![]() Now 38, he is charged with killing Jefferson after a neighbor called a nonemergency police line to report that the front door to Jefferson’s home was open.īodycam video showed Dean approaching the door of the home where Jefferson was caring for her nephew. Floyd was killed seven months after Jefferson, in a case that sparked global protests over racial injustice.ĭean, who has pleaded not guilty, has been free on $200,000 bond. Since then, it has been repeatedly postponed amid lawyerly wrangling, the terminal illness of Dean's lead attorney and the COVID-19 pandemic.īy contrast, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin went on trial and was convicted of murdering George Floyd more than 1 1/2 years ago. In 2019, the case was unusual for the relative speed with which, amid public outrage, the Fort Worth Police Department released the video and arrested Dean. ![]() On cross-examination in the overflowing courtroom, Dean's defense said Zion told a specialized interviewer in a recorded session after the shooting that Jefferson had raised the gun. ![]() “She just held it next to her side, she just like, she didn’t point it up, she just kept it next to her,” he told prosecutors, who said the child previously said his aunt had pulled the gun up “a little bit.” Zion, then 8, said the gun was only ever pointed "down" but he acknowledged not remembering parts of what happened. That night, Jefferson was playing video games with her nephew, Zion Carr, who told a court Monday that his aunt pulled out a gun after hearing suspicious noises behind the house. Prosecutors told the jurors that the evidence would show otherwise. Dean’s attorney, Miles Brissette, said the officer opened fire after seeing the silhouette of Jefferson with a gun in the window and a green laser sight pointed at him. 12, 2019.īody-camera footage showed that neither Dean nor the other responding officer identified themselves as police at the house. The child's testimony touched on an issue at the heart of the long-delayed case charging Aaron Dean with Jefferson's killing: whether the Fort Worth officer saw Jefferson's gun before he shot her.ĭean quit and was charged with murder two days after killing the 28-year-old while responding to a call about an open front door on Oct. Defense attorneys contended that the child said otherwise immediately after the shooting. FORT WORTH, Texas - Atatiana Jefferson was holding a gun but never raised it to point at the white police officer who fatally shot her through a rear window of her Texas home, the Black woman’s 11-year-old nephew testified at the officer’s murder trial Monday.
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