Jeffrey Nelson, an Auburn police officer accused of shooting 26-year-old Jesse Sarey in 2019, was found guilty of murder and assault on Thursday. Nelson is the first police officer in Washington state to be convicted under a new legal standard that holds officers accountable for the use of deadly force.
Nelson was the first police officer in Washington to be charged after the passage of Initiative 940, which eliminated the requirement of proof of “malice” for prosecuting police officers who kill in the line of duty. Nelson was charged with second-degree murder and first-degree assault in 2020.
Nelson’s trial, which had been postponed several times, began in May, five years after Sarey’s death.
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Defense attorneys said Nelson had planned to take the stand and give his side of the story, but in an unexpected reversal, his attorneys informed the judge last Monday that he would not testify after all. After calling two witnesses – a records clerk and a gun holster expert – the defense concluded its argument.
In closing arguments, Nelson’s defense said the crucial information it wanted to share with the jury “came to light from the state’s witnesses themselves” and that the evidence presented showed that Nelson acted lawfully.
Nelson shot Sarey, a Cambodian, twice in the parking lot of Sunshine Grocery in Auburn in May 2019 as they engaged in a physical altercation. The two charges against Nelson relate to his fatal shot to Sarey’s abdomen and a shot to Sarey’s forehead that the King County coroner determined was not immediately fatal.
Nelson’s defense attorneys claimed that during the altercation, Sarey attempted to grab Nelson’s gun and a folding knife from his pocket.
Steven Woodard, an eyewitness who testified, said that during the struggle, one of Sarey’s hands, which were around Nelson’s waist, grazed the handle of Nelson’s gun. He described Nelson as towering and said Nelson repeatedly punched Sarey in the face while holding him in a headlock.
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Prosecutor Patty Eakes told jurors that Nelson had received crisis intervention training three times but still did not wait for backup or try to deescalate the confrontation before wrestling with and shooting Sarey. She said Nelson “disregarded his training at every turn” and could have arrested Sarey without using force. “Instead, he chose to throw that training out the window and take the most aggressive approach possible,” she said.
The Washington Coalition for Police Accountability, which advocates for victims of police violence, welcomed Thursday’s ruling.
“This is what justice looks like. This verdict is significant for all families who have lost loved ones to police violence, in a system that has until now made it impossible to charge police officers with murder. It shows that when the community comes together to change laws, it balances the scales of justice and opportunities for police accountability,” Sonia Joseph, the organization’s board chair, said in a written statement.
Joseph, whose 20-year-old son Giovonn Joseph-McDade was shot dead by Kent police in 2017, said the group would continue to advocate for police accountability measures at the state level.
In a written statement, Marco Monteblanco, president of the Washington Fraternal Order of Police, struck a more neutral tone.
“We respect the jury’s verdict in the trial of Auburn officer Jeffrey Nelson and want to thank everyone involved for their time and effort,” Monteblanco said. “Today’s verdict is a milestone in the trial, but far from the last. We will continue to monitor the next steps as this case enters a new phase of the legal process.”
Nelson’s conviction stands in stark contrast to the acquittal of three Tacoma police officers in December. Christopher Burbank, Matthew Collins and Timothy Rankine were tried together in 2020 for the death of 33-year-old Manuel Ellis. Although Attorney General Bob Ferguson indicted all three Tacoma police officers in 2021, a year after Nelson was charged in Sarey’s death, the trial of the Tacoma police officers moved more quickly and became the first major court test of Initiative 940 in the state.
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Thursday’s verdict followed a week of jury deliberations that were marked by numerous procedural questions.
Last week, dozens of fliers were found in the courthouse parking garage that referenced Nelson’s two previous acts of deadly force while working for the Auburn Police Department. The court had excluded information about those previous cases from the trial. Judge Nicole Gaines Phelps had expressed concern that jurors seeing the posters could be grounds for a mistrial; no juror said they had seen the fliers.
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On Wednesday, the third day of jury deliberations, Phelps told the courtroom that the jury indicated on Tuesday that they had agreed on one of the two counts against Nelson. But because the jurors had not filled out the verdict forms correctly, Phelps sent them back for deliberation on Tuesday. The defense argued that Phelps, who had failed to mention the jury consensus when he originally gave the verdict forms, should have accepted the forms despite the errors.
Also Wednesday, a King County prosecutor reported hearing two jurors discussing the case in the courtroom hallway before deliberations were scheduled to resume, another reason for doubt about the integrity of the jury’s verdict.
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Judge Phelps ordered Nelson to remain in custody pending sentencing. His defense team said they would seek a retrial.
