Late Thursday afternoon, a White male spent the last two-and-a-half minutes of his life pacing nervously up and down a Paterson, NJ street with a gun in his hand surrounded by police officers. The police urged him repeatedly to drop his weapon before they shot him to death.
According to NorthJersey.com, the scene was recorded by bystanders with multiple videos posted to social media, in which the man nervously walked down one direction of Carroll Street. He then looked at the multiple officers, as they pointed their guns at him. He then walked the other way, slowly turning his head side to side to possibly see the severity of the situation he was in. The cops were visually on edge but hesitant to shoot.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“Drop your gun, man,” shouted an officer who was with about 6-7 other police officers.
“Let me help you out,” yelled another officer.
The police officers moved in closer to the man, as he walked towards the sidewalk and then backed up towards a street light on the corner.
“He standing his ground,” said one of the bystanders, praising the man before he was killed.
“He gotta be high,” someone else said on another video.
Other bystanders wondered why the officers didn’t shoot him yet, saying if it were a black man, they would have shot him much faster.
The man appeared to raise his gun, holding the gun with both hands, and then reportedly pointed the gun towards one of the officers. The officers then fired off more than 10 rounds, striking and killing the man.
The case is currently being investigated by the Integrity Bureau within the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability and the New Jersey State Police Homicide Unit. Authorities called in for an Emergency Response Team and its armored vehicle that never made it on the scene, sources say.
