Since the Black Lives Matter movement began in 2014, I’ve stood with hundreds of families impacted by police violence. With few exceptions, justice for them has been a fleeting mystery. The law is working against them. District attorneys are working against them. Bigotry and the undeserved esteem of law enforcement over everyday citizens is working against them. And yet, each new family whose loved one is mowed down in a hail of bullets hopes against hope that they will be different: that they will be the exception to the rule, and that they will be ones who finally get some tiny measure of justice.

Moments ago, that hope was just realized when Amber Guyger was found guilty for the murder of Botham Jean, who was killed by Guyger, a Dallas police officer at the time, when she entered his apartment and shot him dead. They were neighbors, and Guyger claimed she thought she had gone into her own apartment and that Jean was an intruder. No verdict balances the scales of what Jean’s family has suffered and lost, but this semblance of justice is both rare and necessary. It took not only a skilled team of organizers and activists, but a world-class legal team, a committed district attorney, a fair judge, and a racially diverse jury to get what so few families impacted by such violence ever do.

While activists and organizers are exhausted by the sheer volume of carnage and the subsequent denials of justice left in the wake of America’s police brutality crisis, it does not hit the same way for a family. They do not see their son or daughter, mother or father, their significant other as yet another hashtag or trending topic. They do not see them as a news story or viral video. While our first introduction to Tamir Rice or Philando Castile or John Crawford was their last moment alive, families have thousands of micro-memories to recall instead.

Each family seeks justice with a desperate zeal as if thousands of families before them were not denied that very same thing. They are not deterred by that stark reality and push forward with a singular, obsessed focus to hold someone responsible for the pain, loss, and trauma they caused. Such is the case for the family of Botham Jean, who was unarmed, nonviolent, and sitting on his couch eating ice cream when he was shot and killed in his own home by Amber Guyger. And such is the case for the family of Anthony Hill, also unarmed and nonviolent, when he was shot and killed by DeKalb County, Georgia, police officer Robert Olsen, after neighbors called 911 to get Hill medical assistance for what appeared to be a mental health emergency. Hill, a young veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was completely nude and was wandering aimlessly through his apartment complex.

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It has been months since off-duty Dallas police officer Amber Guyger walked into the apartment of Botham Jean and killed him. Since then, police have refused to release any pertinent details in regards to the case, including the 911 call made by Guyger after she killed Jean. However, WFAA news was somehow able to obtain a copy of that recording and it is now public.

Last week, after pressure from activists within the community, the Dallas police department finally fired Amber Guyger, citing ‘adverse conduct’ after she admitted to killing Botham Jean. While this is certainly a step forward, the way the city and the department are handling this case has been tainted from the beginning. Now, in yet another opaque moment of corruption, the department is refusing to release the 911 calls made by Guyger on the night she killed Jean.

After first claiming it was unable to do, Dallas P.D. has fired Amber Guyger, the officer who forced her way into a neighbor's apartment and killed him, supposedly under the impression that it was her home and that he was an intruder.

The case of Amber Guyger, the police officer who admitted to shooting 26-year-old Botham Jean in his apartment for no reason, is a glaring example of “blue privilege” at work in our society. Guyger claims that she accidentally entered the wrong apartment and shot a man who she thought was a burglar, however, eyewitness testimony has contradicted her initial statement. Despite admitting to killing an innocent man and having her initial statement contradicted by witness testimony, Guyger has been treated as more of a victim than a killer. In fact, Guyger’s apartment was never even searched for evidence, and she was allowed to “vacate” the premises without any type of search.

The Dallas Police on Thursday announced the findings of a search warrant they executed on the home of Botham Jean after he was gunned down in his apartment by one of their own. The department is now accused of trying to “smear” Jean by claiming they found a tiny bit of marijuana in his house—as if this justifies going into someone’s home and murdering them.