Atatiana Jefferson Was Playing Video Games When A White Police Officer Shot And Killed Her

Atatiana Jefferson was playing video games in her bedroom with her 8-year-old nephew soon as a white Fort Worth policeman shot and killed her from outdoor her window in the early hours of October 12 in Fort Worth, Texas.


The officer was answering to a phone call reporting that the front door of Jefferson’s home was open. The responding officers surveyed the area, opened the backyard gate, and found that someone was standing indoor within the residence near a window, according to the Fort Worth Police Department. As body camera footage showed, one officer yelled, “Put your hands up, show me your hands;” he then shot by means of the window and killed the 28-year-old before he finished asking to visualize her hands. He did not tell the woman, who turned out to be Jefferson, that he was law enforcement before giving her orders or shooting her.


The officer, whose identity hasn't nevertheless been released, had been with the department for per year and also 1/2 at the time of the killing. He was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of a police investigation, according to the police department. The Fort Worth Police major case unit, the internal affairs unit, and the Tarrant County criminal district attorney’s law enforcement incident team are all involved in the investigation. Police overturned body camera footage and other evidence from the scene to the Tarrant County district attorney’s office, which will determine whether or not to prosecute the officer who shot Jefferson.


Lee Merritt, a famed civil rights attorney in the Dallas area who told the Washington Post that he is representing Jefferson’s family member, said in a Facebook post that Jefferson was a pre-med graduate of Xavier University. “She was the auntie that stayed up on Friday night playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew,” Merritt wrote. “She worked in pharmaceutical tools sales. Her mom had recently gotten very sick, so she was residence taking care of the residence and loving her life. There was no reason for her to be murdered.”


Merritt also established a GoFundMe to support Jefferson's family; over 5,000 people have donated to the fund in her memory.


In the body camera video released by Fort Worth police, the department zoomed in on a frame of video and claimed there was a weapon laying in the bedroom. While in a press conference the day immediately following the shooting, police refused to mention what sort of threat the office perceived before shooting and killing Jefferson, the Texas Tribune reported. A police press report also noted that a firearm was noticed in the residence, however police resisted to mention why they released intelligence about the gun if they weren’t going to explain its relevance or answer any questions on the topic. Right considering that, Texas is a “shall issue” state, along with a typically open-carry state, and nearly 36 percent of people in Texas own a gun, according to CBS News. Gun safety laws in the state are so susceptible that it acquired a “F” from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.


James Smith, Jefferson’s 62-year-old neighbor who called the police for a wellness check any time once he saw Jefferson’s open door, told the Washington Post that he wished he never made the call.


“It makes you not desire to call the police department. Because not just Dallas or other incidents, in the event you don’t feel safe with the police department, then who do you feel safe with?” Smith mentioned. “Do you just don't think about crime or disregard something that’s not right? They tell in case you visualize something, mention something. Well in case do that and you also cause somebody to lose their life it makes you not desire to do that and that’s sad.”


As of publish time, 689 people have been shot and killed by police in the U.S. This year for now. 144, or 21 percent, of these victims were Black.


Jefferson’s death comes just weeks soon after Amber Guyger, a white former Dallas policeman, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the murder of Botham Jean, a Black man who worked as an accountant and served as a church choir director. While in the trial, Guyger claimed she mistook Jean’s apartment for her own, entered it, and shot and killed him as he sat on his own couch consuming food ice cream.