Sheriff’s deputies sued in fatal shooting of Stanwood man

Snohomish County deputies shot Adam Jensen in his home. They said he lunged at them with a handsaw.

STANWOOD — Snohomish County and three sheriff’s deputies are being sued in the September 2018 fatal shooting of a Stanwood man, in what attorneys are calling a “cold-blooded killing.”

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, alleges the deputies violated the man’s Constitutional rights when they shot Adam Jensen, 43, four times in his Stanwood home. Attorneys also claim detectives purposely destroyed evidence during a follow-up investigation.

“He did not move quickly, he did not say anything,” attorneys wrote in the complaint, referring to the moments leading up to Jensen’s death. “He did not pose a threat to any person.”

Deputies told a different story during an investigation conducted by the Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team, a task force of detectives assigned to cases in which police have used potentially fatal force. They reported Jensen was holding a weapon — what turned out to be a hand saw used for drywall — and was quickly moving toward them. They had tried to use a Taser first, but it didn’t work.

Reviewing the investigation, Snohomish County Prosecutor Adam Cornell found the shooting to be justifiable. He wrote in an April letter that the deputies were confined to a small, narrow hallway, and that a blade-wielding man was quickly closing the distance.

“Simply put, given the facts and circumstances known to (deputies) at the time of the confrontation with Mr. Jensen, the use of deadly force was necessary to prevent death or serious physical harm to the deputy or others,” Cornell wrote.

Copies of the SMART investigation’s summary and Cornell’s letter were obtained by The Daily Herald through public records requests.

Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney, who was attending a “Back the Blue” rally Friday in Olympia, said he did not know about the lawsuit until a Herald reporter asked about it. He declined to comment because it’s pending litigation. Fortney was not the sheriff when Jensen was killed.

Jensen’s mother Paula Dow and Jensen’s estate are named as plaintiffs. Dow is represented by attorneys Ada Wong and Jordan Wada of AKW Law in Mountlake Terrace — the same attorneys heading a civil lawsuit recently filed against Fortney and other deputies for their roles in a violent arrest. Listed as defendants are deputies William Westsik, who fired the fatal shots, and Kevin Pelleboer, who deployed a Taser.

In the weeks before his death, Jensen had been living with his girlfriend and her three children. According to his girlfriend’s account, presented to SMART detectives, Jensen had talked about killing himself and was abusive toward her.

She called 911 on Sept. 9, saying Jensen had just pushed her off the bed. He was talking about suicide and had a knife, she told a dispatcher. In the background, Jensen reportedly could be heard saying, “Do you want me to die by police man?” At one point, she repeatedly whispers, “You’re hurting me,” according to SMART’s investigation.

Soon after deputies arrived, Jensen walked out of the master bedroom. The attorneys in the civil lawsuit claimed Jensen “walked slowly” out of the bedroom. Deputies reported he quickly walked toward them while holding what looked like a knife.

A motion-activated surveillance camera captured audio of Jensen’s last moments, according to the SMART investigation. In it, a loud pop can be heard as a deputy fires a stun gun. One probe apparently missed, while the other hit Jensen in the thigh, failing to shock him, investigators found.

The deputy threw the stun gun on the floor and retreated to the stairs. According to the records, Jensen rounded the corner, holding the saw at waist level, pointing toward the officers. The deputies later told investigators he was just feet away and that he lunged at them.

In the footage, one of the deputies yells, “Drop it! Drop it!” according to information forwarded to prosecutors. Three seconds later, there is a sequence of noises: a gun going off, spent shell casings hitting the floor, a man gasping or moaning and a deputy yelling “shots fired.”

After the gunfire, the deputies can be heard talking on the video, according to the records.

“I tried less-lethal but it didn’t hit,” Pelleboer said, referring to the Taser.

Westsik responded, “Yeah, he just kept coming, you know.”

The attorneys in the civil lawsuit claim deputies did not provide any medical assistance after Jensen fell down the stairs, leaving him to die from his gunshot wounds. One deputy steps over him, attorneys wrote. Jensen breathed heavily, then eventually fell silent.

“He’s gone,” one of the deputies said, according to the lawsuit.

An autopsy showed Jensen was shot three times in the chest, and another bullet grazed his foot. According to the lawsuit, one bullet went through the floorboards near Jensen’s girlfriend’s sleeping daughter.

A toxicology report found Jensen’s blood-alcohol content was over 0.22 percent and that he had been using cannabis.

During the SMART investigation, the civil attorneys claim detectives coerced Jensen’s girlfriend to hand over her laptop, user name and password so they could access her living room camera recordings stored on the cloud. According to the lawsuit, the officers deleted all recordings related to the shooting from her cloud storage, “destroying clearly important evidence,” attorneys wrote.

Also named as civil defendants were sheriff’s Sgt. Chad Gwordske, a supervisor who responded to the scene; Snohomish County; and the Everett Police Department. The plaintiff’s attorneys claim the county and Everett police have not responded to public records requests submitted by Jensen’s mother in a timely manner.

The county has not yet filed a response.

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