KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The John Albers case is now garnering nationwide attention after a report released by The Washington Post on Tuesday.
Albers was shot and killed in 2018 by former Overland Park police officer Clayton Jenison.
In the report released by The Washington Post, it walks readers and viewers through what happened that night Albers was killed.
As part of the year The Post spent researching this story, the reporters also spent two months researching and creating a 3-D scan.
The Post showed that scan to experts who concluded the officer was not in harm's way when he shot Albers.
While she felt the Post's portrayal of her son's story was comprehensive and accurate, she admits four years after John's death, it's still difficult for Sheila to watch the video of that fatal shooting.
"It was extraordinarily difficult to watch. You know, it’s traumatizing to relive all of those moments," she said.
Albers was 17 when he died. He made suicidal comments online which prompted his friends to call police.
When officers responded, Albers was backing out of his family's driveway in a minivan.
Jenison said he feared for his life before he opened fire, shooting 13 times, killing Albers. The Johnson County District Attorney later ruled the shooting was justified.
The investigation into the shooting took six days, which is another thing The Post asked an expert to weigh in on. It's something the Post's experts claim is too short of a time period for analyzing this type of case.
The KSHB 41 I-Team asked the reporters from The Post what drew them to the story.
"This case is one of the very few cases in many years that I’ve been doing this, where you can see the police investigation of a police shooting," Tom Jackman, a criminal justice reporter at The Post said. "You never see that, you just never see it. They don’t release these files. Maybe a lawyer sees them, maybe cops, but not the public. So thanks to your station KSHB for filing a lawsuit, that forced Overland Park to release these files. We get to see inside this investigation and that’s super rare."
Sarah Cahlan, a visual forensics video reporter for The Post, explained how the news outlet used the 3-D scan to show Jenison's position in relation to the minivan.
"What we did is, we went out there, we took drone footage. So we were able to take images of the area and piece that together with the dash cam footage so we could create a 3-D model," Cahlan said.
For Sheila Albers, she said watching the events that transpired the night her son died will never get easier.
"No it does not get any easier. I’ve only watched this video actually twice through completely, because it is so difficult to watch," she said. "But I continue to tell John's story and I continue to point out where we need to make change, because that’s the only way will make sure it never happens again."
To watch the video and the 3-D scan from The Post, people can visit this link.
KSHB 41 News reached out to the Johnson County District Attorney for comment on The Post's story. This story will be updated if one is received.
The FBI is is currently investigating the Overland Park Police Department's handling of this case.
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