By Karen Brooks Harper
The Dallas Morning News
(TNS)
DALLAS — Amber Guyger has been granted parole, but a $98.65 million judgment for killing former PwC accountant Botham Jean awaits her outside prison. Now Jean’s family is fighting to make Dallas pay it instead.
The family argues the city, which provided liability coverage to Guyger as a Dallas police officer, is responsible for the federal civil judgment over Jean’s wrongful death and the violation of his rights.
Guyger shot and killed Jean in September 2018 inside his own apartment, saying she mistook it for her own and believed he was an intruder. She was off duty, but still in uniform, after a nearly 14-hour shift.
She was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2019 for Jean’s murder. After being granted parole this week, Guyger will serve the remainder of her sentence outside prison under parole supervision. It is unclear when she will be released.
Jean’s family filed a new lawsuit in March seeking to get the city of Dallas—which was Guyger’s insurance provider as a police officer—to pay the nearly $100 million judgment instead of Guyger.
“If a police officer makes a mistake when they decide to pull the trigger, they are on their own. You can pay your taxes to fund the insurance plan, but if you are harmed by an officer’s mistake, you are on your own,” said Dallas attorney Lisa Blue, who is representing Jean’s family.
City officials say its insurance plan does not cover the shooting, leaving Dallas with no liability for the judgment.
The family’s lawyers argue that position would deny Jean’s survivors restitution, saddle Guyger with an impossible debt and let Dallas avoid accountability for its employee’s actions.
Blue said the lawsuit and Guyger’s parole have resurfaced the pain of losing Jean.
“The loss of Botham has left our family forever dismembered, and that is something we continue to live with every day,” the family said in a statement Friday.
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Guyger is not involved in the family’s suit. But if they win, Guyger would be off the hook for the damages and the onus would be on the city to pay them. A hearing was scheduled but postponed at the city’s request, Blue said. A new date has not been set.
City officials have declined to comment on pending litigation, but its attorneys have said in court filings that the city insurance plan does not have to cover losses that occur if a plan member commits “criminal acts and other willful and intentional misconduct and wrongdoing.” Guyger’s murder conviction proves she did just that, the city attorneys said.
City should pay family, suit says
Jean’s death is an example of why insurance plans were created, Blue said. The suit says the city is legally responsible as an insurer and is also morally responsible because its own police staffing practices put its officers at risk of making mistakes. The city called that argument irrelevant.
Central to Guyger’s defense was that she never intended to do anything but defend herself in a moment she believed was threatening. Blue is not seeking to dispute the trial jury’s guilty verdict, but doesn’t believe that Guyger intentionally committed a crime.
“You can’t say it wasn’t an accident. She shot an innocent man sitting in his apartment eating ice cream. I mean, that’s an accident,” Blue said in a phone interview. “Of course, she intentionally pulled the trigger, but she did not intentionally violate the law. She thought she was following the law, but made a terrible, tragic mistake. That is exactly what insurance is for.”
The city has taken the position that governmental immunity under the Texas Constitution protects it from lawsuits by people seeking monetary damages and that Jean’s family has no standing to make a claim against the insurance plan.
On the night of Sept. 6, 2018, Guyger had worked a long shift. She had already been on 11-hour shifts for the previous four days when she arrived at the wrong floor of her parking garage, entered the wrong hallway and opened the wrong door to Jean’s apartment, which was just above hers.
The lights were out in the apartment, and the door swung open when she tried to unlock it. She saw a figure on the couch. She fired twice.
“I’m so tired,” she told 911 operators that night as she tried to figure out her mistake.
The recent lawsuit alleges the city had long been violating its own ordinances by understaffing its police department, resulting in excessive work hours and a stressed-out, exhausted force.
Guyger was fired a few weeks after Jean’s death and jailed on a manslaughter charge. A grand jury later indicted her for murder. After her 2019 conviction, the city stopped paying for her attorney, leaving her destitute and unable to afford any more lawyers.
City claims immunity
Attorneys for the family sued the city and Guyger in federal court in 2024. The city was allowed out after arguing immunity and saying it did not have cover her in the intentional commission of a crime.
“The city of Dallas really, really let this family down. They [the city] fought so hard not to be responsible for what happened with Botham,” said Daryl Washington, who represented the Jean family in the 2024 civil suit. “You have families whose lives have been torn apart, and they will never be the same. And it makes it even worse when these cities fight so hard not to be held accountable for the actions of people who they hired.”
Even the attorneys who won that lawsuit two years ago doubt the family family will ever see restitution if Guyger is the one paying for it.
“I have so much empathy for this woman,” said Blue, who said she has not spoken to Guyger but hopes to meet her during the suit. “She made a terrible mistake that’s going to follow her for the rest of her life. I mean, her name is all over the world.”
Meanwhile, Jean’s family attorneys say, Botham’s death by a city employee—whose salary and insurance were paid for by his tax dollars—leaves nothing but a hole while they wait for restitution that may never come.
The money isn’t the whole thing, Blue said. But there are few other options, she said, for validating the enormity of their loss and perhaps removing their financial worries as they grieve.
“There is not a citizen in Dallas who would think it’s fair for the city to deny insurance coverage,” Blue said. “The only thing we can do for this poor family is try to get them some compensation.”
Photo caption: Botham Jean (Facebook)
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Tags: accountant, Accounting, Amber Guyger, Botham Jean, PwC
