Atatiana Jefferson’s young nephew testified that he thought he was dreaming when his aunt fell to the ground after being shot by a police officer through a bedroom window of their Texas home.
“I thought, is it a dream,” Zion Carr said Monday, his voice cracking. “She was crying and shaking.”
Carr, now 11, who was playing video games with his aunt that night in October 2019, told the court the doors to their home were left open because they tried to smoke after cooking hamburgers.
A concerned neighbor saw the open door and requested a welfare check, leading to the tragic shooting.
Jefferson, 28, held a gun as she left to investigate a noise but never raised it to point at the police officer who fatally shot her through the window, her nephew testified on the witness stand Monday .
Defense attorneys claimed the child said otherwise immediately after the shooting.
The child’s testimony touched on a central issue in the long-delayed case charging Aaron Dean with Jefferson’s murder: whether the Fort Worth police officer had seen Jefferson’s gun before he shot her.
Zion Carr, 11, the nephew of Atatiana Jefferson, testified Monday during the murder trial of former Fort Worth Police Officer Aaron Dean that he thought he was dreaming when his aunt fell to the ground after looking through the window of her home in Texas was shot
Atatiana Jefferson, 28, held a gun as she left to investigate a noise but never raised it to point at the police officer who fatally shot her through the window, her nephew said
Atatiana Jefferson, 28, held a gun as she left to investigate a noise but never raised it to point at the police officer who fatally shot her through the window, her nephew said
The high-profile story of Jefferson’s death garnered national attention and spurred protests against police brutality across North Texas.
Dean quit and was charged with murder two days after killing the 28-year-old while responding to a call about an open door on October 12, 2019.
Body camera footage showed that neither Dean nor the other responding officer identified themselves as officers at the home.
Dean’s attorney, Miles Brissette, said the officer opened fire after seeing the silhouette of Jefferson with a gun in the window and a green laser light trained on him. Prosecutors told the jury the evidence showed otherwise.
That night, Jefferson played video games with her nephew, Zion Carr, who told a court Monday that his aunt pulled a gun after hearing suspicious noises behind the house.
Carr, then 8, said the gun was only ever “pointed down,” but he admitted he didn’t remember parts of what happened.
“She just held it next to her, she just likes it, she didn’t point it up, she just held it next to her,” he told prosecutors, who said the child previously said his aunt had the gun pulled up a little bit.’
Carr added that he didn’t look up from his Nintendo Switch because she said the noise might have just been a raccoon.
Seconds later, she fell to the ground crying and shaking, her nephew said.
When officers arrived at the scene and escorted Carr to the police car, the boy, who was wearing only his underwear, said he was cold and confused about what happened.
“She started crying and then two cops came and got me,” Carr said. “I thought, ‘Is it a dream?'”
He said an officer gave him a shirt and he fell asleep in the police car. Waking up elsewhere, he said he had been asked questions about the shooting.
At this point, he still doesn’t know if his aunt is okay, he said.
“I wasn’t upset, I was confused because I didn’t know if … it was a dream and I still didn’t wake up.”
Former Fort Worth Police Officer Aaron Dean attends the first day of his murder trial Monday, December 5, 2022, in Fort Worth, Texas. Dean is accused of fatally shooting Atatiana Jefferson during a police operation in 2019. (Amanda McCoy/Star-Telegram via AP, Pool)
Dean (right), who has pleaded not guilty, was released on $200,000 bail. Now 38, he is accused of killing Jefferson (left) after a neighbor called a non-emergency police number to report the front door of Jefferson’s home was open
When cross-examined in the crowded courtroom, Dean’s defense said Carr told a specialist interviewer in a taped session after the shooting that Jefferson had raised the gun. The child denied this.
In 2019, the case was unusual for the relative speed with which the Fort Worth Police Department released the video, amid public outrage, and arrested Dean. It has since been repeatedly postponed amid legal wrangling, Dean’s lead attorney’s terminal illness, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In contrast, former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was on trial and convicted of the murder of George Floyd more than 1 1/2 years ago. Floyd was killed seven months after Jefferson in a case that sparked global protests against racial injustice.
Dean, who has pleaded not guilty, was released on $200,000 bail. The now 38-year-old is accused of killing Jefferson after a neighbor called a non-emergency police line to report that the front door of Jefferson’s home was left open.
The bodycam video showed Dean approaching the door of the house where Jefferson was caring for her nephew.
He then went around the side of the house, burst through a gate into the fenced-in backyard, and shot through the glass a split second after shouting at Jefferson, who was inside, to show her hands.
Released body camera footage showed Dean walking through Jefferson’s backyard before opening fire into a window (pictured).
Assistant District Attorney Ashlea Deener said during the opening statement that Jefferson believed the officers were intruders. Dean opened fire without giving her time to follow orders and never said he saw a gun, Deener said, adding, “The evidence will support he did not see the gun in her hands.”
The front and side doors of the house were open to let out smoke from hamburgers that Carr said he burned while cooking with Jefferson. The child later recalled that his aunt had fallen to the ground, crying and shaking.
‘I thought: is it a dream?’ he said.
At one point, District Judge George Gallagher stopped Zion’s testimony and ordered a woman to leave the courtroom for gesturing at the child.
Brissette argued that officers were following protocol by treating the call as a potential burglary. He said they saw a living room that appeared to have been “ransacked” and circled the home looking for signs of forced entry. Brissette said evidence would show the officer’s actions were reasonable and the shooting was “a tragic accident.”
Jefferson’s assassination shook the trust police were trying to establish with communities of color in Fort Worth, about 30 miles west of Dallas. The city of 935,000 has long had complaints of racially unequal policing and excessive violence.
Atatiana Jefferson (left and right) was babysitting her eight-year-old nephew when officers arrived at her home and allegedly failed to identify themselves
Carol Harrison-Lafayette protests the police shooting death of Atatiana Jefferson during a Jefferson vigil on Sunday October 13, 2019
Hundreds of mourners attended Jefferson’s funeral, including the mayor of Fort Worth and the acting Dallas police chief
The shooting prompted a quick rebuke from the then police chief and Republican mayor, who called the circumstances at the time “unthinkable” and said Jefferson with a gun was “irrelevant.”
Dean’s legal team repeatedly used these comments to try to move the case out of Fort Worth, claiming the statements and media attention were swaying the jury.
Gallagher denied her application again Monday before the jury of eight men and six women entered. The judge ended the opening day of the trial before noon for the funeral of attorney Jim Lane, who had been Dean’s lead defense attorney.