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The former Dallas police officer, Amber Guyger, cried Friday morning on the witness stand, in a soft, shaky voice as she repeated "I'm sorry" in court and has expressed regret for killing the neighbor after taking his apartment for him.
"I feel like a piece of shit," she sobbed. "I hate having to live with that and ask God for forgiveness and hate me every day."
"I would have liked him to have the rifle and have killed me," she said about her neighbor, Botham Jean. "I have never wanted to take the life of an innocent person."
Guyger's testimony began on the fifth day of his murder trial, as his defense team tried to ensure that the former officer and his actions could be reported to the jury. She recounted what she told about what happened on September 6, 2018, when she quit her job at the Dallas Police Department and returned to her building. She then went to Jean's unit on the wrong floor and thought that he was a burglar. inside his apartment.
"I was afraid that he would come kill me and kill me," she said.
Guyger said that she was tired after a quarter of an hour's work and that she was "just ready to go home" before arriving at the unit. Jean pulling his service weapon and shooting him in the chest. She was in uniform but was not in service at the time.
She became emotional at the helm when defense attorney, Toby Shook, began to question her about when she had attempted to use her electronic keychain to open the door. Jean's apartment. She had it recreated this moment after a short break.
She had her bags and police jacket slung over her left arm and used her right hand to put the key in the lock, she said. The door was already open.
"I was scared," she says. "Your heart rate is skyrocketing."
Guyger said that she saw a silhouette near the window in the distance, unsheathed her weapon and shouted, "Let me see your hands! Let me see your hands!"
Jean, she added, seemed to come to her and shouted, "Hey, hey, hey!" of an "aggressive voice".
It was at that moment that she shot him, she said.
She only realized that she was in the wrong apartment after seeing an ottoman in the middle of the floor and noticed that the television was on, she testified.
Earlier, Guyger had explained that she was having an affair with her work partner but that she had ended the relationship, although both men sent a text message and shared a phone call just before her return at home.
"I felt like it was morally wrong," Guyger said of his relationship with Constable Martin Rivera, adding, "I knew it was not going to succeed."
She also stated that she was "embarrassed" by the relationship and did not want her colleagues to know it because Rivera is married. Both men were partners of the same team fighting against elite crime.
Guyger's plans the night of the death of Jean, a 26-year-old accountant, are at the heart of the lawsuit.
Prosecutors used text messages she had shared with Rivera to assert that Guyger was not so tired and had planned to meet Rivera the night she allegedly entered John's apartment when She would have returned home shortly before 10 pm.
Guyger said Friday that she was tired after her 13 1/2 shift, but that even though the physical relationship between her and Rivera had ended, they still shared some pretty textual messages.
The core of the lawsuit is to determine whether Guyger's use of force was reasonable when she opened fire inside Jean's apartment, believing that it was safe. was acting from his unit and that he was an intruder. She said that she had put her key in the door of Jean's apartment, but that she had opened it.
A Texas Ranger investigator said this week that the door had a fault and was not always completely closed.
Guyger lived on the third floor of the South Side Flats complex, one floor lower than John.
Prosecutors asked how Guyger could have missed out on sensory cues before entering Jean's apartment, including a red doormat that outside of Guyger's unit n & # 39; He had not.
In a 911 record played earlier this week, Guyger said, "I thought it was my apartment," about 19 times.
On Friday, the jury heard about Guyger's education. She was the youngest of three children raised mainly by her mother in Arlington, a suburb of Dallas. She knew at 6 that she wanted to become a police officer because "I wanted to help people, that's the career I thought I could help."
Guyger told the police academy that she had learned to tell the suspects "let me see your hands" because "the more the suspect would approach us, it would be a bad day for us ".
John's death became a hot spot in Dallas, provoking protests to heighten police accountability and rekindle conversations about the use of force by police and racial prejudices. Guyger is white and Jean was black.
Dallas has struggled with racial problems in recent years, including the deadly shootings of five police officers in the city in 2016, which authorities say has been perpetrated in response to previous shootings involving the police.
In his opening remarks, defense attorney Robert Rogers downplayed relations between Guyger and Rivera and pointed out that dozens of tenants said they were parked on the wrong floor or in the wrong apartment , and that Guyger, as a police officer, was aware of the crime in the area. "
Guyger was fired from the Dallas police in the weeks following the shooting. If convicted of murder, she faces a maximum sentence in perpetuity.
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