Aaron Dean, the former Fort Worth, Tx., police officer who fatally shot an African-American woman in her home, was arrested and charged with murder Monday, the Wall Street Journal reports. Dean was conducting a wellness check at the home where 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson was living early Saturday, after a neighbor reported an open front door and the lights on in the middle of the night. Moments later, he shot Jefferson dead through the window without identifying himself, body camera footage shows. Dean resigned from the police force Monday. “I certainly have not been able to make sense of why she had to lose her life,” said interim Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus.
Jefferson’s death at the hands of a white officer has drawn heightened attention in North Texas. It comes less than two weeks after a former police officer in nearby Dallas, Amber Guyger, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing Botham Jean, a 26-year-old accountant. In that case, Guyger, who is white, said she walked into the wrong apartment and mistook Jean, who was black, for a burglar. In Fort Worth, Jefferson’s family members called for an outside probe into the shooting. “She was simply going along with her life, living a law-abiding citizen’s peaceful life, and she was killed by a reckless act of a Fort Worth police officer,” said Jefferson’s sister, Ashley Carr. “There is simply no justification for his actions.” Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price said a panel of national police experts would be called in to review the department. Kraus said his department had been in contact with the FBI so it could examine whether civil-rights violations occurred.