'...Officer Amber Guyger's 911 call shortly after she shot Botham Jean is gut-wrenching. ... The call underscores ... the divide of mistrust between police and vulnerable communities they are supposed to be serving,' writes Issac Bailey for CNNOpinion
Issac Bailey was the 2016 James K. Batten Professor of Public Policy at Davidson College. He was a 2014 Harvard University Nieman fellow and is the author of"My Brother Moochie: Regaining Dignity in the Midst of Crime, Poverty, and Racism in the American South" . Follow him on Twitter: @ijbailey. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion articles on CNN.
The five-minute, 55-second recording of Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger's 911 call shortly after she shot Botham Jean is gut-wrenching. Issac BaileyIt's difficult to listen to the call not only because it captured the life slowly exiting the body of an innocent black man shot by a white police officer in an era in which those factors almost always lead to suspicion and unrest."I thought I was in my apartment," Guyger said,"and I shot a guy thinking he was. ..." She couldn't complete the sentence. The innocent man she had shot in the chest was dying in front of her.
Police fire officer in Botham Jean shooting case 00:46That doesn't mean she shouldn't face consequences. She must; it's just that the recording presents compelling mitigating factors that must be considered when trying to determine just what kind of consequences she should face. Guyger shot into a dark or near-dark apartment. That can't be tolerated, especially from a trained police officer -- the kind of person who must be held to the highest standards.
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