Witness, Friend Demands Justice in Cop Shooting
07/30/10 - 05:27 PM
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Ian Olson is still struggling to understand how a day out on the river could end with his friend, 31-year-old Jason Kemp, being shot dead by a Colorado State Trooper.

“There’s a lot of questions that need to be answered, still,” Olson said in his first television interview since the shooting. “It should have never, ever come to this point. Period.”

Olson, one of the few witnesses in house during the shooting July 20th in the Redlands, is making it his personal crusade to tell Kemp’s story and hold the trooper accountable for what he considers an unnecessary use of deadly force. “I feel like I’m the voice and eyes of Jason,” Olson said. “It needs to be out in the open. People need to know what happened.”

Olson says it all began when the group of friends returned from a trip on the river to Kemp’s common-law wife’s home. Kemp was backing in a jet ski when it overturned into a neighbor’s yard after several failed attempts.

“Jason got frustrated, and that’s when the accident happened,” Olson said. “We talked to the neighbors, and everything seemed to be under control. We went back into the house, and that’s when the officers started pounding on the door, trying to get in.”

Kemp wouldn’t let the trooper in. Kemp demanded a search warrant and barricaded the door with his body. Olson said he grabbed Kemp’s arm as he held the door closed, telling him to let the troopers in and that “he was just making things worse.”

“They probably had the right to enter, but not in that manner,” Olson said. “They could have handled the situation very differently. I was only six inches away when the trooper blinded Kemp through the doorway with pepper spray.”

Olson was also partially hit by the pepper-spray, and made his way to exit the back door.

“I was going to go outside and try to talk things out with the officers,” Olson said. “Right when I was about to exit, I heard the shot and watched [Kemp] fall to the floor.”

Olson says Kemp was unarmed and never physically grappled with the trooper. Kemp was pronounced dead at the scene from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

“They could have tasered him or called in a negotiation team,” Olson said. “There were so many things they could have done. They didn’t have to kill him.”

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