Black people in America are subject to unbelievable cruelty, violence, and death at the hands of police. Even in our own homes, which, ideally, would be a refuge from racism and bigotry, we are not safe. This awareness is stressful enough all on its own. But the constant sense of fear and concern for one’s safety are exacerbated by the idea that racist ideologies and tropes are also used as common defense routinely invoked by police to justify their killing of us. It’s the old “fear of scary black people made me do it” defense—though police (and society at large) do their best to convince us that racism and implicit bias aren’t actually real. Whether they believe it or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that racism becomes a convenient defense that often keeps killer cops out of prison.
This issue is front and center in the news right now. Last Thursday, Dallas police officer Amber Guyger (a white woman) shot and killed 26-year-old Botham Jean (a black man) in his own apartment. Guyger was off duty when the shooting occurred and seems to be claiming some version of self-defense—stating that she mistook his apartment for her own and believed that Jean was an intruder. In the week since, Guyger has been arrested and charged with manslaughter. This occurred only after the Dallas Police Department turned the case over to another law enforcement agency. They couldn’t answer basic questions about why she was in the apartment and why she left the crime scene, so the case was turned over to the Texas Rangers, the state’s top law enforcement agency.
Conveniently (for her), Guyger’s story about what happened has changed at least twice. First, she claimed that she had put her things down as she struggled with the key to the apartment and was startled when Jean opened the door. Then she claimed that the door to the apartment was already partially open and when she saw “a large silhouette” in the apartment, she shouted “verbal commands” which were ignored, prompting her to fire her service weapon. Who knows what story she’ll be telling in a week. But it won’t matter. Botham Jean is dead and the white woman police officer who killed him is trying to make it sound like it was his own fault.
Guyger has yet to answer how she actually mistook Jean’s apartment for hers, especially given that he lived in an apartment an entire floor above her. Jean also had a red doormat outside of his apartment and his neighbors are asking questions about how she didn’t see it.
Neighbors also went online with videos showing how the key fob system in the apartment building works. It won’t surprise you to learn that it’s nearly impossible to use the wrong key to get into an apartment. The key sensor lights up green if you enter the correct key and allows you to unlock the door, whereas if you use the wrong key, the sensor lights up red and you can’t turn the key at all. The doors are also quite heavy so the likelihood that Guyger would have approached the apartment with a door already ajar is quite unlikely.
Whether she’s claiming that Jean opened the door and scared her or she opened the door and saw him inside or the door was wide open, Guyger’s entire story about the wrong apartment is just not believable. Have you ever walked around your house in the dark before? Many people have a lamp or light that is positioned far enough from, say, a living room door or bedroom door that they have to walk in the dark for a few seconds or minutes before they can turn another light on. Do it enough times and you get pretty good at knowing the layout of your home and what does and doesn’t belong there. Are we really to believe that Guyger went onto the wrong floor of her apartment building, somehow got into the wrong apartment, and didn’t recognize that until she’d shot someone inside and turned on the light?
This week, witnesses are offering yet another account of what happened. They say she was screaming outside of Jean’s apartment door before the shooting. In The New York Times Attorney Lee Merritt said that “witnesses had told the district attorney’s office that they heard banging on the door and a woman’s voice saying, “Let me in.” He also said that even if her story about the mistaken apartment held up (it doesn’t), there’s no indication that Jean was acting in an aggressive way that would have made Guyger fear for her life.
“It would be irresponsible to rely on this extremely bizarre, self-serving affidavit,” said Mr. Merritt, who has also questioned why the authorities did not immediately arrest Officer Guyger.
Guyger’s entire defense is built on a racist narrative. A petite, blonde white woman enters what she thinks is her apartment only to be scared to death by a large, looming black man who is obviously there to burgle her home—or worse. She shoots him, only to find out (gasp!), that she’s been in the wrong apartment all along. A sad, tragic mistake. But surely we must give the presumption of innocence to the white woman, right? And not just because it’s a legal construct that is not only the foundation of the American legal system but also a declaration in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. No, it’s because big black men who lurk in the dark are scary and threatening and deserving of murder—even though they, too, should be presumed innocent. Thus, it’s supposed to make sense to us that she would shoot him even if he was in his very own home because she was frightened and (at least according to version two or three of her story) was yelling verbal commands at him and he didn’t comply.
This story seemed plausible enough that the Dallas police didn’t even arrest Guyger right away—even though defense attorney and former Dallas County prosecutor Larry Jarrett told Dallas News that this is unusual. “Even if a person calls 911 to report shooting someone, an arrest would be made immediately, he said.” This is prompting many questions (rightfully so) about whether or not Guyger received special treatment after murdering her neighbor. After all, she wasn’t charged until three whole days had passed. Legal experts disagree on whether or not this means that the arrest-warrant affidavit had been properly handled. Some say that it portrays Guyger’s statements as facts. Others say that there was enough to justify the arrest which is all that matters. But at the end of the day, only one side of the story gets to be told. Attorney Benjamin Crump called the affidavit “self-serving.” Making it quite plain, Crump said, “Botham Jean is not here to give his version of what happened because he's dead.”
Botham Jean is dead and we know why—it’s because he was fatally shot by Amber Guyger. But why she shot him is unknown. It’s really far-fetched to ask anyone to believe that she shot him simply because she got confused and entered the wrong apartment. Especially given that she had a number of clues before entering that would have indicated to any non-impaired person that they were not at their own home. Plus, her story keeps changing. And, the fact that neighbors say they heard her yelling “let me in” at the door right before the shooting gives us yet another clue that she is not being truthful.
Still, one of the most egregious parts of this whole awful tragedy is how Guyger is using the classic defense of “I was frightened and a big, scary black person made me do it.” There is a long history of white women using their tears, power, and racial privilege to the detriment of black men. Fears about black male aggression and sexual perversion have always been tools used to invoke the defense of white women at all costs. It’s why black men weren’t just lynched but also often castrated. It’s why Emmett Till was murdered and beaten so badly that his body was unrecognizable when it was found and had to be identified by a ring he was wearing. It’s why anti-miscegenation laws were lawful and on the books in this country until 1967. And it’s why Amber Guyger is expecting us to believe she was terrified for her life because of Botham Jean, even though he was in his own home and she was the intruder.
It’s not useful to debate whether or not Amber Guyger is an actual racist. These kinds of litmus tests don’t mean anything and white folks do all kinds of mental gymnastics to explain away racism unless it comes wearing a hood and burning a cross on someone’s lawn. We don’t need to know if she’s ever used the n-word before to understand that as a white person living in America, Guyger has most certainly been exposed to and socialized in a racist, white supremacist society.
And the fact that she can use white woman tears and the “scary black person” defense as both a police officer but also a white woman speaks to this fact. America thinks black men should be feared at all times. And America doesn’t believe black people have a right to privacy, safety, and even life—even if it’s in our own homes. So be prepared for her defense team to paint Jean as a thug, criminal, and villain who did something in the past to make poor little Amber Guyger feel threatened. We’ve seen this tired, racist story before. And, sadly, we already have lots of evidence that it may end with Guyger not being held accountable for Botham Jean’s death and his friends and family not receiving the justice that he actually deserves.