Trial starts for Aaron Dean, former Fort Worth police officer who fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson in
Source: CBS/AP
Trial starts for Aaron Dean, former Fort Worth police officer who fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson in her home
UPDATED ON: DECEMBER 5, 2022 / 11:18 AM / CBS/AP
A White former police officer went on trial Monday for the fatal 2019 shooting of a Black woman through a rear window of her Texas home while responding to a call about an open front door, in a case that has faced years of delays.
Fort Worth Officer Aaron Dean quit and was charged with murder two days after killing 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in October 2019. Jefferson had been playing video games with her then-8-year-old nephew, who later told authorities his aunt pulled out a gun after hearing suspicious noises behind the house. Body-camera footage showed Dean didn't identify himself as police.
At the time, the case was unusual for the relative speed with which, amid public outrage, the Fort Worth Police Department released the body-camera video and arrested Dean. Since then, his case has been repeatedly postponed amid lawyerly wrangling, the terminal illness of his lead attorney and the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Dean, who has pleaded not guilty, has been free on $200,000 bond. Now 38, he is charged with killing Jefferson on Oct. 12, 2019, after a neighbor called a non-emergency police line to report that the front door to Jefferson's home was open.
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Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aaron-dean-trial-fort-worth-officer-fatally-shot-atatiana-jefferson/