Jennifer Emily
The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — Video of Botham Jean’s final moments took center stage again Wednesday during the murder trial of Amber Guyger. This time, his parents had no choice but to watch their son die.
The Jean family left the room Tuesday when jurors first showed the dramatic body-cam footage of officers’ desperate efforts to save the 26-year-old, who lay dying on his apartment floor after he was shot by Guyger, a Dallas police officer at the time.
But state District Judge Tammy Kemp asked to replay the footage Wednesday, sending the jury out of the room. The defense wanted to question a Texas Ranger about the location of Jean’s shoes on the floor and ask where he was when he was shot.
As the video filled three large screens in the courtroom, Jean’s parents, Bertrum and Allison Jean, grew increasingly upset.
Jean’s father, Bertrum Jean, looked away, toward the courtroom wall. At one point, he put his hands over his ears to block out the sound of officers desperately trying to revive his son.
A family friend patted his shoulder as he glanced up at the video before quickly looking away. Allison Jean slumped forward in her seat, her head bowed.
Prosecutor LaQuita Long sat on the court bench in front of the couple, whispering to them as the video played.
When the video stopped, the Jeans stood. Allison Jean looked anguished, and tears fell from her face as she and her husband walked out of the courtroom.
For the next several minutes, every time the courtroom door opened, a low wail could be heard from the hallway.
Kemp didn’t realize Jean’s family had still been in the courtroom as the video played, showing him dying on his apartment floor.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, raising a hand to her forehead. “I didn’t even give any thought to the victim’s family — the alleged victim’s family being here.”
The judge ruled that David Armstrong, the Ranger who was the lead investigator in the case, could not testify about where he believed Jean was standing when he was shot — nor could he share his opinion about whether Guyger’s reaction that night was reasonable.
But outside the presence of the jury, Armstrong said he didn’t believe that Guyger had committed a crime. He was the lead investigator on the shooting, and the Ranger who obtained Guyger’s arrest warrant on a manslaughter charge three days after the shooting.
“After finishing your investigation and looking at the totality of the circumstances and considering everything, do you believe today that you have probable cause to believe that Amber Guyger committed a crime?” asked one of Guyger’s attorneys, Robert Rogers.
“Based on the totality of the circumstances, based on the complete investigation, no, sir,” Armstrong said, noting that he believed Guyger acted reasonably and perceived Jean as a deadly threat.
Before the jury had been sent out of the room, Armstrong testified about how it was common for residents of the South Side Flats apartments, where both Guyger and Jean lived, to get confused and go to the wrong apartment.
Armstrong said that even he had trouble determining which floor he was on while investigating the shooting last year.
The defense has called the shooting an “awful and tragic, but innocent” mistake, while prosecutors have questioned how Guyger could have missed so many visual cues that indicated she was at the wrong apartment.
Armstrong also testified Wednesday that at the time of the shooting the apartment building didn’t offer many visual cues to indicate which floor a resident was on.
During cross-examination, he said a black placard near the elevator of the parking garage was the only indication of the floor number, and it was a sign a driver had to look hard for.
“There were no clear obvious signs showing what level you were on,” he testified under defense questioning.
Rogers showed the jury several photos of the third and fourth floors of the building side by side, and asked Armstrong if there were differences. He noted the numbers on each apartment weren’t on the doors, but above eye-level and to the left of each door.
“If you’re looking at eye level, there’s absolutely no difference, correct?” Rogers asked Armstrong while the jurors viewed the photos.
“That is correct,” Armstrong replied. He added that the apartment building has since added more visual indicators to make it clear which floor a resident is on.
The Ranger noted that, during his investigation, he heard from several residents who went to the wrong apartment, particularly residents on the third and fourth floors.
Armstrong testified that he led a team that interviewed 297 of the 349 residents at the apartment complex, and 15 percent — 46 of those interviewed — had walked to the wrong floor and put their key in the door.
The percentage was higher for residents on the third and fourth floors, where 38 residents had gotten confused.
Of all the residents interviewed, Armstrong said 93 of the residents interviewed had previously parked on the wrong floor in the parking garage, 76 of them residents who lived on the third or fourth floor.
On Tuesday, when asked by prosecutors about the regular occurrence of residents going to the wrong door, Armstrong acknowledged that Guyger’s case was the only situation in which someone was shot.
Wednesday’s testimony was initially delayed after Kemp told attorneys a female juror had a “professional relationship” with Armstrong.
Armstrong was initially called to testify Tuesday, in the second day of the trial, and showed the jury video of his sweep through Jean’s apartment.
The juror was questioned in private about the matter, and testimony soon continued with no apparent change.
Jurors also heard Wednesday from Dr. Chester Gwin, the Dallas County medical examiner who performed Jean’s autopsy. Autopsy photos were shown to the jurors, but not displayed on large screens where the gallery could see them, at Kemp’s request.
Gwin testified that Jean died of a gunshot wound in the heart. The bullet that struck him entered in the left side of his chest and traveled through his body, striking a rib before traveling through the stomach and intestine before it came to rest in Jean’s abdominal muscle, near his back. There was no exit wound, Gwin said.
Both sides questioned Gwin about the path of the bullet and what it could say about the position of Jean’s body when he was shot. Gwin testified that Jean could have been crouching, cowering, ducking or standing up off the couch when he was shot.
Also Wednesday, an analyst with the Dallas County district attorney’s office walked jurors through a timeline of Guyger’s and Jean’s locations on the day of Sept. 6, showing the times her panicked 911 call was placed and when she texted her police partner, with whom she had a sexual relationship.
Jurors also heard from three more residents of the South Side Flats apartments, where Jean lived on the fourth floor. Three others took the stand Tuesday.
Each of the neighbors on Wednesday testified that they had heard gunshots that night last September, but did not hear any commotion or police commands before the gunfire.
The trial will resume at 8:30 a.m. Thursday and is expected to begin with cross-examination of a Dallas police crime scene analyst.
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