08:21 PM PDT on Friday, April 30, 2004

By ABE ESTIMADA, kgw.com Staff

Officer Jason Sery was pointing his gun at James Jahar Perez and repeatedly yelling, “I’m going to shoot. I’m going to shoot. Get your hand out.”

Officer Jason Sery. (KGW Photo)

Sery was looking at Perez’s right hand. He was digging furiously into his right pants pocket as Sery’s partner for the day, Officer Sean Macomber, was struggling with Perez.

Just as the top of Perez’s hand was emerging from the pocket, Sery made a choice.

“That’s when I made the decision to shoot,” Sery said.

Less than 24 seconds after he was pulled over for a traffic stop, Perez was dead.

Sery’s much anticipated testimony on Friday was one of the last pieces of information to be heard by a six-member inquest jury poring through the details of the shooting that killed Perez, an African-American man who was unarmed at the time of the north Portland traffic stop on March 28.

A Multnomah County grand jury last week cleared Sery of any criminal wrongdoing in the fatal shooting of the 28-year-old Perez. In response to the grand jury’s decision not to indict Sery, Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk called for a public inquest into the shooting.

After taking three days of testimony from Sery and Macomber, law enforcement experts, forensic scientists as well as more than a dozen eyewitnesses, the inquest jury determined on Friday that Perez died of homicide.

The inquest jury fulfilled the only mission assigned it by state law: to determine how Perez died.

The inquest jury wasn’t supposed to return a verdict. None of the testimony offered by Sery, 29, or Macomber, 30, could be used in criminal or civil proceedings against them.

For the public at large, the testimony from Sery and Macomber and others was meant to shed as much information as possible – and as quickly as possible – to the citizenry, Schrunk said on Friday.

Sery’s testimony

Before deciding how Perez died, however, the jury listened to about an hour of testimony from the man who shot Perez -- Sery, who is a five-year veteran of the Portland Police Bureau.

Macomber wasn’t Sery’s regular partner on that Sunday, March 28.

Sery, a neighborhood police officer who said he joined the North Precinct in July 2003 to help clean up troubled areas of north Portland, went on patrol with Macomber until his regular partner returned from duty at an Expo Center gun show.

As Macomber was driving and briefing Sery on some of the north Portland homes and areas where problems had been reported, Macomber noticed Perez’s white Mitsubishi on N. Fox Street.

Detective Robert King, in blue, represents the Portland police officers' union during the inquest. (KGW Photo)

Macomber told the inquest jury on Wednesday that the luxury Mitsubishi drew his attention because it was off the main roads, probably cost a third of the price of the homes in the area and might have been involved in narcotics activity.

“’Hey, plug in that plate real quick,’” Sery recalled Macomber saying to him.

What came back was that the car was registered to an owner who was born in 1955.

“I didn’t recognize the name at all,” Sery said about the car owner.

Macomber drove east on N. Fessenden Street to catch up to the Mitsubishi. Sery said he could not see inside the car, which was equipped with heavily tinted windows.

Traffic stop

The two officers caught up to the car on Fessenden and N. Burr Street. Noticing the Mitsubishi signaled about 20 feet before turning right onto a laundromat and convenience store parking lot on the 7200 block of Fessenden, Macomber made the decision to pull the car over.

Perez had failed to signal his turn 100 feet before he drove into the parking lot.

Officer Jason Sery motions as he explains what happened during fatal traffic stop on March 28. (KGW Photo)

As the police car was making its turn, the sun shone through the rear, tinted windows of the Mitsubishi. For the first time, Sery said he could see inside the car and noticed there was an African-American driver.

“I remember even saying to (Officer) Sean (Macomber) as we were turning, ‘Well, maybe it was the registered owner,’ because I couldn’t tell an age at all,” Sery said.

The car stopped just shy of one of the full parking spaces. Sery noticed something else.

“He was fidgety, and that caught my attention as well,” Sery said.

But Sery said he kept his gun in his holster.

Officers emerge from their car

Following their training, Sery and Macomber both emerged from the police car. Sery told the inquest jury that as a safety precaution, both police officers are supposed to leave their squad car. It’s a routine procedure when two officers respond to a traffic stop, he explained. An officer doesn't want to be caught inside a police car if a suspect decides to leave his car and harm a policeman.

Macomber was walking to the driver’s side of the car. Sery, a little behind Macomber, was approaching the Mitsubishi on its passenger side. Gazing through the rear tinted windows, Sery saw that the driver’s side window was open. He also noticed Perez looking back over his left shoulder at them.

Perez’s glancing over his left shoulder made Sery even more uneasy. Sery said he’d done thousands of traffic stops. In his experience, when a driver was constantly looking for the police officer, it meant something wrong was going to happen.

“They’re watching to see where you are because they have something in their mind that they’re planning to do,” Sery said.

Macomber began to start a conversation with Perez when Sery noticed through the rear tinted window that the driver's window was rolling up.

Things start to go wrong

Macomber was ordering Perez to get his hands up as the window rolled up, Sery said.

Sery began to move to the driver’s side of the Mitsubishi behind Macomber to help him.

As he arrived behind Macomber, Macomber was “reaching in, and grabbing a hold of the driver’s left arm,” Sery said.

Macomber was trying to put Perez in a hold to pull him out of the car. Sery could now see the left side of Perez’s head and the left side of his body.

As the two struggled, Sery said he still kept his gun in its holster.

Macomber warns to use taser

Sery said Macomber let go of Perez and told him ‘get your hand out, or you’re going to get tased.’”

As soon as Macomber warned he would use a taser on Perez, Sery pulled out his gun. As part of his training, Sery would have to act as the “lethal cover” for Macomber. That’s when Sery started barking orders at Perez.

“I remember pointing at the driver and shouting, ‘Get your hands where we can see them,'" Sery said.

He doesn’t recall Macomber saying anything, and two or three seconds later, Sery was taking over issuing commands to Perez.

“I remember having my weapon pointed at him,” Sery said. “I remember yelling, ‘Get your hands up!’ and there was completely no compliance at all.”

Perez glanced at Sery then back at Macomber. At the same time, Perez was reaching into his right, front jeans pocket, Sery said.

Traffic stop goes terribly wrong

Again, Perez looked at Sery and back at Macomber. Sery said he thought the situation was about to turn fatal for him and Macomber. He was now convinced that Perez had a gun.

“I did not want to be there,” Sery said. “I did not want to be in that situation. I feared for my life. I feared for Officer Macomber’s safety and his life.”

In those waning seconds, Sery pondered Macomber using a taser on Perez. But Sery said he quickly determined that a taser shot would be ineffective.

If Perez had a gun, and the taser shot didn’t deliver two darts precisely to Perez to subdue him, Perez could get a shot off at Macomber.

“If Sean would step in front of that doorway, and a gun would come out, I have no means to protect Sean at all,” Sery said. “A gun would come out, and shoot Sean before I would have any way of returning fire and protecting him.”

As Macomber and Perez fought, Perez began trying to maneuver in the driver’s seat of his car to reach into his pocket.

Sery’s gut told him the man was armed. Sery’s gut told him it was about to get worse for him and Macomber.

As Perez’s right hand began to emerge from the pocket, Sery fired.

“As soon as I fired, the driver stopped what he was doing,” Sery said. “His left arm stopped, went up and hung there.”

Sery also remembered Perez’s right hand stop moving in its pocket.

“There was no movement at all,” Sery said.

In the seconds after the shots were fired, Macomber was able to shoot his taser, Sery said. It was then that Macomber also started radioing for help.

First inquest in nearly 20 years

After Sery’s testimony was finished, Schrunk excused the policeman from the stand. He and Macomber are on paid administrative leave.

As Sery walked by the family of Perez, some of the dead man’s relatives glared at him as he walked by.

Schrunk conducted the inquest in the Multnomah County Courthouse in downtown Portland. Schrunk convened the inquest after the grand jury determined it did not have enough evidence to indict Sery. Portland hasn’t had an inquest in nearly 20 years.

Schrunk in 1985 called for an inquest after a 31-year-old African-American, Lloyd Stevenson, died when a Portland police officer applied a “sleeper hold.”