5 Officers Shot and 2 Suspects Killed in N.J. Melee
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
Members of the Jersey City Police Department investigated the scene of a shooting between a shotgun-wielding suspect and the police.

By LIZ ROBBINS and CHRISTINE HAUSER
Published: July 16, 2009

Five police officers were shot and wounded — two critically — as they tried to arrest a shotgun-wielding suspect early Thursday in Jersey City, officials said. The first officer was hit during a predawn encounter with the man, and the others were hit in a furious shootout after they donned riot gear and stormed an apartment building in search of the suspect, officials said.


Both the gunman and a second person sought by police, described by some as a woman, were killed in the bloody gun battle on the third floor of 24 Reed Street near Journal Square, the officials said.

One of the critically injured officers was shot in the face, the other in the neck. The officer shot in the face had “no signs of life” when he was brought to the Jersey City Medical Center, according to the hospital’s chief of surgery, Dr. Nathaniel Holmes, but was steadily improving in the early afternoon. The officer shot in the neck was in surgery and doing well, the Jersey City mayor, Jerramiah T. Healy, said

Mr. Healy described a “terrible gunfight.” Of the other officers who were shot, one was hit in his bullet-proof vest, one grazed in the leg, and the third, who worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was struck in the arm. Several others had minor injuries. The police would not release the names of the officers.

The two people killed in the shootout are suspected of conducting a robbery in Jersey City with shotguns in June and were under surveillance, according to another Jersey City law official who requested anonymity because the case was still under investigation. The Jersey City police chief, Thomas J. Comey, would not confirm their identities or their gender, nor give specifics of the robbery.

“These individuals were being sought by our department for a major crime,” Chief Comey said. Of the man with the shotgun, he said: “This individual came fully ready to go to war with us. This is not a normal shotgun, this is not a street weapon, this is one meant to hunt nothing other than men, and he took it out on our police officer.”

The drama unfolded in a period of about seven hours in New Jersey’s second-largest city, which sits across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Glittering waterfront condominiums rub up against rundown areas like the gritty corner of Reed Street and Bergen Avenue, a neighborhood of three- and four-story buildings interspersed with empty lots of overgrown grass, bodegas and beauty salons that was witness to warfare: two separate bursts of heavy gunfire, erupting about an hour apart.

Chief Comey said that two officers had been sitting in a parked car since about 11 p.m. Wednesday, staking out what they believed to be the suspect’s car. At about 5 a.m., a man dressed in a cloak that appeared to be priest’s garb walked toward the car.

After driving up alongside the vehicle, the officer on the passenger side jumped out to apprehend the suspect. But concealed under the man’s cloak was a pump-action shotgun and a strap of ammunition. The suspect pivoted, threw off his cloak and unloaded two rounds of ammunition.

“As he realized we were on him, he shed an outer garment to make sure that he could pull the shotgun up so he could go to war almost instantly, go to battle,” Chief Comey said of the suspect.

The shotgun blast missed the officer on foot, but the pellets shattered the windshield of the police car, grazing the leg of the officer at the wheel.

The gunman then fled into the apartment building at 24 Reed Street, and the officers called for emergency backup. Officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, under a cooperation agreement, joined the Jersey City police.

Officials said the building was evacuated. But at least one resident was still inside. Rich Pratt, 47, a construction worker, lives in a third-floor apartment. He said that he heard voices and heavy footsteps in the halls. He looked through the peephole and saw police officers in riot gear swinging a battering ram. As he unlocked the door and began opening it, Mr. Pratt said, the police told him to lie down in his bathtub with his dog.

As the heavily armed officers started to break down the door into the third-floor apartment where they believed the suspects were hiding, one suspect started firing, the bullets piercing the apartment’s walls and through the half-open door. The first officer inside the door was struck in the neck. The second officer, who was right behind him, was shot in the face, Chief Comey said.

A furious exchange of bullets followed, and the two suspects were fatally wounded. Officers hurried to carry their wounded colleagues down the flight of stairs to rush them to the hospital.

Michael Saul, 34, a mobile intensive care nurse, had been called to the scene in his ambulance just past 5 a.m., after the first wounded officer had been transported to the hospital. He and his partner were told to stay parked in the area. An hour later he heard shots.

“We were hoping that it was going to end for the good,” he said, “but chaos ensued.”

Khurum Muntaz, who lives on Reed Street across from the building where the shootings took place, said: “ I woke up with the noise, mad noise of shooting.”

He said he saw one of the wounded officers being carried out of the building. “Everybody was yelling and screaming — officer down, officer down,” Mr. Muntaz said.

Mr. Saul said he treated the officer with the neck injury.

“I have seen a lot of gunshots in my career,” he said. “That bullet must have been blessed with holy water because it missed all the big vessels.”

According to Dr. Kenneth Garay, a head and neck surgeon at the New Jersey Medical Center, a bullet was lodged in the officer’s neck between the jugular vein and carotid artery. “One millimeter or two either way, it would have been fatal,” Dr. Garay said.

The officer shot in the face also had a close call with his life.

A little more than three hours after the gun battle, Dr. Holmes, at the New Jersey Medical Center, was standing among other hospital and law enforcement officials expressing his amazement. The officer had come in with no vital signs. “So the fact that we can talk about him being in surgery is a minor miracle,” Dr. Holmes said.

By early afternoon, their health appeared to have improved enough that Mr. Healy went to a 2 p.m. fund-raiser for Gov. Jon S. Corzine in Holmdel, N.J., that was attended by President Obama.

Asked why he was there, the mayor replied: “It’s looking better and better for our guys.” But Mr. Healy added he was going to take the opportunity to “lobby” the president “about the illegal gun issue” before hurrying back to Jersey City.

Colin Moynihan and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/nyregion/17jersey.html?em