A-Infos (en) New Jersey Cop Watch #7

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Troopers shoot 3 on turnpike

Synopsis:  State Police stop a late model minivan for speeding on N.J.
Turnpike.  The van pulls over onto the shoulder of the roadway. 
Troopers get out of the cruiser, and approach the van which begins to
move in a backward direction.  One officer is bumped in the leg and
loses his balance.  The second trooper pulls his gun and fires two
rounds into the minivan occupied by four young men.  After the mayhem
of gunfire into the vehicle, the minivan continues backward, collides
with the police car, and continues to move backward across the
southbound lanes of the turnpike causing a southbound car to collide
with it.  As the minivan begins to move forward, and reapproaches the
troopers, they open fire again with a hail of nine more shots, hitting
three of the four occupants.  The van leaves the road and comes to a
stop in a ditch.     

Both officers had previously used their guns in past separate
incidents involving traffic stops. 

Full News Copy:
By Michelle Sahn
Staff Writer
The Asbury Park Press (Apr. 25, 1998)

>Officer hit by van after vehicle stop
>11 shots fired; van passengers hit

State troopers shot three men in a minivan after the van hit one
trooper, collided with a car, and then tried to run down the troopers
during a motor vehicle stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, authorities
said yesterday.  

A total of 11 shots were fired during the incident, which began just
before 11 p.m. Thursday in Washington Township, Mercer County, state
police Lt. Daniel Cosgrove said.

One passenger, Danny Reyes, 20 of Queens, was hospitalized in critical
but stable condition.  Two others, Leroy Germaine Grant, 23, and
Rayshawn S. Brown, 20, both New York, were in stable condition,
authorities said.  

The driver, Keshon Lamonte Moore, 22, of New York, was not hit with
gunfire but was treated for a knee injury, police said.  

Moore was released from police custody yesterday afternoon after he
was issued summonses charging him with speeding and driving while on
the revoked list, said Cosgrove.  State Police Superintendent Col.
Carl A. Williams said the case would probably go to a grand jury.

Both troopers, James Kenna, 27, and John Hogan, 28, were treated at a
local hospital for minor injuries and released, police said. 

Williams yesterday gave the following account of Thursday's shooting
during a news conference at the Cranbury Township barracks:

Troopers Kenna and Hogan were riding together when their radar clocked
a minivan with New York license plates traveling 74 mph in the 55 mph
zone near milepost 62.8.

As the officers got out and began to approach the van, Moore put the
vehicle into reverse and headed toward Hogan, hitting him in the leg
and knocking him to the ground.

Kenna lost sight of this partner, and "fearing that he was struck by
the moving vehicle," Kenna fired two rounds at the back of the van.

The van continued backward, hitting the police cruiser.  It then
crossed the southbound lanes of the highway and was struck by a car. 
The car veered into the center divider and burst into flames.  The
occupants escaped with minor injuries.  

The van began to come back at the troopers.  The officers fired at the
van which crossed the highway, then came to rest in a small ditch near
the side of the road.

Both troopers in yesterday's shootings have been previously involved
in gunfire on the turnpike - one in 1995 and one last month.

Kenna shot a Bronx man last month after the suspect jumped into
Kenna's police cruiser and tried to run down the officer during a
traffic stop in Edison Township, police said.  The bullets hit the car
but did not strike the suspect.  That case is still under
investigation, police said yesterday.

In March 1995, Hogan shot two Jersey City men who were driving a
stolen car.  Hogan clung to the door of the stolen car as the men
tried to drive away from the traffic stop on a restricted turnpike
overpass, police said at the time.  Hogan pulled his gun; he and the
driver struggled for it.  Hogan fired three shots, police said.

The prosecutor's office and the state police internal affairs unit
reviewed the case but took no further action, Cosgrove said.  

*The Associated Press contributed to this story.

                       Copyright - The Asbury Park Press 1998

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Inquiry Opened Into Shooting of 3 Black Men by New Jersey State
Troopers

Excerpted from a news article written by David M. Herszenhorn
appearing on page B4, The New York Times METRO Edition, Saturday, May
2, 1998

State police officials have said that the shooting occurred after the
van was stopped for traveling 74 miles per hour in a 55-m.p.h. zone. 
Officials said that as Trooper John Hogan approached the van,  a 1997
Dodge Caravan with New York plates, the van rolled backward, striking
Trooper Hogan in the leg and knocking him down.  

At that point, officials said, the troopers fired 11 shots into the
van, which continued to roll backward onto the turnpike and collided
with a car.  Officials said the car came to a rest along the highway's
center divider and exploded while the van rolled back toward the
troopers, who fired several more shots.

But the van's occupants, who were on their way from New York City to
basketball tryouts at North Carolina Central University, have provided
a different account, saying that they were not speeding but were
pulled over after the troopers, who had been driving ahead of them,
slowed to look into the van.  The four men say the troopers, who are
white, stopped them because they were black.

The driver of the van, Keshon Lamonte Moore, 22, of Manhattan, who was
not shot, was issued summonses for speeding and for driving without a
license.  But no more serious charges have been filed in the case.  

                            Copyright - The New York Times 1998

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Officer who shot at vehicle on trial

Synopsis:  An off duty police officer's van is tapped in the rear by
another vehicle.  The cop and his wife, along with their 4-year old
son follow the car and signal it to pull over.  They lose sight of the
pursued vehicle and finally re-establish visual contact.  The cop gets
out and approaches the car.  The off-duty cop draws his gun and fires
into the vehicle, nearly missing the driver.  The driver,
understandably, flees the scene to safety.  The driver had a suspended
license and did not call for police intervention.  
 
Full News Copy: 
By Elaine Silvestrini
The Asbury Park Press
April 29, 1998

Freehold - In what was either a case of murderous road rage or a man
trying to protect his family, a Bayonne police officer went on trial
yesterday charged with attempting to murder a motorist in Matawan
three years ago.

Both sides agree Roy Williams Jr. used his service weapon to fire a
shot through the rear window of a car driven by Tammy Erickson of
Union Beach the morning of June 22, 1995.  But whether Williams was
justified will be decided by the Superior Court jury that is hearing
the case.

"This was not a police action," said Assistant Monmouth County
Prosecutor Richard E. Incremona in his opening statement.  "This was
not a justifiable defense of himself or someone else.  This was a
criminal action, a criminal act by the defendant."

But the defense lawyer Dennis D.S. McAlevy told jurors that after they
hear the evidence, they will come back and tell his client, "Maybe
what you did was pretty stupid....And you probably shouldn't have done
that, but I don't think that you committed a crime."

That morning, Williams, of the Leonardo section of Middletown
Township, a 13-year veteran of the Bayonne Police Department, was
being driven by his wife, Sandy, in the family minivan to a doctor's
appointment to be treated for injuries he suffered about a week
earlier, in a car accident while on duty, according to McAlevy.  Also
inside the minivan was the couple's 4-year old son.

Williams would later tell police that on Route 36 in Keyport, the van
was hit from behind by a Dodge Aries, Matawan Patrolman Anthony
Brizendine testified.  Williams said the Aries failed to pull over, so
he and his wife began following the car, trying to signal it to pull
over by flashing th van's headlight's and using the horn.

As they followed the car for several miles, Williams used a cellular
telephone to call police, officials said.  Williams said they then
lost sight of the car and were about to give up when they spotted it
at Main Street and Schenck Avenue in Matawan, according to both
lawyers and to the police officers who testified.  

Williams said he got out of his minivan and approached the car. 
Williams told police his wife also had gotten out of the minivan, when
the other driver drove toward his wife, testified Aberdeen Township
Detective Michael Vaccaro, one of the first officers to respond to the
scene after receiving a radio transmission that a police officer was
involved in a chase and needed help. 

"He felt the car was trying to run his wife down," Vaccaro testified. 
"And he fired a shot."

But Incremona told jurors that witnesses will testify that Williams'
wife "was not in the street, was not in harm's way.  She was still in
the van."

McAlevy told jurors that the car drove "directly at the van" and
Williams was "in fear the the car is going to strike his wife" when he
fired the shot at the Aries.

Incremona said the bullet went through the Aries' rear window and past
Erickson's right shoulder, scraped the dashboard and went out through
the front windshield.  Erickson then drove away.

Police said they later located the car outside what was then the
Millbrook Diner and is now the Park Place Diner on Route 34 in
Matawan.  Erickson worked there.  There were holes in the front and
rear window, and the glass in the rear window had spiderweb patterns
of breakage, police said.

Brizendine said Erickson, whom he knew because he ate breakfast at the
diner, denied having been in an accident, and appeared "indifferent." 
Asked to explain, he said, "She was not really shaken up by the
incident, and not full of a lot of information when we asked her
questions."  

Erickson's dirver's license had been suspended for failing to pay a
surcharge, Brizendine said, and he gave her a ticket for driving while
on the suspended list.

                              Copyright - The Asbury Park Press 1998

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