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A Dallas policeman started crying and shaking on Friday as she began to testify about the night she killed a neighbor at home, which she said was confused with her own unit located a lower floor.
Amber Guyger collapsed as she remembered approaching the door of her neighbor Botham Jean, causing the judge to ask for a brief break in order to be able to pull himself together.
Guyger, accused of murder in the assassination last September, was the first witness cited by his lawyers in this highly publicized case. She explained to the jurors that she had grown up in a small house in Arlington, a suburb of Dallas, that she had played in the school orchestra and that she aspired to become a policeman.
"I just wanted to help people and this is the only career in which I thought I could help people," said Guyger, who was fired from police after the shooting.
Guyger's testimony marks the first time the public has heard directly from the 31-year-old since the murder of Jean last September.
Guyger, who is white, was on leave but in uniform when she shot Jean, a 26-year-old from St. Lucia, black and working as an accountant in Dallas.
The basic facts of the unusual shooting are not disputed. Guyger went to John's apartment – which was on the fourth floor, just above his on the third floor – and found the door open. She was not working but was still wearing her police uniform after a long day of work when she had shot Jean with his service weapon. Guyger was later arrested, returned and charged with murder.
Guyger's lawyers say that she fired in self-defense after confusing Jean with a burglar. His attorneys also said that the identical physical appearance of the complex from one floor to the other often led tenants to park on the wrong floor or try to enter the wrong apartment.
Prosecutors asked how Guyger could have missed out on many signs that she was in the wrong place and suggested that she be distracted by sexually explicit phone messages with her police partner. Prosecutors also said that Jean was not a threat to Guyger, noting that he was in his living room eating a bowl of ice when she entered his apartment.
In a frantic 911 call that took place in court earlier this week, Guyger said, "I thought it was my apartment" almost 20 times. The shooting sparked scrutiny on the part of the country due to strange circumstances and the fact that it was a series of shootings on unarmed black men by white policemen.
The trial started on Monday.
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