How To Survive An Encounter With The Police

Amber Guyger killed Botham Jean last Thursday. She entered his apartment, apparently having confused it for her own; Guyger and Jean lived in the same apartment complex, although they lived on different floors. Guyger had parked on the wrong floor, leading her to the wrong front door, and discovered that it was unlocked. When she encountered somebody moving around inside, she assumed she was being burglarized and shot twice, hitting Jean once. Upon turning on the lights, she discovered where she was. Jean was later transported to a nearby hospital. Jean died there.

Guyger was reportedly very upset.

Guyger is a police officer with the Dallas Police Department and was in uniform when the shooting occurred. In the aftermath of her having shot Jean, she called the police and apologized to Jean while he lay on the floor bleeding. When the police arrived, all of the following things did not happen:

• Guyger was not shot to death within two seconds of officers arriving on the scene, despite being an armed threat who had already mortally wounded one victim. That treatment was reserved for Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Cleveland boy playing in a public park with a toy gun. Rice had not mortally wounded anybody. Nor was he capable of doing so.
• Guyger was not shot to death within minutes of officers arriving on the scene, despite being an armed threat who had already mortally wounded one victim. That treatment was reserved for Antwon Rose II, a 17-year-old Pennsylvania boy who fled from police officers. Rose had not mortally wounded anybody. He almost certainly was incapable of doing so.
• Guyger was not shot to death within seconds of officers arriving on the scene, despite being an armed threat who had mortally wounded one victim. That treatment was reserved for John Crawford III, a 22-year-old Ohio man carrying a BB gun in an open-carry state. Crawford had not mortally wounded anybody. He almost certainly was incapable of doing so.
• Guyger was not shot to death within several minutes of encountering police, despite being an armed threat who had already mortally wounded one victim. That treatment was reserved for Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old man who was holding onto a cellphone in his grandmother’s backyard. Clark had not mortally wounded anybody. He was incapable of doing so.
• Guyger was not shot to death within several minutes of encountering police, despite being an armed threat who had already mortally wounded one victim. That treatment was reserved for Philando Castile, a 32-year-old man who was legally carrying a gun. Castile had not mortally wounded anybody. Although he was theoretically capable of doing so, there was no reason to suspect that he was going to.
• Guyger was not shot to death within several minutes of encountering police, despite being an armed threat who had already mortally wounded one victim. That treatment was reserved for Terence Crutcher, a 40-year-old man who was standing with his hands up in a public street. Crutcher had not mortally wounded anybody. He was incapable of doing so.

Guyger was arrested late Sunday night and charged with manslaughter. Sunday was three days after the actual shooting. During those three days, she was allowed to enjoy her freedom. After being arrested, she apparently spent several hours in jail before posting $300,000 bail and regaining her freedom. The Dallas Police Department, Guyger’s employer, reportedly wanted to charge her with manslaughter as early as Friday, but turned the case over to the Texas Department of Public Safety to ensure impartiality; the TDPS then claimed to want more time to investigate the case before finally charging Guyger late Sunday night. It is unclear what more evidence is needed when an individual enters somebody else’s home and then shoots that person to death for having had the temerity to be there. It is also unclear how breaking into somebody else’s home and then shooting them to death is considered accidental manslaughter, as Guyger both wanted to kill Jean and then did so. Police have claimed that they were struggling to figure out what to do with a uniformed officer who killed somebody on her own time.

But the oddity of how Jean’s handling aside, there is no denying that Guyger is alive today. She not only enjoyed surviving her encounter with police but was given the time she needed to prepare for being arrested. There is something about both her and the choices she made that allowed her to live through her interaction with police. Given the circumstances of the seven deaths discussed here, it seems as though the only obvious difference is that Guyger posed an actual threat. In other words, the real mistake Tamir Rice, Antwon Rose, John Crawford, Stephon Clark, Philando Castile, and Terence Crutcher each made was that each had not thought to shoot an innocent person to death before encountering the police. If they had, maybe they would have received the same sort of delicate treatment that an actual killer did.