A police officer in Dallas fatally shot a man after mistakenly entering his apartment, thinking it was her own residence, police said.
The officer, who was not identified, has been placed on leave while the incident is investigated by the Dallas County district attorney’s office. Police officials declined to indicate what circumstances immediately preceded the shooting, including whether the cop believed the 26-year-old victim was an intruder, the Dallas Morning News reports.
“I won’t go into that information right now,” Sgt. Warren Mitchell told reporters during a news conference. “We have not interviewed her … We still have a lot to do in this investigation.”
The city’s police chief told reporters later Friday that the officer will be charged with manslaughter.
Authorities identified the victim as Botham Shem Jean, a native of Saint Lucia who worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dallas after graduating from Harding University in Arkansas. He was also the son of Allison Jean, the Caribbean nation’s former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Innovation and Gender Relations, according to the St. Lucia Times.
The officer had arrived at Jean’s apartment complex after working a full shift and was still dressed in her uniform. It’s unclear how the female officer managed to get into Jean’s apartment, but neighbors told the Dallas Morning News that the units can be accessed with a key or keypad code.
Two women said they heard a commotion around 10 p.m. as they studied Thursday.
“It was, like, police talk: ‘Open up! Open up!’” Caitlin Simpson, 20, told the newspaper.
“We heard cops yelling, but otherwise had no idea what was going on,” said Simpson’s study partner, Yazmine Hernandez, 20.
Other officers responded to the scene after the cop who shot Jean reported that he was wounded, Mitchell said. Jean was later pronounced dead at Baylor University Medical Center.
The shooting at the Southside Flats apartment complex, which is located just blocks from police headquarters, left several other residents feeling uneasy.
“How can you make a mistake like that, getting into someone else’s apartment?” said an 80-year-old woman who identified herself only as Raquel. “Don’t they train police?”
The woman is now “too scared to call police” in the event of an emergency because she’s afraid the encounter will end in a tragedy, she said.
Another resident of the apartment complex echoed that sentiment, saying the fatal shooting was downright frightening.
“Super scary because the police are supposed to protect you and then they come home and, you know, you’re just hanging out in your own house and then they come home thinking they’re home or whatever,” Richard Healy told KDFW. “I don’t know if she was tired but that’s pretty scary.”
The shooting also rocked residents of other nearby apartment buildings.
“It’s terrible,” Tomiya Melvin told the Dallas Morning News. “I hope it’s just a tragic accident and nothing more than that. This area appealed to me because it always seemed so safe, and so far it has been. But I won’t be leaving my door unlocked anymore, that’s for sure.”