A.G.’s Office identifies man fatally shot by Deptford Township police

New Jersey’s Attorney General’s Office has identified Mitchell Negron Jr. as the man who was shot and killed during an encounter with Deptford Township police on Friday afternoon.

Negron, 24, was stopped by Officer Robert Shisler on Delsea Drive in Gloucester County shortly before 12:40 p.m. What followed, according to the A.G.’s Office, was a foot chase that turned into a struggle, and ended in a residential neighborhood on Doman Avenue, where both Negron and Shisler were shot.

Emergency responders pronounced Negron dead at the scene, where parents and school children later in the day squeezed past ribbons of crime scene tape and police cruisers.

Shisler, who joined Deptford Township’s police force in 2019, is listed in stable condition at Cooper Medical Center.

Beyond those details, authorities have shared little else about the incident.

The Inquirer on Sunday asked the Attorney General’s Office, which investigates fatal police shootings, whether Mitchell had been armed, or whether investigators could clarify the sequence of events that led up to Mitchell and Shisler being shot.

A spokesperson for the office,citing the ongoing investigation, declined to provide additional information.

Relatives for Mitchell, who lived on Sussex Avenue in Woodbury, could not be reached for comment.

One resident, Emily Secord, 26, who lives on a street adjacent to Doman Avenue, said Friday that she’d heard several gunshots. She looked out her window, and watched the dozens of police cars zip past.

“It’s scary this is the reality,” Secord said.

In a Facebook post, the Deptford Township Police Department wrote that Shisler was assigned to Platoon B of the department’s patrol division, and described him as a lifelong Deptford resident and “an avid weight-lifter and tireless volunteer.”

As of Sunday night, a GoFundMe page set up by one of Shisler’s colleagues had raised more than $78,000.