NFL releases PSA honoring the life of Botham Jean

The NFL has released a PSA (public service announcement) honoring the life of Botham Jean ahead of the Superbowl.

He was a victim of gun violence

Jean was unarmed when he was shot in his own apartment in 2018 by Amber Guyger, a former Dallas police officer who was also Jean’s neighbor.

Guyger, who lived on the floor below Jean, testified that she had mistakenly entered Jean’s apartment, thought Jean was a burglar and shot him in the chest.

She was convicted of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison earlier this year.

Jean a St. Lucia native and an accountant, was 26 years old when he died.

NFL PSA Honoring Botham Jean

The PSA, part of The Responsibility Program, an initiative created by the NFL and Jay-z’s Roc Nation in 2019, shows the impact of Botham’s death through his family’s perspective.

“Botham was everything to us,” Bertram Jean, Botham’s father, said. “I look forward to the day Botham would have gotten married, having kids. Life is not sweet anymore.”

“It’s important for them, for people to understand that although he was killed, his legacy lives on,” Botham’s family attorney Lee Merritt told The Dallas Morning News. “He continues to influence the world. The impact that he made on people in his 26 years continues to have ripple effects today.”

Merritt said, at first, the family was reluctant to work with the NFL due to the controversy surrounding former quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who was blackballed from the league when he started kneeling during the national anthem to protest police violence and racism in the United States.

But The Jeans eventually came around after seeing how well the PSA honoring Botham turned out, the attorney said.

“Since then, the NFL has worked to see what they could do to try to right their wrongs,” Merritt told the newspaper. “This is not the compromise I was hoping for. I was hoping that the players would be released to resume their on-the-field protest. But this is a step in the right direction.”

The video opens on a photo of Botham Jean smiling alongside his mother, Allison Jean.

“Botham Jean is my son,” she says. “He is an active child. He is the light in any dark room.”

His sister, Allisa Findley, says her brother “is the kindest, sweetest person you could ever know.”