There’s been much controversy surrounding former Dallas Cop Amber Guyger’s recent trial. And now things have taken a turn for the worse since Joshua Brown—a key witness in the case, who recollected the fatal shooting of Botham Jean at his apartment complex— has been murdered this past weekend on Friday night (Oct. 3).
Brown was shot to death in the parking lot of his apartment complex. Prior to his killing, much outraged had ensued after Guyger’s ten-year sentence became public and images of Jean’s family members hugging Guyger circulated online. Many felt she didn’t deserve forgiveness, and that black people shouldn’t continually forgive their oppressors as they’ve done in the past.
Nicki Minaj echoed these sentiments on Twitter, where she expressed her thoughts on the situation.
I wonder if they were hugging on him after he got off that stand the way they were all boo hoo cryin, hugging on the murderer. Talk about a slap in the face. Go hug on his fatherless child now. He should’ve let y’all suffer & minded his business. This is heartbreaking. RIP 🙏🏽 https://t.co/6nNRB72FJA
— Mrs. Petty (@NICKIMINAJ) October 8, 2019
Similarly in an op-ed on CNN, Jill Filipovic expressed her concern over Guyger’s anemic sentence and related it to a corrupt justice system that doesn’t place value on black lives, but furthermore, measures punishment by personal morality but doesn’t include racism against black people.
“Would the death of an innocent black man at the hands of an overzealous, trigger-happy cop been enough for a conviction if the jury hadn’t seen Guyger through the lens of a particularly objectionable woman? We can’t know,” Filipovic writes.
“If the jury harbored personal dislike of Guyger over her affair with a married man, and this helped tip the scales (and it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened) — it would indeed be a sad statement on the value so many Americans place on black lives,” she continued.
