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Home • News

'I Thought It Was My Apartment,' Amber Guyger Repeats 19 Times In 911 Call After Shooting Botham Jean

Amber Guyger is scheduled to go to trial for murder in September, which will mark one year since she fatally shot Botham Jean.
‘I Thought It Was My Apartment,’ Amber Guyger Repeats 19 Times In 911 Call After Shooting Botham Jean
Amber Guyger
By Breanna Edwards · Updated October 23, 2020

Former Dallas Police Officer Amber Guyger repeated insistently and desperately, “I thought I was in my apartment,” to the 911 dispatcher that took her call moments after she shot, and ultimately killed, 26-year-old Botham Jean in his own apartment.

As local station WFAA, who first released the recording that is just shy of 6 minutes, notes: Guyer repeated her claim 19 times.

Guyger alternates between talking to the dispatcher, trying to get Jean to respond to her, and talking to herself.

In audio provided by the station, Guyger requests police and paramedics, claiming that she entered the apartment thinking it was hers and “shot a guy.”

“You shot someone?” the dispatcher asks.

“Yes I thought it was my apartment. I’m f–ked. Oh my God. I’m sorry,” an increasingly panicked Guyger responds.

Despite the fact that she was not in her apartment—and had just shot an innocent man in the comfort of his own home—Guyger could be heard saying, “I’m going to lose my job. I thought it was my apartment.”

“Hey man,” she said, apparently turning to Jean, before adding “F–k.”

Article continues after video.

She continues to try to get Jean to respond to her and, it seems, to remain conscious.

“Hey, bud. Hey, bud. Hey, bud. Come on. Oh, f–k,” she says before repeating again, “I thought it was my apartment.”

The dispatcher asks Guyger for the gate code to her complex, which Guyger was unable to provide. In between talking to herself and the dispatcher she continues to try to talk to Jean.

“Hey, bud. Hey, bud. They’re coming. They’re coming. I’m sorry, man,” she said. “”Oh my God. I’m done. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry.”

As the call nears its end, Guyger can be heard being a bit disoriented, apparently confused as to how she ended up in the apartment on the floor above her own.

“I… I … How the f–k did I put the… How did I… How did I… I’m so tired. Hurry,” she said.

As WFAA notes, on the night Guyger killed Jean, she had just finished an almost 14-hour shift, however police have refused to release records of how many hours she worked that week.

Guyger was indeed fired from her job as a police officer more than two weeks after Jean’s death.

Initially, she faced charges of manslaughter, but those charges were ultimately upgraded to murder charges. She is set to go to trial in September.

View this post on Instagram

Supporters of Amber Guyger, the former Dallas Police officer that murdered Botham Jean in his apartment, have leaked a recording of her 911 call to the media in hopes of drumming up sympathy ahead of the looming murder trial. On the recording, Guyger repeatedly claims that she thought she was in her apartment. She callously despairs over the idea that she would probably lose her job— not that she had murdered a man in his own home. There is nothing new that can be gleaned from this recording that helps justify Guyger’s actions. Completely absent from the 911 recording is any actual justification for the use of deadly force. Guyger will almost certainly argue at trial that she “feared for her life”. She failed to make any such claim moments after shooting Botham in the chest. If he presented a threat to her at all— this would be the first thing she said as she explained away her actions on the call. Conversely, in the absence of any indication that Botham Jean represented a threat to Guyger, the claim that she entered his apartment believing it to be her own falls desperately short of justifying her decision to shoot him. The claim that Guyger entered Mr. Jean’s apartment by mistake has not been seriously disputed by prosecutors or by the Jean family. However, the law simply does not allow for a person to enter the home of another, murder them, and justify their actions by saying they believed they were in their own home. Such an argument doesn’t serve as the basis for a plea of self-defense; stand your ground; justifiable force under police protocol or any other affirmative defense other than maybe insanity. Guyger’s ramblings are self serving and void of any concern for the humanity of her victim. There is no indication that she is rendering aide. The recording actually contradicts a later affidavit that states she realized that she was in the wrong apartment when the operator asked her for the apartment number. There was sufficient lighting and details available to her to make that revelation much sooner. She didn’t behave reasonably in taking in all of the information available to her. She was too busy instinctively shooting first to take in facts or ask ?s.

A post shared by S. Lee Merritt, Esquire (@leemerrittesq) on Apr 30, 2019 at 8:36am PDT

One thing that was notably absent from Guyger’s tearful 911 call was any indication that she felt any threat or fear when she shot Jean, something Lee Merritt, an attorney representing Jean’s family, noted on Instagram with a short clip of the recording.

“There is nothing new that can be gleaned from this recording that helps justify Guyger’s actions. Completely absent from the 911 recording is any actual justification for the use of deadly force,” Merritt wrote in the Instagram caption. “Guyger will almost certainly argue at trial that she ‘feared for her life’. She failed to make any such claim moments after shooting Botham in the chest. If he presented a threat to her at all— this would be the first thing she said as she explained away her actions on the call. Conversely, in the absence of any indication that Botham Jean represented a threat to Guyger, the claim that she entered his apartment believing it to be her own falls desperately short of justifying her decision to shoot him.”

TOPICS:  911 call Amber Guyger Botham Jean Botham Shem Jean Dallas Police Department Police Brutality police shooting
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