Officer’s Widow Finds ‘No Blame’ in Slaying by Friend of Family

Sitting on the front steps of her Ventura home, Jennifer Jensen mindlessly fingered her husband’s gold wedding ring, now hanging on a chain around her neck. In a small, broken voice, she recounted their last day together.

“I wrote him a note before he went to work,” she said, remembering how she pinned it to the bathroom mirror so Oxnard Police Officer James Rex Jensen Jr. would find it before he left in the predawn hours for a SWAT team drug raid.

When she woke up a few hours later, the 29-year-old mother of two found a note from her husband on the kitchen counter--and police officers at her front door.

“I opened the doors,” she said. “They never had to say a word.”

In the confusion of a smoke-filled hallway, Jim Jensen had been accidentally shot to death by his friend and mentor, Sgt. Daniel Christian, during a drug raid on an Oxnard condominium.

For Jensen’s widow, mourning has been twofold. Her husband is dead, and the man who killed him is a close family friend. But rather than cast blame, Jennifer Jensen has embraced Christian.

And together, she said, she hopes they can overcome the pain of her husband’s tragic death.

“There is no blame,” she said Tuesday, speaking out for the first time since her husband’s death. “Dan and I are in this together. There will be a very special bond between us for the rest of our lives.”

That bond was evident at Jim Jensen’s funeral on Monday, as the widow and Christian tightly held each other’s hands, alternately supporting one another through an emotional graveside service attended by more than 1,000 law enforcement officials from around the state.

A proud figure dressed in a beige suit, Jennifer Jensen seemed dazed and overwhelmed at times during Monday’s ceremonies. But, by Tuesday, her life had returned to a more routine pace.

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While doctoring her 6-year-old daughter, Lindsey, who just came down with chicken pox, she expressed gratitude to the many people who had reached out to her family in the last week.

Oxnard Police Officer Jim Stallings, a constant figure at Jensen’s house, served as a liaison between the family and the department.

Conrad Carroll Mortuary donated her husband’s oak casket. Ivy Lawn Memorial Park gave them a burial plot.

Members of her husband’s SWAT team drove to the airport to pick up relatives flying in for the funeral.

“There is such an outpouring from everyone in the community,” said Pat Lopez, Jennifer Jensen’s mother, who has been at her side since the shooting.

Among the thank-yous, Jensen singled out the employees of a children’s clothing store in Ventura who dressed Lindsey and 3-year-old Katelyn in lacy outfits for their father’s funeral.

“The whole store rallied around my children and dressed them from head to toe,” she said. “They made them feel like the most special children in the whole world.”

Explaining her husband’s death to the girls has been particularly difficult, she said. They know their father died and is in heaven, she said. And they know he was shot on the job.

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But Jensen has not told them who shot their father. And while Katelyn is too young to understand, Jensen and her four sisters have been careful to keep news articles away from Lindsey.

“We taught our children about death,” Jensen said as her ailing 6-year-old crawled into her lap. “We have very strong religious values and morals. Katie is very content with, ‘Daddy’s in heaven, he’s an angel now.’ ”

A Ventura native, Jensen said she has drawn much of her strength from her family. Her mother lives in Ventura. Three of her four sisters also live close by.

Two other women have reached out to her as well: Leslie O’Brien and Jenifer Clark, who both lost police officer husbands to shootings.

Oxnard Police Officer James O’Brien was killed more than two years ago by a jobless computer engineer who sprayed an unemployment office with bullets, killing three workers and wounding four others.

Simi Valley Police Officer Michael Clark was shot to death by a substitute teacher last August after police were called to the man’s home to check on his welfare.

“They’ve been there,” Jensen said of the two women, who have both called her to offer advice and condolences. “We are going to meet and talk.”

Jennifer and Jim Jensen met about 10 years ago at a Marine Corps beach bonfire in San Diego. He was a Marine from Utah. She was with her sister, Lisa.

After they married, they lived in Salt Lake City for a few years before moving to Ventura, where Jennifer was born and went to high school.

They were a law enforcement family. Jim Jensen was an up-and-coming officer with the Oxnard police, recently selected for the department’s Special Weapons and Tactics unit. Jennifer Jensen worked part time at the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department’s honor farm in Ojai.

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The night before the drug raid, the young couple talked about the SWAT team’s assignment and the dangers involved. Oxnard police were part of a task force of local and federal agencies planning to raid 16 houses and businesses in an attempt to break a major cocaine and methamphetamine drug ring.

“Jim was always really confident. He did express some concern this time,” Jensen said.

During the raid, Jim Jensen threw a smoke grenade into the condominium. Somehow, in the confusion, he was fatally shot by Christian.

“Immediately after it happened, we met at the department,” Jennifer Jensen recalled. “I didn’t ask why, I didn’t ask how. We just hugged.”

Police officials have suggested that tactical errors by the slain officer may have contributed to the tragedy. Jennifer Jensen does not want to hear that.

“There is no blame on my husband,” she said, her voice getting edgy for the first time. “They can reenact it all they want, but they won’t know what happened.”

Her only regret, she said, is that she was not with her husband when he died. Although in a way, she added, they said goodbye through the notes they left for one another that morning.

“Jim is really not gone,” she said, slipping her finger in and out of his wedding band. “He is here with me.”

* BACK TO NORMAL

Police routine is resuming in wake of Jensen’s death. B4