{"id":404901,"date":"2026-08-12T22:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T22:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/404901\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T22:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T22:00:09","slug":"atatiana-jeffersons-family-reaches-11-25m-settlement-with-fort-worth-seven-years-after-her-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/404901\/","title":{"rendered":"Atatiana Jefferson\u2019s family reaches $11.25M settlement with Fort Worth seven years after her death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seven years after she was shot and killed by a police officer in her suburban Fort Worth home, the family of Atatiana Jefferson<\/a> has settled with the city of Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

The city is prepared to pay<\/a> $11.25 million for Jefferson\u2019s death; the Fort Worth City Council is set to meet on the settlement on August 25, which would then have to go to a probate court before becoming final. <\/p>\n

In total, the city will have agreed to pay $14.75 million to Jefferson\u2019s family. The city approved $3.5 million<\/a> to be paid to Zion Carr, Jefferson\u2019s nephew, who was with her the night she was shot and killed by former officer Aaron Dean in October 2019. A large portion of the new settlement will be divided into trust funds for Carr, another nephew and other family members.<\/p>\n

\u201cAtatiana Jefferson\u2019s family and loved ones have suffered a profound and unimaginable loss,\u201d Mayor Mattie Parker said in a statement. \u201cWhile no settlement can undo the devastating impact of this tragedy, we hope this agreement offers a meaningful measure of closure and allows everyone to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a neighbor called a non-emergency line on October 12, Dean responded to the scene and went into the backyard of the home Jefferson was in. Jefferson was in the bathroom with a gun after hearing rustling in the backyard. Dean yelled at her, asking her to put her hands up before firing a single shot, killing Jefferson.<\/p>\n

Although Dean\u2019s legal team argued that he responded to the call because it looked like a crime had been committed at the home, it was revealed during the trial that Jefferson and Carr had opened the door because they had burned hamburgers in the residence. Dean was originally charged with murder, but a jury convicted him of the lesser charge of manslaughter in 2022. He was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison.<\/p>\n

Dean attempted to have his appeal heard by the Supreme Court in 2024, but it was denied.<\/p>\n

Jefferson\u2019s family originally filed a wrongful death lawsuit <\/a>against the city of Fort Worth in 2020. With the settlement announced, Jefferson\u2019s sister, Ashley Carr, says the settlement may bring the legal portion of the case to a close, but \u201cnothing\u201d will bring her sister back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case represents a rare instance in which a family has received accountability both criminally and civilly following the killing of their loved one by a police officer,\u201d she said. \u201cWhile we are grateful that Atatiana\u2019s case resulted in both criminal and civil accountability, neither a conviction nor a financial settlement can restore what was taken from our family. Nothing can bring Atatiana home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seven years after she was shot and killed by a police officer in her suburban Fort Worth home,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[51370,116,118,117,5324],"class_list":["post-404901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-atatiana-jefferson","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-settlements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}