That Brown’s death was merely a coincidence and not organized by any members of the Dallas police, for one thing. And that Amber Guyger screwed up and thought she was in her own apartment and did not target Botham Jean, although I do agree she is guilty of murder and that her conviction was the right thing to do.
I don’t think people are just randomly executed. A bullet in the throat needs an explanation. It’s not a random occurrence. If it turns out he was cheating the mob or something, sure, that’s at least as likely as the police. But I simply can’t buy that it was completely random.
If he’d been hit by a car, I would have thought “weird coincidence”. But if he was really shot in the throat, that’s just not a “simple” answer.
I do think it’s possible Guyger screwed up and thought she was in her apartment, but if that’s what happened, and her reaction to seeing a stranger eating ice cream was to kill him, she is one supremely paranoid and trigger-happy lady, and should not have been in the police department.
Brown’s death sounds gang related to me. Just a guess based on the reported gunshots.
It has no direction connection at all to Botham Jeans death. Imho
Brown’s appearance on TV may have gotten the attention of people with an old grudge. I’m just speculating.
The police need time to investigate and learn what happened.
I’ve seen a *cite for the claim that Brown was shout in the mouth. But then that claim was retracted, and the person who made it has admitted to hearing conflicting information and that we should wait for the autopsy. Sounds pretty reasonable to me, waiting for evidence and an investigation.
Do you have a separate cite for the claim that he was shot in the throat? Not that I think it matters, it doesn’t underpin my theory (or absence of a theory) for how he might have died, but you do seem to attribute special significance to it, in the same way that some people might attribute special significance to coincidental phenomena with other conspiracy theories.
Do you have a cite for the claim that he was on his couch, (still) eating ice cream as he was shot, or at least that the apartment was well-lit enough that she could see that’s what he was doing as she entered? I’ve read that may have been what he was doing before he was shot, but I have been led to believe that the actual position he was shot in, while disputed, wouldn’t have put him still on the couch either way. Worst case for Guyger is he was down on his knees or all fours, best case is he was lunging, neither of which seems consistent with being shot on the couch eating ice cream at the moment he was shot. Not that it changes the fact that he was murdered, but that and your apparent assumption that the apartment was well let cast a dimmer view on Guyger’s (already mistaken) claim of self-defense, and does paint it as much more cold blooded than I think the facts (to my understanding, anyway) necessarily indicate.
I also believe Guyger was rightly convicted of murder, and I do believe that even if it had been her own apartment and she was legally allowed (or, at least, could have come up with a legal justification that would have been sufficient to see her acquitted, if tried at all) she still should have avoided a fatal confrontation if at all possible.
*ETA - This is the cite I’m referring to, which then links to the twitter account of the guy who initially made the claim to the media, and then retracted it as uncertain: Joshua Brown Shooting: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
I agree with that. No argument there. But as for Brown’s death, I’m sad that he was shot, but random events do occur. Or to put it in the vernacular, “shit happens.”
The cite I saw for the location of the fatal wound was in a cnn article, but their source was just a Facebook post. So yes, that might not be solid. I jumped the gun, and I agree that we should wait for the coroner’s report. But if he was shot in the throat, I am not accepting that it was any kind of random, “shit happens” death. That would be an execution. IF that’s what happened.
As for the original murder, I don’t actually care whether he got up before she fired. Yeah, I imagine he did, that would be normal when someone breaks into your house. She was still the person who opened the door, and was standing outside it when she claims to have panicked. Honestly, I just find that really hard to believe.
Except his death wasn’t random; she testified that she intended to kill what she thought was a burglar, even before entering the apartment.
I think you have some of the key players confused. Guyger killed Botham Jean after mistakenly entering his apartment. Joshua Brown, a witness at the trial, was shot a few days after the verdict was returned. It was his death, that while it was tragic, I believe was unrelated to the trial, and that I referred to with “shit happens.”
I would bet good money against it being a coincidence. I’d also bet against it being a LEO.
There are plenty of cop fanbois out there who think the police can do no wrong. I’d bet a month’s salary that if the shooter is ever caught, that revenge for testifying was the motive.
Do you have even the slightest bit of evidence? Does it “sound” like gang violence because the victim is black? You’re talking off the top of your head in such a way as to suggest you really feel for white female killers and consider black murder victims to be par for the course.
I want to put this card on the table, re the murder of Joshua Brown:
I do not claim that the police could not possibly have done this. As noted, it’s been done before. I would absolutely welcome an outside LE agency, whether from the state or the federal government, coming in and investigating this in lieu of or alongside the DPD just to ensure everything is above board.
With that said, at this stage and with the information available, I wholeheartedly object to the assignment of probabilities to this incident being caused by any particular agent. If you would really bet a months salary, or even your reputation on the outcome of this case based off the information presently available, I believe you are in error. It’d be akin to taking a bet where someone offers you a 20 to 1 payout, in your favor, that a fair, unloaded die will roll a five. You might take that bet, but then it might just turn out it wasn’t a 6-sided die, but a 99-sided, or better yet, a 4-sided where five isn’t even an option.
Here are a few potential outcomes, none of which have been ruled out, and none of which have sufficient information pointing towards them are away from them to assigned even the most basic probability of occurrence:
- A random act of violence
- A case of mistaken identity
- Related to his testimony, but only insofar as his testimony gained the attention of some unsavory characters with a score to settle
- A hate-filled bigot who didn’t like what he had to say, but is unrelated to the DPD
- A rogue police officer
- A conspiracy involving multiple police officers
- Take your pick, this is not an exhaustive list, even of scenarios that I consider plausible, in part because some of those scenarios would have me making unfounded and unwarranted speculation about the victim, and I don’t think it’s right to do that with out evidence, any more than it is for others to jump to the “most likely” conclusion (in their minds) that the police did this in retaliation.
I don’t think Guyger set out to kill Jean. And I believe she’s sincerely sorry he’s dead.
But I hold her responsible for his death. I feel she acted in a very reckless manner. And I feel that police agencies, in general, instill a reckless mindset into police officers.
As for Brown, I acknowledge that I am just speculating at this point - it’s way too early for anyone to form conclusions. But I feel that his death is probably related to his testimony. I feel the likeliest explanation is that the shooter is some nutcase who’s a private citizen but who was motivated by an exaggerated sense of “blue lives matter” outrage. But I also think that this investigation should be handled by an outside police agency not by the Dallas PD.
Where. I must have missed that.
I thought she testified that she intended to kill him when she fired her gun. Not that she planned on killing him before she even entered the apartment.
I get the feeling that her brain locked into the “burglar in my apartment” scenario when she was in the hallway and from then on she saw everything through that perspective. She was blind to any environmental difference between her apartment and his. She took his movements as a threatening attacker instead of a confused person. I wouldn’t say she was committed to shooting him when she was in the hallway, but her brain was fixated on a scenario and it couldn’t see alternatives.
I think that’s what happens when people hear a noise at night and end up mistakenly shooting a relative or housemate thinking they are an intruder. They hear a noise and get locked into “that’s an intruder” mode and stop considering other alternatives. They don’t think it’s just someone getting something to drink, someone coming home late, or any of the many normal ways someone might be making noise in the house. The person can only think of one possibility and their brain shapes everything else to that one scenario.
Is there an actual psychological term for that kind of brain lock? It can happen even with benign things. For example, if someone has been reading about skunks in the neighborhood and then they see something skitter under a bush, they become convinced it’s a skunk. They don’t consider the more likely possibility it’s a cat unless they have overwhelming evidence of it being a cat (like the cat walks into the light).
^^That makes sense.
In this article, some of the jurors explain their decision. Juror 34 says, “She said before she even went inside, she made up her mind outside the door that she was going to kill the threat.”
The idea that Occam’s razor says to just assume that a conveniently timed murder that would send a chilling message is all a coincidence and to not only ignore that there are a number of people with strong motive to make the murder happen but to insist that it’s not any of them is certainly novel.
“Conveniently timed” would have been before he testified.
This is nothing more than a baseless conspiracy theory.
The time to whip out Occam’s Razor is when you have all the evidence that you are likely to have to base a conclusion on, not before. In this case, that would be after the investigation, and possibly after a trial if it gets to that point. To do otherwise, to use it prematurely to justify a conclusion based on a scarcity of evidence even as more evidence is being gathered, is to make assumptions that may later be proven unjustified, which is the very thing that Occam’s Razor is supposed to help you avoid doing.
Just because a given hypothesis strikes you as being the one with the fewest necessary assumptions now, doesn’t mean it will be tomorrow. And honestly, I think you assume a lot if you assume some kind of conspiracy, more than even a single bad actor or random act of violence would.
One would think so. Either way, it’s still bad optics when the only witness willing to testify is the only one murdered right after the trial.
ETA how dangerous is that neighborhood usually?