What to know about the trial for Aaron Dean, the ex-Fort Worth cop guilty of manslaughter

Former Fort Worth officer Aaron Dean was found guilty of manslaughter Thursday, more than three years after he fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson in her mother’s home.

The verdict prompted mixed reactions from community leaders and loved ones, some of whom hoped Dean, 38, would be convicted of murder and face up to life in prison. Guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter, Dean faces up to 20 years in prison. Jurors deliberated Dean’s guilt for about 14 hours over two days.

Both sides made closing arguments Wednesday, a week and a half after the trial began. The punishment phase begins Friday.

Dean and another officer showed up to Jefferson’s home Oct. 12, 2019 after a concerned neighbor called police about an open door at the home. Jefferson, who had been playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew, heard a noise outside and got her gun. Dean shouted, “Put your hands up, show me your hands,” and fatally shot Jefferson through a back window. Dean and the other officer did not announce themselves when they responded to the call.

Whether or not Dean was justified when he fired the fatal shot was a key question in the Tarrant County courtroom. Although some of the 12 jurors and two alternates are people of color, none are Black. Dean is white, and Jefferson was Black.

Here’s what you need to know about what happened during the trial.

Dean told jurors they need “to hear the truth”

Dean was the first witness called by the defense. Choking back emotions and his voice breaking, Dean described the seconds between shouting at Jefferson through the window and firing the lethal shot. He said he and a fellow officer walked around the home to the garage and he used his flashlight to push open a gate to the backyard. He noticed a window and air conditioning unit and said he leaned over to see if the window had been jimmied.

“As I looked through that window, low in the window, I observed a person — couldn’t tell Black, white, male, female,” Dean said. “The upper arms were moving like someone was reaching for something or grasping.”

He said he was “looking down the barrel of a gun” when he fired, and he heard Jefferson scream as she fell. Prosecutor Dale Smith said it was against Dean’s training to shoot without knowing what was behind Jefferson. Dean said he “took a well aimed shot” but agreed that he went against his training when he fired.

Dean initially said “a while” lapsed before he gave CPR to Jefferson, but when questioned by Smith, he said he never gave CPR to her. He said he was “about to” when more officers arrived. Dean said he rolled Jefferson over and pressed an afghan on her chest.

Dean looked at the jury throughout his testimony and seemed to make eye contact with some. Jurors watched him and most took notes.

Prosecutors say Dean had no reason to use lethal force

Prosecutors argued in opening statements Dean did not see the gun in Jefferson’s hand and had no reason to use lethal force. Once inside the house, Dean did not immediately tend to Jefferson’s wound, and first used his flashlight to scan the room and note the gun on the floor, prosecutor Ashlea Deener said. Dean pressed a blanket to Jefferson’s chest after more officers arrived, Deener said.

Deener and fellow prosecutor Dale Smith argued throughout the trial that Dean did not act in self-defense when he fired the lethal shot that pierced Jefferson’s heart. Deener said the killing was murder.

Deener said in closing arguments that Dean was a “power-hungry” officer who had a “preconceived notion” about East Fort Worth as a neighborhood plagued by crime. Deener and Smith said Jefferson had the right to arm and defend the “sanctity, safety” of her home.

“[Jefferson] never had a chance,” Smith said. “Nothing that she could have done could have changed what was going to happen.”

The defense said Dean thought the home was burglarized

Miles Brissette, one of Dean’s defense attorneys, said during opening statements that jurors need to consider what Dean knew at the time of the shooting — not what was learned afterward.

The nonemergency call was coded an open structure, which Fort Worth police policies state should be treated as “a silent alarm,” Brissette said. He said officers responding to that type of call need to inspect the building for forced entry and not reveal their position.

Dean saw what he thought was a ransacked home — with open kitchen cabinets and things scattered on the floor — and thought it was a burglary in progress, his attorney said. A mower and a bicycle were on the ground outside.

Brissette told jurors Dean saw through the back window a silhouette with a gun and a green laser aimed at him, which he perceived to be a threat. Dean did not testify that he saw a green laser, a point the prosecution hammered in closing arguments.

Dean’s other defense lawyer, Bob Gill, said in closing arguments that Dean acted within his Fort Worth police training to meet deadly force with deadly force. He called pointing a gun at a police officer an “aggressive, provocative act” that elicited Dean to act in self defense.

Brissette said the case is about fact and not emotion, and Dean yelled out commands as trained before he fired.

Legal experts were surprised prosecutors rested so quickly and activists were angry

The length of the case put on by prosecutors surprised lawyers and observers packed into the courtroom and angered activists. Court ended before noon on the first day of testimony so people could attend the funeral for one of Dean’s lawyers and testimony ended mid-afternoon two days later.

Lawyers not involved in the case said they were shocked prosecutors didn’t ask about Jefferson’s right to use deadly force during the case-in-chief. During cross-examination of the three witnesses called by the defense, as well as in closing arguments, prosecutors raised additional points about Jefferson’s right to defend herself and whether Dean’s actions were reasonable.

“That is the one thing you need to get your jury ready to deal with, and you need to hammer the fact that this was her home,” Dallas-based defense lawyer Alison Grinter Allen said. “She had no idea who was outside. Yes, it’s illegal to point a gun at a police officer, but it’s not illegal to point a gun at somebody who is on your porch at night that you can’t identify.”

The Dallas-based social justice nonprofit organization Next Generation Action Network said it was appalled by the brevity of the prosecutors’ case. Members of the group were present throughout the trial. Prosecutors’ witness list from October 2021 named more than 200 people the state could have called to testify.

“This is beyond troubling that after three years of waiting for this trial, only three days were used; this doesn’t show the community that the Tarrant County DA is taking this case seriously at all,” the organization said in a statement.

The Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment, citing a gag order that prevents Dean, the lawyers or Jefferson’s family from speaking publicly before the trial ends.

Jefferson’s young nephew said his aunt’s gun was by her side

Zion Carr was 8 when he saw his aunt fall to the floor after Dean shot her. Now 11, he took the witness stand on the first day of testimony and said he thought he was dreaming when Jefferson collapsed.

Before the shooting, Zion saw his aunt take her gun from her purse and approach the back window of the bedroom, with the gun close to her side, he told jurors. Outside the presence of the jury, prosecutor Dale Smith said that testimony was the first time Zion said Jefferson kept the gun at her hip — he’d previously told authorities Jefferson held the gun up, Smith said.

Zion also told jurors he didn’t remember seeing or hearing police officers outside, but lawyers said that differed from what he told a forensic interviewer in the hours after the shooting. Defense lawyers implied to the judge they believed Zion was coached to give a different account in court.

Zion was upbeat before testimony, but under defense questioning, he grew frustrated and struggled to answer some questions. He repeatedly said “I don’t remember” when the defense pressed him on what he told authorities after the shooting in 2019.

Officer who was with Dean said they didn’t follow proper procedure

The officer who was with Dean the night of the shooting, Carol Darch, told jurors on the second day of testimony she and Dean did not announce their presence in case a burglar was in the home. She said she followed Dean’s lead and they didn’t say much to each other.

Darch said there wasn’t damage on the home’s open doors. The exterior doors were open because Zion and Jefferson burned hamburger patties and wanted to air out the home, Zion testified.

Darch said she and Dean didn’t follow procedure and secure entrances and exits before they inspected the rest of the building. She and Dean also didn’t call the homeowner, which is required when there are no signs of damage or forced entry.

Dean did not say “gun” before shooting or tell Darch he saw a gun as they rushed inside the home, according to Darch’s testimony and body-camera footage.

Other testimony

James Smith, the neighbor who called police about Jefferson’s open door, testified that his call wasn’t an emergency, and he later saw two silhouettes approach the home but didn’t immediately realize they were police. He said he relives the shooting daily and feels somewhat responsible for Jefferson’s death.

Jurors also heard from a former 911 call-taker, a medical examiner, two use-of-force experts whose testimonies were conflicting, a forensic video expert, a crime scene investigator and a detective who responded to the home after the shooting happened.