texas

No Warrant Issued Yet for Officer Who Shot Botham Jean: Police Chief

Dallas Police Chief addressed the fatal officer-involved shooting at an event Saturday

While attending an event at Paul Quinn College Saturday afternoon, Dallas Chief of Police U. Renee Hall addressed the officer-involved shooting that took place Thursday night.

According to the chief, Amber Guyger, the officer who shot and killed 26-year-old Botham Shem Jean, is not being sought for arrest at this time.

After Texas Rangers were called in to investigate the shooting, they were able to make contact and interview Guyger, who Dallas police identified late Saturday, after which Rangers told police to "hold off" issuing a warrant for her arrest.

Chief Hall did not go into detail as to what lead to this conclusion.

"We are totally committed to getting to the bottom of this situation. This is a tragedy. Regardless of the circumstances, this is a tragedy on both sides. So we want to get to the bottom," Hall said. "It is extremely important to me that you as a community, as community leaders, trust me and trust my police officers. That is imperative to me."

Before addressing the officer-involved shooting, Chief Hall mentioned the rhetoric surrounding the relationship between law enforcement and the community has changed.

"Over the last, I don't know, decade or so, it feels as if the conversation has changed and we have switched from becoming the people you call when you want help to the people that you call the enemy," Hall said. So that is the biggest challenge that you face as a police chief. But whatever one police officer does, no matter what city it's in, every police officer has been labeled by that reputation."

"Don’t make your decisions about who the Dallas Police Department is, who the Chief of Police is, based on what you see across this country. Give me an opportunity to show you who I am and show you who the Dallas Police Department is in this leadership and then make a decision," she said. "There's so much rhetoric surrounding this incident, we have a lot of questions that are unanswered. Allow us to get to the bottom of those answers that we can get to you and then let's have a discussion."

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings spoke alongside Senator Royce West on Saturday.

Mayor Rawlings said he's been in touch with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and has met with Jean's family. He said he believes turning the investigation over to the Texas Rangers is the right thing to do. 

"For anyone that questions whether we’re going to get to the truth of this, there should be no doubters. We will find out exactly what happened," Mayor Rawlings said.

Senator West asked the Texas Rangers to leave no stone unturned.

NBC 5's Meredith Yeomans contributed to this report.

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