Fearing for their lives as a machete-wielding man approached them, two Sedona police officers felt they had no choice but to use deadly force during an incident in January.
That was the consensus of a 407-page report compiled by the Arizona Department of Public Safety in Sedona’s first officer-involved shooting resulting in a death.
The report was concluded earlier this month but the Sedona Red Rock News — through a state public records request — received the document on Thursday, Aug. 20.
The report found that the actions of Sgt. Casey Pelletier and Officer William “Bill” Hunt were justifiable in accordance with state law when using deadly force against 41-year-old Jonathan David Messare on Jan. 20.
Editor’s Note: The 407-page Arizona Department of Public Safety investigation report into the shooting of Jonathan David Messare on Jan. 20 by two Sedona police officers is now available in its entirety on our website. Two police dash cam videos from the scene are also available on our website and YouTube.com account.
On the day of the shooting, officers received a call from a resident on Newcastle Lane in Sedona that there was an unknown male on the property with a machete and a stick. The caller indicated that the male was yelling and screaming.
According to the report, at 1:22 p.m. SPD dispatch broadcasted the emergency radio traffic. Pelletier, Hunt and Officer Kevin Hudspeth responded to the scene with emergency lights and sirens. All three officers were equipped with an in-vehicle dash camera and body-worn microphones but no body cameras. The equipment was activated and recorded throughout the incident.
Seven minutes later the three arrived at the scene at the same time. Hunt parked his vehicle approximately 10 yards in front of Messare. Hudspeth positioned his vehicle to the right side of Hunt’s vehicle. Pelletier angled his vehicle behind Hunt’s vehicle and to the left.
Hunt told investigators he immediately recognized the threat Messare posed holding a large machete. Hunt unholstered his handgun and gave verbal commands. Pelletier said he also recognized the threat Messare posed holding the machete. Pelletier unholstered his handgun and gave additional verbal commands for Messare to drop the weapon. Hudspeth unholstered his duty weapon and remained on the passenger side of Hunt’s vehicle.
Messare refused to obey verbal commands given by the officers. Messare clenched the machete handle with both hands and raised it above his head. Messare walked toward Hunt and Pelletier. Hunt and Pelletier continued to give verbal commands to drop the weapon. Messare continued to disobey verbal commands.
“If he chose to sprint, he was approximately 200 to 250 pounds, and I know from my training and experience, had I waited any longer, he would not have stopped. The momentum would have carried him into me, whereas I or my sergeant … would have been either fatally injured or, injured period,” Hunt told investigators.
Hunt and Pelletier, “fearing for their lives and the lives of fellow officers, fired their duty handguns,” the report reads. Hunt fired his handgun twice, grazing Messare with the first shot and striking Messare with the second shot. Pelletier fired his handgun twice, striking Messare both times. Messare was spun around from the impact of the shots.
Messare, still standing, did not drop the machete and walked toward Hunt and Pelletier a second time. Pelletier fired two additional shots striking Messare both times. Messare dropped the machete and fell to the ground with his hands underneath his torso.
Hudspeth did not fire his duty handgun. He later explained his backdrop behind Messare was a concrete embankment and feared an errant shot would result in a ricochet into a nearby apartment complex.
The DPS investigators concluded that, “Hunt and Pelletier used deadly physical force against Messare, after Messare demonstrated he had the capability of causing imminent physical injury, even death, by advancing toward Hunt and Pelletier with a sword clenched with both of his hands in a threatening manner.”
Officer William “Bill” Hunt’s Account
Following the shooting, investigators interviewed each officer at length. Hunt, who felt the threat of harm was a “10 out of 10,” said his thought process was that Messare was going to kill him.
“When he approached me — when he immediately got off that wall — and got to his feet from sitting, he grabbed the sword or machete in both his right and left hand then cupped it,” Hunt told investigators. “He cupped it as if he could get more power to swing it, to have both of his arms’ leverage, and then he raised it over his head, which is when I was able to see his arms weren’t down.”
He also said he felt there was no time to use non-lethal means.
The investigator asked Hunt if there was anything Messare could have done differently to change the outcome.
“Absolutely. He could have listened to the directions,” Hunt said. “He could have put the machete down. He could have stopped at any given time and not continued to move forward in an aggressive manner.”
Sgt. Casey Pelletier’s Account
“Officer Hunt began commands of drop the knife,” Pelletier told investigators about the situation upon exiting their patrol cars. “Then he seemed to realize we were there and grabbed something in his lap. That’s when I realized that he had a substantial blade, and I drew my weapon. I remember him saying, ‘What are you gonna do, shoot me?’ And then he stood up from the wall with his hands on the — I don’t know if you’d call it a sword or a machete, a small sword, large machete, and began walking toward us at that point. And, I know myself and Officer Hunt for sure were calling. He said, ‘Drop the knife’ at one point. I said, ‘Drop the sword,’ because that’s definitely what it looked like for me at that point.”
Like Hunt, Pelletier was asked if Messare had the opportunity to comply.
“One hundred percent he could have complied,” he said. “He could have dropped that knife right off the bat more than a substantial distance and we’d been able to handle this so much better with him to where this would not have been the result. If he’d just complied with getting rid of those weapons like we told him.”
Autopsy
According to the Coconino County Medical Examiner’s report, Messare was positive for 1,059 ng/ mL of methamphetamine, 114 ng/mL of amphetamine, the antihistamine chlorpheniramine, marijuana and dextromethorphan, a substance found in cough medicine.
It also states that Messare was struck with six bullets: Above the right nipple, above the left nipple, perforation of the right abdominal wall, right lumbar region, left shoulder and upper right arm.
Local friends interviewed by investigators said Messare appeared to have emotional issues. One said that may have come from losses in his personal life and injuries suffered during his service in Iraq and subsequent post-traumatic stress disorder.
One friend interviewed said on the day of the incident Messare seemed distraught and later became agitated. The friend tried to calm him down but Messare did not respond to the request and began yelling out military cadence.
The friend said Messare’s actions with the sword before the police contact intimidated him and made him feel uncomfortable, so he went into his residence and locked the door, the report states. The friend said before Messare walked away “he recalled him saying, ‘Oh Father Christmas is going [to] come back and he was going [to] meet the lord today.’ [The friend] said thinking about what Messare said to him made him think maybe Messare had contemplated suicide by police. The friend’s father interjected, ‘Yeah, it seemed like a suicide by police.’”
The friend said as Messare walked away, he heard him say, “I can’t deal with this, and it’s too much,” pulled out his sword, and walked away from the residence. He said he felt Messare was going to “start stuff in the neighborhood.”
Eyewitness to Shooting
On the day of the shooting a resident of the street where the incident occurred, who asked that his name not be used, was an eyewitness to most of the incident. He told the Sedona Red Rock News that a short time prior to the shooting Messare was making noise outside, almost like singing or chanting. The resident looked out the window and said he saw Messare with a machete, banging on a truck.
“Then I saw that he left the property and started walking down there with his dog,” he said, motioning toward the scene of the shooting. “There were people over there and I assumed they were calling the cops. A few minutes later the cops did show up. Before the officers arrived [Messare] was sitting on a ledge. I came out when the police showed up. I heard them say, ‘Drop it.’ They said it over and over again. It was kind of hard to see so I don’t know if he lunged or whatever, and then I heard multiple shots. I saw him still moving and again they said, ‘Drop it or I’ll shoot you again.’ Then I saw them kick the machete away.”
