QuickTake:

The fatal shooting of Christopher Clark Jr. took place hours before a delayed police response, in which a witness who called 911 was fatally shot by tactical officers.

A fear of being pulled down from a raised platform onto a concrete floor led Everett Fuller to shoot Christopher Clark Jr., an attorney for Fuller told jurors Wednesday, May 27, on the opening day of his murder trial.

Fuller, 57, fatally shot Clark on a remote property known as Prindel Creek Farm in northwest Lane County, about 25 miles east of Yachats in the Oregon Coast Range.

The Dec. 26, 2024, shooting led to a second-degree murder indictment, with Fuller’s attorneys now arguing in Lane County Circuit Court that Fuller acted in self-defense.

Willow Hillman, an attorney for Fuller, described him as seated in an office chair on rollers on a platform 5 feet 8 inches off the floor.

“Mr. Clark reaches up and grabs on Mr. Fuller’s left leg and starts to pull him,” Hillman said. 

Fuller tried to kick him off, but as he felt himself “with no control over his legs,” he thought, “it’s my life or his life,” Hillman told jurors. Fuller, a “real pacifist” who “does not believe in violence in any way,” “without thinking reacted” and pulled a gun from his hoodie, shooting Clark, Hillman told jurors.

Opening statements Wednesday described multiple residents on the property, with some living in a house and others a trailer or yurt.

Nicholas Geil, a Lane County deputy district attorney, told jurors Fuller’s wife, Christine, had “been forming a relationship with one of the young men working on the farm, Christopher Clark.”  

“Mr. Fuller was aware of this, didn’t like it, and let Christine know as much,” Geil told jurors.

On the night of the shooting, Fuller told a group that included his wife and Clark that he wanted to watch them play darts. 

Geil said they were in a building with a pool table, a “barn kind of thing” known to people on the property as the “Packing Shed.” People had gathered to “hang out,” Geil told jurors.

Christine Fuller began “to feel uncomfortable with the way the defendant is presenting, so she’s getting ready to leave,” Geil told jurors.

Fuller — standing in a raised area of the “Packing Shed” structure, Geil said — “produces a handgun, shoots repeatedly at Christopher Clark,” with the shots hitting Clark in the face and back.

Then, the “defendant is moving down the stairs, firing as he goes,” Geil told jurors.

Along with the death of Clark, another person on the property, Tyler Holloway, 26, died after being fatally shot by police.

Lane County District Attorney Christopher Parosa concluded that officers who fatally shot Holloway had no criminal responsibility. The officers, part of a multi-agency tactical team, responded hours after a 911 report of Clark’s shooting and said they responded to a shot fired in the direction of an Oregon State Police trooper.

Holloway’s mother has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

The response by police that night was mentioned briefly Wednesday, with Geil telling jurors that officers had trouble reaching the location and also with communications to their “base.”  

Hillman, Fuller’s attorney, told jurors they would likely hear of a conversation between Fuller and Holloway, the man killed by police, on the night of the shooting.

The conversation, in which Fuller described why he did not trust Clark, “really started to make Mr. Clark’s blood boil,” Hillman told jurors.

Fuller turned himself in a day after the shooting, Hillman said. Fuller is also represented by defense attorney John Kolego.

“I think the evidence is going to show he was acting in self-defense,” Hillman told jurors.