Jury Selected for Murder Trial of Ex-Fort Worth Officer Aaron Dean

A jury has been seated in the trial of Aaron Dean, the ex-Fort Worth police officer charged with the murder of Atatiana Jefferson.

The jury of 12 people plus two alternates will include eight men and six women. The panel of jurors was finalized around 9:30 a.m. Friday following three full days of jury selection before Judge George Gallagher.

Dean will face trial for murder on Monday more than three years after shooting and killing Atatiana Jefferson through a window of her mother’s Fort Worth home. Dean was one of the officers who responded to the home in the early morning hours of Oct. 12, 2019 after Jefferson’s neighbor called the non-emergency line over an open door at the home.

On the night of the shooting, Jefferson was playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew, Zion Carr, who was the only witness inside the house.

According to the account Zion gave to a civilian forensic interviewer, Jefferson told Zion “that she heard noises coming from outside and she took her handgun from her purse.”

An affidavit for Dean’s arrest states, “Zion said, ‘Jefferson raised her handgun, pointed it toward the window, then Jefferson was shot and fell to the ground.’”

The original jury pool was about 200 people. Throughout the jury selection, several topics were discussed including the potential jurors’ feelings toward law enforcement and social justice movements.

The trial is scheduled to start on Monday morning, though Gallagher said it will be a half day due to the funeral of Jim Lane. Lane, who was the lead attorney for Dean, died Sunday.