This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and TMN. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’s communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
By Everton Bailey Jr.
Dallas Morning News Writer
The Dallas City Council on Wednesday [January 13th] unanimously approved renaming about four miles of South Lamar Street in memory of Botham Jean. He was shot to death in his apartment on that street when a former Dallas police officer mistook it for her own.
The vote came after more than an hour-and-a-half of public testimony and council discussion, mostly in favor of the proposed Botham Jean Boulevard. Several members, including Mayor Eric Johnson, urged colleagues to agree to the street name change after several council members had wanted to delay the vote.
“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,” Johnson said before the 15-0 vote.
