A Black woman who was gunned down and killed by a White police officer who fired a round into her bedroom window while she played video games with her nephew was convicted of manslaughter in Texas Thursday.
Aaron Dean was initially charged with murder but jurors reduced the conviction to manslaughter. He faces up to 20 years in prison. His conviction brings the embroiled two-week trial to a close after years of delays.
Atatiana Jefferson was killed in October 2019 while she was playing video games with her eight-year-old nephew. She had heard a noise, reached for her gun and peeked through her bedroom window. The officer, who had been called to the location after a neighbor complained of open doors at her house at night, saw Jefferson holding a gun through her window and fired a single round, striking and killing her.
“She started crying,” Zion Carr, Jefferson’s nephew, told the jury during his testimony. He recalls Jefferson collapsing and groaning in pain. She died days later.
“I was thinking, ‘is it a dream?’” he questioned. “She was crying and just shaking.”
Jefferson’s death came just months before the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, who all died at the hands of White police officers. Their deaths led to an international wave of protests over race relations in the U.S.
The trial of Jefferson remained stagnant for three years before a judge was assigned. The initial judge, David Hagerman was assigned to the case but was removed after the defense team said he was angry and hostile towards them.
Then the lead defense counsel, Jim Lane, was diagnosed with a terminal illness and died one day before jury selection in late November.
The trial finally began on December 6 with 14 jurors – none of whom were Black – and a new judge, George Gallagher.
Prosecutors argued that the officer used excessive force “during a routine call where no one appeared to be in imminent danger,” according to the New York Times.
“This is not a self-defense case. This is murder,” Ashlea Deener, the assistant district attorney, told the jury.
But Miles Brissette, who represented the officer, said that his client was only acting in self-defense after seeing a green laser pointed directly at him.
“This is a tragic accident,” Brissette said.
In testimony from the Dean, he said confessed that he could’ve responded to the call better, but remained adamant that he was trained to “stop the threat.”
