Man Was Combative, Drunk as Deputy Shot Him, Police Say

PORT HUENEME — A 26-year-old student was drunk, combative and acting irrationally when he was shot and killed last weekend by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy after entering the home of an 81-year-old widow, police said Wednesday.

Jack Dale Sexton walked through the open front door of the woman’s home Sunday evening and confronted her neighbors Senior Deputy Steven Lengyel and Jon Van Tilburg, who were inspecting the home after she ran to Lengyel’s house saying a burglar was trying to break in, Port Hueneme Police Chief John Hopkins said at a news conference.

Hopkins and Ventura County Sheriff Larry Carpenter answered questions about the case in an attempt to correct what they said were erroneous news reports on the shooting.

But the officials left unanswered what exactly prompted the deputy to use deadly force and whether his actions were justified.

Lengyel, an 8 1/2-year veteran who is also a member of the department’s SWAT team, shot Sexton once in the back after going to the aid of Lillian Folk, the widow who lives across the street from his home on Evergreen Lane, officials said.

“This is going to turn out, and I will speculate on this, that Mr. Sexton--for whatever reason-- was acting in an irrational manner in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Carpenter said. “If I can make a giant leap forward and suggest that is what we will find out.”

Police said they were still treating the case as a possible burglary that was foiled by Lengyel and Van Tilburg, who lives a few houses away.

But Sexton’s family and friends disagree.

His parents, Jackie and Joey Sexton of Oxnard, declined to talk about the case Wednesday. Sources said the family is talking with an attorney to represent them in possible legal action against the deputy.

Sexton’s sister, Renay Casey, said Monday that her brother, who was expected to graduate in June from ITT Technical Institute, where he was receiving computer and engineering training, was not a burglar and was probably looking for a phone so he could call home because he had just wrecked his car nearby.

And friends of Sexton’s

said they did not believe police accounts that Sexton was shot inside the woman’s home.

Garon Martin, a friend and former housemate of Sexton’s, said the police explanation of the shooting doesn’t make sense.

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“Why did the deputy fire his weapon? I thought he had to be in danger to justify using his gun,” Martin said. “And if [Sexton] was a burglar, why did he go around knocking on people’s doors? Burglars don’t do that.”

During the news conference, Hopkins and Carpenter tried to lay out the sequence of events that they believe led up to the shooting.

Using preliminary evidence and statements from witnesses and neighbors, Carpenter and Hopkins said they believe that Sexton--who was at a Super Bowl party in the 300 block of 5th Street for about five hours prior to the shooting--was drunk and acting irrationally the night he was shot.

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People at the Super Bowl party told police that Sexton had been drinking heavily and only left the party after picking a fight with another guest. They also reported that when he left, Sexton jumped into his black Volkswagen Jetta and raced his car down 5th Street without his headlights on.

When Sexton reached the point where the street dead-ends, he skidded to a halt, threw the car into reverse and accidentally backed over a curb and his car rolled down into a ditch within Bubbling Springs Park.

According to Chief Hopkins, Sexton got out of his car walking north on the bike path until he reached the Ray Prueter Library, where he allegedly tried to kick in the back door.

He then crossed over a drainage ditch, jumped a chain-link fence and walked into Folk’s backyard at about 9 p.m., then started banging on her backdoor, Hopkins said.

In an interview after the incident, Folk said she saw Sexton looking in the window of her backdoor, then immediately ran screaming out the front door and across the street to Lengyel’s home.

Meanwhile, Sexton climbed over Folk’s back fence and started to walk along the bike lane again. A few houses down, Sexton allegedly broke open a locked gate and walked into another yard.

He then went to the home’s front door and knocked. The female resident told police that she opened the door but closed it immediately when she saw Sexton.

While Sexton was at the other home, Deputy Lengyel and his neighbor Van Tilburg had crossed the street and were looking into Folk’s house.

Believing that Sexton had already gone, the men ventured inside, Hopkins said, adding that Van Tilburg was wearing in-line skates at the time.

When the two were inside, Sexton returned to Folk’s home and, according to what a witness outside the house told police, he walked into the open front door.

Sexton walked through the living room and into the kitchen and confronted Lengyel and Van Tilburg. He allegedly struck Van Tilburg in the face without provocation, cutting the man’s cheek and bruising his face, Hopkins said.

At some point in the next few seconds, Lengyel fired his .45-caliber service revolver at Sexton, striking him in the right midsection of his back, Hopkins said.

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Hopkins did not say what exactly prompted the shooting, but said that there was nothing said before the deputy fired his weapon. According to the unidentified witness, it was only between five to 10 seconds after Sexton entered the home that he was shot, Hopkins said.

The witness told police that after Sexton was shot, he ran out of the house, down the sidewalk and tripped over a hedge, collapsing in the driveway of a home two doors down, where he died.

Van Tilburg, who said he witnessed the shooting, declined to comment on the incident and was avoiding reading about the shooting so that his memory of what had occurred would not be influenced.

Neither Carpenter nor Hopkins would comment on whether Lengyel had acted appropriately in firing his weapon, saying it was too early in the investigation to make that determination.

But Carpenter said that Lengyel is a highly accomplished officer, part of the department’s elite SWAT team, and that he had never had a complaint of excessive force.