Garfield, NJ: Police shooting in Garfield stuns dead teen’s family; victim fled custody in assault case

Authorities identified a 19-year-old Garfield resident Sunday as the man shot to death by two officers in a garage after he fled from the city Police De­partment, where he was under arrest on domestic violence charges.

Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli identified the man as Malik Williams of Passaic Street.

In a statement released late Sunday, authorities also offered a more com­plete account of what led up to the shooting at 22 Dahnert Park Lane about 3:50 p.m. Saturday, and the fatal confrontation between two police of­fers and the fleeing man.

The Williams family, shown the prosecutor’s version of the incident in an interview with The Record, said they didn’t believe it.

Shirley Williams, 44, a homemaker who lived with her son, said there were “too many” bullets fired for the situa­tion.

She said authori­ties told her Malik was shot five times.

A nervous calm hung Sunday over the quiet neighbor­hood where the shooting took place, as residents strug­gled to understand what had happened and why the officers used deadly force. The prosecutor’s news release said the incident started when Williams turned himself in to Garfield police about 1:20 p.m. on Saturday in connec­tion with an aggravated assault warrant issued the day before. It concerned a domestic violence incident involving his girlfriend.

Police served Williams with criminal complaints and about 3:25 p.m., as they were processing them, he “ran from the processing room” and out a rear door in the department, the prosecutor said. Williams ran north along the rail­road tracks next to Dahnert’s Lake County Park, located at the back of the police department, followed by “nu­merous” Garfield police officers, the re­lease said. The department also set up a perimeter around the park, and called for a Bergen County K-9 unit to help.

The Garfield officers “lost visual sight” of Williams for a brief period, the release said, but the K-9 unit, along with Garfield police officers, tracked Williams to a residential garage, where he had “secreted himself,” the release said.

“The police officers attempted to en­ter a side door to the garage, but found the door to be barricaded shut,” the re­lease said. “The police officers then opened up the bay door and encoun­tered Williams, who is alleged to have armed himself with tools.”

Williams, who had apparently gath­ered the tools from the garage, ap­peared to have been hiding behind “numerous objects” in the garage briefly, the release said.

“Upon encountering Williams with the tools in his hands, the police officers fired at Williams, striking him numerous times,” the release said. It did not identify the kind of tools Williams wielded, but said one Garfield officer and one Bergen County police officer fired at Williams.

Garfield police officers performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Williams, who was pronounced dead at Hackensack University Medical Center about 5:45 p.m., the release said.

“That’s not my son,” Shirley Williams said. “He’s not going to pick up a weapon.

“My son was a good kid. … What they did to my son was cruel,” Williams said. She said if dogs were at the scene, the police should have used the dogs to control him “Why didn’t the canine apprehend him?”

The mother said Malik was well-known to the Garfield police due to his association with friends who got into trouble.

Ternice Ramos, 20, who also lived with Malik, questioned how her brother was allowed to escape from the police.

“Any other jail, all the other doors are secure,” Ramos said. “How was he able to just run out of any door? … It sounds like a bunch of baloney.”

The mother described her son — 6-feet tall and 130 pounds — as someone who learned karate for a while and liked to watch cartoons. “He would make you laugh,” she said. “He was a clown.”

Jasmine Rivera, 19, also of Garfield, the girlfriend whom Malik allegedly assaulted Friday, said they had been going out for two years and had a 3-month-old son together, although they lived apart. Law enforcement officers can use deadly force when an officer “reasonably believes such action is immediately necessary to protect the officer or another person from imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm,” according to guidelines on the New Jersey attorney general’s website.

An officer may also use deadly force to stop a suspect fleeing in certain circumstances, such as when the officer believes the suspect committed a crime in which the person “attempted to cause death or serious bodily harm” to someone, the guidelines say. Deadly force can also be used if the officer thinks a fleeing suspect will pose an “imminent danger of death or serious body harm” if he escapes, the guidelines say.

However, the guidelines say, deadly force can’t be used if an officer believes there is an alternative way to “avert or eliminate an imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm.”

Records of the Bergen County Jail show a Malik A. Williams, with a birth date of April 21, 1992, spent three months in the jail, starting on May 9 of this year, charged with aggravated assault for an incident committed the same day. Prosecutors said the birth date of the man killed Saturday was April 12, 1992. Garfield police said they didn’t know if it was the same man.

Williams’ mother said his birthday was April 21, 1992, but that she didn’t know anything about his being in jail in Bergen County. Before the release of the prosecutor’s statement, residents on Dahnert Park Lane, near the shooting site, sought to understand how a shooting occurred on a normally quiet dead-end street overlooking a county park with a lake and a gazebo.

Garfield police on Sunday allowed only residents into the culde- sac, which is about 500 yards across the park from the police department. Investigators came and went and a Bergen County Sher-iff’s Crime Scene Unit and an Emergency Management bus sat parked outside the scene of the shooting.

Residents described hearing several shots — from three to six, depending on the witness — followed by a flood of police officers into the area.

“It’s crazy,” said Waleed Gabr, 26. “I don’t think for domestic violence anybody needs to be shot.” Gilberto Carrero, 44, said he came home just as the officers were looking for the escapee and was told to get in his house.

“I heard like five or six shots,” he said, and an ambulance arrived 15 to 20 minutes later. First emergency medical technicians cared for one officer, who appeared to have minor injuries, he said. Then, about 10 minutes after the ambulance arrived, the victim — dressed in jeans, a white or gray hooded sweat shirt and sneakers — was placed on a gurney and taken away, said Carrero.

“Someone said that supposedly he lunged at” the police officers, Carrero said. “I think it was excessive force.”

Emma Bolder, 65, a resident of New Schley Street, which leads to Dahnert Park Lane, also expressed skepticism. But other residents were just shocked at the turn of events.

“It was a little weird, I must say,” said John Wozniak, who came back to his home on Dahnert Park Lane to find a police search under way. “Nothing ever happens around here.”