Botham Jean

A striking display of compassion from the brother of a murder victim to his killer was, to some, a heart-wrenching example of empathy. But to others, it was a painful example of African Americans forced to respond to acts of violence with understanding, writes Barrett Holmes Pitner.

On Wednesday, former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, 31, who is white, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the murder of her neighbour Botham Jean, who was black. She will be eligible for parole in 5 years.

After less than 24 hours of deliberation, a Texas jury has spoken — its verdict stunning the senses. Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger has been found guilty of murder in the shooting death of Botham Jean. Both Guyger, 31, and Jean, 26, resided in the same apartment complex. When Guyger, still in uniform, returned home after completing her shift on Sept. 6, 2018, she mistakenly exited onto the wrong floor and found what she thought was her own apartment door ajar.

Earlier today, a Dallas jury convicted former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger of murder after she mistakenly entered the wrong apartment and shot dead its rightful occupant — a young black man named Botham Jean. The verdict came in spite of an incredibly puzzling jury instruction permitting Guyger to argue that Texas’s “Castle Doctrine” could apply to her actions.

The judge in the murder trial of Amber Guyger, the former Dallas police officer sentenced to 10 years for fatally shooting her neighbor, caused a stir Wednesday when she hugged the convicted killer after the sentencing.

While some praised the move as a demonstration of religious faith, others -- including former ESPN anchor Jemele Hill -- criticized the judge's action as "unacceptable."

Last September, one of Amber Guyger’s friends told her that she should adopt a German Shepherd—although the dog “may be racist,” the friend texted. “It’s okay.. I’m the same,” Guyger replied.

When a white ex-Dallas police officer recounted her thinking as she fired the two shots that killed an innocent black man in his own living room last year, she told a jury it was fear, not racism, that drove her to pull the trigger.

“This is not about hate,” she testified in court Friday. “It’s about being scared.”

The murder trial of a former Dallas cop who shot and killed her unarmed neighbor in his home last year ended in a dramatic gesture of forgiveness. The brother of the victim, Botham Jean, hugged former police officer Amber Guyger -- a gesture that brought even the judge to tears.

In an interview with CBS News' Omar Villafranca, the victim's mother, Allison Jean, said she was surprised by the moment her 18-year-old son Brandt offered forgiveness to his brother's killer.

DALLAS (AP) — The Latest on the trial of a former Dallas police officer convicted of murder in the shooting death of her neighbor inside his apartment (all times local):

10:15 p.m.

Dozens of protesters marched through parts of downtown Dallas to protest the 10-year sentence given to a white former police officer convicted of murder in the shooting death of her black neighbor.

The demonstrators Wednesday night sometimes blocked traffic on heavily traveled streets outside the courts building where Amber Guyger was sentenced and through the western section of downtown.

Amber Guyger, a former Dallas police officer who killed her unarmed black neighbor after stepping into his apartment and mistaking it for her own, has been sentenced to 10 years in state prison by the same jury that convicted her of murder.

"Your sentence will begin today," Judge Tammy Kemp told Guyger.

Guyger, who is white, fatally shot 26-year-old Botham Jean, an accountant from the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, who was watching television and eating a bowl of ice cream last year when Guyger fired two shots, striking him once in the chest.