A man is in his living room in Texas eating ice cream, and an off duty officer walks in and kills him. Thirteen months later a woman is in her living room in Texas playing video games with her eight year old nephew, and an on duty officer shoots her through her bedroom window. You know the first name. The second one is Atatiana Jefferson.

She was 28. She went to Xavier, she was pre med, she worked in HR, and she moved back home because her mother was sick and somebody had to do it. She and her nephew burned hamburgers and opened the doors to air out the smoke, and a neighbour called the non emergency line for a welfare check because he was worried about her. The officer did not knock, did not announce himself, and went into the backyard with a flashlight. She picked up a gun she legally owned and went to look out her own window.

The jury convicted him of manslaughter, not murder, and then chose a sentence of eleven years, ten months and twelve days. Ten. Twelve. October twelfth. They put the date she died inside his sentence.

This is all of the law, in two tracks kept apart on purpose. Why reckless and knowing are different crimes for the same act. How a lesser included offence handed him a middle option that Amber Guyger begged for and was denied. What qualified immunity actually is, and why clearly established means a right only exists once somebody has already lost a case about it. And what curtilage is, which is the most beautiful word in the Fourth Amendment and the most infuriating one in this episode.

In August the Fort Worth City Council voted unanimously to pay her family eleven and a quarter million dollars. Her sister said accountability has never been about a single verdict, sentence or settlement, and she is right, and that is where this ends.