'That's Murder': Family Reacts to Police Bodycam Footage

Atatiana Jefferson was killed at her Texas home
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 13, 2019 1:20 PM CDT

A white police officer who killed a black woman inside her own home in Texas didn't have time to perceive a threat before shooting her, an attorney for the woman's family said. "You didn't hear the officer shout, 'Gun, gun, gun,'" attorney Lee Merritt said after viewing video taken from a Fort Worth officer's bodycam during Saturday's shooting death of Atatiana Jefferson, 28. "He didn't have time to perceive a threat. That's murder." Her family told KXAS television that Jefferson was watching her 8-year-old nephew when she was killed early Saturday while police checked on the home after a neighbor called a police non-emergency line to report that the front door was open, the AP reports.

The Fort Worth Police Department said in a statement that officers saw someone near a window inside the home and that one of them drew his duty weapon and fired after "perceiving a threat." The video released by police shows two officers searching the home from the outside with flashlights before one shouts, "Put your hands up, show me your hands." One shot is then fired through a window. The officer does not identify himself as police in the video. "It's another one of those situations where the people that are supposed to protect us are actually not here to protect us," said Jefferson's sister, Amber Carr. "You know, you want to see justice, but justice don't bring my sister back." (Here's why police were sent to her home.)

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