The Dallas woman who filmed Botham Jean’s last moments alive fears for her life after the apparent assassination of key trial witness Joshua Brown.
Brown, 28, was gunned down on Friday night by an unknown assailant after he exited his car at his apartment complex, about 6 miles from the South Side Flats apartments where he previously lived across the hall from Jean.
Joshua Brown, a neighbor of Botham Jean and a witness for the prosecution against @DallasPD officer Amber Guyger, was gunned down at his apartment complex. His family deserves an independent investigation. #Justice4JoshuaBrown pic.twitter.com/CilHmG6qhE
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) October 6, 2019
There are growing fears for the woman who filmed Jean dying after he was shot by former Dallas cop Amber Guyger in his own apartment.
Ronnie Babbs, who also goes by “Bunny”, was a neighbor of Jean’s, who filmed the aftermath of the shooting from a lower staircase. She said she hadn’t planned to upload the video to social media, but she changed her mind after seeing news reports that contradicted with what she filmed.
Babbs told the Advise Media Network in January, that she began filming the scene after hearing 2 gunshots and a man’s voice saying, “Oh my God. Why did you do that?”
“It was just a lot of crying, a lot of hysterics,” Babbs said. “[Guyger] was just pacing back and forth for at least seven minutes, according to my video.”
She also captured footage of paramedics rushing Jean down the hall on a gurney.
Babbs said she’s received death threats and she was fired from her job at a pharmaceutical company after speaking out about the Jean shooting.
She said her employer accused her of “radical, anti-police” behavior before they “blacklisted” her.
She created a GoFundMe account that raised over $65,000 in donations.
“I was brave enough to come forward with information that has helped the DA charge a police officer who murdered an innocent black man in his own home when nobody else would,” Babbs wrote on the fundraising page, according to The Dallas Morning News. “I was hesitant as I knew the consequences could affect me greatly. I put my own life at risk and decided to help.”
Babbs originally planned to write a book about her experiences. Now she says she is taking classes to own her own pharmacy.
During her testimony in court Babbs dismissed concerns that her GoFundMe donations damaged her credibility.
“There are obviously major red flags any time a witness uses a connection to a legal proceeding as a platform to openly solicit donations,” Dallas defense attorney Chris Knox told the Morning News.
Guyger is serving a 10-year prison sentence at the maximum security Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, about 120 miles southwest of Dallas. A new mugshot of the 31-year-old former cop was released by the Texas Department of Corrections on Tuesday.
