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Key Witness In Amber Guyger Trial Fatally Shot At Dallas Apartment Complex

Washington_DC_police | Circa July 2008 | By IFCAR [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

An unknown assailant fatally shot a key witness in ex-Officer Amber Guyger’s murder trial at his apartment complex in Dallas Friday, police said Sunday.

Joshua Brown’s death came after a jury sentenced Guyger, a 31-year-old former Dallas Police Department officer, to 10 years in prison on Oct. 2 after they found her guilty for killing her 26-year-old unarmed neighbor, Botham Shem Jean, in his apartment while she was off duty in September 2018.

The Dallas Police Department said officers found Brown “lying on the ground in the apartment parking lot with multiple gunshot wounds to his lower body” in a Sunday press release.

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Attorney S. Lee Merritt, who represents Jean’s family, said in a Saturday Facebook post that Brown, 28, “was ambushed at his apartment complex as he got out of his car and [was] shot at close range.”

Brown lived in the same apartment complex as Guyger when she shot Jean and provided testimony in the trial. The assailant shot him at his most recent apartment complex about five miles from the one where Jean lived, according to CNN.

Authorities have not said whether Brown’s involvement in Guyger’s trial and his murder are related, CNN reported.

Merrit, in his Saturday Facebook post about Brown’s death, said that “by testifying that he could hear Botham singing in his apartment he undermines a key element of the defense. Amber claimed she shouted commands to Botham before shooting him. She didn’t. No one heard that. No neighbors. No passerby’s. Not Joshua as he walked down the corridor. No one.”

Merrit added in another Facebook post that Brown lived in “constant fear” of gun violence.

It took a Dallas jury less than 24 hours to decide Guyger’s fate based on the definition of manslaughter and the castle doctrine, which asserts a person can reasonably use deadly force to protect himself or herself at home, CNN reported on Oct. 1

Guyger’s trial made headlines when Jean’s brother Brandt Jean, 18, took the stand on Oct. 2 and told the former Dallas Police Department officer, “I don’t even want you to go to jail. I want the best for you, because I know that’s exactly what Botham would want,” adding, “I love you like anyone else,” before embracing her in a hug, The Dallas Morning News reported.