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Ataliana Jefferson was shot dead by Texas police through the bedroom window following request to check on her welfare (Picture: Fort Worth PD)
A black woman has been shot and killed by an white police officer after a good neighbour made a non-emergency call to say her front door was open.
Police in Forth Worth, Texas, were sent to the home of 28-year-old Ataliana Jefferson to carry out a welfare check before shooting her dead on Saturday.
Body camera video released by police shows two officers searching the home from the outside with flashlights before one shouts, ‘Put your hands up, show me your hands’ when the fatal gun shot is fired through the bedroom window.
In a statement Texas police said the responding officers saw a person near the window and fired after ‘perceiving a threat’. The bodycam video also included images of a gun inside the property although it is unclear if it was near the woman.
Ataliana, who lived with her eight-year-old nephew, was pronounced dead at the scene.
The officer, who had been on the force for just 18 months, did not identify himself as police in the video. Officials have not released his name but said he has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation.
Neighbor James Smith has blamed himself for her death after phoning police thinking he was being a good neighbour.
He told the Star-Telegram: ‘I’m shaken. I’m mad. I’m upset. And I feel it’s partly my fault.
‘If I had never dialed the police department, she’d still be alive.’
Smith said Jefferson and her young nephew typically lived with an older woman, who has been in the hospital.
Ataliana lived with her eight-year-old nephew (Picture: Atatiana Jefferson/Facebook)
‘It makes you not want to call the police department’, he added.
Activists held a press conference Saturday, calling on the city to hold the officer who fired the shot accountable.
Pastor BR Daniels Jr said he wanted the police department to stop ‘shooting first, asking questions later.’
‘We want a review of policy, procedures. How do you storm a house, kill a young lady, with an eight-year-old minor in the house, who could have been killed himself,’ he said.
Authorities released the footage in an effort to provide transparency, but said video taken inside the house could not be distributed due to state law.
She was shot dead by an officer who had been on the force for 18 months (Picture: Fort Worth PD)
She said she mistook Botham Jean’s flat for her own, which was one floor below.
Metro UK
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