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Former Fort Worth, Texas, police officer Aaron Dean was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years, 10 months, and 12 days in prison for the killing of Atatiana Jefferson.
A Tarrant County jury deliberated about a day and a half before reaching a unanimous decision in the sentencing phase of the 38-year-old former officer.
On Thursday, after 13 hours of deliberation, the same jury found Dean guilty of manslaughter, rejecting the higher charge of murder. He was facing up to 20 years for his conviction.
The sentence appears to have some correlation to the date of the shooting.
Jefferson, a black woman who was studying to become a doctor, was inside her mother’s home when she was fatally shot in the early morning hours on Oct. 12, 2019. She had moved home to help her mother, whose health was ailing.
Jefferson and her nephew Zion Carr, were up late that night playing video games when Dean and his partner responded to an “open structure” call after a neighbor noticed lights on and the doors to the home were open.
Carr, now 11, was eight years old at the time of the shooting.Unannounced Police Presence
Dean’s body camera was activated when the officers arrived on the scene.
The officers never announced themselves as police as they began looking around the property, making their way through a gate into the backyard.
