(Image source from: NDTV.com)

A white police officer who shot and killed a black man in his Texas flat after apparently thinking she was in her own flat has been charged.

Officer Amber Guyger is accused of manslaughter.

The victim, 26-year-old Botham Shem Jean's family had demanded the officer be arrested. Protests were held outside the police Head Quarters over the weekend.

Tributes have been paid to Jean, who worked for the professional services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Officer Guyger has been in the police department for four years and is allotted to the Southeast Patrol Division.

She was booked at the Kaufman County Jail, the Texas Department of Public Safety said. She then posted $300,000 (£232,000) bail, ABC reported and has been released.

The victim's family have hired lawyer Benjamin Crump, who represented Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, unarmed black teenagers who were shot dead by a neighborhood watch volunteer and a police officer respectively.

Crump told a news conference on Monday: "Black people in America have been killed by police in some of the most unbelievable manners.

"You know, driving while black in our cars, black people have been killed walking while black in our neighborhoods, and now here we are being killed living while black in our apartments."

He was joined at the news conference by the prime minister of the Caribbean island nation of St Lucia, where Jean is a citizen.

Allen Chastanet seemed to contend tears as he spoke of his ire that a young man could be shot dead in his own apartment.

The Dallas shooting occurred at an upmarket apartment complex just one block from the police department, south of the city center.

According to a police statement, the officer, still in uniform after her shift, walked into the unit she believed belonged to her and saw Botham Shem Jean inside.

What happened next is ill-defined, but the officer eventually fired her gun.

She then called for assistance and the victim was taken to hospital where he later died.

A law enforcement official told the Dallas Morning News that the lights in the flat were off when Officer Guyger fired two shots at a figure moving in the darkness, fatally striking Jean.

The official said that she had just ended a 15-hour shift when she parked in the wrong garage before making the tragic error.

She was able to enter the flat because Jean's door was unlocked, the source said, adding that she did not notice Jean's bright red doormat outside.

Officer Guyger was tested for drugs and alcohol at the scene, but the results have yet to be announced.

Video taken by a neighbor shows the officer pacing, and crying into her mobile phone after the shooting.

In a 911 call made by the officer, she can be heard repeatedly telling Jean that she is sorry, local media report.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings called Jean "a model citizen" and promised a transparent investigation.

By Sowmya Sangam