Texas

Botham Jean, Then Atatiana Jefferson: Outrage in Texas as Police Kill Another Black Resident at Home

A white police officer in Fort Worth, Texas, has been arrested and charged with murder, after he shot and killed an African-American woman who was inside her own home. Officer Aaron Dean was responding to a non-emergency call for a wellness check after a neighbor had called the Fort Worth police to report that 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson’s front door was open at around 2:30 in the morning on Saturday. Soon after the officers arrived, Dean, who never identified himself to be a police officer, shouted through Jefferson’s bedroom window to put her hands up, and then immediately opened fire, killing…

Supreme court to address Duane Buck’s ‘racially tainted’ death sentence

Duane Buck attended in 1997 the sentencing hearing in Texas that would seal his fate. The jury was being asked to decide whether to have him executed for killing his former girlfriend, Debra Gardner, and her friend Kenneth Butler. There was no disputing the conviction – Buck had carried out the brutal murders on 30 July 1995. Even so, he was still astonished by what he heard coming from the mouth of a so-called “expert” witness. Walter Quijano, a then psychologist who was frequently called to testify in Texas capital trials, was asked to give his professional opinion with regards…