Release from prison
Amber Guyger, the former Dallas police officer who killed her neighbor Botham Jean after entering his apartment by mistake, was released from a Texas prison on parole Friday, NBC News reported. She left the Christina Melton Crain Unit in Gatesville, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which said she will spend the remainder of her sentence in the community.
Guyger, 38, served seven years of the 10-year sentence she received in October 2019 for murdering Jean, who was 26. One of her trial attorneys, Robert L. Rogers, could not be reached for comment this week. He told WFAA-TV of Dallas earlier this month that she has a place to live and work after her release. "She's been remorseful. She's stayed remorseful. She's still remorseful," Rogers told the station.
The 2018 shooting
According to prosecutors, Jean was an accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dallas who was watching television and eating ice cream in his living room on the night of Sept. 6, 2018, when Guyger came in. Jean lived one floor above her. Guyger testified that she parked on the wrong floor and went into his apartment believing it was her own.
She said she tried to use her key but the door pushed open. She testified that she shot Jean out of fear for her life because she believed he was a burglar. Guyger, a four-year veteran of the Dallas police, was in uniform but off duty. She was fired.
The shooting prompted protests and renewed debate over racial bias in policing and the use of excessive force. Guyger is white and Jean was Black. During the trial, Guyger apologized, and Jean's teenage brother, Brandt Jean, hugged her and said he forgave her.
Why parole was granted
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles approved her release Oct. 1, about two weeks before she left prison. She had been denied parole in September 2024. In a statement, the board said she "maintained a satisfactory institutional adjustment" and took part in programs meant to improve her chances of keeping a full-time, stable job after release. It also pointed to the lack of a "documented pattern of violent or assaultive arrests/convictions."
The Dallas County District Attorney's Office, which opposed her release in 2024, had no comment Thursday on the parole decision.
Reaction from police and the Jean family
A Dallas Police Department representative declined comment Friday and pointed to the agency's Oct. 1 statement. It said the decision "may bring renewed attention and emotion surrounding the tragic death of Botham Jean," and added, "Our thoughts remain with the Jean family and all those impacted by his loss."
Lee Merritt, an attorney for Jean's family, said in an Oct. 1 statement that Guyger's sentence "was already a fraction of what was lost." He added, "Releasing Ms. Guyger after seven years makes that loss feel even smaller in the eyes of the system. It is not smaller."
After word of her expected release emerged, the family asked for privacy in a statement through the Botham Jean Foundation. Jean was originally from St. Lucia. In 2021, the street where the shooting happened, home to Dallas police headquarters, was renamed Botham Jean Boulevard.
