Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BOMBSHELL NEW CLAIM in Fort Worth cop shooting of 28 year-old woman in her own home with little nephew.

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

Atatiana Jefferson is gunned down in her own home by a Fort Worth police officer who was conducting a welfare check. He never id's himself as a police officer. Covering this case with Nancy Grace today is: Darryl Cohen,  Former Assistant District Attorney, now a defense attorney; James Shelnutt, 27 years Atlanta Metro Major Case detective, SWAT Officer, retiredl; Dr Katherine Maloney, Nickel City Forensics;  Dr. Carla Manly, Clinical Psychologist, Author of "Joy from Fear"; and investigative journalist Dave Mack. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Today on Crime Stories, we head to Fort Worth, Texas. What's going on there? Well, the front doors have been open since 10 o'clock. I haven't seen anybody moving around. It's not normal for them to have both of the doors open this time of night. Okay. You know if anyone is inside? I'm not sure. Both of the cars are there. Joining Nancy Grace, Daryl Cohen, former assistant district attorney, Fulton County, Georgia,

now a criminal defense lawyer. James Shelnut, 27 years Atlanta Metro major case detective, SWAT officer, retired. Dr. Catherine Maloney with Nickel City Forensics and medical examiner, Erie County, New York. And Dr. Carla Marie Manley, clinical psychologist and author of Joy from Fear. And reporter Dave Mack from CrimeOnline.com. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace what's the police operator m873 what's the address i'm calling about my neighbor okay what's the address 1203 east allen avenue okay 1203 east allen avenue what's the address? 1203 East Allen Avenue. Okay, 1203 East Allen Avenue. What's going on there? Well, the front doors have been open since 10 o'clock.

I haven't seen anybody moving around. It's not normal for them to have both of the doors open this time of night. Okay, you know if anyone is inside? No, I'm not sure. Both of the cars are there. Okay, here with me. And they're in the driveway? Both the cars are in the driveway, yes. Okay, can you give me a description're in the driveway almost the cars in the driveway yes

okay can you give me a description like a color of the vehicles well one's the white one's dark blue the white one is a sedan or a cv or pick up the books okay and what's your name james smith and what's your telephone number okay and um And are they usually home at this time? They're usually home, but they never had both of the front doors open. They had lights on, like I can see straight through the house. When my sister woke me up, she stayed across the street from them. I live on the opposite side of my sister. Okay.

And the address that you gave me, 1203, that's their address, correct? Yes. Okay. Well, have an officer come by. They're already being dispatched now, okay? Okay, appreciate it. I mean, this is not normal for them to have both the doors open this late that long. Gotcha.

Okay. Thank you so much. You are hearing a concerned neighbor, James Smith, calling 911 about a welfare check. It ends with a then Fort Worth police officer gunning down a 28-year-old woman in her own home. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. With me, an all-star lineup. Former prosecutor, now defense attorney, renowned attorney Daryl Cohen out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. James Shelnut, 27 years, Metro Major case detective, SWAT officer, now lawyer. defense attorney renowned attorney daryl cohen out of the atlanta jurisdiction james shelnut 27

years metro major case detective swat officer now lawyer dr katherine maloney nickel city forensics deputy chief medical examiner erie county dr carla manley clinical psychologist author of joy from fear you can find her at drcarlamanley.com. But now joining me, CrimeOnline.com investigative journalist Dave Mack. Dave, it's almost too much to take in, but hold on. Take a listen to our friend Marcus Moore at ABC News. Police officer killed 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in her own home, sparked by a phone call from a concerned neighbor. He noticed her front door was open and called police on a non-emergency line to ask for a welfare check.

The dispatcher immediately sending officers to her home. But then the encounter turns deadly. In this body cam video, the responding officer approaches Jefferson's bedroom window and begins shouting commands, but he is not heard identifying himself. Put your hands up. Show me your hands. Then firing one deadly shot through the window. Police say the officer, quote, perceived a threat, but they suggest that proper procedures may not have been followed.

There was no time for her to respond. It was reckless, deadly behavior. Atatiana's family says her 8-year-old nephew was in the room playing video games with her when she was shot. When I made that non-emergency call, I didn't say it was a burglary. I didn't say people are fighting across the street. I didn't say there's a drug. I didn't say anything that would make them think they needed to have a gun. All they needed to do was knock on the door and ring the doorbell. And now that neighbor feeling overwhelmed with guilt for even calling in a wellness check. Back to Dave Mack,

CrimeOnline.com investigative journalist. What happened, Dave? Nancy, this went bad from the very beginning. As you noted, it was a non-emergency call for a wellness check. Well, the Fort Worth Police Department, they don't discern the difference when they send out cops between non-emergency and emergency. So the police showed up like it was a massive emergency, like they had a real criminal thing going on inside. But this woman, she's 28 years old. She's college educated, graduated in a biology degree. She's babysitting her eight-year-old nephew. They're sitting there on a Saturday morning early, late at night playing video games, just having fun. She hears these police. Normally you'd park out front and the cops would walk up to the door, ring the doorbell and

say, hey, police, anything going on? But they didn't. They parked around the side and actually stormed the side of the house. Tatiana, all she did was she stood up. She hears these things going on outside thinking, hey, I got a prowler. It's 2.30 in the morning. Why are there people out around the outside of my house? She looks out the window.

Nobody identifies themselves as a police officer. Officer Aaron Dean, been on the force a year and a half, never once says police. He never says anything except show me your hands. Within two and a half seconds, she is shot dead in her own home, Nancy. Take a listen to our friend Alan Martin at KPIX-CBS. The family of a Tatiana Jefferson is outraged that the police officer who shot and killed a 28-year-old inside her own home is not in handcuffs. This man murdered someone.

He should be arrested. Fort Worth police released body camera video showing the officer, Aaron Dean, outside the house with a flashlight. Put your hands up. Show me your hands. The video shows he never identified himself as a police officer before firing a shot into a window where jefferson's eight-year-old nephew was just steps away what would have happened if that little boy went to the window instead of his auntie um he saw her when she fell officer dean resigned this

morning had the officer not resigned i would have fired him for violations of several policies, including our use of force policy. The Fort Worth Police Department has presented the FBI a preliminary case to be reviewed for civil rights violations. The agency's own internal investigating unit is expected to announce Tuesday whether Dean will face criminal charges. Dean has not agreed to be interviewed by police. And of course, since that time, the former officer Aaron Dean has been charged, has been arrested, and has been held in the Tarrant County Jail. His bond set at $200,000. Now, what we understand is that the former Fort Worth police officer went to the home to perform a wellness check after a neighbor noticed that Tatiana Jefferson's front door was open at 2.30 in the morning. James Sheldon, explain what is a wellness check?

A wellness check is something that officers get dispatched to all the time working in the uniformed division. And they just simply go out and check the welfare of an individual. It's exactly as it sounds. These cases are often normal calls that you go to. Most of the time when you get there, you find out that the person is okay, but you know, commonly a neighbor or friend hasn't heard from someone or they see something out of the ordinary, and you're just simply going to check it out just to make sure that everything's okay. It's not an emergency type of call that you would respond to. So, Darrell Cohen, a former prosecutor in

inner city Atlanta, now defense attorney, why is it so significant? You heard Dave Max stating that this was not a call about a fight. There were no gunshots heard. There was not an argument going on. There wasn't a perceived burglary going on. Why is it significant that this was called in as a welfare check? Well, it's significant because it wasn't the other. It wasn't, be careful, it wasn't there's a riot. It wasn't

there's a dope deal going down. It was merely to see if everything in that house was okay, and why in the world that officer would not have, as previously mentioned, not gone to the front door, knocked on the door, rang the doorbell with his weapon at ready just in case is beyond me. And why in the world, why in any reasonable person would they see a figure in a window, not identify themselves as a police officer and immediately fire within two seconds? That is not reasonable police. That is not brutality. That is purely and simply murder. Take a listen to our friends at WFAA. This is Eric Alvarez. Well, friends and family are understandably outraged tonight. They are demanding answers.

They are demanding justice for that young woman who was shot and killed here inside her own home by a police officer that was called here to see if she needed help. Put your hands up. Show me your hands. In this body cam footage released by the Fort Worth Police Department, you do not hear the officer identify himself as he passes a window and steps through a gate into the backyard. He then sees a figure in a window, draws his gun, and fires less than three seconds after demanding to see the person's hands. That person is 28-year-old A. Tatiana Jefferson, who lived in the home with her eight-year-old nephew. The family is understandably brokenhearted. Attorney Lee Merritt, who spoke to Jefferson's family, says the pair were playing video games early in the morning. And they heard someone

creeping around outside. She went to investigate at the window. An officer was on the other side who shouted commands and before she had a moment to respond, he shot her to death. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. race. Aaron Dean, ID 4598, was the officer who responded to the call and fired the shot that killed the Tatiana. He was hired by the department on August 21st, 2017, and commissioned as a licensed peace officer on April 13, 2018. Despite his resignation, the officer still faces criminal charges from the major case investigation. Additionally, we have also presented a preliminary case to the FBI to review the officer's actions for possible civil rights violations. We now know that this officer has been charged, the former Fort Worth officer Aaron Dean.

But how strong is the state's case? What about it, Daryl Cohen? With this body cam footage, I think that's very powerful. You're right there at the scene. And what is, first of all, to you, Shellnut, what is body cam? Body cam, it often is called POV, point of view, which means that it actually shows what the officer is seeing. It can't show everything. Your eyes are going to perceive things a little differently than the camera or have a broader range of view, but it gives a pretty good picture of the officer's point of view. So what about it, Daryl Cohen? How important is the body cam footage? I think in this instance, the body cam footage, when you take the footage and the audio and put it together,

it's extraordinarily important. And it shows that this police officer should never have done what he did. And no longer being a police officer, being charged with murder is exactly the way it should be. And here's a woman that was doing everything right, and she's no longer with us. Tell me the elements of murder, Daryl Cohen. Well, it can happen immediately. They used to say in law school that abandon a malignant heart. The reality is he meant to kill and there was no reason for him to use any type of force, much less deadly force. He was not in a situation where he had to defend himself. He was in a situation where he was in an investigative state and she is now in a vegetative state.

You know, when you said abandoned and malignant heart, very often, as you mentioned, in law school, we'd refer to that as, for instance, somebody driving 90 MPH through a street festival, the crowd are with people at high noon when everybody's getting, you know, their food at all the kiosks. That's an abandoned or malignant heart where you do something so wrong with abandonment of concern for other people. And in this case, he, Aaron Dean, did not know a Tatiana Jefferson. He didn't know her. He had no premeditation to kill her specifically, but he had an abandoned and malignant heart, which will be the state's, the prosecutor's

theory that shooting into an apartment where you have no idea what you're really shooting at shows complete abandoned. You abandon any concern for what you're doing or any outcome of what you are doing. Now, the defense, Dr. Carla Manley, clinical psychologist, will probably argue that he thought he was being threatened. With that body cam footage, that's going to be really hard to argue, Carla. I agree. Yet what we have to look at here, Nancy,

and this is what I imagine their defense might be, right? Reptilian brain. So that fight or flight response, and in this case, it's fight. He feels threatened by something. Now, here's something I'm wondering about. Haven't seen anything that would tell us that this was the case, what kind of video game was being played. If it was a shoot-em-up video game, and I don't know that it was, but hearing gunfire could have triggered him if indeed it was that. So I'm trying to think, you know, outside the box here. Not at all saying it's ever appropriate to shoot without knowing what's going on, but again, as a clinical psychologist and trying to figure

out what might have been at play. Also, this officer, age 34, right, on the job enough. We would imagine he's seasoned. How tired was he? Was he working overtime? So we have to look at all these factors if we're looking at how they might come up with an adequate defense for him. You just brought up something I had not thought of at all, the possibility that there was a video game. We know they were up playing video games. Was there the sound of gunfire or some other sound in the background that may have triggered him shooting?

But, Dave Mack, we do know for sure they were playing video games. Nancy, according to the 8-year-old nephew of a Tatiana Jefferson, while they were having a great night together, a kind of spend the night party, they were playing video games. And at the time this happened, just after two o'clock in the morning, according to the eight-year-old, they were playing the video game Call of Duty. Now, Call of Duty is a military style shoot-em-up game. There are all kinds of different scenarios. It's very, very intricate in how it works, but the sound effects are amazingly realistic and oftentimes very, very loud. Now, what you're hearing right now is some audio from the game. It's lots of gunfire, lots of explosions, lots of running around.

It's an interactive game. Tatiana Jefferson was playing this game with her 8-year-old nephew when the police showed up. Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Did he go there alone? Didn't he have a partner, Carol Darch? Yes, he did, man. Nancy, he did have a partner. And believe it or not, because the call went out without any kind of specification,

we've talked about how the call came in on a non-emergency line. Fort Worth doesn't break that down and say, this is a non-emergency, go check on it. They send it out to the police out in uniform on patrol. They send it out just as a call. So not only did he have his partner, but they had backup arrive within a matter of minutes. I mean, they had to have been on their way to this location before the shots were fired because within three minutes of the shot ringing out, the place was swarming with police. So backup was already on the way? Yes, ma'am. And they were there on site. I mean, running.

Joseph Smith, the guy that called in the non-emergence call, he said that he hears the shot and he sees armed officers running all over the place. And he said he never knew what happened. You know, he was very concerned. As you mentioned earlier, this guy is deeply affected. You know, this woman was in her own home with her nephew playing a video game. We know we couldn't hear it. You know, on the audio tape that we heard from the police camera, we couldn't hear anything coming from inside the house. No yelling, screaming, no gunfire. We only heard the cops say, hands up, show me your hands, and firing immediately.

You know what? I didn't hear anything like that on the body cam video as well. Do we know if the partner, Carol Darch, is going to be charged? No. At this point, she's not being charged, and she was merely there as his partner and was following him. He was the lead guy. We see his camera. We don't see any body camera from her yet.

We're only seeing it from him, so we don't actually know where she was. All we have is Aaron Dean and his point of view going up and shooting. And we did hear his partner at some point say something, but it was innocuous. What about it? Straight out to James Shelnut, 27 years Metro major case detective, SWAT officer, now lawyer. What about the partner? No, I don't think the partner is going to be charged. I think that the partner probably was complicit to the extent of handling the call poorly. Obviously, that's the case. I don't know the level of experience or the rank of the partner, if the partner was in a supervisory role or not.

This situation, I think Daryl alluded to it earlier, this situation went wrong from the very beginning. The appropriate way to handle this when you pull up on the call is to knock on the front door. Stand to the side, knock on the front door at the ready. This is not a call where there's an active crime in progress, and it's one where you have to consider alternate scenarios. And when I look at this as someone who has served as an instructor, I've served as a field training officer, I've trained new police officers, much like this guy, how to work on the road, something you have to look at when you approach these calls is alternate scenarios. Alternate scenario could be that, hey, there could be a bad guy there. The alternate scenario is that everything could be okay. It could be that while you're walking around in the backyard, are you going

to scare the homeowner? Is the homeowner going to think that there's a prowler in the backyard, that you're the bad guy? You know, what are the risks that you create by your presence by not properly identifying yourself as a police officer? And I just think that when you go back and look at this from the very beginning, this call went awry right when officers pulled up. And this is something that's completely preventable. You know, if I'm a chief at Fort Worth Police Department, I'm going back and I'm taking a hard look at my training for these officers. And I think that when I look at this, this is what it boils down to. This is the first thing is that this officer did not have the appropriate training or there was a gap. You know, you see a de-escalation talk to police officers where they try to another, but there's a lot less alternate scenario training where you train the officers to think,

okay, this could be A, but it also could be B, and I need to handle myself accordingly so that I'm prepared in the event there is a threat, but don't make a threat out of something where there's not one. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To the citizens and the residents of our city, we understand your frustration and disappointment. I too am frustrated and disappointed by what occurred in the officer's actions. We never want an officer's response to a call to end in the loss of life.

We have a great many officers who work extremely hard every day. They do this with great sacrifice and with a servant's heart. I ask you, please do not let the actions of one officer reflect on the other 1,700. There's absolutely no excuse for this incident, and the person responsible will be held accountable. Ms. Jefferson's family and our community will have the last word. The courts will speak on her behalf. I'm trying to figure out whether the other officer is going to be charged. We know that Officer Carol Darch has been on the force since 2017. They were not in the car together, as you would imagine, partners.

She arrived at 2.28 a.m. He, Officer Aaron Dean, arrived at 2.28 a.m. He, Officer Aaron Dean, arrived at 2.29 a.m. What does that mean? Dave Mack, what do you know about potential charges? I also am understanding that he, Aaron Dean, is not cooperating with cops. She, Carol Darch, is. Yeah, you're absolutely right, Nancy. From the get-go, Officer Dean, he would not talk to his bosses. He would not talk to anybody without a legal representative from the union. He then resigned as the interim chief of police was on his way to fire him. We know that his partner, Carol, actually is talking with police.

We know that she arrived a minute before and then waited for him to show up. When they get there, he then takes the lead. I don't know why. I don't know the procedure or anything else, but they arrive and he immediately takes the lead position and decides where they're going to go. She is following behind him and following his lead. That's why she's cooperating and he is not. Interesting. Do you see any scenario, Daryl Cohen, under which she, Carol Darch, would be also charged? I really do not, Nancy. She's talking, she's cooperating, and she is using my philosophy, if you have nothing to hide, then hide nothing. He, on the other hand, is keeping his mouth shut because he knows there's a lot that he did wrong. And mostly he killed someone with no reason and no cause. The reality is that according to ballistics and what we see on the body cam footage,

Tatiana Jefferson was shot through her bedroom window. She was inside. He was on the outside shooting through the window. That doesn't sound SOP to me, Shelnut. No, it's not. The whole thing is outside of an SOP. If it is within their SOP, they need to rewrite it because they've got one that's getting people killed. What we also know is that Atassiana Jefferson's mother was in the hospital and that she was staying home to care for the mom. The family shared that Smith was worried because he thought the mom had gotten back from the hospital

and was worried there may be medical problems again. We're trying to take in everything that has happened. A welfare check gone awry. Dave Mack, what can you tell me about a weapon in the home? Sadly, Nancy, as often happens, the police released a photo of a gun. Well, a blurry photo, two different shots of a gun inside the home. They regretted it immediately because it somehow was casting aspersions on the character of a woman who was murdered inside her own home by police. They immediately took it down, but yes, there was a photo. There were two blurry photos of what appeared to be a gun inside the room where Tatiana was killed. To Daryl Cohen, the gun in the home was legally allowed. And what that means, I'm

assuming, is that they had a license for the gun to be in the home. I'm not understanding, Dave Mack, is this her, Atatiana's home or is it her mother's home? It's Atatiana's home. It's where she lives. And by the way, she was licensed. The gun was registered to her and she was licensed to have that gun. Where was the gun? It was in the bedroom where she was shot. I don't think that's going to have anything to do with it unless she was waving it or pointing it directly at former cop Aaron Dean, Daryl Cohen. Absolutely, Nancy. And she doesn't necessarily even need to have a license. This is Texas. This is the United States. You have a right to have a weapon in your own home. You have a right to have a weapon so you can defend yourself

if necessary. And unless, as you point out, there's some evidence on body cam, whether it's from the body cam of the police officer who's now no longer one or his partner that she was waving it, then there is absolutely, in my view, no defense. There may be begging, there may be some sort of a plea deal worked out, but there's no defense for this officer's, former officer's conduct. There just isn't. I can't find no justification at all for doing what he did. It's a cold-blooded murder. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We are talking about a then Fort Worth police officer gunning down a 28-year-old woman in her own home. Right now, obvious comparisons are being made to the death of Botham Jean, gunned down by cop Amber Geiger.

Listen. And the thing with this, you can't say she had a gun in her hand. It don't matter if she did because in all actuality, if the council doctrine could have stood, she had a right to protect herself if she's in her own house. And if you are outside of my house, walking outside of my window, and there is a gun in my house, as a person that has property and is a rightful property owner i have a right to protect myself so i want to find out how you're going to twist this one how you're going to turn this one to try and make it seem as though it's justified for you killing this lady in the house and the next thing i would like to say the chief craftsman betsy price and all the city officials

we're not asking for a suspension and i'm speaking i'm saying as a community we're not asking for a suspension right we're asking for termination we're not going to allow you to tell us he got suspended for 30 days and we applaud you and say job well done. This person, whoever it is, male or female, does not need to be on the streets. Because if that was me and I killed somebody that was in their own house, me knowing from dealing with the system, y'all going to put me in prison and put me in there for a long time. So we cannot allow this woman to do this or this man to do this, keep their job, and then not label them as what they are. And that is a murderer. That's right. Right there, you are hearing local pastor Rodney McIntosh speaking, comparing this to the Amber Geiger shooting of a man in his own apartment, Botham Jean.

The comparisons are obvious. In both cases, a police officer shoots someone from outside their apartment into their apartment, killing them. In both cases, the victim is unarmed. In both cases, the shooter is a police officer. In both cases, the victim is just going about their business, chillaxing in their own home. Today, Matt, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, what other comparisons do you see? Nancy, it's kind of a stretch really when you get down to it because Amber Geiger had just gotten off work and claimed she thought she was in her apartment when she sees what she perceives as an intruder.

In this case, you've got officers going to do a welfare check and a woman inside her own home where the officers clearly know this is her home. They don't know who's in there, but they're just there to see why is the front door open at 2.30 in the morning. The lights are on inside the house. All they had to do was say, hey, police here checking things out. What's going on? Anything would have prevented this from happening. You know, Dave Mack, in the photos of the gun that was lawfully owned by Atassiana Jefferson, in the photos, where was the gun found? You know, it was, it appeared to be through that window because we only got that shot, the blurry shot from the point of view

camera from the police officer and it looked to be near a dresser. But when you're saying it was near a dresser, was anybody holding it? Yeah, it was just sitting out. It wasn't in, Tatiana didn't have the gun in her hand, Nancy. The full raw footage has been released by police and you can see it at crimeonline.com. Now it has been edited and stops after the shooting occurs, but it does show blurry images of a gun in Jefferson's home. Do you believe in any way, Daryl Cohen, that the gun can be used as a defense for the officer? There is no way in my view that he had any right, not by any circumstance that I

know of, to fire without even identifying himself as a police officer, without even giving her an opportunity to show him her hands. Unbelievable, Nancy. I'm looking at the body cam footage right now, and you can tell the officer is approaching from the back area. The lights are on in the home. He looks like he's looking in a fully transparent screen door, like the door's made completely of glass. He's walking past a white vehicle. He's now walking around the home. Now it's getting dark. It's dark.

It was very well lit by the door I was describing where the car is parked. Now he is using a flashlight and he is looking around. He's looking at the doors. He's looking at the walls. He's shining his flashlight all around the curtilage or the outside of the doors. He's looking at the walls. He's shining his flashlight all around the curtilage or the outside of the home. It looks like maybe a carport or maybe a tool shed of some sort. It's an opaque gate made of wood. Can't see through it. He opens it. He's now going into what looks to be the backyard. He's gone through a gate gate he's looking all around the home remember

it's the front door that's open now he is looking at a a paned glass and now i'm seeing the gun the gun is lying on either the floor it's inside a bedroom and it looks like it's lying on the floor, just lying there. To Dr. Catherine Maloney, joining me out of Nickel City Forensics, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner at Erie County Medical. What could the trajectory path of the bullet show us, Dr. Maloney? Well, that will give us information about how she was facing relative to him when he fired the gun. So if she was facing him or if she had her back turned to him or her side, so we can get a sense of what she may have perceived, if anything. I'm curious about this gun. To you, James Shelnut, you've been in this position before, being a Metro major case detective

and a SWAT officer before you became a lawyer. You've gone into active crime scenes, active crime scenes where perps had weapons. In this case, what do you make of the fact that the gun apparently was lying down on the floor? Well, you know, I'm not so sure that she wasn't holding the gun. There's no indication that she was, but I can't tell from the video that she wasn't. You know, I've watched that video. I've watched it last night, and I'm not so sure of that. Maybe, you know, an enhanced version will come out. But, you know, if the gun was in close proximity to where she was at, most people don't keep their gun stored lying in a floor.

And it did appear to me that the gun was in a floor, not a dresser. I could be wrong about that as the information comes out. But if it was lying in the floor close to where her body fell, that may be an indicator that she was holding the gun. Granted, I don't think that this shooting was justified. I think the same result that happened in Amber Geiger's case with a conviction may very well happen in this case with a conviction. It was wrong. Well, I gotta tell you something, James. I was surprised too, but when I'm looking at it, it looks like it's on the floor. If it's on the floor, did she drop it? Now on that body cam video, can you make out her

image, James Shelnut? You know, it looked like a shadow to me. And that goes back to what we were talking about a minute ago, Nancy, with it being POV. Point of view is great. And the cameras have really helped identify what an officer sees or goes through and justification, non-justification, but they don't see the same thing as a human eye. They don't focus the same way as a human eye. And to me, it's just hard to tell exactly what this poor lady was doing in this video before she was shot. Dave Mack, what's it all about? Nancy, the reality of the gun is this. When the story first broke, there were two very blurry photos that were released to the press that appeared to show a gun inside the home now most of us were immediately stunned by

this saying what does that matter you know a gun inside her home well now we know an affidavit was unsealed earlier and detective a remshas is now shedding a little bit of light on the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of 28-year-old Tatiana Jefferson. Now, she was babysitting her 8-year-old nephew. And his name's not being released because, after all, he told a forensic investigator that they were playing Call of Duty about two o'clock in the morning when Tatiana heard a commotion outside her home. The eight-year-old said that she retrieved a handgun, which she legally owned, from her purse. She then raised the gun, pointing it toward the window, and that's when she was shot dead through the window by officer aaron dean take a listen to our friends at wfaa fort worth officials released this image of a gun

inside the home where tatiana jefferson lived but they didn't explain how it was relevant now many of you wondered was tatiana holding this gun when she was shot well earlier today we got our hands on the arrest warrant that you see here and on page page three, it says Jefferson's eight-year-old nephew told police, quote, she heard noises coming from outside. So she took her handgun from her purse, raised her handgun, and pointed it toward the window. The arrest warrant says in different places that Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean didn't announce he was a police officer as he walked around the house. And your hands up. Show me your hands. And we still don't know if he saw the gun before he fired.

Now Jefferson's family said she lawfully owned the gun. And here in Texas, the law says that means she can use force, in some cases deadly force, to protect her property. The Fort Worth interim police chief agreed. We're homeowners in the state of Texas. I can't imagine most of us, if we thought we had somebody outside our house, they shouldn't be, and we had access to a firearm, that we wouldn't act very similarly to how she acted. As it stands right now, the Fort Worth police officer, former officer who fatally shot Atassiana Jefferson, is now charged with murder. Listen. Concerning the status of the criminal investigation, at approximately 6 p.m. yesterday, Aaron Dean was arrested for the murder of

Ms. Jefferson. He obtained an arrest warrant after enough evidence and facts were analyzed and verified. A team of officers quickly effected his arrest at the office of his attorney. He was booked into the Tarrant County Jail where his bond was set by the presiding magistrate. He has since posted bond. We're continuing to work closely with the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office to ensure this entire investigation is prosecuted in a thorough, meticulous, and solid manner.

There was an image of a gun release do we know anything about the gun or the officer I cannot tell you what what he felt he did not give a statement to our investigators the gun was found just inside of the room but it makes sense that she would have a gun if she felt that she was being threatened or that there was someone in the backyard. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.