Remember Her Name: Atatiana Jefferson

It was just a week or so ago that former Dallas civilian police officer Amber Guyger was found guilty of the murder of Botham Jean and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Now, we have another killing, this time by the Fort Worth civilian police department. Another European American civilian police officer killing, and most likely, an unarmed African American citizen and her name was Atatiana Jefferson. Oh yeah, true to the form, the civilian police department has yet to release the name of the civilian police officer that shot, and killed Atatiana.

Here are the facts as we know them so far. A call was made by her neighbor, James Smith, to the Fort Worth civilian police department for a wellness check at around 2:25am. Why? Because the front door to the home of Atatiana Jefferson was open. Civilian police arrived, and according the Fort Worth civilian police, they searched the perimeter, one of the civilian police officers approached observed an individual standing near the window inside the residence, shouted “put your hands up, show me your hands” and then shot through the window. The window was covered with a Persian window blind and shade, which was partially closed.

The video of the incident can be found on YouTube or viewed below and was provided by WFAA.

There members of the African American community that are visibly upset and angered. It is evident because of the murders of Botham Jean and key witness Joshua Brown. It is alleged that the murder of Joshua Brown was done on suspicious circumstances, and people have taken to Twitter and other social media platforms to voice their disapproval of the explanation of the civilian Dallas Police Departments explanation of the turn of events that lead to the murder of Joshua Brown.

Why are members of the African American community upset?

Aiyana Jones

In order to understand the anger, we must first go back a few years. First there was the killing of seven year old Aiyana Jones by the civilian Detroit Police Department, where her killer, Joseph Weekley, was tried twice, and the results were both mistrials. To this day, he walks a free man and back on the job.

Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Terrence Crutcher, Philando Castile, Laquan McDonald, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and the list goes on and on. Of course, then we have the European American counterparts, Daniel Shaver, James Boyd, Kelly Thomas, and again, the list goes on an on. What do all these cases have in common? The majority of these killings resulted in no jail time for any of the killers. In other words, the perpetrators of these injustices? They walk as free men, with the exception of Botham Jean’s and Walter Scott’s killers. There is a reason why the music group created the song, “Fuck the police” and it wasn’t because they were handing out parking tickets!

Remember their names!

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