oregonlive.com
Feds pay $125K after Border Patrol agent pointed gun at Portland hotel worker
The federal government Friday agreed to pay $125,000 after a judge found a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent liable for civil assault for pointing a gun at a hotel maintenance man who came to the agent’s room to unclog a toilet. “This case makes clear that we can obtain civil accountability for the unlawful actions of rogue federal agents, even if it takes nearly six years,” said attorneys Michael Fuller and Nate Haberman, who filed the lawsuit. “We’re satisfied with the result.” The final payout for the 2020 encounter came a day after an unrelated shooting in Southeast Portland involving one or more U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers who wounded two people. In 2020, agent Joshua Jones was part of a Phoenix-based Border Patrol tactical unit sent to Portland to guard the federal courthouse and other federal buildings during nightly unrest downtown after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Jones was staying in Room 428 at the Residence Inn by Marriott in North Portland and had called down to the front desk to report a malfunctioning toilet. Christopher Frison, a chief maintenance engineer at the hotel, arrived at Jones’ room about 5 p.m. on July 27, 2020, and knocked several times. Frison also called out “maintenance,” gave his name and waited, holding a plunger, he testified in court. That’s when “Jones opened the door ready to defend himself and his room,” according to U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson’s 22-page opinion. According to Frison, Jones was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head when he “swung” the hotel door open, reached with his right hand behind his back and suddenly pointed a handgun at Frison’s chest. He said Jones held his gun in two hands, both arms outstretched. “What the hell are you doing? What is going on?” Frison said he screamed. “All I could see was the white of his eyes. I could see the anger in his face. I wasn’t there as a threat. I was there as a maintenance worker.” Frison testified that Jones pointed the gun at him for four to five seconds before uttering twice that he “f----- up.” The judge found that Frison’s lawyers didn’t need to prove that Jones intended to shoot Frison or cause him physical injury. It didn’t matter if the gun was loaded or not, according to her opinion. It was clear Jones “intended” to place Frison in fear of imminent harm, she ruled. “Simply put, that Jones opened the door quickly and pointed a gun at plaintiff is sufficient to establish defendant’s liability for civil assault,” Nelson wrote. The judge found Frison’s testimony credible and noted that Jones couldn’t explain what he was doing with the gun before answering the door or whether the gun was loaded Jones testified that he never pointed his gun at Frison and only held it in his right hand, down at his side with the barrel pointed at the floor. Jones said he was getting his gear ready after using the room phone earlier to call for maintenance. When he heard the knock about 20 minutes later, it didn’t occur to him that it was a maintenance worker responding, he said. In an email that a supervisor had him write a few days later in response to Frison’s complaint, Jones said he assumed one of his teammates might be at the door and answered holding a gun. But during a deposition taken in the civil case in 2022, Jones said he thought a protester might have been outside his hotel room door. “It crossed my mind,” he testified then. He also conceded during his trial testimony that he had some suspicion that a protester could have tracked him to the hotel room and that “there was potential for that.” He said he was prepared “to protect that room” and to defend himself. Yet he said he never looked in the peephole of the room door before opening it and didn’t remember if the gun in his hand was loaded. Joshua Keller, one of the government lawyers representing Jones, had argued that Frison’s recollection of events wasn’t realistic, saying it wouldn’t make sense for Jones to open his hotel door, then reach for his gun and point it at Jones. Keller did not respond to a message seeking comment on the payout. The case was finalized through a settlement conference Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Hallman, according to court papers.
