2,800 Mourn Officer Slain by Colleague

Hundreds of law enforcement officers from throughout the state joined mourners Monday to honor a slain comrade and support the despondent sergeant who fatally wounded his close friend and protege in a disastrous SWAT raid last week.

About 2,800 family, friends and fellow officers remembered Oxnard Police Officer James Rex Jensen Jr. as one of the best among them. They also embraced Sgt. Daniel Christian, who accidentally shot the 30-year-old patrolman after mistaking him for a drug dealer in a smoky condominium hallway.

Christian escorted Jensen’s widow, Jennifer, and her two young daughters as they mourned a man whose last words were a request that his colleagues care for his family. Tearful and bowed, the sergeant physically supported the widow as she walked to services, and he clutched her hand during them.

“That’s the way Jim would have wanted it,” said Elizabeth Lopez, Jensen’s sister-in-law. “And that’s the way Jenny wanted it. There is absolutely nothing to forgive. There is no animosity. There is only love.”

That affection overflowed during an emotional 90-minute morning funeral and a crisp graveside farewell, where a top SWAT officer presented a folded American flag from Jensen’s oak casket to his widow after slipping Christian’s sergeant stripes into it.

After the cemetery service, a dozen Oxnard Special Weapons and Tactics officers encircled Christian near the grave, hugging one another and breaking into sobs.

Jensen was killed by shotgun blasts Wednesday during a dawn raid at a south Oxnard home, where police expected to find three drug dealers but which was empty. Seconds after Jensen hurled a smoky “flash-bang” diversionary grenade into a second-story hallway, Christian mistook him for a suspect in the dense smoke.

Perhaps 1,000 police officers from as far away as the Bay Area--their badges draped in black ribbons--attended Monday’s funeral.

“It’s a matter of respect,” said Deputy Dan Bessette, who drove six hours from Sonoma County north of San Francisco.