Chelsea Fresh, 29, died Nov. 20, 2014 after being shot four times by Beaverton police officers James Beane and Daniel Coulson. Fresh, who had pointed an unloaded rifle at police, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Toxicology tests showed she had a blood alcohol level of .19 percent and had also ingested a prescription antidepressant, sleep medication, and an anti-seizure drug (anticonvulsants are often used to treat bipolar disorder). The DA ruled the shooting “justified.” Officers Beane and Coulson, and two other officers who took part in less lethal ways, were awarded Medals of Valor for their handling of the incident.
Beaverton officers James Beane and Daniel Coulson ‘justified’ in fatally shooting Chelsea Breeze Fresh
Chelsea Fresh in 2010.
The officers who fired a total of eight rounds from their AR-15 rifles, were James Beane and Daniel Coulson. Officer Chester Lamb fired a less-lethal round that also struck Fresh.
In a letter to Beaverton Police Chief Geoff Spalding, Senior Deputy District Attorney Jeff Lesowski concluded that the officers committed no crime and his office declined to present the case to a grand jury.
“At the time the officers fired, the only reasonable conclusion was that she was about to use deadly force against them,” Lesowski wrote.
According to the account in Lesowski’s letter, officers responded when Fresh’s boyfriend called 911 to report that she was intoxicated, had assaulted him, threatened to kill him, was attempting to get a knife and was a danger to herself. He said she was angry over news that she was losing custody of her child.
The boyfriend told arriving officers that there were two rifles in the house but no ammunition. However, during the ensuing negotiations, she made statements that she planned to “shoot it out with police” and that she was “locked and loaded.”
The letter describes a highly agitated Fresh, who refused to surrender during the nearly half-hour incident. At the end, she came out of the house and approached officers while pointing a rifle at them, prompting them to shoot. Her rifle proved to be unloaded.
Lesowski’s letter was dated March 25 but released to media this week, following the conclusion of an investigation by the Washington County Major Crimes Unit. The investigation, led by Tigard and Tualatin detectives, took longer than usual due to complex toxicology testing conducted on Fresh, Lesowski wrote.
Those tests showed that Fresh had a blood-alcohol content of .19 percent (more than twice the legal limit for driving) and also had ingested prescription medications designed to treat depression, sleep problems and seizures.
No charges for officers in fatal police shooting in Beaverton
Two police officers won’t be charged in the shooting death of 29-year-old Chelsea Fresh.
Eight rounds were fired at the suspect near her Beaverton home as she pointed a rifle, later determined to be unloaded, at the officers, .
Beaverton police responded to a call from Fresh’s boyfriend, who said she was drunk and suicidal. A crisis negotiator tried to calm her, according to the deputy district attorney, but Fresh said she had ammunition and she’d fire at police.
She eventually came out of her home, pointing a rifle at police. Officers Dan Coulson and James Beane fired and hit her four times.
A toxicology report showed Fresh had a blood alcohol level of .19 percent, and an antidepressant, sleep aid and anti-seizure medication in her system.
Friend of woman shot by police: ‘We did not want to lose her’
Two days ago, Beaverton police said they were forced to shoot a woman when she pointed a gun at officers.
The father of that woman’s children said it wasn’t a suicide attempt. He said Chelsea Fresh was going through a mental health crisis and needed help.
“My daughters love her so much. They love her so much,” Michael Garza said. “They’ll always remember the good things.”
But, it was at one of Fresh’s low points that things took a deadly turn.
Thursday night police responded to a home on Conestoga Drive in Beaverton. They said Fresh’s boyfriend dialed 911 to report she was suicidal and that there were guns and other weapons in the home.
Beaverton police said she came out with one of those rifles in hand, pointed at officers. They opened fire.
Fresh died on scene.
“I knew that cops were involved. I thought maybe she’ll get tased or bean-bagged or thrown in jail, and then they can really make an effort to help her,” Garza said. “And, it didn’t turn out that way.”
Garza said he was Fresh’s go-to person. She called him that day during a rough patch in her battle with bipolar disorder.
He said she just needed help.
“There was a peaceful way to this. I don’t care if she had broken bones or was in intensive care,” he said. “The fact is that she didn’t get a chance.”
It’s a chance Garza said officers should have given her by using less than lethal force.
“I would have congratulated them, and I would have thanked them for saving her life because we did not want to lose her, and she did not want to be lost,” he said.
Police said a negotiator trained in mental health issues talked to Fresh over the phone. But in the end, it came down to a split-second decision when she pointed a gun at officers.
Garza said it’s the last thing the mother of three would have wanted.
“She was a very dedicated and loving mother,” he said. “It’s just sometimes those mental things – you can’t stop them without help.”
Garza has set up a fund to benefit Fresh’s children: http://www.gofundme.com/hoj81s
Police ID 29-year-old woman killed in officer-involved shooting
Police have identified the 29-year-old woman who was killed in an officer-involved shooting Thursday in Beaverton.
Officers were called out to a home on the 12000 block of Southwest Conestoga Drive at 3:50 p.m. on reports of a disturbance.
A man called 911 to report his girlfriend, identified as 29-year-old Chelsea Fresh, was possibly suicidal with access to two rifles, knives and other weapons.
The man told investigators she pushed him and went toward knives in the kitchen, so he left the house to call police.
Crisis negotiators were at the scene and contacted the woman on the phone. During that time, police said Fresh exited the home several times with a rifle in her hands. After about an hour, police said, she came out of the home and pointed the rifle at officers.
That is when she was shot, according to police. Fresh was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said no officers were injured. The names of the officers involved are not expected to be released until at least Tuesday, according to a Beaverton Police Department spokesperson.
The officers are currently on paid administrative leave, per department policy.
The Washington County Major Crimes Team is investigating the shooting.
Southridge High School was put in a temporary lockout during the police activity on Thursday.
Investigation finds two officers fired at woman who aimed rifle in standoff
Investigators say a woman fatally shot by Beaverton police officers on Thursday, Nov. 20, had threatened officers and pointed a rifle at them after they responded to a domestic disturbance call on Southwest Conestoga Drive.
Chelsea B. Fresh, 29, a resident in the 12000 block of Conestoga Drive, was shot at 4:41 p.m. and pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators learned the rifle Fresh pointed at officers was not loaded.
Beaverton officers Dan Coulson and James Beane fired AR-15s, and one officer fired a less-lethal 0-millimeter projectile. Eight lethal rounds were fired, and Fresh was struck four times, said Sgt. Jim Shumway, a Beaverton Police Department spokesman, on Tuesday afternoon.
Following a 911 call from Fresh’s boyfriend Michael Blaurock, Beaverton police were dispatched on Nov. 20 at 3:51 p.m. to a disturbance involving a weapon at a house in the residence, located just south of the Conestoga Aquatic and Recreation Center.
When officers arrived, Blaurock told them Fresh, his girlfriend, was in the house armed with a knife, had threatened him and was suicidal. Shumway said probable cause existed to arrest Fresh for menacing Blaurock with a knife while threatening to kill him.
Blaurock left the house to call police.
An officer with the Washington County Crisis Negotiation Unit made phone contact with Fresh inside the house in an attempt to defuse the situation.
The negotiator spoke with Fresh multiple times on the phone over the next 30 minutes in 19 calls. During the short phone calls, Fresh, who police suspect may have been intoxicated, was extremely agitated, threatening to “shoot it out” with the police and making other threats before hanging up on the negotiator, Shumway said. The threats were heard by officers posted around the house and officers near the phone call as well as by three neighbors who were outside at the time of the incident.
Fresh told the negotiator she had ammunition, and the gun was loaded, a statement that was broadcast to officers via police radio. She exited the residence several times with a rifle in her hands, each time returning inside, police said.
Approximately an hour after officers arrived, Fresh exited the residence, lifted and aimed the rifle toward officers. To defend themselves, the two officers shot Fresh, Shumway said. No officers were injured during the standoff.
Police radio dispatches on Thursday included the boyfriend’s claim that there was no ammunition in the house for the rifles. The victim, however, told the crisis negotiation officer she had ammunition for the two rifles, said Officer Mike Rowe, a Beaverton police spokesman. Investigators learned the rifle Fresh pointed at officers was not loaded.
“It is important to remember that a police officer or citizen placed in a life-or-death situation has but a fraction of a second to make the right decision,” Rowe said.
Coulson is a 20-year veteran of the Beaverton Police Department, and Beane has served 15 years as a police officer, the past three with the Beaverton Police Department. Neither officer has been involved in a shooting before, nor has either officer sustained complaints involving use of force, Shumway said.
As a matter of policy, the officers were placed on paid administrative leave pending further investigation.
Beaverton Police gave those officers medals of valor for following their training and murdering Fresh. They also give out gold stars to officers who use the bathroom according to their potty training.
Fuck police that keep killing the mentally ill and not truly helping the situation, I hope they sleep well knowing they killed a woman in desperate need, it’s called police brutality and it’s sick and disappointing and we need massive reform, police need to put there damn guns away and find another solution, this cannot keep continuing.
Thank you for getting my step-mom’s story out there. Right or wrong, I do not get to see her on Mother’s Day today. Please keep prayers for my siblings or who continue to live life without their mama. God bless.
I never met Chelsea, but I still think of her from time to time.
This could have happened to me during my lowest moments: I could have been Chelsea.
I know exactly why her blood alcohol was .19, because I’ve been there. For years, drinking a beer or two calmed her, then tolerance quietly started to happen. Slowly over time, it took four beers to feel calm, then beer no longer worked and she likely switched to bottles of wine or hard alcohol.
Then, over the course of many years, it grew to whatever it was that night.
I know exactly why she had a sleep aid in her system. I also know the sleep aid increased the level of intoxication she was experiencing.
I want her loved ones to know that she was really hurting inside and that’s why she drank. It’s a hurt that not many can understand, unless you’ve been there. She drank because nothing else worked.
I have nightmares about the instant she was shot.
The only consolation I have for her loved ones is that with a BAC of .19 plus the other medications, I’m almost 100% certain she was not aware of what happened.
I don’t know if she was dead before she hit the the ground, or if it took a minute. But even if it wasn’t instant, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t able to comprehend what had happened before she died.
What happened to her was ghastly. Nobody deserves that, especially a mother of young children.
I wish I could have helped her. I wish I could have told her everything would be ok.
I want her loved ones to know that they are so loved. I’d like to pass on to her children that Chelsea would not want them to suffer in their lives about this as they grow older.
Her children are powerless to change what happened, but they have the power to prevent an accident like this from happening to them one day. I hope they understand what i’m saying here.
Let’s keep Chelsea’s memory alive.