Allison Jean, mother of Botham Jean, the 26-year-old Black man killed by white Dallas Police Officer Amber Guyger, 30, called a thing a thing during a press conference Friday, when she demanded that the uniformed assailant who unlawfully entered her son’s home on Sept. 6 and executed him, be treated as the “devil” she is.
Referencing the results of a search warrant issued on Sept. 7—in which the Dallas Police Department alleges that marijuana was discovered in Botham Jean’s home—Jean also called out DPD’s complicity in helping cover-up the facts surrounding her son’s death.
“The information received yesterday is, to me, worse than the call that I got on the morning of Friday, Sept. 7,” Jean said. “To have my son smeared in such a way, I think shows that the persons who are really nasty, who are really dirty and are going to cover up for the devil, Amber Guyger.”
The search warrant, signed by 292nd District Court Judge Brandon Birmingham, specifically authorized police investigators to search for “fired cartridge casings, fired projectiles, firearms, ballistic vests, keys, evidence of blood, video surveillance systems, and contraband such as narcotics and other items used in criminal offenses,” Dallas’ FOX 4 News reports.
The search findings, made public shortly after Botham Jean’s funeral, included:
2 fired cartridge casings
1 laptop computer
1 black backpack with police equipment and paperwork
1 insulated lunch box
1 black ballistic vest with “police” markings
10.4 grams of marijuana in ziplock bags
1 metal marijuana grinder
2 RFID keys
2 used packages of medical aid
“They went in with the intent to look for some sort of criminal justification for the victim,” attorney S. Lee Merritt said, according to USA Today. “It’s a pattern that we’ve seen before…we have a cop who clearly did something wrong. And instead of investigating the homicide — instead of going into her apartment and seeing what they can find, instead of collecting evidence relevant for the homicide investigation — they went out specifically looking for ways to tarnish the image of this young man.”
This is the law enforcement playbook: State-sanctioned executions, followed by attempted character assassination and paid vacations for the deputized killers involved.
But it won’t work this time.
https://twitter.com/meritlaw/status/1040483797677092864?s=21
We know that the so-called war on drugs was created to target Black, Brown, poor and working-class communities, those communities that have borne the brunt of institutionalized, systemic, white supremacist violence. And now that wealthy, white venture capitalists can turn a legal profit being drug dealers, the drug war can no longer masquerade as a moral imperative when the moral bankruptcy is so clear.
Blacks and Latinx communities are still being unfairly targeted and arrested on marijuana-related charges—even though whites are more likely to sell drugs—and many former felons are prohibited from participating in the nation’s fastest-growing economy. State-sanctioned violence in these communities is still framed as a necessity, while wealthy white communities where substantial drug use and abuse takes place are considered the pinnacle of the so-called American dream.
So, the Dallas Police Department can employ every power it has in its attempt to assassinate Jean’s character—while protecting their sister “devil” in blue—but it won’t work this time.
“Give me justice for my son because he does not deserve what he got,” Allison Jean said during Friday’s press conference. “I will not sit back and see that justice does not prevail.”
Guyger was off-duty when she killed Botham Jean; yet, she is still being shielded by the Blue Line.
According to Dallas Police Chief U. Reneé Hall, the armed intruder is currently on paid administrative leave until the investigation into the deadly home invasion she committed is completed.
