arrested **Sunday night**" This clearly shows preferential treatment towards her. If a civilian were to walk in to a cop’s apartment and kill him, the civilian would be arrested **immediately** , if he was lucky not to get shot 73 times. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119.md?page=14)