Police officer arrested for killing man in flat she thought was hers

crime-scene-tape The police officer shot the man thinking there was an intruder in her house

An officer who entered an apartment mistaking it for her own and shot dead the black man living there was arrested on manslaughter charges. The Texas Department of Public Safety said that officer Amber Guyger was arrested and booked into county jail.

Late on Thursday, Guyger entered the apartment complex still wearing her uniform after her shift. Minutes later shots were fired, police said. Guyger called emergency services and told officers who arrived at the scene that she thought she had entered her own apartment.

The victim, an African-American, was identified as Botham Shem Jean, 26, an immigrant from the Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia.

Jean had graduated from a private Christian college in the state of Arkansas in 2016 and had since been working at the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dallas.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Guyger got off on the wrong floor of the building complex and approached an apartment exactly one floor above her own.

The door was unlocked and the lights were off and when Guyger saw a figure moving in the dark she pulled out her pistol and opened fire thinking it was an intruder, the newspaper reported.

Dallas police said that Guyger, 30, has been with the department for four years. Local reports said she was involved in an earlier shooting in May 2017.