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Trial of Dallas officer set to start Aug. 12

Former Dallas Police officer Amber Guyger walks the hallway on her third court appearance at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas on Monday, March 18, 2019. Guyger is charged with murder in the September 2018 shooting death of Botham Jean, an unarmed black man who she fatally shot after entering his apartment. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

DALLAS — A date has been set for the murder trial of a white former Dallas police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man in his own apartment.

Court records show that Amber Guyger is scheduled to begin a jury trial on Monday, Aug. 12, less than a year after she shot Botham Jean, whose apartment she says she mistook for her own.

Guyger was arrested on a manslaughter charge three days after the Sept. 6 shooting of her neighbour, a 26-year-old native of the Caribbean island of St. Lucia who worked in Dallas for an accounting and consulting firm.

The case drew national attention and the initial charge was criticized as being lenient. Guyger was fired from the Dallas Police Department later in September. A grand jury indicted her for murder in November.

The Associated Press