Shooting into a Moving Vehicle is almost always Misconduct.

A former Dallas police officer who opened fire on a 21-year-old woman driving a stolen car in January 2017 is not guilty of assault in her death, a jury decided Thursday.

Christopher Hess was charged with aggravated assault by a public servant in the fatal shooting of Genevive Dawes. A Dallas County jury returned the not guilty verdict after two days of deliberations. If he had been found guilty, Hess could have been sentenced to from five years to life in prison.

Hess, 42, was one of two officers who responded to a suspicious persons call the night Dawes was shot and killed. They found her and another person asleep in a car that had been reported stolen, police said. Dawes ignored commands to exit the vehicle, then reversed into a police cruiser, rammed a fence and was backing up again when the officers opened fire, police said.

Hess shot into the car a dozen times. Prosecutors argued that his actions were unreasonable. The former officer’s lawyers told the court that the shooting was justified because the car was a threat.