DALLAS _ Amber Guyger sobbed as she took the stand in her own defense Friday, the fifth day of her murder trial, saying she will forever regret the night she killed Botham Jean. But the prosecution said the fired police officer cared more about herself than Jean that night, and failed to give him proper first aid.
Guyger, 31, fatally shot the 26-year-old accountant in his Dallas apartment on Sept. 6, 2018. Her defense teams has called it a "tragic, but innocent" mistake and argued she was reasonable to believe Jean was a burglar when she entered his apartment, thinking it was her own.
"I was scared whoever was inside of my apartment was going to kill me, and I'm sorry," Guyger said through tears Friday, her voice shaking. "I have to live with that every single day."
Guyger said she wishes Jean and her roles had been reversed and he had shot her when she entered his apartment, a floor above hers. Jean was not armed.
"I wish he was the one with the gun and killed me. I never wanted to take an innocent person's life, and I am so sorry. This is not about hate; it's about being scared," she said, seeming to look directly at Jean's parents as she spoke.
Allison and Bertrum Jean remained stoic throughout her testimony.
Lead prosecutor Jason Hermus grilled Guyger during cross-examination, focusing on a moment of her testimony when she said being alone with Jean after she shot him was the "scariest thing" she could imagine.
"That's the scariest thing you can imagine, right?" Hermus asked.
"Yes, sir," Guyger said.
"Can you imagine Mr. Jean's perspective? An intruder barging into his apartment," Hermus said. "And then having been shot and fallen and being alone in that apartment _ can't you imagine that being a little bit scarier than you just being alone at the moment?"
"Yes, sir," she said.
Hermus, a former officer himself, noted that Guyger shot Jean directly in the chest, right where she was trained as a police officer to shoot.
"When you aimed and pulled the trigger at Mr. Jean, shooting him in center mass right where you are trained, you intended to kill Mr. Jean?" he asked.
"I did," she said.
Intent is a crucial element for prosecutors to establish because it's what sets murder apart from a reckless act like manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide, lesser charges the jury could ultimately consider if the judge gives them the option.
Guyger was the first witness her defense team called to the stand Friday. Speaking publicly for the first time since the shooting, Guyger talked about her childhood growing up in Arlington, her affair with her married police partner, her training as an officer _ and, most importantly, the night she says she confused Jean's apartment for her own at the South Side Flats, near downtown and not far from police headquarters.
About an hour into her testimony, the former officer broke down in tears as defense attorney Toby Shook asked her to demonstrate how she entered Jean's apartment that night. Hermus asked for a break when she started to sob.
"No, keep going," Guyger said while crying, before Judge Tammy Kemp dismissed the jury for a brief break.
When testimony resumed about a half-hour later, Shook asked Guyger to walk the jury through what happened that night last September.
She said she had yet to open the front door when she heard "shuffling" inside what she believe to be her apartment.
"I knew someone was moving around inside my apartment," Guyger said, "so I wanted just to find that threat."
When she opened the door, she saw a silhouette of a person in the dark, she said.
She pulled her gun with her right hand _ her backpack, lunchbox and police vest were in the other _ and shouted at Jean, she testified.
"Let me see your hands! Let me see your hands!" she yelled, according to her testimony.
She said Jean began walking toward her quickly and yelled, "Hey, hey, hey!" in an aggressive tone before she fired twice from where she was standing in the door frame.
Shook, a former prosecutor, asked her what was going through her head when she fired.
"I was scared he was going to kill me," she said.
After the two shots, she walked into the apartment and realized she wasn't in her home, noticing Jean's round ottoman in his living room.
"It started hitting me that this guy, I have no idea who he is, and that's when everything just started to spin," she testified.
She said she dialed 911 while kneeling next to Jean, and had to get up to go into the hallway when the dispatcher asked what apartment she was in.
Guyger said she started to do chest compressions on Jean using her left hand. The prosecution had suggested she did not provide first aid, noting that her uniform had no blood on it and the gloves in her pocket that night were clean and unused.
"The state he was in, I knew it wasn't good," Guyger testified.
Guyger sat with her head bowed, eyes down as the recording of her 911 call played over speakers in the courtroom. One juror and Botham Jean's father, Bertrum, did the same.
Shook asked Guyger what was going through her head after the shooting, "That I shot an innocent man. He didn't deserve _ I didn't _ I thought I was in my apartment," she said.
Guyger had sent texts to her police partner, Martin Rivera, while still on the phone with 911. She said she was scared and had no help to perform CPR on Jean.
"I was by myself with someone I had just shot," she said. "I was alone with him, and that's the scariest thing you could ever imagine, and I just wanted help."
Shook asked how she feels about killing Jean.
"I feel like a terrible person. I feel like crap. I hate that I have to live with this every day of my life. I ask God for forgiveness and I hate myself every day," she said, her voice shaking as she cried.
During Guyger's testimony, Bertrum Jean wiped his eyes from time to time with a white handkerchief.
Allison Jean sat for most of the testimony with her left hand cupping her chin, her index finger over her lips. She would periodically shake her head gently as Guyger spoke.
Hermus, during cross-examination, suggested Guyger had other options when she heard someone in her apartment, like calling for backup or staying in the hall and calling for help with her police radio.
"For your safety, you should have taken a position of cover and concealment and got help," Hermus said, "and instead you decided to go in."
"Yes, I did go in," she said.
The prosecutor noted that Guyger had a working radio at her disposal and that police headquarters was two blocks away from the apartment.
"You could have called for help on your radio," Hermus continued, "and you could have had the cavalry there in two minutes. ... You could have had SWAT mobilized. ... You could have had K9 mobilized. ... And had you done any one of those things, Mr. Jean would probably be alive today. Right?"
"Yes, sir," Guyger replied.
He also noted that no South Side Flats neighbors who took the stand during the trial heard the loud command _ "Let me see your hands!" _ she said she made.
"I can't tell you why," Guyger said.
"It's because you didn't say it," Hermus retorted.
"That's not true," she said.
Hermus later noted that there was "combat gauze" in her backpack, used to temporarily control traumatic bleeding. It was unused.
The prosecutor asked if Jean was "bleeding horribly" after the gunshot wound, and Guyger said she did not recall much blood.
She said it didn't cross her mind to use the gauze or a first-aid kit that was also in her backpack that night.
Hermus asked whether Guyger did anything besides periodic chest compressions to help Jean after she shot him.
She said she performed a "sternum rub," something she thought would help keep him alive that she testified she had seen paramedics do before.
Jurors also heard from another officer who was called to the apartments after Guyger's 911 call.
Officer Keenan Blair, one of the first officers to arrive, was asked by Guyger's attorneys if he would respond to a burglary-in-progress call differently than he would if he encountered a burglar in his home while off duty.
Blair initially said he would handle a burglary in his home differently than as a cop, and noted he would be ready to use deadly force when asked by Guyger's attorneys.
However, when Hermus presented Blair with the options of shooting the suspected burglar or going to a position of concealment and cover, he said he would choose the latter if he were still in the hallway, like Guyger was.
"If I haven't entered my residence," Blair said.
The trial will resume Saturday morning at 9 a.m.
