Hundreds of mourners arrived Thursday in Texas for the emotional funeral of Botham Jean, the black man who was killed by a white female cop in his own apartment last week.
Emotional family, friends and members of the community gathered to pay their respects to Jean, who was just 26-years-old when he was fatally shot by Dallas cop Amber Guyger on September 6.
Visitation began at 10am local time with funeral services to begin around noon. The words ‘going home’ were embroidered into the lining of Jean’s coffin, according to Dallas News.
Mourners filed past Jean’s casket at the Greenville Avenue Church of Christ in Richardson, while a slide show of his life was played.
A bus was provided from Harding University, about five hours away in Arkansas, where Jean attended school.
Students and alumni packed the bus to honor their friend who was a native of Saint Lucia.
Guyger, 30, lived a floor beneath Jean and claims that she mistakenly went to his apartment thinking it was hers. She told police that when she arrived at the front door, it was ajar and the lights inside were off. She says that she went inside , saw a ‘dark silhouette’, gave verbal commands then shot the man, thinking he was an intruder.
But Jean’s family say her story is full of holes.
Heartbreaking: Brandt Jean, Botham Jean’s brother cries as he arrives for his sibling’s funeral with his mother, Allison Jean
The devastated family of Botham Jean who was shot and killed by Dallas police officer Amber Guyger arrive for his funeral at the Greenville Avenue Church of Christ in Richardson, TX
Support: Botham’s sister, Allisa Charles-Findley, is seen left as she arrives at the funeral for her brother
Visitation began at 10am local time with funeral services to begin around noon. The words ‘going home’ were embroidered into the lining of Jean’s coffin. Family and friends are pictured above arriving
Jean’s funeral was held at the Greenville Avenue Church of Christ in Richardson, to accommodate the large number of mourners
Botham Jean’s family say he had never met cop Amber Guyger before she shot him dead on Thursday in his apartment
They say that the banking associate was afraid of the dark and would never have had all his lights off inside.
They also say he would not have kept his door ajar because it was unsafe, and point out that he had a red doormat at the front of his apartment which would have been impossible for the cop not to spot and realize she was in the wrong place.
‘He made sure to let everyone know this is mine – it’s my red carpet,’ his mother said.
Botham’s family say the cop should also have known that it wasn’t her apartment because of his red doormat (above)
They also revealed on Wednesday that Jean, who moved to the US from his native St Lucia in 2011 to attend college, was terrified of being racially profiled as a black man living in Texas.
‘He said to me as a black man in Dallas, you don’t walk with your hands in your pockets.
‘Just so you don’t get any profiling,’ his teenager brother Brandt told CBS this week.
Jean’s mother, Allison, said he would never have sat at home in the dark.
‘To hear that his door was open, he would never — and have the lights off — he would never do that.
‘He was like me. He does not like the dark.’
Witnesses have told the family’s lawyer that seconds before they heard Guyger firing her weapon, they heard a woman in the hallway pounding on his door and yelling: ‘Let me in, let me in!’
After the shots, another person said they heard a man cry out: ‘Oh my God, why did you do this?’
The witness believes those may have been Jean’s last words.
Guyger called 911 immediately and was seen pacing up and down the hallway in her cop uniform while making the call.
Jean was taken to hospital but was pronounce dead afterwards.
It took three days for police to arrest Guyger. She was booked into jail on Sunday on a manslaughter charge and was bailed out by an attorney on a $300,000 bond.
The funeral service program is seen above. Guyger, 30, lived a floor beneath Jean and claims that she mistakenly went to his apartment thinking it was hers
Since then, she has said nothing. The District Attorney is weighing up whether to increase the charge to murder.
In the meantime, her family have been forced to deny accusations that they are racist.
The claims emerged when a photograph of Guyger with a relative surfaced in which the man is making a hand gesture.
Some said he was spelling out the letters ‘W’ and ‘P’ – for white power. In another image, the cop is pictured with a woman wearing an ‘All Lives Matter’ shirt.