Tag Archives: Fort Worth police shooting

crime news

Ex-Fort Worth officer charged with murder

That didn’t take long.

Tarrant County, Texas, authorities have charged a former Fort Worth Police Department officer with murder in connection with the shooting death of a 28-year-old woman who was killed in her home while she was playing video games with her nephew.

Atatania Jefferson was black; Aaron Dean, the former rookie officer charged with her murder, is white.

The incident occurred over the weekend as police were responding on a “welfare check.” A body camera that Dean was wearing reveals that he approached Jefferson’s home, told her to put up her hands and then less than one second later he fired his pistol at her, killing her.

It makes us all wonder: What in the name of service and protection is going on here?

Dean is now in jail. No bail has been set. He faces a life sentence if convicted of murder.

Will any of this calm the concerns of the African-American community that is still reeling from the death in Dallas of a black man at the hand of a white Dallas PD officer a year ago? Hardly.

The former Dallas cop, Amber Guyger, received a 10-year prison sentence from the jury that convicted her of murder, causing considerable angst from the African-American community about whether justice truly has been served.

This is just a hunch, but my gut tells me that if a jury convicts Aaron Dean of murdering Atatania Jefferson, he will get a significantly stiffer prison sentence.

crime news, local news

FW cop’s resignation shouldn’t signal end of search for truth

It turns out the Fort Worth police officer who shot a woman to death in her own home realized he messed up in a huge fashion.

Former officer Aaron Dean has resigned from the Fort Worth Police Department. Had he not quit, he would have been fired, said Police Chief Ed Kraus.

Oh, brother. This is a nasty, heartbreaking story that needs a lot of answers to assuage the concerns of a shocked community.

Atatania Jefferson died from a gunshot wound inflicted by Aaron Dean, who was responding ostensibly on a “wellness” check in the wee hours in Jefferson’s Fort Worth neighborhood. Jefferson was black; Dean is white. To think as well that this incident happened so soon after the Dallas conviction and sentencing of a white former Dallas officer who shot a black man to death after she mistakenly thought the man was breaking into her apartment; she walked up t the man’s apartment.

Do you think the Fort Worth incident has folks riled up? Yep. It does … and with ample reason.

Jefferson was reportedly playing video games with her nephew when Dean shot at her through a window.

So it is that Dean has quit. Chief Kraus has tacitly acknowledged the officer did something terribly wrong.

There needs to be a grand jury investigation into what went down immediately prior to the former police officer pulling the trigger and killing a woman sitting in her own home.

Let the grand jury hear the evidence and then decide whether to indict the officer. If he gets indicted, then the police department needs to have the handcuffs ready.