FILE - The first report generated by Washington's Office of Independent Investigation looks into the shooting death of Adam Grant Gunderson by Vancouver police.
Anna Lueck / OPB
Washington investigators released new details Thursday about a man shot and killed by Vancouver Police Department officers last winter in a grocery store parking lot close to midnight.
Adam Grant Gunderson, 45, had methamphetamine in his system and, according to friends and family who talked to investigators, held anti-government beliefs. Investigators recovered a stolen, loaded handgun from the scene.
The officer who shot and killed Gunderson had drawn his gun on Gunderson weeks prior to the fatal Dec. 4 encounter. Records show the previous incident ended with Gunderson refusing to leave his house and reportedly telling police they had “no lawful authority” to arrest him.
The details emerged from a 99-page report released by Washington‘s new Office of Independent Investigation. It is the first report released by the office since its creation. The office is tasked with building more public trust in investigations when police use deadly force.
The report lays out the steps that a team of investigators — who arrived at the scene about 90 minutes after the shooting — took to uncover the facts of the case.
Roger Rogoff, a former prosecutor and judge and the office’s executive director, said his team has given a copy of the report to the Clark County prosecuting attorney’s office. Prosecutors will then use the investigation to determine if they want to file criminal charges against the officers.
The report does not make any recommendations. Rogoff said that’s intentional.
“I’m not saying we accomplish this every time, but our job is to find the truth,” Rogoff said. “People have to trust the process. You have to have procedural justice before you can have actual justice. And I don’t ever want to step on the prosecutor’s decision.”
Investigators found that the officers involved that night — Kyle Beguelin Flores and Seth Anderson — had clean records. They found no criminal history, no internal complaints about improper uses of force and no complaints lodged against them with the state’s law enforcement certification board.
Both officers started their careers in 2021. Investigators also examined their training records and found them up to date.
While investigators spent more than four months on the case, the official launch of the office has been years in the making.
Washington lawmakers created the Office of Independent Investigation in 2021 after the death of George Floyd in Minnesota caused a nationwide uproar over police brutality.
Run-ins leading up to Dec. 4 shooting
Weeks prior to the fatal shooting, Beguelin Flores tried to stop Gunderson in east Vancouver for negligent driving. Gunderson pulled into his driveway, stepped out of the car and began walking toward his home.
When Beguelin Flores ordered him to stop, Gunderson reportedly “turned toward (the officer) and lifted his shirt.”
“Officer Beguelin Flores interpreted the movement as Gunderson possibly reaching for a firearm and drew his own pistol,” investigators wrote. “Gunderson entered the residence. Additional officers arrived on scene and attempted to get Gunderson to come out of the house and surrender. He would not come out.”
Investigators reviewed Beguelin Flores‘ body camera footage from the incident and noted that it shows Beguelin Flores ordering Gunderson not to reach for his waistband.
In his police report, Beguelin Flores wrote that Gunderson told the officer he “had no lawful authority” and chose not to come out of the house.
Over the next two days, Gunderson refused text messages and phone calls from police. Officers went to his home again on Oct. 16 but could not coax him outside, records show. They left without making an arrest.
On Dec. 4, according to the report, Beguelin Flores spotted Gunderson near a dumpster in a Safeway parking lot.
Gunderson ignored the officers when they asked for his name and why the pickup truck near him had no license plate. The Vancouver Police Department publicly released officers’ body camera footage on Dec. 16.
The encounter lasted roughly three minutes. At one point, Gunderson attempted to jump into his pickup truck. The scuffle ensued when officers tried to prevent him from driving away.
In the footage, officers announce that Gunderson was at one point reaching for a gun in his pocket. Gunderson denied having a gun, the footage shows. The officers called for Gunderson to show his hands.
“You’re getting shot right now if you don’t give me your fucking hand,” Beguelin Flores said.
“He’s got it out. He’s got it out. Watch out,” Anderson said.
Beguelin Flores fired six shots. Gunderson died from three gunshot wounds to the head. Investigators later found a loaded Ruger LC9 handgun near the scene.
Initially, investigators found the serial number “undecipherable,” they wrote, and sent it to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab to analyze it. After the serial number was restored, the handgun was found to be stolen from Clackamas County in 2013.
A half-hour after the shooting, a Vancouver Police Department captain reported it to the Office of Independent Investigation. The agency’s first investigators arrived shortly after midnight.
The report released Thursday shows investigators followed several steps typical of a homicide investigation.
Investigators got search warrants to seize nearby security footage and search Gunderson’s phone and truck. Besides body-worn cameras, they found that the encounter was captured on the grocery store’s security cameras.
A toxicology report showed Gunderson tested positive for methamphetamine.
When investigators reached out to Gunderson’s friends and family, according to the report, several said he had “identified with beliefs associated with ‘sovereignty.’”
Family members told investigators that Gunderson had appeared “emotionally withdrawn” following his mother’s death around the fall of 2024. He had started posting videos online of himself eluding police officers in the pickup truck, the report said.
Beguelin Flores and Anderson both gave written reports describing what happened but declined to talk with investigators for follow-up questions. Likewise, investigators asked to clarify with a Vancouver Police Department sergeant about evidence handling at the scene, and the sergeant declined.
Rogoff said the officers, “like everyone else in the United States,” have the right to remain silent.
“Whether or not an officer asserts their Fifth Amendment rights and decides not to speak with us, we are going to figure out what happened one way or the other, just like it happens in lots of different investigations,” Rogoff said. “We appreciate the statements we got and we certainly used them during the investigation. And we’ll live with that.”
When asked how the investigators were treated as they inquired about the case, Rogoff said everything was professional.
“There were no jurisdictional issues,” he said. “I think that all the agencies figured out how to do their respective jobs without getting in each other’s way.”
