FORT WORTH, Texas — Aaron Dean, the former Fort Worth police officer who is accused of murder in the 2019 shooting death of Atatiana Jefferson, is set to go to trial May 16, with jury selection beginning on May 9.
Jefferson, a 28-year-old Black woman, was shot inside her own home in south Fort Worth in October 2019. Dean, who was responding to a neighbor’s call about open doors at the home, shot Jefferson through a window at the back of the house.
Here’s a rundown of the case and what comes next:
What happened?
Dean was indicted on a murder charge after fatally shooting Jefferson through a window while responding to a call about doors being open at her home in October 2019. Jefferson was playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew when she thought she heard a prowler in the backyard, grabbed a handgun from her purse, and pointed it toward the window, the nephew told a forensic interviewer, according to an arrest warrant affidavit supporting Dean’s arrest. Dean, who is white, did not identify himself as a police officer and shot Jefferson within seconds, according to body-camera video.
Jefferson’s death prompted outrage from members of the community, leading to marches, protests, and fundraisers and murals in her honor.
Who was Atatiana Jefferson?
Atatiana “Tay” Jefferson was a 28-year-old who saved up for medical school, worked in pharmaceutical equipment sales and moved back home to help her mother, whose health was declining.
Jefferson, affectionately called “Tay” by family and friends, was the pride and joy of her family, her sister Ashley Carr and cousin Cerese Fortson said in a previous interview. As a child, she was a quick thinker and even quicker to tackle a challenge.
“She was always climbing trees,” Fortson said. “I would say, ‘That tree is kind of big, I don’t know … ‘ and before I could finish my sentence, she would be at the top level. And not even that, but then she would jump down.”
Unlike her cousins and siblings, Jefferson did not spend her money on candy and toys when she was little, but saved the money carefully.
She had her mind set that she was going to buy herself a bike, and she saved each dollar until she did so. Her money-saving mentality continued into adulthood as she paid her way through Xavier University in Louisiana to major in biology.
Who is Aaron Dean?
Aaron York Dean is a 37-year-old former Fort Worth police officer who was hired to the Fort Worth Police Department in August 2017 and resigned Oct. 14, 2019, two days after he shot and killed Jefferson.
He was home-schooled throughout high school and attended the University of Texas at Arlington, where he graduated in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in physics, according to his application with Fort Worth police.
Dean resigned by submitting a one-sentence letter. Police said at the time that, had Dean not resigned, he would have been fired.
He was arrested later in the day Oct. 14, 2019.
In a 17-minute video of Dean’s 2017 job interview with a five-officer panel, Dean described why he wanted to be a police officer. He said he wanted to serve his fellow citizens and help them in an immediate way and that he liked “the action and adventure that I hear the stories about that the job seems to promise.”
When an officer in the interview asked Dean if there was “a time to fight,” Dean said he would use force in self-defense or if there was an imminent threat. He also said he has a license to carry and always carries a firearm.
“The time to fight is certainly if I’m under, or someone I care about or I’m responsible for, is under imminent threat,” Dean said. “Absolutely if there is an imminent threat that I think it is necessary to defend myself, then that is absolutely the time to do so.”
As a follow-up question, an officer asked, “Will you be able to kill somebody if you have to?”
“No problem,” Dean answers quickly.
Dean, 32 at the time of his interview, told the panel of officers that he’d wanted to go into the military when he was a kid but never did.
In a May 2018 performance review, Dean’s supervisor said his report writing was good, but he had “tunnel vision” and missed calls for help over the radio. The supervisor said Dean “has poor communication skills” with the public and fellow officers.
Another review said when Dean forgot to do something, “rather than owning up to it, his responses are evasive and deflecting.”
However, in his most recent evaluation in April 2019, Dean was given high marks from his supervisor.
“You are a young officer working at a level commonly seen from more experienced officers,” the officer wrote. “Keep up the good work!”
According to his resume, Dean worked as a “design/test engineer for commercial refrigeration systems” before becoming a police officer.
Why hasn’t the trial already happened?
Aaron Dean’s trial on a murder charge was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and requests by the defense to push the trial date back.
In January, 297th District Court Judge David Hagerman rescheduled Dean’s murder trial for May 16. The trial was initially set to begin Jan. 10, but was rescheduled in December after Dean’s defense attorneys said expert witnesses would not be available to testify at that time. The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office filed a motion objecting to the May trial date and asked the trial be moved to March.
The prosecution argued in January, after Hagerman granted a request by the defense to push back the trial date, that doing so delayed justice that was already overdue.
Assistant Criminal District Attorney Dale Smith said at the hearing at which prosecutors asked the judge to set the trial date for March that “justice mandates balancing defendant’s need for his expert witnesses, while also minimizing the length of any further delay.”
“The four-month continuance granted by this court exceeds that which was required by defendant’s motion for continuance and unduly delays justice,” a motion from the prosecutors said.
Hagerman said the lengthy continuance was due to one of Dean’s attorney’s obligation to another murder trial in March.
What happens next?
Opening statements and testimony in the murder trial for Dean are expected to start May 16. According to court records, he will next appear in court for a pretrial hearing on May 2.
The first phase of the trial will be jury selection, starting May 9.
A motion to change the venue of the trial, requesting to move it somewhere else, could be considered at that time.
