Police Errors Seen in Officer’s Slaying

A series of mistakes led to the accidental shooting death of Oxnard Police Officer James Rex Jensen by a fellow SWAT team member in March, according to a report made public by the Ventura County district attorney’s office Wednesday.

The 48-page report faults the SWAT team for shoddy surveillance and poor planning but ultimately lays responsibility on the shoulders of Sgt. Dan Christian, who accidentally shot and killed his friend and colleague in the botched March 13 raid.

“It’s a tragedy from beginning to end, and it’s not over,” Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury said.

The report concludes that Jensen was shot in the back, contradicting earlier police accounts of the accidental shooting.

But the analysis of the dawn raid done by Richard Holmes, who supervises the major crimes division for the district attorney’s office, concludes that there is not enough evidence to prosecute Christian for criminal negligence.

“It’s a nebulous legal definition . . . but for criminal negligence we must show that the act was akin to recklessness, and we cannot make that conclusion here,” Holmes said Wednesday.

The report also states that:

* No one had done surveillance of the condominium for five days prior to the raid.

* The team did not conduct a “walk-through” of the raid beforehand, as many teams do.

* The team was told that the individuals in the condominium were armed and dangerous, which may have unnecessarily heightened their sense of danger.

* The team misread the floor plan of the condominium, leading to confusion during the raid.

The report revealed that Christian had trace levels of the antispasmodic drug phenobarbital in his blood, according to a test taken seven hours after the shooting. However, it concludes that Christian probably took the drug at least a week before the raid and it would have had no bearing on the shooting.

The report also faults the 30-year-old Jensen for rushing too quickly ahead of his partner Christian as they stormed the apartment.

But Jensen’s widow, Jennifer, said at a news conference in the Encino office of her attorney, Edward Steinbrecher, that the D.A.’s office had altered its findings to appease the Oxnard Police Department.

She said the evidence shows that her husband, a five-year veteran of the force who had been on the SWAT team just seven months, worked by the book and the only mistakes were made by the SWAT team planners and Christian.

“My husband didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, adding that she saw a draft of the report two weeks ago, and the version released Wednesday was changed after the Oxnard Police Department made its review.

“I feel the earlier report exonerated Jim and this one . . . indicates that somehow Jim did something wrong,” she said.

Jennifer Jensen said she felt the report clearly shows that her husband followed procedure, contrary to what police said after the shooting.

The district attorney’s report contradicts the Oxnard Police Department’s account of the shooting on several significant points. Police speculated that Jensen made the fatal mistakes that led to his shooting.

But the D.A.’s report also finds mistakes made by the SWAT team planners and Christian.

In the weeks following the shooting, Oxnard Police Department officials said Jensen threw a flash-bang diversionary grenade in the hallway of the condominium, then rushed into the upstairs apartment ahead of his team and into a bedroom.

Then, according to those officials, Jensen--against standard tactics that call for officers to “take and hold” their positions--stepped out of the room into the smoke-filled hallway.

Although only a few feet away, Christian could not identify his partner, who was wearing a helmet and SWAT team uniform, through the smoke and mistook him for an armed suspect, shooting him three times.

The district attorney’s report shows that Jensen was shot in the bedroom--not the hallway--and that he was shot twice in the back before being swung around by one of the blasts. A third shot struck him in the side.

The report also indicates that an officer behind Christian--SWAT team member Ron Whitney--saw and recognized Jensen before Christian fired his shotgun. Whitney watched bewildered as Christian looked at Jensen and yelled for him to “get down.”

“I don’t know if it was my mind playing tricks on me after the whole thing was said and done or if I was actually thinking it at the time, I, I don’t know 100%, but I was think--but I think I recall me thinking, ‘Why is Danny, um, doing that because that’s Jim?’ ” Whitney told investigators after the shooting, according to the report.

Officials at the Oxnard Police Department would not comment on the matter, because Jennifer Jensen is planning a lawsuit.

The department released a terse statement describing the shooting as “a tragedy for the Jensen family and all the members of the Oxnard Police Department.”

Reached Wednesday morning at the department, where he is now working in the property crimes division, Christian said only, “I have no comment for you.” On the advice of his attorney, Christian also did not cooperate with the district attorney’s investigation.

However, he did make a statement to Oxnard Police Department investigators on the day of the shooting. After the flash-bang device went off, Christian said, he ran up the stairs. The device had started a small fire on the carpet and he started going through the hallway saying, “Police, police, search warrant.”

” . . . And I was approaching the door . . . [and] I saw, uh, the figure behind it and it was approaching toward me. I, uh, fired,” Christian told investigators.

“The subject went back, but didn’t go down. I advanced, fired again, still didn’t go down. I advanced and fired again. The uh, subject went down.”

Christian then went in the room with Whitney behind him, someone opened the blinds and Christian saw that he had shot his partner.

“I believe that it was Sgt. Whitney behind me, uh, that said, ‘Officer down, officer down,’ and I reached out and, uh, grabbed Jim by the, by his shoulder and pulled him back off the bed and we laid him down on the floor.”

Jennifer Jensen said during Wednesday’s news conference that she feels sorry for Christian, a longtime friend of the family.

“But I feel bad for my husband and for my two daughters too,” she said.

Since she filed a claim against the city and the Police Department, Jensen said that Christian has broken off contact with her and her two daughters.

“I think their attorney has told them that they shouldn’t speak with us,” she said.

Citing a $5-million settlement in Orange County in 1992, in which the county settled a suit by the family of a deputy accidentally shot by his partner in an impromptu training exercise, attorney Steinbrecher said he plans to file the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles asking for between $10 million and $15 million.

Jensen said her lawsuit was a quest for the truth, which she believes has been concealed by the Oxnard Police Department.

She said she became hysterical two days after her husband died when she read in newspaper accounts of the shooting that top officers with the Oxnard Police Department said her husband had made fatal mistakes, adding that her decision to file a lawsuit had caused a rift in several of her close friendships with other officers and their wives.

“I believe they are supporting me,” she said. “I’ve heard from friends that some of them have said that, but they don’t want to say anything that could damage them with the department.”

Jensen said her 3-year-old and 6-year-old daughters, Katie and Lindsey, were still distraught over the loss of their father. The older girl, who was also close to Christian, is now afraid of police, her mother said.

“I would like to just curl up at home and not do anything, but I can’t,” Jensen said. “I have to do this so it doesn’t happen to anybody else.”

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Conclusions on Shooting

The district attorney’s report revealed that:

* Unlike another team that conducted a raid that day, the SWAT team did not practice a walk-through of the raid “like a football team practicing a play.”

* Officers misread the floor plan of the condominium and got the wrong location of the stairs, which might have caused confusion during the raid.

* SWAT team members were told that the two suspected drug dealers who lived in the condominium were armed with a “high-powered handgun with a laser sight” and were associated with people who had committed many homicides, elevating the fear of the team members.

* Officers knew the suspects had also been robbed in a home-invasion crime in which the robbers had identified themselves as police officers, making it that much more important for the officers to clearly identify themselves during the raid.

* Officer Jensen led the raid, even though he had never been in a similar raid and had been on the SWAT team for only seven months. However, the report concludes that although some SWAT experts questioned the wisdom of using Jensen as the lead officer, they also state that the mere fact that he was on the team meant he could handle the responsibility.

* FBI analysis of Sgt. Christian’s blood seven hours after the raid showed trace levels of phenobarbital, consistent with him taking the drug within a week of the raid. Phenobarbital is a barbiturate and a central nervous system depressant, which can also slow down reaction time and reduce the pulse rate. No explanation was given as to why Christian had taken the drug, but the report determined that the trace amount found had no bearing on the shooting.

The report concludes, “Whatever problems occurred in the planning of the matter and whatever mistakes were made in its execution, all these problems or mistakes would not have had a fatal outcome if Sergeant Christian and officer Jensen had been more careful and not committed a series of mistakes and misjudgments.”