By JIM VERTUNO<\/p>\n
A white Dallas police officer convicted of killing a Black man\u00a0in his apartment<\/a>\u00a0that she mistook for her own was granted parole Thursday after serving seven years of her 10-year sentence.<\/p>\n The Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, which is appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, rejected Amber Guyger\u2019s initial parole request in 2024, but approved her case over the objections of victim\u00a0Botham Jean<\/a>\u00a0\u2018s family the first time she was eligible to ask again.<\/p>\n Guyger, 38, was convicted of murder in the 2018 killing of 26-year-old Jean, an accountant from the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia, who had been eating a bowl of ice cream when Guyger entered his home and shot him. Guyger was arrested three days after the shooting and was fired before her murder trial.<\/p>\n She had faced up to life in prison or as little as two years. Prosecutors initially asked the jury for a sentence of 28 years.<\/p>\n The shooting drew widespread attention because of the strange circumstances and because it was one in a string of shootings of Black men by white police officers. Guyger\u2019s sentencing hearing also included a\u00a0stunning courtroom scene<\/a>\u00a0when Jean\u2019s brother and the Black judge presiding over the case embraced the sobbing Guyger.<\/p>\n At trial, Guyger said that after a long shift at work and still in uniform, she walked up to Jean\u2019s apartment \u2014 which was on the fourth floor, directly above hers on the third \u2014 and found the door unlocked. She said she thought the apartment was her own and that Jean was an intruder when she drew her service weapon and entered.<\/p>\n Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt said Thursday that Jean\u2019s family \u201cstrongly opposed this parole.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey stood up again and again to ask that the full sentence be served. A 10-year sentence was already a fraction of what was lost. Releasing Ms. Guyger after seven years makes that loss feel even smaller in the eyes of the system. It is not smaller,\u201d Merritt said.<\/p>\n