But when it was quiet, and the door had closed again, what had happened was unmistakable: Darryel Dwayne Ferguson was on the other side, bleeding to death after two bullets had ripped through his belly and and a third, bouncing off his backbone, had unzipped his aorta. A BB gun, a nearly exact replica of a 9mm Colt Defender, was found near his body.
"These calls come out all the time," said Officer Jonathan Kizzar, one of the officers, along with Kelly Jenson, who fired a total of 20 bullets at Ferguson. "We just wanted to tell Mr. Ferguson he needs to stay in his apartment.... I had no intention of arresting anybody."
So how did a couple of knocks on a door in Southeast Portland turn into Portland's fifth police shooting of 2010—and the fifth to involve a man battling mental illness? Grand jury transcripts released this morning—245 pages of testimony from cops, neighbors, and Ferguson's survivors, part of hearings that found no criminal wrongdoing—offer something of a road map to that answer.
According to Jenson and Kizzar—the only people besides Ferguson to witness their fateful encounter—they had no choice. When Ferguson opened his door just after 4 in the morning December 17, he immediately pointed a gun (or, at least, what looked like one) at Jenson's head.
Training kicked in, the cops testified. And as Kizzar unloaded most of his Glock 17 in Ferguson's direction, hitting walls that officers didn't yet know also shielded Ferguson's girlfriend and her family, including a 3-year-old boy, Jenson spun to safety and got a line on Ferguson that allowed him to fire his own handgun. His bullets, it's believed, were the ones that proved fatal. Neither officer had fired a gun before while on a call. They'll mark five years with the police bureau in March.
"I'd have done the same thing, done the call the exact same way over again," Jenson testified. "That's one of the things I asked myself since it happened."
But the transcripts, even as they allow Jenson and Kizzar to explain their actions, also raise questions about what might have gone differently and shed new light on Ferguson's mental state that night and in the weeks before the shooting. Keep reading for a list of highlights.