FORT WORTH, Texas _ Fort Worth police announced at a news conference Monday that the officer who shot and killed a woman in her home has resigned.
Chief Ed Kraus identified the officer as Aaron Dean. He said he was going to fire the officer if he had not resigned.
Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price said the shooting death of Atatiana Jefferson by a Fort Worth police officer is not justified.
"Atiatiana was an amazing, smart woman who was unjustly taken from her family," she said. "I cannot imagine anything worse and I am so sorry ... there is nothing that can justify what happened."
Price further commented on the image released of a gun found in the home where Jefferson was. She said the gun was irrelevant and that Jefferson had a right to have a gun in her home.
Atatiana Jefferson was shot at a home in the 1200 block of East Allen Avenue at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday after her neighbor called police to request a welfare check at the home.
At 2:25 a.m., two officers were sent to the house, police said at the press conference. At 2:29 a.m., they parked nearby, but not in front of the house. They investigated on foot and went into the backyard.
"The officer observed a person through a rear window in the house and fired a shot at that person," police said in a written statement. "The officer did not announce that he was a police officer prior to shooting. What the officer observed and why he did not announce 'Police' will be addressed as the investigation continues."
In a statement Saturday, Fort Worth police said the officer, "perceiving a threat," drew his gun and "fired one shot striking the person inside the residence."
Body camera footage of the shooting shows two officers using flashlights to check the perimeter of the house, inspecting two doors that are open with closed screen doors. At the back of house, one officer appears to see a figure through a dark window, and he quickly twists his body to the left.
"Put your hands up! Show me your hands!" he shouts through the window, his gun drawn. He then fires a single shot through the window, killing Jefferson.
Jefferson was a pre-med graduate of Xavier University in New Orleans and working on pharmaceutical equipment sales, said S. Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney retained by Jefferson's family. She was considering going back to medical school.
Leaders and community activists called for accountability and police reform after Saturday's shooting. The Fort Worth Police Officers Association urged Fort Worth police to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation in a statement Sunday.
Merritt said Jefferson's death is another example of excessive use of police force in Fort Worth. Since June, Fort Worth officers have shot seven people, six of them fatally.
This shooting took place days after a Dallas police officer, Amber Guyger, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting a black man that she mistook as an intruder inside of his apartment she inadvertently entered.
In Guyger's case, the Texas Rangers were called upon to investigate the shooting.
