# 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:** 35
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/682 "2019-10-10T19:39:43Z")
I just thought of a good analogy to this whole situation: it’s like the Jeffrey Epstein suicide. Most of the speculation and belief seems to come from the timing and the untrustworthiness/reputation of the authorities involved. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/683 "2019-10-10T23:13:59Z")
At this point, I would say Probability it was related to the prior shooting \> probability it was related to his testimony \>\>\> probability it was “random”. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/684 "2019-10-11T00:16:42Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > At this point, I would say > Probability it was related to the prior shooting \> probability it was related to his testimony \>\>\> probability it was “random”. On what basis? ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/685 "2019-10-11T01:50:04Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Hating the cops who murdered and covered it up, sure. Hating cops in general, especially those in the DPD who had nothing to do with it - not so much. You tell me a fool proof way of telling the difference for cops you meet on the street. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/686 "2019-10-11T07:26:46Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > You tell me a fool proof way of telling the difference for cops you meet on the street. It’s easy - it’s the same way police can tell at a glance which young black men are dangerous criminals and which ones are normal, innocent people just going about their day. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/687 "2019-10-11T13:18:03Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > You tell me a fool proof way of telling the difference for cops you meet on the street. I don’t know of a fool proof way. My rule of thumb is that people in one city are not generally involved in crimes committed in a different part of the country, even if they are members of the same group. > [@Gyrate](#): > > It’s easy - it’s the same way police can tell at a glance which young black men are dangerous criminals and which ones are normal, innocent people just going about their day. Exactly. “This cop must be guilty because a different cop in another state committed a crime” has the same validity as “this black guy must be guilty because a different black guy committed a crime in another state”. That is to say, not a whole lot. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/688 "2019-10-11T13:30:52Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I don’t really see a problem with “hating cops” as a result of this case. A cop DID murder a guy and the police tried to cover it up. If that doesn’t deserve “hate”, what does? I think “coverup” is way overkill for what happened here. It was on the local news literally within an hour or so of the actual shooting, if not sooner. In my opinion, what we saw was cops giving the benefit of the doubt to one of their own. While that’s not necessarily a good thing, it is an understandable one. I mean, I can completely see how other police officers might take another at their word that a killing was both accidental and not premeditated. That’s more than likely why they didn’t cuff her, etc… at the crime scene. Coverups are typically more… directed and organized than what you saw here. We never saw claims that Jean was in the wrong place, or that he did anything wrong, that someone else shot him, etc… at best, we saw a lot of lawyer-produced noise about how her shift was long, how the floors look identical, how the floorplan was the same, etc… Which is the lawyers doing their jobs, not a coverup. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/689 "2019-10-11T14:17:38Z")
[How about an actual coverup.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/laquan-mcdonald-shooting-chicago-police-board-fires-officers-alleged-cover-up-murder-jason-van-dyke-2019-07-19/) Of course, no one involved in the coverup will see jail time. They got fired, but they’ll appeal and probably be quietly reinstated. Even the actual shooter might do only three years. So again, how can we tell? ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/690 "2019-10-11T19:29:56Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Why would they “know” Brown was under police “interest?” The investigation of Jean’s murder is long over. It had been 10 days since he testified against a cop, who was convicted less than a week before the shooting. That’s nothing like ‘long over’. > [@](#): > > You’re talking about the three people who traveled from out of state? No, I’m talking about the original case, where they elected not to search Amber Guyer’s apartment. She is the one who claimed that she just made a mistake, and if you’ve got an outright murder where the murderer claims no connection with the victim, one thing you investigate is whether there is an actual connection > [@](#): > > I can think of several reasons. For starters, maybe he didn’t want to let three strangers of questionable integrity into his apartment… I know people on the Dope can be a bit more naive than one would expect from a website with ‘dope’ in the name, but when I asked about why he’d conduct the deal in the parking lot of his apartment, I did not mean ‘as opposed to inside of his own apartment’ but rather ‘somewhere that’s not right on top of where he lives’. The question is not ‘why didn’t the guy who was in fear of his life invite out of state strangers into his home for a drug deal’, it’s ‘why didn’t the guy who just testified against a cop conduct his drug deal away from his own residence like you’d expect’. > [@](#): > > Who would investigate him? He’s supporting the prosecution. How much investigation do you think Guyger’s defense attorney would have been able to conduct, other than asking a few of the guy’s neighbors what he was all about? The prosecution and defense both investigate witnesses in a major case, the defense to undermine them and the prosecution so that they don’t get blindsided by the defense. Also the DPD could easily come up with ‘coincidental’ reasons to investigate the guy with a criminal record who was testifying against one of their own. If dude was a major drug kingpin running out of state drug deals in the parking lot of the apartment building, it seems odd that none of these parties noticed. If he wasn’t, the fact that he decided to embark on a career change barely a week after testifying against a cop seems rather… extraordinary. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/691 "2019-10-11T19:32:31Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Oh, come on. What else can you realistically expect that would have been more favorable than a black judge, seven black jurors, five other non-white jurors, and four white jurors. Out of the jurors, 12 out of 16 were women. > > That is absolutely as diverse of a jury as you could hope for- if anything, maybe a balance of men and women would have been more diverse. I honestly have no idea why you’re posting this like it is a counter argument to anything I said. I did not say ‘the ethnic makeup of the jury was an issue’ or anything along those lines, so bringing it up like it is even relevant to what I said, much less a counter to it, makes no sense. The problem is not with the ethnic makeup of the jury, but with the handling of perpetrator and witnesses, release of information, gathering of information, and the like. Again, do you think that in the sitaution where the roles were reversed and Botham Jean shot Amber Guyer in her apartment that he, would recieve the same treatment that she did? That is, that he would have police arrive at the scene, comfort him after his traumatic experience, not search his apartment for evidence that he’s up to anything bad, turn off their recording devices so none of his heated post-shooting words make it to court, let him erase dirty messages from his phone, and release vague insinuations that she was drugged up? And that after a trial, presuming he survived to it, the judge would come down and hug him and give him a bible? Presume she’s not a cop if you want, and I still don’t see Botham getting this kind of softball treatment from the cops. He would be violently restrained quite rapidly, not allowed time to tamper with evidence, would get harshly interrogated (and anything he said put in court), his apartment searched, the ‘odor of marijuana’ statement would be about him, and so on. Include the fact that she’s a cop, and the odds of him even surviving to trial go down considerably, and the odds of him not getting beaten or tazed drop to near zero. And I don’t see the judge doing the ‘hug and bible’ routine or the people who defend a ten year sentence for her murdering him defending a ten year sentence for him murdering her. > [@bump](#): > > No, what I’m saying is that the fact that minority defendants have received harsher or disproportionate sentences doesn’t have any bearing on HER sentencing. > [@](#): > > I’m not a fan of armchair lawyering or judging. Seems to be a contradiction there, isn’t calling sentences ‘harsher’ or ‘disproportionate’ also armchair lawyering or judging as you’re using the term? Calling all criticism of sentence ‘armchair lawyering or judging’ is clearly a bad use of the phrase, as the topic under discussion is ‘do I consider this result reasonable’ not ‘I would have handled X differently were I the lawyer/judge’. I’ll just clarify that I am not offering specific criticism of any tactics or legal arguments made during the trial. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/692 "2019-10-11T19:34:01Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > People who sell illegal drugs for a living don’t always make 100% logical and rational decisions. If they did, they wouldn’t be in the drug business. > [@](#): > > The only one going on about “reefer-addled negroes” here is you. The first line of your post is exactly what I’m referring to with the ‘reefer-addled negroes’ comment. The whole line of argument about ‘well, there were drugs involved, so of course nothing they do needs to make sense’ is exactly what I object to. And once you insist that nothing in the story needs to make sense because ‘those people involved in drugs just don’t think well’, then there’s not really anything to discuss - the holes and inconsistencies in the story are all irrelevant, because ‘well, drugs’ is the answer to any of it. > [@](#): > > Why _would_ they? The prosecution isn’t going to go digging for dirt on their own witness, and the defense can’t just demand to search his apartment. Competent prosecutors do dig for dirt on their own witnesses so that the defense doesn’t surprise them with it. Regular defense attorneys investigate witnesses to interrogate them, and cops trying to protect one of their own are really good at finding reasons to investigate an already suspicious situation. If the story we’re getting is accurate, either this was a guy who conducted large drug deals in the parking lot of his own apartment complex where a cop also lived (and so should be easily found out) or someone who took up a career making large interstate drug deals less than a week after a cop was convicted based in aprt on his testimony. > [@](#): > > Moreover, you assume the buyers _knew_ who he was. If you asked a typical man on the street, prior to the murder, who Joshua Brown was, chances are they’d have no idea. So they made a nine hour drive to a guy they didn’t know at all to buy an amount of pot that’s smaller than what is generally smuggled interstate but large enough to get ‘drug dealer charges’? Or were they just driving nine hours to make a small buy that they could have done locally? I mean, sure pot messes with people’s thinking, but generally in the direction of ‘chill out and eat snacks’ and not ‘drive nine hours instead of going to the guy in town’. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/693 "2019-10-11T19:38:03Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > I’m honestly still not sure why the police were ever and are still believed to have had a motive here. Their interest in murdering the witness who heroically corroborated Guyger’s story seems less than threadbare to me. He was a prosecution witness who contradicted key parts of her story that were intended to paint her in a sympathetic light to the jury. Notably, he did not corroborate her claim that she verbally confronted the victim and gave him orders. The jury has stated that they came to a guilty verdict quickly because it was clear to them that she decided to kill him before she entered the door, a fact that would likely not be clear to them if there was a witness claiming he heard her shouting orders at the victim. Also, the prosecution would not bother flying him in from California if all he was doing was corroborating her story, there is no need to even call a witness, much less to convince a reluctant witness to show up if all he’s going to do is corroborate her story. The idea that his testimony was completely worthless to the prosecution doesn’t hold water. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/694 "2019-10-11T19:47:32Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > [How about an actual coverup.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/laquan-mcdonald-shooting-chicago-police-board-fires-officers-alleged-cover-up-murder-jason-van-dyke-2019-07-19/) > > Of course, no one involved in the coverup will see jail time. They got fired, but they’ll appeal and probably be quietly reinstated. Even the actual shooter might do only three years. > > So again, how can we tell? WTF does a Chicago murder and subsequent coverup have to do with Dallas, Amber Guyger or Joshua Brown? They’re totally unrelated. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/695 "2019-10-11T19:51:17Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Again, do you think that in the sitaution where the roles were reversed and Botham Jean shot Amber Guyer in her apartment that he, would recieve the same treatment that she did? What alternate situation exactly are you posing here? Officer Botham Jean shooting unarmed Amber Guyger, or non-cop Botham Jean shooting Officer Amber Guyger in her apartment? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/696 "2019-10-11T20:09:23Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > No, I’m talking about the original case, where they elected not to search Amber Guyer’s apartment. She is the one who claimed that she just made a mistake, and if you’ve got an outright murder where the murderer claims no connection with the victim, one thing you investigate is whether there is an actual connection Its up to a judge whether the police get to search her place. Maybe they couldnt get a warrant? ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/697 "2019-10-11T20:51:01Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Notably, he did not corroborate her claim that she verbally confronted the victim and gave him orders. The jury has stated that they came to a guilty verdict quickly because it was clear to them that she decided to kill him before she entered the door, a fact that would likely not be clear to them if there was a witness claiming he heard her shouting orders at the victim. Also, the prosecution would not bother flying him in from California if all he was doing was corroborating her story, there is no need to even call a witness, much less to convince a reluctant witness to show up if all he’s going to do is corroborate her story. > > The idea that his testimony was completely worthless to the prosecution doesn’t hold water. Gonna need some cites here. From [this cite](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2019/10/10/what-we-know-about-joshua-browns-slaying-after-arrests-and-rampant-rumors/) we have it reiterated that Brown testified that heard voices but could not make out what they said. So it neither corroborates nor contradicts Guyger’s account. Further, it states that the jury decided on the basis of Guyger’s testimony. > [@](#): > > “All 12 of us said she was guilty probably within five minutes of being in there,” Juror 21 said. > > Their decision hinged on testimony from Guyger herself. I cannot find any mention of Brown being flown in from California, or being in California. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/698 "2019-10-11T21:59:03Z")
_Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/699 "2019-10-11T22:55:49Z")
> [@bump](#): > > WTF does a Chicago murder and subsequent coverup have to do with Dallas, Amber Guyger or Joshua Brown? They’re totally unrelated. Well, if you paid attention, you’d know. Go back and see what I was referring to. It was a response to if there is a justification for “hating of cops”, all cops, not just Dallas cops. If you can’t trust them in Chicago, and you can’t where I live, maybe it isn’t just Dallas. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2019, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/700 "2019-10-13T01:33:15Z")
Here to chew on is another really bad shooting by police in the Metroplex: [28 year old woman is killed, in front of her nephew, in her own home by police on a welfare check.](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2019/10/12/watch-video-shows-fort-worth-police-officer-fatally-shoot-woman-inside-her-home/) Victim is black, and per the officer video in the cite, at least one of the shooters was white. Neighbor called the cops, seeing the house she was in had its door open at 2AM. Cops show up, without lights and sirens, walk around the house, claim to see someone with a gun inside, and shoot. She dies. Predicting this one will be even more of a mess than the Guyger shooting. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2019, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119/701 "2019-10-13T03:19:11Z")
> [@bump](#): > > WTF does a Chicago murder and subsequent coverup have to do with Dallas, Amber Guyger or Joshua Brown? They’re totally unrelated. It’s an example of how the police can falsify an investigation when it involves a member of their own force. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119.md?page=34) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-cop-kills-innocent-man/821119.md?page=36)