VANCOUVER, Wash. — Bodycam video released Friday by the Vancouver Police Department shows the Dec. 4 confrontation between two officers and a man outside a Safeway store, ending with an officer shooting and killing the man.
The two officers, identified as Seth Anderson and Kyle Beguelin Flores, were driving through the Safeway parking lot at 13719 Southeast Mill Plain Boulevard a little before 11 p.m. that night when they noticed a pickup truck without a front license plate backed into one of the store loading bays.
According to VPD, the officers noticed that the man was taking things out of the store dumpster and loading them into the bed of the pickup.
The video begins as the two officers approach the man. The encounter begins cordially enough, but the man — later identified as Adam Grant Gunderson, 45 — refuses to answer questions about his own identity or whether he owns the truck. As one of the officers walks around the back of the pickup to see if it has a rear plate, Gunderson quickly gets into the driver's seat and tries to close the door.
Both officers move to grab Gunderson and keep him from starting the truck. They manage to pull him out of the truck, beginning a close-quarters struggle that is largely obscured from the body-worn cameras.
According to a VPD narrative, Beguelin Flores "had previous contact" with Gunderson, who had multiple warrants out for his arrest. He can be heard on the video referring to Gunderson by his first name, Adam.
One of the officers can be heard saying, "He's got a gun" during the struggle, ordering Gunderson to show his hands. Gunderson insists that he doesn't have a gun and begins saying that he's "bleeding." In flashes of visible video, it appears that Gunderson ends up face-down on the ground, with his hands underneath his body.
"You're gonna get shot, bro," one of the officers says.
Beguelin Flores' bodycam falls to the ground, and he spins the camera so that he is partially in the frame, but Gunderson is not visible. The bodycam of the other officer, Seth Anderson, is mostly pointed off to the side as he struggles with the suspect.
Both officers apparently continue trying to get control of Gunderson's hands, and they make multiple mentions of him having a gun. Gunderson continues insisting that he doesn't, repeating over and over that he's bleeding.
"Give us your right hand ... You're gonna get shot, do you understand?" an officer says. "You're getting shot right now if you don't give me your f****** hand."
As the siren of another arriving police vehicle approaches, there are some signs of a struggle and unintelligible words exchanged between the officers before one says, "Watch out, clear, clear, clear!" followed by the sound of six gunshots in rapid succession.
According to investigators, Beguelin Flores was the one who fired.
In the video, it's not possible to see whether Gunderson has a gun, as he was still face-down when Beguelin Flores started shooting. The next officer to arrive on the scene, who can be seen walking into the frame of Beguelin Flores' video just after the shooting, later notes as additional police arrived that there is a gun on the ground next to Gunderson pointing "northbound," located near Gunderson's hand.
Video from another officer's bodycam does eventually show a handgun on the ground, after Gunderson has been taken away from the scene by paramedics.
According to VPD, Gunderson was declared dead at the hospital. He was shot multiple times in the head. Officer Beguelin-Flores had a bite wound and broken bones in his hand, and was taken to the hospital for treatment.
The shooting is being investigated by the Washington State Office of Independent Investigations (OII), a new state agency that began taking calls Dec. 1. This is the first deadly incident that they have responded to, according to their director of communications.
The new agency was created in 2021 by the Washington state legislature after a recommendation from Gov. Jay Inslee's task force that looked into officer use-of-force cases following the deaths of George Floyd and Manuel Ellis.
The Washington State Office of Independent Investigations is an independent agency made up of investigators with law enforcement experience, some with extensive backgrounds in these types of investigations.
KGW's Luisa Anderson and Devon Haskins contributed to this story.