OXNARD OFFICER SLAIN IN MIX-UP\Fatal shooting occurred during raid on drug ring.

Byline: Kermit Pattison Daily News Staff Writer

An Oxnard police officer was accidentally shot and killed by a fellow officer during a botched raid early Wednesday while storming the empty home of a drug dealer suspect.

Officer James Rex Jensen Jr., 30, was shot by a police supervisor as an Oxnard Police Department SWAT team raided a condominium searching for a federal narcotics suspect.

"At some time during that search, there was this mistaken identity between the officers involved," said Oxnard Police Chief Harold Hurtt. "In our type of business we do not have much of a margin of error."

Armed with high-power weapons and clad in camouflage uniforms and bulletproof armor, the 12-member SWAT team burst into the condominium on the 2400 block of Manzanita Drive in Oxnard just after 6 a.m.

Police said the officers entered the ground floor and then rushed up the stairs with Jensen in the lead. Jensen, who had been on the SWAT team about eight months, threw a flash-bang, an explosive charge designed to disorient suspects with a blinding flash of light and thunderous bang.

Seconds after the bang, Sgt. Daniel Christian saw Jensen in the upstairs hallway and mistook the officer for an armed suspect. Christian fired at least twice with a semiautomatic 12-gauge shotgun from close range, police said.

"It's too early in the investigation to determine how that mistaken identity occurred," said Cmdr. John Crombach, who heads the Oxnard SWAT team.

"How could this have happened?" he said. "That's the question on all of our minds."

Jensen was hit in the upper part of his body near the edge of his bulletproof body armor. He was rushed by ambulance to St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard where he was pronounced dead about 6:30 a.m., officials said.

Police said they were investigating whether the flash bang's blinding flash, explosion and smoke may have disoriented the officers.

Police also said the officers were expecting to confront armed and dangerous drug dealers inside the house. Law enforcement officials said investigation sources led them to believe there would be three people with weapons inside the home.

"We considered this incident to be a high-risk entry due to the people involved," said Hurtt. "This was a very dangerous situation."

Ventura police Lt. Carl Handy, who helped plan the raids, agreed.

"The group we're dealing with, as with all narcotics dealers, are heavily armed and dangerous and (a) serious risk to the community and police officers," said Handy. "We didn't use a SWAT team by chance."

But officers said it turned out no suspects were inside.

One resident of the condo, Joseph Raymond Bustamante, 26, was arrested at his mother's home in Oxnard, said Robert E. Bender, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in Los Angeles.

Christian, 43, of Oxnard, was placed on paid leave following the shooting. He has worked for the department more than 18 years and supervises the street crimes unit, police said.

Jensen, 30, of Ventura is survived by his wife, Jennifer, and two young daughters, Katie, 3, and Lindsay, 5. He joined the Oxnard Police Department four years ago after three years with the Ventura County Sheriff's Department.

Friends called Jensen an enthusiastic officer who supported youth sports in his off-duty hours. He worked as a Little League baseball coach - spending Saturday at a Police Activities League baseball camp - and played second base on the Police Department softball team.

A trust fund for Jensen's family has been established at Channel Islands National Bank, 155 S. A St. in Oxnard. Funeral arrangements are pending.

"He was a very open person," said Hurtt. "He was very well liked in the organization."

The Oxnard Police Department and the Ventura County District Attorney's Office are investigating the shooting. The Los Angeles Police Department crisis response team has agreed to help counsel officers.

The raid was part of a big sweep by officers from west Ventura County law enforcement agencies who raided 16 locations in Oxnard, Ventura, Port Hueneme, Santa Paula and Camarillo to break up a suspected methamphetamine ring.

Police said the raids culminated a two-year investigation between local police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration into the ring operated out of J & J Hydraulics at 1000 S. Oxnard Blvd. in Oxnard. Fourteen people were arrested in the raids, police said.

Leo Tinoco, a 69-year-old retired Navy employee who lives two blocks from the condo complex, said he wanted to move out of the neighborhood.

"Oxnard was never like this 35 or 40 years ago. A lot of new people have moved in here. After dark, nobody walks on these streets," he said. "If I have to go to the store, I use my car. It's the crime."

Joann Gill stood on the curb watching officers milling through the complex.

"We moved here from L.A.," she said. "We thought it would be dead and quiet, but I guess not."

Jensen is the second Oxnard police officer killed in the line of duty in the past 2-1/2 years.

Detective James O'Brien was killed in 1993 by an unemployed computer engineer who had engaged in a shooting spree in the Oxnard unemployment office. The gunman, Alan Winterbourne, killed four people and wounded four others before he was shot by officers.

The shooting also marks the second fatal shooting of a Ventura County law enforcement officer since last year. In August, Simi Valley police Officer Michael Clark was killed while responding to a call at the home of Daniel Tuffree. Tuffree remains in jail awaiting trial for murder.

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO

Photo (1--Color) James Jensen Jr. Mistaken for drug dealer (2--Color) Investigators leave the Oxnard home where Officer James Jensen Jr. was killed during a SWAT team raid. Jeremy Greene/Daily News