DALLAS — A white former Dallas police officer was indicted on a murder charge Friday, nearly three months after she fatally shot an unarmed black neighbor whose apartment she said she entered by mistake, believing it to be her own.

Amber Guyger told fellow officers that she opened fire when Botham Jean appeared in the darkness.

Jean’s relatives joined the district attorney for the announcement of the charge. Jean, a 26-year-old native of the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia, attended college in Arkansas and had been working in Dallas for accounting and consulting firm PwC.

“I truly believe that she inflicted tremendous evil on my son,” Jean’s mother, Allison, said after the announcement. “He didn’t deserve it. He was seated in his own apartment.”

Guyger was arrested on a manslaughter charge three days after the Sept. 6 shooting, prompting criticism that the original charge was too lenient. But Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson said at the time that the grand jury could upgrade the charge, which it did Friday.

“When you look at the facts of this case, we thought that it was murder all along,” Johnson said.

After finishing her shift, Guyger told investigators, she returned home in uniform and parked on the fourth floor of her apartment complex’s garage, rather than the third floor, where her unit was located, according to an affidavit prepared by the Texas Rangers. She said she got to what she thought was her apartment and found the door ajar. She said she pulled her gun and fired twice after a person ignored her commands.

Copy the Story Link