Botham Jean, 26, was shot dead by a white officer on Thursday who said she mistook his apartment for her own

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The mother of a black man who was shot dead at his home by a white Dallas police officer who said she mistook his apartment for her own has suggested her son might still be alive if he were white.

Dallas police officer shoots neighbor dead after entering wrong apartment Read more

Allison Jean, the mother of 26-year-old Botham Jean, wondered if race was a factor when the officer shot and killed her son after she returned home in uniform from her shift on Thursday night.

“I didn’t know she was white until now,” Jean said in footage broadcast by Dallas NBC affiliate KXAS. “If it was a white man would it have been different? Would she have reacted differently?”

Authorities have said the officer is white, but have not released her name or other details about her.

Dallas police chief U Renee Hall said on Saturday a warrant for manslaughter, which she said on Friday would be forthcoming, had not yet been issued because the Texas Rangers had asked her department to wait.

Hall spoke during a panel discussion livestreamed on Facebook by TV station WFAA. The state investigators, she said, said they needed more time to investigate.

“The ball is in their court,” Hall said. She acknowledged that many questions remain about the shooting and asked the public to give investigators enough time to get to the answers.

The Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Texas Rangers, did not immediately reply to a Saturday phone message seeking comment.

A police spokeswoman, Debra Webb, said she did not have further information on the case, including when the officer would be booked into jail.

Allison Jean, who has held government posts in St Lucia, where she lives and where her son grew up, said her son’s death “just feels like a nightmare”.

In St Lucia, government leaders said the death of Botham Jean came as a “shock” and that embassy officials in the US would provide assistance to the victim’s family.

Botham Jean attended Harding University in Arkansas and after graduating in 2016 had been living and working in Dallas at the accounting and consulting firm PwC. The private school said on Friday that he often led campus worship services while he was a student.