Texas man’s shooting by police overshadowed despite momentum
DALLAS — It was the kind of shooting that had spurred national interest before: A police officer had opened fire into a vehicle, leaving a black man dead.
For residents in the Dallas area, the Sept. 1 killing of 24-year-old O’Shae Terry in Arlington brought to mind the shooting of Jordan Edwards in another Texas city last year. The 15-year-old Edwards and four other black teenagers were in a car and leaving a house party in Balch Springs when a white officer shot into the moving vehicle, killing the high school freshman who was in the front passenger seat.
The officer was fired and, in a rare move, convicted of murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The shooting, like Terry’s, highlighted a use-of-force tactic that law enforcement experts say is dangerous: firing into a moving vehicle.
Five days after Terry’s shooting, police released footage and the case was starting to gain momentum. But hours after the video images of Terry’s fatal traffic stop made headlines, attention was already turning to the Sept. 6 shooting of another black man, 26-year-old Botham Jean, a St. Lucia native killed by a white off-duty officer who lived in the same Dallas apartment complex as him.