By Lauren Sonnenberg | November 13, 2019 — When Botham Jean’s convicted killer was sentenced to 10 years in prison last month, the victim’s brother, Brandt Jean, offered his forgiveness in an emotional moment in the courtroom.
In one of last year’s most widely reported cases of police shootings of unarmed civilians, a white off-duty Dallas police officer named Amber Guyger mistakenly entered the apartment of Jean, a 26-year-old African-American accountant, and fatally shot him in the belief that he was an intruder.
Botham Jean. Courtesy Wikipedia
After the judge delivered her sentence, Jean’s brother hugged a tearful Guyger (she was also embraced by the judge) in what was a remarkable—and to many people, startling—example of establishing closure.
Some argue that moments like the one between Jean’s brother and the former police officer, in which a victim (or victim’s relative) and a perpetrator converse directly, are also an example of restorative justice—a concept advocates and some criminologists argue is a key way to remedy the harm done by criminal actions, as well as to heal communities and even reduce recidivism. READ FULL STORY