A prosecutor held nothing back during his cross-examination of ex-Dallas police officer Amber Guyger when she took the stand on Friday. It was clear Prosecutor Jason Hermus had a plan of attack after Guyger broke down on the stand describing being left alone with the man she had just shot as “the scariest thing.”
“I was alone with him, and that’s the scariest thing you can ever imagine,” Guyger said of shooting PwC associate Botham Jean.
“Can you imagine Mr. Jean’s perspective,” Hermus retorted.
He asked a few moments later, “Can you imagine what that man felt?”
Guyger didn’t respond.
The trial, in its fifth day, saw the prosecution press Guyger to walk jurors through the Sept. 6, 2018, day of Jean’s death.
Hermus focused extensively on how she acted outside of what she was trained to do. He also attempted to refute Guyger’s claim that she was broken up about the shooting.
He asked her did she send flirtatious texts to her partner two days after the shooting, and Guyger responded, “Yes sir.”
And the attorney countered with, [as the Jean family prepared to bury him] “you are texting about getting drunk and doing sexual things” with then-partner Martin Rivera, who’s also a married man and father.
“Yes I did,” Guyger said.
Guyger testified that she was talking to Rivera when she pulled up to what she thought at the time was the third-floor parking lot. It was actually the fourth.
“I kept thinking I got so lucky to park somewhere close,” Guyger said.
When later asked if she intended to kill Jean when she fired two shots at him, Guyger responded, “He was a threat. Yes sir.”
Guyger later realized she wasn’t in her apartment and had shot an “innocent man,” she said.
She testified that she did compressions on Jean with her left hand and held her phone to talk to a 911 dispatcher she had called with her other hand.
Guyger also said she used her fist to perform a sternum rub on Jean’s chest.
“I wanted him to keep breathing,” Guyger claimed. “The state he was in I knew it wasn’t good.”
When prosecutors asked, she confirmed she didn’t use a first-aid kit and was hesitant to perform full-on CPR despite her academy training. Hermus tore into Guyger after she admitted to giving Jean “a little CPR” because she was still uncertain where she was even after informing a 911 operator of the apartment she was in. “That was more important than giving life-saving help to this man,” Hermus shot back.
He also asked Guyger to confirm that she could have also had a K9 unit mobilized, and she did confirm that possibility.
Hermus told Guyger she ignored her training and made the decision to proceed into the apartment, aim to kill, did not provide adequate CPR instead of retreating and requesting backup. He asked her to confirm that response time would have been about two minutes, and she did.
“And had you done any one of those things Mr. Jean would probably be alive today,” the attorney asked.
“Yes sir,” Guyger responded.
Earlier in her testimony, the former officer continued walking jurors through the moments immediately preceding Jean’s death.
She identified a lunchbox, backpack and heavy vest she had in her SUV at the time and was asked to put the body armor on to replicate how she looked the day of the shooting.
At that point, Guyger broke down, and the judge stopped court proceedings for a 10-minute recess.
When they returned, Guyger described what she observed as she walked into an apartment she thought was hers and worried someone was inside.
She said she saw a “silhouette figure” and drew her service weapon.
“Let me see your hands. Let me see your hands,” Guyger testified.
She was using her equipment to prop open the apartment door, which she described as “heavy.”
“I couldn’t see his hands,” she said.
He started coming toward me in a “fast paced walk,” Guyger testified.
She said she thought “he was going to kill me.”
“He was yelling, ‘hey, hey, hey,’ in an aggressive voice,” Guyger said.
She also testified that she earlier saw Jean “pacing back and forth,” and she waddled side to side to demonstrate.
“And why did you shoot at him,” an attorney asked her.
“I was scared he was going to kill me,” Guyger said, crying.
“I was scared, and I’m so sorry,” Guyger said at one point.
