Texas Board Grants Parole to Amber Guyger Despite Botham Jean Family's Opposition

Seven years. That is all it took for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to decide that Amber Guyger was ready to walk free. Guyger is the former Dallas police officer who shot and killed Botham Jean inside his own apartment. On Thursday, the board granted her parole, a painful reminder of how little a Black man's life can seem to weigh in the scales of justice.

Jean was a 26-year-old accountant. On the night of Sept. 6, 2018, he was "sitting on his couch, eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream" when Guyger, off duty, walked into the wrong apartment and fired twice. Prosecutors asked for no less than 28 years. She received 10. Now even that sentence will not be served in full.

The board justified its decision by citing her "satisfactory institutional adjustment" and a treatment plan that "should enhance" her job prospects. Those bureaucratic phrases ring hollow next to the grief of a family that has fought for years.

Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who represented the Jean family, said he was "deeply disappointed." "Botham's family and the community strongly opposed this parole," he wrote. "They stood up again and again to ask that the full sentence be served." He added that releasing Guyger after seven years "makes that loss feel even smaller in the eyes of the system."

That opposition was not new. Guyger first became eligible for parole in 2024, on what would have been Jean's 33rd birthday. Her request was denied after the family, the Dallas County district attorney's office, and more than 6,300 petition signers pushed back. This time, their voices were not enough.

Guyger's attorney says she is "tremendously remorseful" and has a job and housing waiting. Meanwhile, the Jean family is still fighting the city of Dallas over a $98.65 million judgment. Family attorney Daryl Washington put it bluntly: "This city has refused to be held accountable for their actions."

The Dallas Police Department acknowledged the decision may bring "renewed attention and emotion." For those who loved Botham Jean, it brings something heavier: the sense that justice, once again, has been cut short.

Link: Dallas News