Reflecting on Fatal Shooting

VENTURA —  Sitting on the front steps of her Ventura home, Jennifer Jensen mindlessly fingered the gold wedding ring that now hangs around her neck and recounted the last morning with her husband.

“I wrote him a note before he went to work,” she said, remembering how she fastened it to the bathroom mirror so Oxnard Police Officer James Rex Jensen Jr. would find it when he left before dawn for a SWAT team drug raid.

When she awoke a few hours later, the 29-year-old mother of two found a note from her husband on the kitchen counter--and police officers at her front door.

“I opened the doors,” she said. “They never had to say a word.”

In the confusion of a smoke-filled hallway, Jim Jensen had been accidentally shot to death by his friend and mentor, Sgt. Daniel Christian, during a drug raid at an Oxnard condominium last week.

For Jensen’s widow, mourning has been two-fold. Her husband is dead, and the man who killed him is a close family friend. But rather than cast blame, Jennifer Jensen has embraced Christian.

“There is no blame,” she said Wednesday, speaking out for the first time since her husband’s death. “Dan and I are in this together. There will be a very special bond between us for the rest of our lives.”

That bond was evident at Jim Jensen’s funeral on Monday, as the widow and Christian tightly held hands, alternately supporting one another through an emotional graveside service.

A proud figure dressed in a beige suit, Jennifer Jensen seemed dazed and overwhelmed at times during Monday’s ceremonies. But, by Tuesday, Jennifer Jensen’s life had returned to a more routine pace.

While doctoring her 6-year-old daughter, Lindsey, who just came down with chickenpox, she expressed gratitude to the many people who had reached out to her family in the last week.

Explaining her husband’s death to the girls has been particularly difficult, she said. They know their father died and is in heaven, she said. And they know he was shot on the job.

But Jensen has not told them who shot their father.

“We taught our children about death,” Jensen said as her ailing 6-year-old crawled into her lap. “We have very strong religious values and morals. Katie is very content with, ‘Daddy’s in heaven, he’s an angel now.’ ”

A Ventura native, Jensen said she has drawn much of her strength from her family. Her mother lives in Ventura. Three of her four sisters also live close by.

Jennifer and Jim Jensen met about 10 years ago at a Marine Corps beach bonfire in San Diego. He was a Marine from Utah. She was with her sister, Lisa.

After they married, they lived in Salt Lake City for a few years before moving to Ventura.

The night before the drug raid, the young couple talked about the dangers involved. Oxnard police were part of a task force of local and federal agencies planning to raid 16 houses and businesses in an attempt to stop a major cocaine and methamphetamine drug ring.

“Jim was always really confident. He did express some concern this time,” Jensen said.

During the raid, Jim Jensen threw a smoke grenade into the condominium. Somehow, in the confusion, he was fatally shot by Christian.

Police officials have suggested that tactical errors by the slain officer may have contributed to the tragedy. Jennifer Jensen does not want to hear that.

“There is no blame on my husband,” she said, her voice showing annoyance for the first time. “They can reenact it all they want, but they won’t know what happened.”

Her only regret, she said, is that she was not with her husband when he died. Although in a way, she added, they said goodbye through the notes they left for one another that morning.

“Jim is really not gone,” she said, slipping her finger in and out of his wedding band. “He is here with me.”