Botham Jean's Murder, Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz

Down in Texas, Congressman Beto O’Rourke is running for Senate against Ted Cruz.

O’Rourke has said he supports firing Dallas police officer Amber Guyger after she entered the wrong apartment and killed Botham Jean, an innocent man. He agrees with calls by Jean’s family, and many others in Dallas, that should be fired:

“There has to be a full accounting for how young black men continue to be killed in this country without accountability, without justice, without these full investigations, without respecting their civil rights. This cannot continue.”

Ted Cruz had a different response; he says people are rushing to judgment on the case and that O’Rourke and Democrats were “quick to always blame the police officer”:

“It may well be that two lives were destroyed that night. That obviously the individual that was at home in his apartment and found himself murdered — that is horrific and a nightmare.”

Yes, he said that Botham Jean—and he cannot even say the man’s name—“found himself murdered.” And then he claims that Amber Guyger’s life was also destroyed that night except that Guyger is still alive; the only thing she ruined is her career, except Cruz doesn’t think she should be fired for entering an apartment she thought was hers and then murdering the occupant of that apartment and then taking three days to get her story straight.

Let’s make this perfectly queer for Ted … according to Guyger’s own account, she came home on September 6 after a long shift and didn’t know that she’s gotten off on the wrong floor of her building and that the apartment she entered was in was not hers and instantly began shooting at the “large silhouette” in the darkened room. When she turned on the lights in the apartment, she realized her mistake.

Mistake?

Botham Jean’s family disputes that account, saying Guyger should have noticed obvious signs that she was in the wrong apartment on the wrong floor; in addition, witnesses say they heard her knocking on Jean’s door and yelling.

But still, in America in 2018, Amber Guyger, after shooting an innocent man in his own home, is the victim in all of this for people like Ted Cruz, and Botham jean is simply the man who “found himself murdered.”

That’s it in a nutshell Texas; do you want a senator who sees this shooing as disturbing, as something that needs to stop, or do you want a senator who blames the real victim for being gunned down in his own home, and then calls the shooter a victim. Do you want another police officer going unpunished for a fatal shooting?

Vox