Apr. 16—JAMESTOWN — A Jamestown police officer says he went through a lot of ups and downs after he was in an officer-involved shooting in the parking lot behind Fred’s Den in December but he’s glad to be back at work.
“It took a little bit to get the mind all right and everything,” Sgt. Cory Beckman said. “Coming back to work, I haven’t had any issues.”
He said it was difficult to sleep for about a month after the shooting.
“The mind replays that situation over and over again and so then it’s hard to calm it down so you can actually fall asleep,” he said. “There’s nightmares that come with it too, panic attacks.”
Beckman said he replayed the incident with different outcomes, including him getting shot from behind.
Beckman, a five-year veteran of the Jamestown Police Department, shot Devin Quinn Fontenot, 27, Jamestown, early Dec. 3 after he responded to a report of a man armed with a gun and a knife standing in the parking lot behind Fred’s Den, 113 1st Ave. S. Fontenot died from injuries he sustained from the gunfire.
As officers responded, a 911 caller reported a man was shooting at a building, firing many rounds. The man later identified as Fontenot was still firing rounds in the parking lot when the first officer arrived on the scene.
In December, Stutsman County State’s Attorney Fritz Fremgen said the use of deadly force by Beckman was justified when he shot and killed Fontenot.
Fontenot refused to comply with an order to drop his weapon, jeopardizing the safety of Beckman and others, Scott Edinger, Jamestown chief of police, previously said.
Beckman was placed on standard paid administrative leave after the incident. He returned to duty in late January, Edinger said.
“It was a relief that I did the right thing,” Beckman said. “I was glad to come to work. I wanted to make sure I came to work with the right head on my shoulders, though. The department was good about giving me the time to come back when I was ready.”
Beckman is a member of the James Valley Special Operations Team, a K-9 handler and a Jamestown Police Department peer support team member.
Edinger, who was involved in an officer-involved shooting in 2015, said an officer might have doubts about their actions during the investigation process even though the individual might think they did everything correctly.
“Was there something I could have done better? Did I miss something? Was there information I didn’t get that would have changed what I would have done,” Edinger said. “You start questioning all of those things, and after the incident, the investigation takes a while so you have weeks to have those things going through your head.”
Lt. Sid Mann, who was involved in an officer-involved shooting in 2010, said in those types of cases, officers hear false stories from the public about their incident during the investigation.
“You try and stay away from the news media and social media and all of those things,” Edinger said.
Beckman said he told his wife in person about the incident. He also told his mother, who is a chaplain at the Minot Police Department.
“I just filled her (mother) in because I knew it was going to be on the news,” he said, adding that his parents came to Jamestown the following day.
He said he stayed off social media while he was on standard paid administrative leave to avoid seeing posts from people making false accusations against the Jamestown Police Department.
“The chief (Edinger) said there was overwhelming support from the community about what was done,” he said. “One of the comments was that he was a friend of the individual. He didn’t condone his behavior, and he stands with the officer that did what he did. So that’s pretty huge coming from people in the community.”
Edinger said the community is supportive of the Jamestown Police Department.
“We know that we have to earn that and our officers do that all the time,” he said. “They all want to do the right thing and make the right decisions and look out for people. When we get the support that we do all the time, it’s really truly overwhelming. We really appreciate that.”
Beckman said he also got overwhelming support from local law enforcement officers. He said the night of the shooting was the birthday of one of his children. He told Lt. Andrew Staska about his child’s birthday.
“He planned this big thing,” Beckman said. “They pulled money together and they bought him a bunch of presents, and they all came up and stood in my living room and let him open gifts so that was pretty cool.”
He said having access to the chaplaincy program — with his pastor at the church he attends being a chaplain — at the Jamestown Police Department also helped.
Beckman said the Police Department also did a meal train for his family where people at different times dropped off supper for his family.
Although every situation is different, Edinger said certain tasks need to get done immediately after an officer-involved shooting.
“Everybody that goes through law enforcement training kind of learns some of those things,” he said. “Fortunately, the training is pretty good and everybody handles things very similarly.”
He said officers make sure everyone is OK and treat individuals who are injured. He said the scene, evidence and witnesses are secured right away.
“Once you establish that everybody is OK or isn’t OK — obviously you’re getting them treatment — we do a protocol that makes sure that we did everything right,” Edinger said. “We want to make sure that the officer is being protected but we have to get a lot of evidence.”
He said evidence such as the firearm and shell casings are gathered along with a blood sample and statement from the officer involved in the shooting. He said the department also wants to get as much information about the incident out to the public.
“Then the investigation sometimes can take some time and we get outside agencies involved to do most of that so that we’re not directly involved in the criminal side of it,” Edinger said. “While that’s going on, we’re doing policy investigations, we’re making sure that tactically we were doing things correctly, and we review all of those things.”
After the investigation is complete, a review of the incident is done where the entire department watches the video.
“We watched the video over and over again and went through what happened, what was good, what was bad, what maybe we would change, maybe we wouldn’t,” Edinger said. “Every shooting is different and every officer is different and they would approach things differently. It’s not to say that one decision is right or wrong. You just don’t know and it’s just how you handle it.”
Edinger said every officer-involved shooting has different circumstances.
He said he was involved in an officer-involved shooting in 2015 with a pursuit that began by Cork & Barrel Liquors and ended near Dairy Queen after two officers shot the suspect, who was wounded and survived.
“You’re evaluating the information that you’re receiving from dispatch and hoping that it’s accurate, knowing every time that it’s incomplete, and then it’s rapidly evolving,” he said. “So the information you could be getting could be old.”
He said officers have to consider the backstop — a barrier to stop bullets — if they have to shoot at an individual.
In Edinger’s case, the backstop was an empty business made of brick.
“I had that security of knowing that I was safe,” he said. “Cory actually had the exact opposite. He had to move.”
Beckman said he was only two blocks away from the parking lot behind Fred’s Den when the Stutsman County Communications Center dispatched officers to a report of a man armed with a gun and knife.
“I didn’t have much information,” he said.
Beckman said he made sure he had some cover from gunfire at the scene. He said he knew Fontenot’s general location after hearing magazines drop out of his firearm.
Beckman also had to move to make sure there was a safe backstop. Before he moved to a different location, he said he refrained from shooting because there were bystanders who would have been hit.
“As I was running, I told myself I’m going to give him one more command to drop the gun, and if he doesn’t, I’m going to shoot him,” he said. “It was clear that he wasn’t listening to commands. He could hear me. We were maybe 10, 12 feet away initially. … I identified myself, I told him exactly what he needed to do, and there’s just a disregard to the commands and the fact of him shooting multiple rounds with the innocent bystanders in the parking lot.”
Mann said his involvement in an officer-involved shooting in 2010 was a report about a suicidal individual at an apartment building at 1506 6th Ave. SW.
“Instead of pressing that issue, we back out,” he said.
He said the department talks about the use of force, deadly force and less-lethal technology.
“It gets brought up, and we make that reminder like that it’s not OK to go expose yourself to suicidal subjects and cause that confrontation,” he said.
During the 2010 incident, officers arrived on scene and stood on the sidewalk leading to the apartment while they discussed their course of action, The Jamestown Sun reported. The man exited the front door of the building carrying a shotgun and upon seeing the three officers, he chambered a round into the firearm and pointed it at the officers after being told to drop it, The Sun reported. The three officers fired on the man, striking him several times. The man was wounded and survived.
Mann said more times than not a situation is deescalated and someone gets arrested or is sent to the North Dakota State Hospital for treatment.