Jury selection has begun in the civil lawsuit against a former Dallas police officer who shot an unarmed man nine times.
The wrongful death lawsuit stems from a deadly encounter in October 2010, when Officer Matthew Tate shot Tobias Mackey in the breezeway of an apartment complex he was investigating for unrelated criminal activity.
Mackey was unarmed, but Dallas Police say he did not follow police orders to show his hands and made "aggressive gestures."
Officer Tate was not indicted by a grand jury, though he resigned from the police department.
While he was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing years ago, Tobias Mackey's family has refused to settle with the City of Dallas or Dallas Police Department, both named parties to the lawsuit.
The burden of proof is much lower in a civil trial than a criminal one. Jurors must weigh a "preponderance" of the evidence, meaning they decide which version of the truth is more likely than not.
The jury has not yet been fully seated. The process of voir dire, where lawyers representing both the City of Dallas and the Mackey family question jurors to whittle them down, is still going on.
The wrongful death trial at the Earl Cabell Federal Courthouse in Downtown Dallas is expected to last all week.
