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Officers cleared in I-5 rest area shooting By Nick Morgan Updated: Nov 01, 2022 03:04 PM A A The Josephine County District Attorney’s Office provided this still shot from an Oregon State Police sergeant’s dash cam showing a Jeep Wrangler’s windshield breaking as the shooter fired a semi-automatic rifle through it from the driver’s seat. Moments later, the sergeant rammed the Jeep with his Chevy Tahoe patrol vehicle to incapacitate him. [Josephine County DA’s Office photo] The Josephine County District Attorney’s office has found that five Oregon State Police troopers and three Josephine County Sheriff’s Office deputies were justified in using deadly force when they responded in September to an active shooter incident at a rest area north of Merlin. The eight officers shot a gunman identified as Rock Jordan at the northbound Manzanita Rest Area off Interstate 5 roughly 2 miles north of Merlin shortly before 5 p.m. Sept. 20 “until Jordan was no longer a threat,” according to a news release issued Monday by the Josephine County DA Josh Eastman. Eastman justified — but did not identify — the eight officers who fired at Jordan in three separate times at the rest area’s off-ramp, on-ramp and within the rest area during what Eastman called an “active shooter situation” that began earlier that afternoon with a woman who was shot “multiple times” at the rest area while on the phone with OSP dispatchers. The five-page release outlining findings from an independent Grants Pass Police Department investigation forwarded to the DA’s office does not directly say whether Jordan or the woman were killed, and messages left by phone and email were not returned Tuesday. Eastman, however, indicated at least the woman survived in his commendation of an Oregon State Police sergeant’s “valor and selflessness” for using a Chevrolet Tahoe to ram the shooter — despite Jordan’s oncoming fire from a semiautomatic through the windshield of a Jeep Wrangler. “The OSP sergeant’s decision to ram the Jeep and incapacitate the vehicle, along with Jordan, despite the rounds being fired directly at his vehicle only feet away, to bring a prompt resolution to this active shooter situation likely prevented any further harm to the public, the woman and law enforcement,” Eastman’s release states. The woman called OSP dispatch for help from the rest area at 4:13 p.m., telling dispatchers, “Please get this ... guy out of my car,” that he’d pointed a gun at her, that she didn’t know where he’d taken her and “he wouldn’t let me leave here.” She told dispatchers Jordan was armed with a semiautomatic rifle and a handgun, and that she believed Jordan was “ready for law enforcement.” “The woman remained on the phone with dispatch throughout the encounter, including after being shot multiple times by Jordan,” Eastman’s release states. Police staged at the entrance, but struggled to get a line of sight on Jordan, the woman and the Jeep due to the area’s landscape and topography. Police focused their plan on removing the woman from the scene, so they had dispatchers instruct her to walk toward police. “Shortly after that, deputies in the trees witnessed Jordan shoot at the woman multiple times; she fell, and then she crawled toward a set of bushes near the bathrooms,” the release states. Jordan got out of the Jeep, grabbed the woman’s car keys, then drove the Jeep toward the law enforcement staging area. Police opened fire until the Jeep “slowed, stopped and began backing up into the middle of the rest area.” Jordan opened fire at the deputies in the woods between incidents of “erratically driving through the rest area,” according to Eastman. While police at the staging area moved in to retrieve the woman, one sheriff’s deputy at the north end fired rounds into the Jeep’s driver side window while OSP troopers and sheriff’s deputies in the center of the rest area approached Jordan. Jordan fired his AR-15-style rifle at approaching law enforcement through the Jeep’s windshield. It was then that an OSP sergeant accelerated his Chevrolet Tahoe SUV to ram Jordan in the Jeep, pushing it “into the landscaping between the parking lot and the restroom.” The OSP sergeant told investigators Jordan “still appeared agitated” and still had the rifle within reach, according to the DA’s office. The sergeant “fired multiple rounds from his handgun into the Jeep, exited the vehicle and got out of the crossfire.” Jordan was still “moving and active” after the OSP sergeant’s rounds, so “other law enforcement opened fire on the Jeep until law enforcement confirmed Jordan was no longer a threat,” the release states. The sergeant then “went to help the woman who had crawled to the bushes nearby.” Eastman determined the five OSP troopers and three sheriff’s deputies were justified under Oregon law, and that there was no “reasonable opportunity” to try to verbally de-escalate the situation or issue any warnings. “Jordan had committed a violent felony, was using deadly force against police and was potentially going to escape on I-5 after doing so,” Eastman stated. “No further action in this matter is anticipated nor merited.” Reach web editor Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MTwebeditor.