Texas Cop Sentenced To More Than 11 Years In Jail For Killing A Woman During A Welfare Check. By Tim Cushing at Techdirt.
Atatiana Jefferson was lawfully hanging around in her Texas home when she heard a prowler outside at 2 am, so she retrieved her lawfully owned gun to investigate. The prowler was police officer Aaron Dean, who was called on a welfare check after neighbors reported Jefferson’s front door was open and light was on at that unusual hour of the night. In the confusion that followed, Dean failed to identify himself as a police officer, and shot and killed Jefferson.
Dean made so many awful decisions in just a few minutes, as did the police department, which defended Dean as reacting to a “perceived threat”—that threat being Jefferson, who in reality was just being in her own home, babysitting her 8-year-old nephew, violating no law.