Overland Park officer says he shot teen in van after he ‘didn’t listen’ to commands
Editor’s note: The following story describes graphic content.
Four days after he fatally shot John Albers, an Overland Park police officer told investigators he fired his weapon because the minivan the teenager was driving was going to strike him.
Officer Clayton Jenison fatally shot the 17-year-old on Jan. 20, 2018, outside the Albers’ home. A nearly 500-page, long-awaited report on the shooting, which did not result in criminal charges, was released Thursday afternoon.
As part of that release, Overland Park also published interviews recorded on video by a Johnson County officer-involved shooting team that probed the killing.
That included an interview with Jenison, who fired at Albers as he backed the family’s minivan down the driveway. Police had been called for a welfare check on the teenager, who was believed to be suicidal.
Jenison recounted the shooting as he sat next to his attorney in a room with two detectives. Dispatchers had told responding officers that Albers had been cutting himself and was threatening to stab himself, Jenison recalled.
Once at the home, Jenison said, he told Albers to stop the minivan as he was backing it out of the garage.
“He didn’t listen to my commands,” Jenison told the detectives. “I shot.”
Jenison believed he fired two to three shots. The minivan, Jenison said, then went past him “rapidly” before it did a U-turn in the driveway. As the minivan came back toward Jenison, he fired again, he recalled. He believed he fired five to seven rounds that time.
“Where I was, I believed he was going to hit me,” Jenison said.
In total, Jenison fired 13 rounds, according to the report.
Six struck Albers — most of them hitting the back of his body, including his head.
Dash camera footage from the officers’ cars details the scene. The initial release of footage in 2018 touched off intense interest and debate among the public.
Asked by a detective if the minivan was going slow, Jenison said he remembered that it was going fast enough to cause him bodily harm. He said he was running backward during one part of the encounter.
According to a lawsuit filed by the Albers family, which settled for $2.3 million, the vehicle was traveling 2.5 mph.
After the shooting, the minivan came to a stop in a neighbor’s yard. Jenison approached Albers to perform life-saving measures on the teenager, but another officer told him to “get back.” Jenison was then escorted to a police vehicle.
A sergeant who responded to the scene, Jason Goddard, told investigators he jumped out of his patrol car and ran up to the minivan with Officer Adam Vendetti. They checked on Albers.
Vendetti, one of the officers on scene, ran up to the minivan. He said one of its windows was blown out and he could blood coming from Albers’ face.
“I knew he was gone,” Vendetti said.
In his interview, Goddard said “he’s clearly deceased. Nothing we can do for him.”
Goddard, who witnessed the shooting, was asked by detectives what was going through his mind at the time. He said he was concerned Jenison was going to be hit by the minivan, and called the shooting a bad deal all around.
“It’s everyone’s worst nightmare,” he said. “No one wants to have to shoot anybody, but you know, it is what it is. Cards are dealt.
“We don’t pick the team, we just dance to what’s playing,” he continued. “We have good training and good people. So you kind of hope for the best, you know.”
Jenison’s interview with detectives lasted 46 minutes, during which they took a 10-minute break. In it, he said his intentions that day were “not to shoot” Albers but to “make sure he was alright and we got him the help he needed.”
Jenison described himself as “extremely emotional” after the shooting. He said he was dry heaving. A police car’s camera system captured him sobbing.
“I f------ told him to stop,” he could be heard saying, according to reports released Thursday.
After receiving the investigatory team’s findings, the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office ruled the shooting justified.
The killing became a source of controversy as John Albers’ family and other community members began asking for answers from the police department and the city.
Teen’s mom calls investigation ‘lopsided’
Sheila Albers, John’s mother, said her family was relieved that the city, after three years, had responded to calls for transparency and released the report. But she questioned how the investigation was conducted and the contents of the report, calling it “lopsided.”
“OISIT (Officer Involved Shooting Investigation Team) is not interested in an impartial investigation,” she said. “They are interested in clearing the officer.”
While the report does include Jenison’s training history, it does not include the former officer’s performance reviews or discipline history.
“This ‘investigation’ contains little information about the officer that fired his weapon 13 times or his performance as a police officer,” Sheila Albers said, adding that she also did not understand why a scene reconstruction had either not been conducted or was not included in the report.
Instead, she said, the report focuses on her son’s struggles. Dozens of pages contain journal entries and social media posts made by John Albers.
“John may not have been perfect, but he was deeply loved,” she said. “He deserved an investigation that was competent, unbiased and backed by evidence. This was not an investigation, it was victim blaming.”
In the years since her son was killed, she has continued to push for answers from the city. In June 2019, she discovered Jenison had been paid $70,000 before resigning from the police department.
Last year, The Star filed a lawsuit to obtain the severance agreement. The agreement showed Overland Park police reported to the state agency on law enforcement certification that Jenison’s departure was a “voluntary resignation under ordinary circumstances.”
Sheila Albers filed a complaint with the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training, alleging that Overland Park Police Chief Frank Donchez committed perjury on the form submitted to the commission.
The teen’s shooting is also the subject of an investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health problem, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-8255.
