A portion of a street in Dallas will be named after a Harding University graduate who was shot and killed inside his apartment by a Dallas police officer in 2018.
The Dallas City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved renaming South Lamar Street between Interstate 30 and South Central Expressway as Botham Jean Boulevard.
The stretch of Lamar Street that will be renamed is directly in front of the apartments where Jean was killed. It also runs in front of police headquarters.
Jean, a 26-year-old Black man, was killed Sept. 6, 2018, when Amber Guyger, a white police officer, mistakenly entered his apartment after returning home from her shift and shot Jean. He was watching television and eating ice cream at the time.
The shooting and subsequent trial drew national attention because of the circumstances surrounding Jean's death and because it was among a growing number of shootings of unarmed Black men by white police officers that have fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.
Guyger, 32, testified that she thought Jean was an intruder in her apartment. Her apartment, however, was on another floor in the building.
She was fired and charged with murder. Guyger was convicted last year and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In 2019, a federal judge ruled that Dallas was not liable for Guyger's off-duty shooting, dismissing the city from a lawsuit filed by Jean's family.
Jean's mother, Allison Jean, spoke to the City Council on Wednesday using a video streaming service and mentioned how much her son loved Dallas.
"The petition to rename Lamar Street to Botham Jean Boulevard is a small but meaningful gesture in honor of someone who loved Dallas, but yet was taken away in the most brutal way imaginable," she said. "One wish of ours is that Botham's name will be remembered and never, ever forgotten.
"The renaming of Lamar Street is one way for this wish to be honored. This street where he chose to lie, and the street where he died, will serve as a lasting memory of the upstanding resident who loved Dallas so much."
The vote to rename the stretch of South Lamar Street came after more than 90 minutes of public testimony and discussion by the City Council, The Dallas Morning News reported.
"I'm imploring this council to seriously think about the message we want to send as a city by letting this come up to the point of actually voting on this, having this family participating in this process, and putting that family through any more pain than they've been through," Mayor Eric Johnson said before the 15-0 vote.
Members of the Texas Legislature also spoke and voiced support for renaming the street.
"It's not lost on us that the street that Botham lived on was also the same street law enforcement has their headquarters," Texas state Rep. Jasmine Crockett said.
Jean was from the Caribbean nation of Saint Lucia and graduated in 2016 from Harding University in Searcy with a double major in accounting and information systems. University officials described Jean as a bright student who had interned with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dallas before taking a job there after graduation.
He was well-known around the university and involved with many groups and activities on campus, including the Good News Singers, a performance group that served as university ambassadors, who travel and help recruit students.
Allison Jean told City Council members Wednesday that her son went to lengths to avoid being mistaken for a thug because of previous shootings of Black men and women at the hands of the police. She said he made sure his vehicle was in good condition, that his registration was correct and that he dressed nice.
"It was for some of these reasons that the pain of losing Botham at the hands of a police officer hurts so much," she said. "He was well aware of the experiences of his Black brothers and did all he could to avoid falling into their fates. However, his family trusts in the Lord's power and is trying to move from the hurt and pain to new horizons."
Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press.