LITTLE ROCK, AR — Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger has been approved for parole after serving about seven years of a 10-year prison sentence for the murder of Botham Jean, a former Harding University student. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles approved the release Thursday, setting up Guyger’s release from prison after a case that drew national attention in 2018.
Guyger was fired by the Dallas Police Department in 2018 and later convicted of murder that same year. Her case centered on a fatal mistake made after she finished her shift on Sept. 6, 2018, when she entered Jean’s apartment believing it was her own and shot him inside his home.
How the 2018 killing unfolded inside Jean’s apartment
According to the facts described in the case, Guyger had completed her work shift before going to what she thought was her apartment. Instead, she walked into Jean’s home and encountered him inside. The confrontation ended with Jean being shot and killed in the place where he lived.
Jean’s death quickly became one of the most closely watched police-involved killings in Texas. He was a former student at Harding University in Searcy, and his background helped connect the case not only to Dallas but also to Arkansas, where many people knew him as a college student and young man with a future cut short…