Border patrol agent found liable for pointing gun at Portland hotel worker

A judge has found a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent liable for civil assault for pointing a gun at a hotel maintenance man who had arrived at the agent’s room to unclog his toilet.

U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson will hold a future hearing to determine damages.

Agent Joshua Jones was part of a Phoenix-based Border Patrol tactical unit sent to Portland in July 2020 to guard the federal courthouse and other federal buildings during nightly unrest downtown after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Jones was staying in Room 428 at the Residence Inn by Marriott in North Portland and had called down to the front desk to report a malfunctioning toilet.

Christopher Frison, a chief maintenance engineer at the hotel, arrived at Jones’ room about 5 p.m. on July 27, 2020, and knocked several times. Frison also called out “maintenance,” gave his name and waited, holding a plunger, he testified in court.

That’s when “Jones opened the door ready to defend himself and his room,” according to the 22-page opinion released Tuesday.

Nelson found that Frison’s lawyers didn’t need to prove that Jones intended to shoot Frison or cause him physical injury, Nelson found. It didn’t matter if the gun was loaded or not, according to her opinion.

It was clear Jones “intended” to place Frison in fear of imminent harm, she ruled.

“Simply put, that Jones opened the door quickly and pointed a gun at plaintiff is sufficient to establish defendant’s liability for civil assault,” Nelson wrote.

Some discrepancies in Frison’s statements to police and court testimony regarding what he may have said during the encounter didn’t alter the core facts of what occurred, Nelson wrote.

“The Court finds that plaintiff’s testimony regarding Jones opening the door quickly, reaching behind his back, pulling out a gun, and pointing the gun at plaintiff, has remained consistent over time,” she wrote.

In contrast, Jones couldn’t explain what he was doing with the gun before answering the door or whether the gun was loaded, Nelson said.

She cited testimony from a gun instructor called by Frison’s lawyer as an expert witness, William McKnight, who said Jones, an experienced federal agent, was unlikely to carry a gun around “without having a purpose.”

Jones testified that he never pointed his gun at Frison and only held it in his right hand, down at his side with the barrel pointed at the floor.

Jones said he was getting his gear ready after using the room phone earlier to call for maintenance. When he heard the knock about 20 minutes later, it didn’t occur to him that it was a maintenance worker responding, he said.

In an email that a supervisor had him write a few days later in response to Frison’s complaint, Jones said he assumed one of his teammates might be at the door and answered holding a gun.

But during a deposition taken in the civil case in 2022, Jones said he thought a protester might have been outside his hotel room door. “It crossed my mind,” he testified then.

Asked by Frison’s lawyer about the discrepancy while he was on the witness stand during the trial, Jones acknowledged the differences and said, “My teammates seemed the most likely, but I didn’t have any reason to expect them.”

He conceded during his testimony that he had some suspicion that a protester could have tracked him to the hotel room and that “there was potential for that.”

He also said he was prepared “to protect that room” and to defend himself. Yet he said he never looked in the peephole of the room door before opening it and didn’t remember if the gun in his hand was loaded.

According to Frison, Jones was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head when he “swung” the hotel door open, reached with his right hand behind his back and suddenly pointed a handgun at Frison’s chest. He said Jones held his gun in two hands, both arms outstretched.

“What the hell are you doing? What is going on?” Frison said he screamed. “All I could see was the white of his eyes. I could see the anger in his face. I wasn’t there as a threat. I was there as a maintenance worker.”

Frison said Jones pointed the gun at him for 4 to 5 seconds before uttering twice that he messed up.

Joshua Keller, one of the government lawyers representing Jones, had argued that Frison’s recollection of events wasn’t realistic, saying it wouldn’t make sense for Jones to open his hotel door, then reach for his gun and point it at Jones.

Frison’s description of Jones standing with arms outstretched, holding a gun with both his hands, could have been drawn from any action movie, TV show or YouTube video and wasn’t more credible than Jones’ testimony, Keller argued in court.

He said Jones had no intent to harm anyone on the other side of the door and it wasn’t unusual for the agent to hold the gun down in his hand.

The judge’s ruling followed a half-day bench trial in federal court in Portland in May.

Nelson has asked both sides to schedule a future telephone conference with her to discuss when to proceed to the damages phase of the case. Frison’s lawyers have not specified a specified amount of damages they’ll seek, but the judge faces a cap of $1 million.