Former Dallas officer who shot Black man in apartment that she mistook
for hers gets parole
[October 02, 2026]
By JIM VERTUNO
A white Dallas police officer convicted of killing a Black man in his
apartment that she mistook for her own was granted parole Thursday after
serving seven years of her 10-year sentence.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, which is appointed by Gov. Greg
Abbott, rejected Amber Guyger's initial parole request in 2024, but
approved her case over the objections of victim Botham Jean 's family
the first time she was eligible to ask again.
Guyger, 38, was convicted of murder in the 2018 killing of 26-year-old
Jean, an accountant from the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia, who
had been eating a bowl of ice cream when Guyger entered his home and
shot him. Guyger was arrested three days after the shooting and was
fired before her murder trial.
She had faced up to life in prison or as little as two years.
Prosecutors initially asked the jury for a sentence of 28 years.
The shooting drew widespread attention because of the strange
circumstances and because it was one in a string of shootings of Black
men by white police officers. Guyger’s sentencing hearing also included
a stunning courtroom scene when Jean’s brother and the Black judge
presiding over the case embraced the sobbing Guyger.
At trial, Guyger said that after a long shift at work and still in
uniform, she walked up to Jean’s apartment — which was on the fourth
floor, directly above hers on the third — and found the door unlocked.
She said she thought the apartment was her own and that Jean was an
intruder when she drew her service weapon and entered.
Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt said Thursday that Jean's family
“strongly opposed this parole.”
“They stood up again and again to ask that the full sentence be served.
A 10-year sentence was already a fraction of what was lost. Releasing
Ms. Guyger after seven years makes that loss feel even smaller in the
eyes of the system. It is not smaller,” Merritt said.
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Fired Dallas police officer Amber Guyger looks toward her attorney
before proceedings in her murder trial in Dallas on Sept. 25, 2019.
(Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News via AP, Pool, File)
In 2024, a jury ordered Guyger to pay Jean's family nearly $100
million in a federal civil trial.
In granting her release, the board said it reviewed a “plethora” of
information in her case.
The board said Guyger's record did not include a documented pattern
of violent or assaultive arrests or convictions, and showed she
completed programs in her prison treatment plan to get and keep a
job when she is released.
The board said the state prison system will determine when she is
released. Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials did not
immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Guyger's legal defense team did not immediately respond to requests
for comment. Dallas police said the department played no role in
Guyger's request for parole or the decision to release her.
“The Dallas Police Department understands this decision may bring
renewed attention and emotion surrounding the tragic death of Botham
Jean. Our thoughts remain with the Jean family and all those
impacted by his loss,” the department said.
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