"I think that shooting into a car full of teenagers as they slowly drive down the street away from the officer fits that pattern."
Oliver's wife sobbed in a front row while embracing his mother. On the other side of the courtroom, friends and family of Jordan hugged one another as they also cried. Several women quietly said, "God is good."
The lawyer handling a federal civil lawsuit against Oliver, which was on hold while the criminal case was litigated, has said the Edwards family wants him "to be severely punished."
Oliver and his partner, Tyler Gross, had been dispatched in response to neighbours' complaints about a party with drunk high school students. But there was no alcohol at the party, and the mood was cordial and even playful, with Oliver and Gross joking with the partygoers.
Things changed quickly, though, when shots rang out from a nearby parking lot - which were later determined to have been fired into the air by gang members.
Footage from the officers' body cameras showed a chaotic scene with teenagers filling the residential streets. Oliver went to his patrol car and retrieved his service rifle while Gross stopped one car leaving the party and attempted to stop a second car, a Chevrolet Impala driven by Jordan's stepbrother, Vidal Allen.
As the Impala slowly backed away from Gross, Oliver said he heard his partner reading the car's license plate into the radio. Oliver said he took that as an indication that his partner had "keyed in on something."
Gross walked to the passenger side door of the vehicle and broke the back window as he yelled, "Stop the f***ing car." Oliver then fired five rounds into the car in less than one second. One of the shots struck Jordan - who'd warned the others in the car to "duck, get down" - in the head.
Dressed in a dark suit with a lapel pin for autism to honour his 3-year-old son, Tab, Oliver testified that he'd "had no other option than to use lethal force" and considered Jordan a threat after seeing his silhouette moving in the car. Asked if he would have made the same decision today, Oliver said, "If I had had all of the information? No."
In a tweet linking to an NBC report about the verdict, Governor Greg Abbott, R, wrote, "White Texas police officer found guilty of murder for fatally shooting black teen in car. This life should never have been lost."
Philip Hayden, a Vietnam veteran and retired FBI agent, testified for the state that Oliver had no time to properly assess the risk his partner faced and that shooting into a moving vehicle violated department policy. Jay Coons, a captain with the Harris County Sheriff's Office and a witness for the defence, testified that Oliver's decision to shoot "at the time was reasonable."
Although Gross testified that he "didn't feel like the driver was trying to hit me," Oliver's lawyers maintained that he fired to defend Gross.
Oliver, 38, who was raised by a single mother, worked through high school and dropped out during his senior year. He wanted to be a firefighter, but a low test score drove him to seek bonus points given to veterans, he said. He enlisted in the Army, which lead to two combat tours in Iraq.
Within days of the shooting, Oliver was fired from Balch Springs, ending his six-year tenure as a licensed peace officer. He'd been disciplined once before, for losing his temper with an assistant district attorney during a trial, an incident that was detailed for jurors.
Six of Jordan's high school teachers and his high school football coach testified, describing him as a model student with a memorable smile who was friends with everyone. His death left a hole in Mesquite High School, they said, and his seat in several classrooms sat unoccupied for the rest of the semester. The football team wore stickers on their helmets with "JE" in his memory.
"He had the mental grind. He wanted to be great," said Jeffrey Fleener, the football coach. "It was a constant, daily thing."
