Aaron Dean trial live updates: Day 2 in court case surrounding Atatiana Jefferson’s death kicks off Tuesday

FORT WORTH, Texas — On the first day of the murder trial of former Fort Worth officer Aaron Dean, Atatiana Jefferson’s nephew Zion Carr — who was inside his aunt’s home when she was killed on Oct. 12, 2019 — took the stand. 

Carr — now 11 years old, but just eight at the time of the shooting — was the first witness to take the stand in the three-years-in-the-making trial.

The jury heard opening statements from both the prosecution and the defense before Carr took the stand. 

“This is not a case about a drug deal gone bad, or a robbery. This is a case about a Fort Worth police officer — a stranger to Atatiana — who shot through the back of her bedroom window in the middle of the night when she was in her home and should’ve been safe. You are going to hear that this was an absolutely intentional act, an unjustifiable act that never should’ve happened,” said Tarrant County prosecutor Ashlea Deener. 

The defense had initially waived its option for an opening statement but later spoke to the jury. 

“This case is about facts, and not emotions,” said defense attorney Miles Brissette. “That gun was relevant. Everyone in Texas, everyone in the United States has the right to defend themselves in their home. This is a tragic accident. Tragically, Ms. Jefferson lost her life.”

Carr was playing video games with his aunt, Jefferson, on that night in 2019. A neighbor had called police to conduct a welfare check on Jefferson’s home after seeing a door open. Dean responded to the scene on an “open structure” call, arriving at the home at 2:29 a.m. 

During his testimony Monday, Carr was very calm, but struggled to remember details about the incident years ago. He said he doesn’t remember the sound of the gunshot that killed Jefferson, but does remember her falling. He also said he doesn’t like to talk about what happened with anyone. 

Court was in session for only half a day Monday, due to a funeral for one of Dean’s former attorneys, Jim Lane. Lane died last Sunday. 

A full day of testimony is expected when court resumes on Tuesday.

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.

Below, we’ll keep a timestamped, live tracker of what happens on the second day of the court proceedings.

2:29 p.m.: Judge Gallagher calls 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 asks 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 resumes after a lunch break. Officer Darch returns to the stand for defense cross-examination.

12:00 p.m.: After just a few cross-examination questions, Judge George Gallagher stops the defense so the court can break for lunch.

11:57 a.m.: Dean’s defense team is now cross-examining Darch and asking her to speak to the physical reactions the body undergoes in high-tension and critical situations, as 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 explains 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 say 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. Says Darch: “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 is now walking through photos of the interior of Jefferson’s  “messy” house, and explaining 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 is now showing maps and visuals of the neighborhood Jefferson lived in and asking Darch about the area.

10:15 a.m.: After about 45 minutes to an hour of testimony from Darch, the court appears to be taking a short, mid-morning recess before her cross-examination by the defense.

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.