STANWOOD — Less than three minutes.
That’s the time that lapsed from when Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies converged on a house in Stanwood and when they shot Adam Jensen, killing him, according to new documents.
The final report, by the Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team, gives a detailed timeline of the events leading up to Jensen’s death. It pulls information from interviews with his girlfriend and the deputies, as well as video surveillance inside the house. The documents recently were obtained by The Daily Herald through a public records request.
SMART is a task force of detectives assigned to cases where police have used potentially fatal force. Their findings regarding Jensen have been forwarded to Snohomish County Prosecutor Adam Cornell, who will determine whether the shooting was lawful and if any charges will be filed. He said Thursday that the case is still under review.
There are seven cases currently being investigated by SMART or being reviewed by Cornell. Another is pending trial for a suspect who survived. The two most recent incidents, both involving high-speed chases, happened in October.
Jensen, 43, had been living with his girlfriend and her three children for a couple of weeks. In the weeks before his death, he talked about suicide and he acted abusively toward his girlfriend, she told authorities. In August, they got into an argument to the point that she asked sheriff’s deputies to remove him from her home. A few days later, he reportedly choked her.
On Sept. 9, Jensen’s girlfriend called 911 again. He pushed her off the bed, she said. He was talking about suicide again and had a knife, she said. In the background he can be heard saying “Do you want me to die by police man?” At one point, she repeatedly whispers, “You’re hurting me.”
On the way to the house, one of the deputies said over the radio that Jensen “was not friendly” based on a previous interaction.
They went inside and found Jensen’s girlfriend, who told them that Jensen was in the master bedroom. They went upstairs and asked him to come out of the room.
“I’m not gonna do this again,” Jensen reportedly said. “I’m over this. I’m done.”
He opened the door and, with a drywall hand saw in his hand, “quickly” walked toward the deputies, documents say.
A motion-activated surveillance camera captured audio of Jensen’s last moments. 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, investigators found. It didn’t stop him.
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 police. They later told investigators that 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 the 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.”
Jensen fell to the bottom of the stairs. An autopsy showed he was shot three times in the chest. Another bullet grazed his foot. A toxicology report found that his blood-alcohol content was over 0.22 percent and that he had been using cannabis.
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,” one said.
The deputy who fired the shots responded, “Yeah, he just kept coming, you know.”
That deputy was placed on administrative leave at the time, which is standard procedure. He has since returned to work.
Zachariah Bryan: 425-339-3431; zbryan@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @zachariahtb.
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