Police video shows reenactment of fatal Bend shooting

Hours after he shot and killed his friend and landlord, Daniel Norquist re-enacted the shooting while Bend police filmed — telling detectives Andrew Cordes was walking toward him, ignoring orders to stop.

“Are his hands up?” an investigator asked.

“No,” Norquist replied standing in his room where he pulled the trigger two weeks ago. “Just by the side, he was like walking toward me.”

“It was just reaction, you know,” Norquist said. “Boom, boom, boom, boom.”

The video runs more than a hour and meticulously goes over every detail of the two men’s interaction together that night. The tape, along with other reports, was released to KTVZ by the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office Wednesday after a public records request.

While on the tour of the duplex and events of that night, detectives frequently ask Norquist the same question.

“Why didn’t you just leave?,” one investigator is heard asking.

“When he went to the bathroom, you could’ve just taken off, right?” Norquist is asked a little later.

And: “At any time did you have the opportunity to leave?”

Norquist answers, “Maybe. I suppose.”

Norquist told investigators he went past his front door and upstairs, grabbing his gun when he heard Cordes coming.

“The whole time he was here downstairs, he’s telling me he wants to kill me,” Norquist said.

Norquist said Cordes followed him upstairs.

“I’m yelling to him ‘Don’t come! Don’t come!’ And he comes,” Norquist recalled.

Throughout the video, Norquist maintains he didn’t believe he was in danger until that moment Cordes came up the stairs.

“I didn’t know he was going to come for me,” Norquist said, rubbing his eyes. “There’s been so many times before he’s told me he wants to kill me — this was another time — and he was drunk, and just yelling, being aggressive.”

“I got him arrested for last time,” he continued. “When he broke in here and punched me.”

Cordes was arrested in January for assaulting Norquist. Norquist dropped the charges a few months later. Court documents show he asked the charges to be dropped because he had been civilly satisfied.

“There was too much pressure,” Norquist told police about the assault previous to the shooting. “The family is really powerful, they have all kinds of connections in this town — having his father on my side is like — I can do anything.”

Norqusit told police after he shot Cordes four times he could hear him as he was calling 911.

“I heard him trying to breathe — like a wheeze,” Norquist told investigators.

In all there case wrapped up with hundreds of pages of reports and hours and hours of video and interviewers.

District Attorney John Hummel told NewsChannel 21 that his team presented the evidence to a grand jury for two days.

“We did not complete the presentation of the evidence when I decided to dismiss the charges,” Hummel said.

Hummel determined Norquist had made a terrible mistake, but did not break the law.

“He wasn’t deceptive. He was telling the truth,” Hummel said. “Based on that — based on Oregon law and based on the evidence, I determined this case should be dismissed.”

It was ruled as justifiable homicide; self-defense.

Norquist admitted it could have ended differently.

“If you could go back and do it all over again, what whould you do?” an investigator asks him.

“I would run,” Norquist said.

Cordes’ father, Steve Cordes told NewsChannel 21 he met with a lawyer Friday to discuss what options the family might have moving forward.

Daniel Norquist told NewsChannel 21 Monday that he did not want to comment on the shooting.

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Previous story:

It was an emotional reunion Monday afternoon between the Bend man cleared of murder charges and one of his co-workers at the Jeld-Wen mill.

Daniel Norquist, 34, embraced his friend as they talked about how scared they both were during his time in jail, and the relief he and others felt when the charges were dropped.

Norquist told NewsChannel 21 he went straight to his workplace after he was released from the Deschutes County Jail.

District Attorney John Hummel announced Monday morning he was dropping the murder charges, more than a week after Norquist shot and killed his friend and landlord, 30-year-old Andrew Cordes with a 12 gauge shotgun.

Hummel said the evidence proved Norquist shot Cordes in self-defense.

“Mr. Norquist should not have shot him, but he chose to. And the law allowed him to do what he did, and that’s why I dismissed the case,” Hummel said. “When the homeowner asks someone to leave, and that person comes after someone with the intent of committing an assault, the homeowner is allowed to use deadly physical force.”

Cordes was found dead in the duplex unit Norquist rented from him on Northeast Nova Loop. Police reports say Cordes had gunshot wounds to his thigh, arm and chest.

Cordes did not have a weapon.

Hummel said the pair had been drinking together for two hours before the shots were fired. He said the men got in a fight over Cordes’ fiancee.

“It was a love triangle,” Hummel said.

That conflict extended back to at least January, and another police visit to the home. Court records show Cordes was charged with assaulting Norquist on Jan. 24 after he discovered his fiancee was with Norquist in his bedroom. Cordes’ fiancee told police she had an affair with Norquist at that time.

The charges against Cordes were later dropped when Norquist agreed he had been civilly appeased for the damages.

Hummel said Norquist passed a polygraph test after the shooting and police reports quote Norquist saying he had been in fear for his life.

One officer wrote,”Norquist informed me that Cordes said, ‘I want to kill you so bad I can’t stand it.'”

In the reports, Norquist also claims Cordes put his hands around his neck several times that night and finally ran up to his room to escape him.

“Norquist said he pointed (his shotgun) at the door and yelled, “Listen, leave man. … Don’t come up here,” according to police reports. “Norquist said Cordes came ‘waltzing in like the king of the world.’ He then stated ‘that was it,'” they continued.

Hummel summed it up: “Mr. Norquist asked Mr. Cordes to leave the house, Mr. Cordes refused to leave, he came at Mr. Norquist in a threatening manner, and that’s when Norquist shot him.”

Hummel also said both men were drunk.

“There was an extensive amount of alcohol, there were firearms involved, and nothing good comes out of that,” Hummel said. “It’s a tragedy.”

And while Norquist and his friends were overjoyed by his release, it was another day of heartbreak for Andrew Cordes’ father.

Steve Cordes told NewsChannel 21: “I’m unbelievably shocked my son’s killer got away with cold-blooded murder.”

Hummel acknowledged previous, recent Bend cases of home invasions or conflicts ending in death: Luke Wirkkala was convicted of killing his friend David Ryder in his home after a night of Super Bowl partying in 2013 and was sentenced last year to life in prison with parole only possible after 25 years.

Then there’s the June 2012 case in which Kevin Perry shot and killed Shane Munoz in his home after an alleged break-in. Hummel decided earlier this year not to bring criminal charges.

“In the Munoz case, I made that decision because I determined we did not know exactly what happened, and if you don’t know what happened, you can’t charge someone with a crime,” Hummel said. “In this case (Norquist), I’m confident we know what happened and that Mr. Norquist acted in self-defense.”