Officer Amber Guyger, 30, was arrested on Sunday following Thursday night's fatal shooting of Botham Jean.

The Texas Department of Public Safety issued a statement on Sunday confirming her arrest and that she is now being held at the Kaufman County Jail as investigations continue.

Lawyers for Jean's family have been calling for Guyger's arrest saying the fact she remained free days after the shooting showed she was receiving favourable treatment.

Guyger has been in the police force for four years and shot another man, Uvaldo Perez, on May 12, 2017, while on duty.

Police say Guyger shot and killed Jean after returning in uniform to the South Side Flats, where they both had apartments, after her shift.

She reported the shooting to emergency dispatchers and told officers who responded that she had mistaken Jean's apartment for her own.

Questions still remain about what led Guyger to shoot Jean and results from blood tests for alcohol and drugs have still not been released.

Police Chief U. Renee Hall said her department is seeking manslaughter charges against Guyger but the Texas Rangers have now taken over the investigation.

Jean's family have hired lawyer Benjamin Crump, best known for representing the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

Martin, a black, unarmed 17-year-old, was shot and killed by a neighbourhood watch volunteer in 2012 in Sanford, Florida. Brown, a black, unarmed 18-year-old, was shot and killed by a white police officer in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.

Jean's mother, Allison Jean, wondered whether race played a factor in her son's death. Her son, who grew up in the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia before attending college in Arkansas, is black. Guyger is white.

"If it was a white man, would it have been different? Would she have reacted differently?" Allison Jean said Friday.

Australian Associated Press