Amber Guyger trial live stream: Watch as Dallas officer who shot neighbor testifies today: "I was scared he was going to kill me" – CBS News

The former Dallas police officer standing trial for murder in the shooting death of her neighbor broke down in tears as she testified in her own defense Friday morning. Amber Guyger began crying and trembling as she recalled approaching her neighbor Botham Jean’s door before fatally shooting him.

Guyger has said she thought Jean’s apartment was her own when she opened his door and shot him, mistaking him for a burglar. After an attorney prompted her to come down from the stand to demonstrate how she opened Jean’s door, Guyger began sobbing uncontrollably, prompting a judge to call a brief recess. 

Taking the stand just before 9 a.m., Guyger admitted she had exchanged explicit texts with her Dallas police partner, Martin Rivera, the day she shot Jean. She said she was on the phone with Rivera when she drove to what she said she believed was the third floor of her apartment building and parked. Guyger had actually parked on the building’s fourth floor, where Jean lived. She testified the levels of the parking garage were not clearly marked.

Guyger denied that she had plans to meet Rivera at her apartment that night, as the prosecution had suggested in opening arguments.She said Rivera had never been to her apartment. Rivera, she said, typically called her, but she never called him because “I knew it was wrong and I never knew where he was.”

When a defense attorney asked whether Rivera was married, she replied, “Yes.”

When court resumed, Guyger appeared composed. She testified that she returned to what she thought was her own apartment to find the door ajar and heard “shuffling,” and felt “pure fear” because she thought an intruder was inside. She said she opened the door and saw a “silhouette” approaching her. She said she yelled “Show me your hands” twice and opened fire because the figure was “coming at me” and she couldn’t see his hands.

“I was scared he was going to kill me,” Guyger said.

Later, she began sobbing again when she was asked to describe how she felt about shooting Jean.

“I feel like a terrible person. I feel like a piece of crap,” Guyger said. “I hate that I have to live with this every single day of my life.”

Guyger said she’s asked God for forgiveness and said she feels like she doesn’t deserve to be with her family and friends.

“I wish I was the one with the gun and he killed me,” Guyger said through tears. “I never wanted to take an innocent person’s life.”

Opening statements launched in Guyger’s trial Monday. Prosecutors have argued that Guyger made a series of “unreasonable errors” and worried more about how the incident would affect her than about the man she shot.

Watch Guyger’s testimony in the player above.