via Malmstrom
The Amber Guyger trial pushed a slew of details about her personal and professional life into public view. Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of this case, though, is the relationship between her and her former police partner, Officer Martin Rivera.
It was quickly revealed that Guyger and Rivera’s relationship went far beyond the bounds of professionalism. The two were involved in an ongoing affair. In fact, on the night Guyger killed Botham Jean, the police partners shared an intimate exchange of text messages. However, details of their text thread are murky to some extent, partially because Rivera deleted the messages from his phone after the killing, leaving many questioning his integrity.
Guyger also sent texts where she made several remarks about Black people leading up to her killing of Botham Jean.
CBS 11 reported that Guyger shared “racially insensitive text messages… with other officers – including her former partner and extramarital lover Sgt. Martin Rivera.” One of the messages referenced during the trial was about the 2018 Martin Luther King Day parade. When one of Guyger’s coworkers asked, “When does this end lol,” Guyger responded with a text message that stated: “When MLK is dead… oh wait…”
The Texas Tribune revealed other texts from March 9, 2018, which exposed her and her partner’s perspective on the work ethic of Black coworkers:
Rivera: Damn I was at this area with 5 different black officers !!!
Rivera: Not racist but damn.
Guyger: Not racist but just have a different way of working and it shows.
Rivera’s participation in such racist exchanges via text led to many critiques of him and his troubling past.
Rivera has had encounters with race and policing before. Local activists and family members are calling for the reopening of a case where he killed an unarmed Black man. The Dallas News stated that “[o]n March 22, 2007, Rivera shot 20-year-old Brandon Washington outside a Pleasant Grove convenience store, where the man was eating an allegedly stolen candy bar.” Rivera, having been on the force well over a decade, kept his job after killing the unarmed young man.
Guyger’s partner and the relationship they shared with race only served to reinforce the points that many made during her trial. The narrative that the shooting of Botham Jean was completely an accident was compromised by the evidence presented.
Aside from being partners on the job, now both Guyger and her former partner share the experience of having killed unarmed Black men. This fact is one that will stain any relationship law enforcement claims to want with the Black community in Dallas.