What is Justice in the Amber Guyger Murder Trial?

Defendant Amber Guyger.  Inset:  Botham Jean

I’d heard about this case some time ago and rushed to judgment.  If you asked me about it then, I would have sounded like the prosecutor. Police officer Amber Guyger comes home from work, parks on the wrong floor of the parking garage, goes to a fourth floor apartment instead of her own third floor apartment and shoots dead the man who lives there.  You couldn’t believe such a thing was a mistake.  This was a murder.

Only recently did I pay attention to the story.  CBSN and other news outlets televised some of the trial.  I also read several of the articles about it.  Now I don’t know what I think.   There are times when the very nature of justice is called into question and must be defined again.  This is one of those times.

First of all, it’s an incomprehensible horror for the man, his family, and the community. The people who loved him should not have to suffer this.  The man should be alive.    I understand the family would be bitter. I understand how they would file a federal lawsuit against Dallas.  

 Amber Guyger got fired about two weeks after the shooting happened.   Then she was charged with manslaughter, which   seems to fit.  But then the case is sent to a grand jury which decides a murder charge is the apt and only way forward.   Is that a political decision?

Murder means you want to kill.  Murder is something you run away from.  Amber Guyger didn’t run away as we know from her anguished phone call to the dispatcher at her Dallas precinct.  Clearly hysterical, she pieces it together as well as she can.  Listen to the audio and you’ll see she flipped her bird, struggling to hold herself together, desperate to get fellow cops on the scene. 

  I understand from reading that     Botham Jean was still alive while Amber was on the phone and waiting for police and ambulance to arrive. Does anyone think she was capable of giving mouth to mouth resuscitation when Jean took one through the heart?   She did the only thing she could do — she lost her shit and begged for help. 

What seemed like an open and shut case of manslaughter has now become very different with this murder charge.  I don’t want to comment further but will discuss various aspects of the case as things unfold.