The sentencing of Dallas police officer Amber Guyger for the murder of a Caribbean immigrant in his home has become another media-administered ink blot test.
Guyger was sentenced in Dallas, Texas on Wednesday by the same jury that convicted her a day earlier of murdering Jean.
The 31-year-old was off duty from the Dallas Police Department but still in uniform when she fatally shot the 26-year-old accountant in his own home in September 2018.
Guyger said she mistook Jean’s apartment for her own, which was one floor below, and that she thought he was an intruder when she opened fire.
Guyger’s trial is such a perfect case study in how multiculturalism throws sand in the judiciary’s gears, some law school professor would’ve had to invent it if it hadn’t really happened.
A white female Texan cop guns down a black male immigrant in his living room. Consulting the Progressive Stack, what do you think the outcome should’ve been?
Whatever our rulers’ secular religion dictates, the result was that Guyger received a murder conviction carrying a maximum life sentence. Instead she got ten years, a Bible from the judge, and hugs from the victim’s brother and the judge.
The judge who presided over Amber Guyger’s murder trial presented her with a Bible and gave her a hug just moments after the brother of slain accountant Botham Jean embraced the sobbing cop.
I’ve seen this story framed as everything from a triumph of feminism to a model of Christian mercy to a brazen display of racism. Parsing whether it’s one, or none, or all three is nigh impossible.
Welcome to Clown World.
For a bit of perspective, keep in mind that James Fields got life in prison plus 419 years because a morbidly obese woman had a heart attack near his car.
As for Amber Guyger, her ten-year sentence seems to have pleased no one. Feminists would rather see her get off scot-free. Meanwhile, the usual suspects are raising Cain over the latest example of the courts treating a murderous white cop with kid gloves.
One guy who does seem to have pure motive here is the victim’s brother Brandt.
In an astonishing act of compassion, Jean’s 18-year-old brother, Brandt, had asked the judge if he could also hug Guyger after she was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Brandt and a sobbing Guyger then both stood up, met in front of the bench and embraced for a long period of time. The judge and the majority of the courtroom wiped away tears as they hugged.
‘If you truly are sorry, I forgive you. I know if you go to God and ask him he will forgive you,’ Brandt said to Guyger in the courtroom.
‘I love you just like anyone else. I’m not going to say I hope you rot and die just like my brother did. I want the best for you. I don’t even want you to go to jail.’
My only comment on Brandt’s prodigious outpouring of mercy is that mercy perfects justice, and letting a convicted murderer entirely off the hook wouldn’t serve anyone.
What to make of this total cluster? I don’t know. But let’s try a little thought experiment.
- What if our police weren’t so militarized?
- What if there were no female police officers?
- Or judges?
- What if Jean had finished his studies and returned to St. Lucia?
