Hundreds of people on Sunday gathered for a candlelight vigil outside the home of a black Fort Worth, Texas, woman who was fatally shot by a white police officer during a welfare check, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The officer reportedly shouted through Atatiana Jefferson’s window early Saturday morning, telling her to put up her hands without identifying himself. He then fired, killing her in front of her nephew, the newspaper reported.
{mosads}“I’m asking you all to commit to staying in this fight until Fort Worth changes,” S. Lee Merritt, the Jefferson family’s attorney, said at the vigil, according to the Star-Telegram. “But it takes more than a speech or a march, or a week, or a month, or a year. We have to change the system internally.”
Community activist Cory Hughes similarly emphasized the need for continued activism.
“Our anger is short term, and by the time we stop being angry, there is another body that the police have put in the ground,” Hughes said, according to the newspaper.
Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price (R) also attended, saying that she was there to listen rather than speak. She later told reporters the city would hire a third-party agency to investigate the shooting.
The shooting comes in the wake of a similar high-profile Texas case: the fatal 2018 shooting of Botham Jean in his home by former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger.
Guyger was convicted of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison earlier this month.