Who is Aaron Dean? White Texas cop, 38, who shot dead Black woman at her home to go on trial after long delay

Who is Aaron Dean? White Texas cop, 38, who shot dead Black woman at her home to go on trial after long delay
Fort Worth officer Aaron Dean resigned and was charged with murder after he killed Atatiana Jefferson in October 2019 (Tarrant County Jail mugshot)

FORT WORTH, TEXAS: In a case that has been delayed for years, a White former police officer is scheduled to go on trial on December 5, 2022, for fatally shooting a Black woman through the back window of her Texas home while responding to a complaint about an open front door. After shooting Atatiana Jefferson, 28, in October 2019, Fort Worth officer Aaron Dean resigned and was then charged with murder. 

Jefferson and her then-8-year-old nephew were playing video games together when something unusual happened behind the home, according to the nephew who later told detectives his aunt drew a gun. Dean didn't identify himself as a police officer, according to his body camera footage. The arrest of Dean and the relative speed with which the Fort Worth Police Department made the body-camera video public amid widespread outcry at the time made the case unusual at the time. Since then, the case has been continually delayed due to legal disputes, his lead attorney's terminal sickness, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Dean, 38, was released on a $200,000 bond after entering a not-guilty plea. He is accused of killing Jefferson on October 12, 2019, after a neighbor reported that Jefferson's front door was open to a non-emergency police line, as reported by Local 10.

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