‘A step toward resolution for Jesse’: 4th trial date set for Auburn officer accused of 2019 murder

AUBURN, Wash. — A new trial date has been set for an Auburn police officer who is accused of shooting and killing a 26-year-old man with a mental health crisis in 2019 after the trial had been delayed three times.

TRIAL DATE:

On Monday, the King County Prosecutor’s Office told us that the new trial date is scheduled for March 18, 2024, for Auburn officer Jeff Nelson.

He’s currently charged with murder and assault for allegedly killing Jesse Sarey.

We have previously covered this trial:

• In January 2020, a video was released of a confrontation between Nelson and Sarey.
• In August 2020, Nelson was charged with murder.
• In May 2021, we broke down how Nelson made history by becoming the first-ever law enforcement officer charged with murder and assault under voter-approved Initiative 940.
• In May 2023, we spoke to Sarey’s family as the trial was delayed again.

The trial was originally scheduled in October of 2021.

However, it was later scheduled for February of 2022, and a third time for February of 2023.

INVESTIGATION:

The shooting happened outside of the Sunshine Smoke Grocery in Auburn, located near the intersection of 15th Street Northeast and Auburn Way North, on May 31, 2019.

Surveillance video captured the escalation that night.

Investigators said Officer Nelson physically struggled with Jesse Sarey, punching him repeatedly.

Prosecutors said the officer first shot Sarey in the stomach, paused to free a jammed round from his gun – looked back at a witness – and fired another shot into Sarey’s head, within 38 seconds.

Officer Nelson has been on house arrest since 2020 while being paid by the Auburn Police Department.

According to the Auburn Police Advisory Committee, Nelson is getting paid roughly $100,000 a year.

Nelson is also the first police officer to be charged with murder and assault under the voter-approved Initiative 940, which makes it easier to prosecute police officers for using deadly force.

Before this initiative, an officer had to be proven to have malice to be charged with killing. Only one officer was ever taken to trial prior, and he was acquitted.

We reached out to the defense about the new trial date.

We are still waiting to hear back.

SAREY’S FOSTER MOTHER:

We spoke with Sarey’s foster mother, Elaine Simons, about the new trial date on Monday.

“I felt finally, we were going to get some kind of resolution and accountability that this police officer, who has been on paid administrative house arrest, will have some kind of, being held for what he has done,” she said.

She said she first learned about the new trial date last Friday.

Simons said she became Jesse Sarey’s foster mother in 2005. She had been the foster mother for Sarey’s little brother since 2003.

Sarey’s biological mother escaped from the Cambodian genocide, Simons said, that killed more than 1.5 million people.

She stayed at a refugee camp for about six years and later immigrated to the United States to pursue “the American dream” to provide her future children with a better life.

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Jesse Sarey

Decades later, that dream became a nightmare, Simons said.

“That family has been through too much.” She added, “They escaped a horrible, horrible regime to come to this country.”

We also spoke with Dawn Dailey, a community organizer and supporter of the family, who has been involved with the case since 2020.

“Five years. Five years. It has been delayed after the death of Jesse Sarey.” Dailey said. “That dream became a nightmare for the Sarey family. The American Dream, the hopes and the sacrifices this Cambodian family had made to come to a progressive area, in the Pacific Northwest, that had promised to be a sanctuary state in a county that wants to be a sanctuary county, has not provided sanctuary at all. It has been a nightmare for the Sarey family.”

Dailey, who has supported a number of vigils for people within the Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander community, spoke about the experiences that many within the Cambodian community navigate through.

“The Cambodian community has gone through a lot already and I don’t think people understand the cultural underlying fears that the Cambodian and other Southeast Asian communities that are refugees that had escaped genocide and oppression in Asia and come here, under green card status, and see all of their hard work dissolve, and all of their hopes and dreams dissolve in the loss of their children’s lives,” she told us.

Simons told us that Sarey’s biological mother and little brother had been waiting for the trial to begin.

After years of waiting, she said, that dream never came true for them.

Sarey’s biological mother died in 2021 and Sarey’s brother died in 2022, Simons said.

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