Neighbor who filmed wrong apartment shooting aftermath says she’s had death threats
(ABC NEWS) — The woman who filmed the aftermath of the shooting of Botham Jean — the man killed in his own apartment by former Dallas Police Officer Amber Guyger — said she has been receiving death threats and was fired from her job after she uploaded the video to social media.
The video shows an apparently distressed Guyger, still in her police uniform, talking on her phone as she paces back-and-forth outside Jean’s apartment on Sept. 6. The neighbor who took it, who only wished to be identified by the name “Bunny,” said in an interview published on Jan. 20 on YouTube by the Advise Media Network that she began recording about 60 seconds after hearing two gunshots and hearing a male voice saying, “Oh my God. Why did you do that?”
Bunny says she didn’t plan on uploading the video at first, but in the days after the shooting, she saw reports that contradicted what was on the video she took on her phone.
Jean, 26, lived on the fourth floor of the Southside Flats apartments in Dallas, according to an arrest warrant filed in September. Guyger, who lived directly below Jean on the third floor, said she parked on the fourth floor and walked down the hallway to what she “thought was her apartment,” the warrant stated.
Bunny cast doubt in the interview on Guyger’s explanation, saying that she “would have had to walk down two pretty long hallways to get to his door,” and would have passed “plenty” of signage to indicate which floor she was on.
The neighbor also argued that the apartments are equipped with fire safety front doors that “shut as soon as your release them,” saying that it was unlikely that Jean’s door was ajar when Guyger approached it.
When Guyger entered the apartment, she saw a “large silhouette” in the dark and shot Jean, thinking he was a burglar, according to her arrest warrant. She was off duty and not wearing a body camera at the time because it had been left at the station, per police protocol.
Filming from a lower floor through the staircase railings, Bunny said in her interview that it sounded as if Guyger was making a personal call — rather than to 911 — as she frantically walked around the hallway outside Jean’s apartment. She added that it appeared Guyger did not attempt to render aid to Jean.
“It was just a lot of crying, a lot of hysterics,” Bunny said. “She was just pacing back-and-forth for at least seven minutes, according to my video.”
Police said after the shooting that Guyger called 911 for help, and the responding officers administered aid to Jean at the scene.
Once police arrived on the scene, one of the officers told Guyger that she was “doing too much” and another took her cell phone from her, Bunny said. The investigators then took Guyger back to the scene, Bunny added.
Jean was then taken to a local hospital where he later died, police said.
Bunny said she gave the video to the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors did not offer a comment to ABC News due to a gag order on the case.
The harassment began shortly after Bunny uploaded the video to social media, she said.
“I did get a few threats from people saying they weren’t gonna leave any witnesses behind, telling me I need to watch my back, things like that,” she said.
Trolls also found the name of the pharmaceutical company where Bunny worked and began harassing the company by phone, email and posting to its Facebook page, saying she was a “radical,” “anti-police” and “a black extremist,” she said.
Bunny said her employer let her go, explaining that they “didn’t want their company associated with a high-profile case.” When she threatened to go to the media, they then “took it a step further” and blacklisted her credentials, which she said they were able to do because she earned the credentials while working for them.
Bunny did not reveal the name of the company because she is in the process of appealing the blacklisting of her credentials, she said. ABC News could not independently confirm her claims that she was fired, or, if so, why.
While Bunny said she would only interact with Jean — who worked at multinational professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers — in passing, in the interview she described him as “very, very friendly” and said that he “seemed to have good energy about himself and be in good spirits.”
Guyger, 30, was fired on Sept. 24 after an internal affairs investigation found that she “engaged in adverse conduct” when she fatally shot Jean, according to an email sent by Dallas Police Chief Rene Hall that day. She was indicted on a murder charge on Nov. 30.
Guyger’s attorney, Robert Rogers, told ABC News he is prohibited on commenting on the case due to a gag order. A hearing for Guyger scheduled for Tuesday has been reset for a later date.
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