Amber Guyger, former Dallas police officer convicted of murdering neighbor whose home she entered by mistake, is released on parole

DALLAS — Amber Guyger, the former Dallas police officer who fatally shot a Black neighbor after mistakenly entering his apartment in 2018, was released on parole from a Texas prison Friday.

Guyger, 38, has served seven years of a 10-year sentence handed down in October 2019 for the murder of 26-year-old Botham Jean.

She left the Christina Melton Crain Unit in Gatesville on Friday. She will serve the remainder of her sentence in the community, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.

Robert L. Rogers, one of Guyger’s attorneys in the trial, could not be reached for comment this week. He told WFAA-TV in Dallas this month that she would have a place to live and work after her release.

“She’s remorseful. She’s remained remorseful. She’s still remorseful,” Rogers told the station.

Jean was watching TV and eating ice cream in his living room on the night of Sept. 6, 2018, when Guyger entered, prosecutors said.

Jean, 26, lived one floor above Guyger, who testified that she parked on the wrong floor and mistakenly entered his apartment instead of hers. Guyger said she tried to use her key but the door opened. She said she shot Jean, whom she believed to be a burglar, out of fear for his life.

Guyger, a four-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, was in uniform but not on duty at the time. She was fired.

The shooting sparked protests and new discourse about racial bias in law enforcement and excessive use of force. Guyger is white and Jean was black.

Guyger apologized during the trial and was hugged by Jean’s teenage brother, Brandt Jean, who said he forgave him.

Guyger’s release comes about two weeks after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles granted him on October 1. She had previously been denied parole in September 2024.

Her parole was approved because she “maintained satisfactory institutional adjustment” and participated in programs that would increase her chances of maintaining stable, full-time employment after her release, the Pardon and Parole Board said in a statement. He also cited the lack of a “documented pattern of violent or aggressive arrests/convictions.”

The Dallas County district attorney’s office, which opposed Guyger’s release in 2024, had no comment Thursday on his parole.

A representative for the Dallas Police Department declined to comment on Friday and referred to the police statement made on October 1.

Lee Merritt, an attorney for Jean’s family, said in an Oct. 1 statement that Guyger’s sentence “already represented only a fraction of what was lost.”

“Ms. Guyger’s release after seven years makes this loss even more minimal in the eyes of the system. It is not less,” Merritt said.

Following the announcement of Guyger’s expected release, Jean’s family asked for respect for his privacy in a statement through the Botham Jean Foundation.

Jean, originally from the Caribbean country of St. Lucia, was an accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dallas. In 2021, the street where the shooting occurred, home to Dallas police headquarters, was renamed Botham Jean Boulevard.