FORT WORTH, Texas — Tuesday saw an array of witnesses from the prosecution that included a Fort Worth police officer, a former 911 call taker and the neighbor who called police to check on Atatiana Jefferson's home the night she died.
On the second day of the murder trial for former Fort Worth officer Aaron Dean, the prosecution called on Dean's former partner Carol Darch to revisit what happened that night and if they followed protocol when responding to the "open structure call."
The person who initiated that call, former 911 call taker Abriel Talbert, also took the stand Tuesday and described why she input that call as an "open structure call" and not a welfare check, which Jefferson's neighbor James Smith had made that evening.
Find all the updates from today's day in court below. Court will resume Wednesday morning.
WFAA will stream the trial on multiple platforms -- including WFAA+, YouTube and wfaa.com. (WFAA+ is available on Roku and Amazon Fire.)
You can also watch it in the below embed.
4:17 p.m.: Judge Gallagher dismissed the jury for the day. Court will resume Wednesday morning.
4:16 p.m.: Smith wrapped up his testimony Tuesday afternoon.
3:55 p.m.: The prosecution played Smith's call to the non-emergency line for the jury. In the call, Smith said Jefferson's door had been open since 10 p.m. and that he wasn't sure if anyone was inside the home at the time. He told the call-taker that his neighbors were usually home at that time, but the door was open.
3:53 p.m.: Smith said he was concerned about his neighbors after seeing a door open at Jefferson's home. He testified that he crossed the street to investigate but didn't see any activity near the vehicles or in the house. He returned to his home and then called the police.
3:35 p.m.: James Smith took the stand. Smith is the neighbor who called the city's non-emergency line to check on Jefferson's home before the deadly shooting. Smith had called the non-emergency line for a welfare check on Jefferson's home, but officers responded to an "open structure call."
3:34 p.m.: Talbert was mostly asked about the difference between an open structure call and a welfare check before she finished testimony shortly after 3:30 p.m.
Talbert explained that there's no way for officers to see if a call is an emergency or non-emergency and she felt the call needed an "open structure" label, not "welfare check"
2:55 p.m.: Abriel Talbert took the stand. Talbert was the call taker who took the call from Jefferson's neighbor, James Smith. Talbert was a dispatcher with the City of Fort Worth for three years.
2:29 p.m.: Judge Gallagher called for a brief break after the defense and prosecution said they are done with questioning Darch. Darch's testimony lasted about four hours.
2:15 p.m.: The prosecution asked Darch again about why she and Dean thought the Jefferson home was burglarized. Darch said she had thought the home had been burglarized due to seeing cabinets being opened. Darch, again, described the home as messy, which is why she had initially thought it had been ransacked.
2:08 p.m.: The defense passed Darch back to the state for questioning.
1:36 p.m.: During cross-examination, the defense asked Darch to describe the call they were responding to, an "open structure" call, not a welfare check like the neighbor had initially called in. Darch described what an "open structure" call is, stating that officers are trained to respond to those calls as a "silent alarm."
1:20 p.m.: Darch was asked about the training she received in regard to the use of force and the "pyramid" style "Use-of-Force Continuum." Deadly force is at the top of the pyramid.
1:18 p.m.: Dean's defense team asked Darch about her uniform. At the moment of the shooting, the defense asks who's badge witness Zion Carr likely would have seen through the window. Darch answered Dean's.
1:04 p.m.: Court resumed after a lunch break. Officer Darch returned to the stand for defense cross-examination.
12:00 p.m.: After just a few cross-examination questions, Judge George Gallagher stopped the defense so the court can break for lunch.
11:57 a.m.: Dean's defense team began cross-examining Darch and asked her to speak to the physical reactions the body undergoes in high-tension and critical situations, per her training.
11:53 a.m.: After a short recess, Darch is back on the stand for a few final questions from the prosecution.
11:45 a.m.: Darch says she never saw Jefferson's gun on the scene and never heard Dean announce seeing a gun himself. After testifying to that, and how often she thinks about Zion Carr's well-being, Darch asked the judge for a minute to compose herself. The judge granted a recess.
11:37 a.m.: Asked what happened immediately after the shooting, Darch says she encountered then 8-year-old Zion Carr: "As soon as I came through the door, I heard the baby and that became my sole focus.” She says she tended to Carr as other officers who arrived on the scene performed life-saving procedures to Jefferson's body. She says Dean did not perform life-saving measures. She also notes that Dean muted his bodycam, but did note know why. She says internal affairs then arrived on the scene to interview her and Dean, per protocol.
11:25 a.m. The prosecution is now, for the first time this trial, playing in court Dean's bodycam footage from the night of the shooting.
11:22 a.m.: While on the stand, Darch explained that she and Dean did not park their police car in front of Jefferson's home or verbally announce their presence on the property because of "open structure" call procedures, which state police should not alert a potential burglar to their being there and give them time to escape. She then describes the moment when she and Dean encountered Jefferson -- and specifically when she heard Dean start to give commands to a person on the property. Darch said: "I heard him give commands, I started turning. I was halfway through my turn and I heard the shot." Asked what she saw when she turned around, Darch says she saw Dean and, over his right shoulder, what she later learned to be Jefferson's face in the window. "The only thing I could see was eyes, really. I couldn't make out if it was a male or a female. I just saw someone in the window and I saw their eyes -- as big as saucers."
11:03 a.m.: Darch walked through photos of the interior of Jefferson's "messy" house, and explained why she and Dean believed it looked like someone had "gone through the house, looking for something" on the night of the shooting.
10:41 a.m.: Court returned to session at 10:30 a.m. Deener showed maps and visuals of the neighborhood Jefferson lived in and asked Darch about the area.
10:15 a.m.: After about 45 minutes to an hour of testimony from Darch, the court appeared to be taking a short, mid-morning recess before her cross-examination by the defense.
9:51 a.m.: Darch was asked by Tarrant County prosecutor Ashlea Deener to detail her training as a young Fort Worth police officer alongside Dean, and how she ended up on the beat on the east side of the city. She described the area to which she and Dean has been assigned as "high crime," and said that she'd been working without training and supervision for only a few weeks before the shooting at Jefferson's home. Also notable: Darch said her body camera went missing on the night of the shooting.
9:27 a.m.: Officer Carol Darch, Aaron Dean's former partner in the Fort Worth Police Department, took the stand. Along with Carr, Darch is the only other direct witness to the shooting outside of Dean.
9:10 a.m.: After a first day in court that revolved around the testimony of Atatiana Jefferson nephew Zion Carr's eyewitness account of what happened on the night his aunt was killed in her home, the second day in the Aaron Dean trial is again starting off focused on what the young boy saw on Oct. 12, 2019. To begin the day, the prosecution has entered into evidence an interview with Carr -- then 8 years old, now 11 -- that was recorded in the immediate aftermath of his aunt's death. The entire video is being played before the court.
9:51 a.m.: Darch is being asked by Tarrant County prosecutor Ashlea Deener to detail her training as a young Fort Worth police officer alongside Dean, and how she ended up on the beat on the east side of the city. She describes the area to which she and Dean has been assigned as "high crime," and said that she'd been working without training and supervision for only few weeks before the shooting at Jefferson's home. Also notable: Darch said her body camera went missing on the night of the shooting.
9:27 a.m.: Officer Carol Darch, Aaron Dean's former partner on the Fort Worth Police Department, has taken the stand. Along with Carr, Darch is the only other direct witness to the shooting outside of Dean.
9:10 a.m.: After a first day in court that revolved around the testimony of Atatiana Jefferson nephew Zion Carr's eyewitness account of what happened on the night his aunt was killed in her home, the second day in the Aaron Dean trial is again starting off focused on what the young boy saw on Oct. 12, 2019. To begin the day, the prosecution has entered into evidence an interview with Carr -- then 8 years old, now 11 -- that was recorded in the immediate aftermath of his aunt's death. The entire video is being played before the court.