from the 11-years-plus-damages dept
None of this will undo this extremely unnecessary killing. But it will at least provide more case law that will hopefully deter cops from shooting first and retiring mid-investigation later.
This is one of the most horrific killings by police officers that don’t involve Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Responding to a welfare check call, Ft. Worth (TX) police officer Aaron Dean decided to wander into the backyard of the house he was checking on (even though he easily could have done literally anything else) and kill Atatiana Jefferson, who had committed the crime of being alive in her own house, playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew.
Officer Aaron Dean — allegedly suspecting a possible burglary — decided to go the subterfuge route. Rather than approach the front door or initiate contact with the property owner, he went into the backyard and rustled around for a bit before approaching the back of the home. When he saw a person inside the house (something completely expected in any house at any time for any reason), he did two things simultaneously:
The only thing any officer said was “Put your hands up! Show me your hands!” This was delivered by the officer who spotted Jefferson through her window as she (most likely) began moving in [the officer’s] direction to figure out who was in her backyard. The shot that killed Jefferson was fired before the second shouted sentence was complete.
Atatiana Jefferson was never given a chance to comply. She was executed in less time than it took for Officer Aaron Dean to utter these phrases. The Ft. Worth PD released the body cam footage promptly, but mainly to demonstrate that officers found a handgun inside the home, while glossing over the inconvenient fact that no officer actually saw Jefferson carrying the gun. (And even if she had been, she was well within her rights to do so in her own home, especially if she saw people she didn’t know prowling around in her home’s backyard.)
Here’s the body cam footage:
In a relative rarity, a jury found the recently retired Aaron Dean guilty of manslaughter. More significantly, the jury opted for an 11-year sentence. That’s meaningful. Any sentence under 10 years might have been subject to a judge’s decision to downsize it to probation alone. That extra year meant Officer Dean would have to serve at least some prison time before being released.
The second blow to Aaron Dean has arrived. The Fifth Circuit Appeals Courts, which has defended/excused a lot of terrible cop behavior, refuses to grant qualified immunity to Dean for his violent actions. (It does, however, decide the incursion into the curtilage was justified by the “community caretaking” exception to the 4th Amendment.)
The precedential decision [PDF] doesn’t break any new ground. But it does reaffirm that cops can’t just start blasting away any time they see things they feel they should start shooting at.
Here, Jefferson was watching her nephew and heard someone outside of her home in the middle of the night. She, unsurprisingly, walked to the window to see who was there. Nothing suggests that Jefferson knew the police were at her home. Jefferson was not fleeing from the police. There is no allegation that she was violent or aggressive. And Dean does not assert that he believed Jefferson posed an immediate and significant threat to him or others. He does not allege that he saw her holding a weapon. Under these circumstances, it is clearly established that Dean was required to announce himself as an officer and issue a warning, prior to employing deadly force.
There’s no legal (or moral!) excuse for Officer Dean’s actions.
[E]very reasonable officer would have known that it is objectively unreasonable to shoot someone under these circumstances.
And that’s exactly right. But what purpose does this ultimately serve? Something needs to be done about violent cops and the see-saw effect of qualified immunity rulings makes it far too easy for cops to shoot and take their chances on litigation later. Even this decision doesn’t guarantee a win for Jefferson’s survivors. All it does is ensure the claims will be put in front of a jury.
Worse, killings like this expose the counter-arguments of cop defenders for the bullshit they are. “Don’t make sudden movements.” “Obey commands.” “Don’t break the law.” None of that applies here.
This is how the PD defended the officer’s actions:
Police said that the officer, who joined the department in April 2018, saw a person standing inside the house near a window.
A person who had broken no law and was never even given a chance to comply with an officer’s commands is dead. They were killed simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time: inside their own home when a cop decided it was time to open fire. What can you possibly tell people who want to avoid being killed by trigger-happy cops? None of the excuses for police violence work here.
Here’s how I put it when the news first broke, back in 2019:
What is threatening to officers like this one?
A person standing inside a house near a window.
A person standing inside a house.
A person.
Very little has changed. We, the people, are still the presumed enemy any time a cop decides they’re slightly uncomfortable. And, as such, we’re just supposed to accept these killings as the sacrifice needed to appease the gods of “rule of law.” Bullshit. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. And even if this shows the justice system is broken to the point of being right twice a day, in the end it’s taxpayers paying the tab for the government’s sins.
Filed Under: 5th circuit, aaron dean, atatiana jefferson, excessive force, fort worth police department, tarrant county, welfare check
