Former Dallas officer who shot Black man in apartment that she mistook for hers gets parole

A white Dallas police officer convicted of killing a Black man in his apartment that she mistook for her own was granted parole Thursday after serving seven years of her 10-year sentence.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, which is appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, rejected Amber Guyger’s initial parole request in 2024, but approved her case over the objections of victim Botham Jean ‘s family the first time she was eligible to ask again.

Guyger, 38, was convicted of murder in the 2018 killing of 26-year-old Jean, an accountant from the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia, who had been eating a bowl of ice cream when Guyger entered his home and shot him. Guyger was arrested three days after the shooting and was fired before her murder trial.

She had faced up to life in prison or as little as two years. Prosecutors initially asked the jury for a sentence of 28 years.

The shooting drew widespread attention because of the strange circumstances and because it was one in a string of shootings of Black men by white police officers. Guyger’s sentencing hearing also included a stunning courtroom scene when Jean’s brother and the Black judge presiding over the case embraced the sobbing Guyger.

At trial, Guyger said that after a long shift at work and still in uniform, she walked up to Jean’s apartment — which was on the fourth floor, directly above hers on the third — and found the door unlocked. She said she thought the apartment was her own and that Jean was an intruder when she drew her service weapon and entered.

Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt said Thursday that Jean’s family “strongly opposed this parole.”

“They stood up again and again to ask that the full sentence be served. A 10-year sentence was already a fraction of what was lost. Releasing Ms. Guyger after seven years makes that loss feel even smaller in the eyes of the system. It is not smaller,” Merritt said.

In 2024, a jury ordered Guyger to pay Jean’s family nearly $100 million in a federal civil trial.

In granting her release, the board said it reviewed a “plethora” of information in her case.

The board said Guyger’s record did not include a documented pattern of violent or assaultive arrests or convictions, and showed she completed programs in her prison treatment plan to get and keep a job when she is released.

The board said the state prison system will determine when she is released. Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Guyger’s legal defense team did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Dallas police said the department played no role in Guyger’s request for parole or the decision to release her.

“The Dallas Police Department understands this decision may bring renewed attention and emotion surrounding the tragic death of Botham Jean. Our thoughts remain with the Jean family and all those impacted by his loss,” the department said.