KENT, Wash. — The prosecution and defense delivered closing arguments in the murder trial of Officer Jeffrey Nelson, who shot and killed Jesse Sarey while attempting to arrest him in front of an Auburn grocery store in 2019.
Nelson faces second-degree murder and first-degree assault charges in Sarey’s death.
It's not disputed that Nelson killed Sarey - instead, the prosecution and the defense went back and forth in front of the jury about whether the shooting itself was justified under the law.
The incident
On May 21, 2019, Officer Jeffrey Nelson responded to multiple 911 calls to report that a young man, later identified as Sarey, was throwing items and kicking walls and vehicles outside of Auburn businesses, documents state. Nelson contacted Sarey outside of Walgreens and believed he was on drugs, according to documents.
After a brief interaction, Sarey jaywalked through traffic across the street to the Sunshine Grocery. Court documents state that, because of Sarey’s behavior, Nelson followed him across the street in his patrol vehicle intending to arrest him for disorderly conduct.
Nelson reportedly called for backup but attempted to arrest Sarey by himself.
In the following 67 seconds, surveillance video captured a fatal struggle between Nelson and Sarey. The interaction was also captured on audio recording.
Sarey was sitting near the grocery store entrance when Nelson approached him and said he was under arrest. When Sarey did not immediately respond or put his hands behind his back, Nelson pulled Sarey to his feet and held him against a window, according to charging documents.
Nelson attempted to use a "hip throw" maneuver and knock Sarey's leg out from under him but was unsuccessful. The two continued to struggle and a witness in a nearby car got out when he reportedly saw Sarey reach for Nelson's holstered gun, documents state.
Video showed Nelson punching Sarey multiple times and pushing him up against a nearby freezer box. As they struggled, the witness picked up a closed folding knife that fell to the ground and put it on the hood of his car, documents state.
Nelson drew his gun and reportedly shot Sarey in the torso, who fell to the ground, according to charging documents.
Standing a few feet away from Sarey, Nelson cleared his jammed gun and "looked up at [the witness], looked back at Mr. Sarey, and then aimed and fired his gun at Mr. Sarey" shooting him in the head, documents state.
'There was no emergency here'
Prosecutor Patty Eakes was the first to speak to jury members on Thursday morning, noting that while in some situations deadly force by police officers is legal – it’s only as a last resort and in the absence of any other alternative.
The state’s case hinges on alleging that Nelson should have known other tactics to subdue Sarey were available to him, and that he chose instead to skip to deadly force when he had several opportunities to do otherwise.
The prosecution noted that Nelson himself called for backup – then chose not to wait for them. Prosecutors also argued that Sarey himself never posed Nelson a threat, saying when Nelson fired the first shot Sarey was pressed up against an ice machine and under his control.
Prosecutors attempted to head off the defense's claims that Nelson feared for his life because Sarey had reached for his gun, and he believed that Sarey may have been in possession of a knife.
In particular, one witness can be heard on surveillance video after the shooting saying that Sarey had attempted to grab Nelson's gun, but upon later interviews with a detective, specified that Sarey was never in control of it. An attempt by a suspect to grab an officer's weapon does not in itself justify deadly force, prosecutors said.
To Nelson's other claim - that he believed Sarey was in possession of a knife - prosecutors highlighted a witness' statement that they saw the knife on the ground during the scuffle and themselves removed it from the scene, placing it on top of a nearby vehicle and outside of Sarey's reach.
The standard that the jury will use to decide if Nelson is guilty of a crime is by considering whether a "similarly situated" reasonable officer would have made the same choices Nelson did when presented with the same situation and possessing the same foreknowledge that Nelson had at the time.
Prosecutors argued that when Nelson approached Sarey on May 1, 2019, he did not pose a threat to anyone - Nelson included - and that deadly force was not justified.
"Jesse Sarey did not have to die," Eakes told the jury.
'A tragedy - not a crime'
The defense began their closing arguments by calling the prosecution’s descriptions of Nelson’s and Sarey’s actions a mischaracterization of the incident. Counsel emphasized Nelson’s claims that Sarey was combative and that Nelson believed Sarey was making attempts to grab at his weapons which he felt posed a threat against his life.
"What happened on May 21, 2019 is a tragedy, but it's not a crime," Nelson's counsel told the jury.
The defense repeatedly emphasized the witness statement that Sarey had attempted to grab Nelson's gun.
Counsel for Nelson returned to the testimony of a police use of force expert – saying that any attempt by a suspect to grab an officer’s weapon represents an attempt on their life and that they are trained to respond in kind.
“This is a lethal encounter,” Nelson’s counsel said, attempting to justify his decision to shoot Sarey for the first time.
The first shot is the one that ultimately caused Sarey’s death. Doctors from Harborview Medical Center noted that he bled to death on the operating table from a laceration to his liver.
The second shot, which hit Sarey in the head, represents a different charge in Nelson’s case – first-degree assault.
Nelson’s gun jammed after the first shot. Witnesses described Nelson clearing the jam and looking around before shooting Sarey for a second time.
Prosecutors argue that Sarey posed no threat to Nelson at the time he took the second shot, citing witness testimony that Sarey was curled up on the ground. Another witness described to investigators seeing Sarey’s feet in the air at the time of the second shot – he said they moved “violently” when the bullet made impact.
Nelson’s defense argued that instead, Sarey was attempting to get back up when he took the second shot, and believed that Sarey may have been in possession of his knife, which came out of his utility vest pocket during the struggle. Defense counsel argued that Nelson would have no way of knowing that a witness had actually picked up that knife and removed it from the scene.
Nelson's lawyers also touched on their decision not to present a case of their own at their own client's trial, saying that all of the evidence they planned to present had already come forward during the prosecution's case.
"The state wholly failed to meet their burden here - to such a degree that we didn't put on a case," one of Nelson's lawyers told the jury.
The jurors will not have Nelson's own recollection of the case to consider when they begin deliberations on Friday, outside of what statements detectives collected from him over the course of the investigation.