A police officer was wounded and a man killed in a Gloucester County shooting
Little was known about the incident, which happened early Friday afternoon in Westville.
A shooting in Gloucester County early Friday afternoon left a police officer wounded and a man dead, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office said.
The office offered few details about what occurred, but said in a statement that the man died in a “fatal officer-involved shooting,” and the officer was receiving treatment at Cooper University Hospital. Investigators declined to identify the officer or the man killed, and did not specify who fired the shots that struck either of them. A GoFundMe posted by a member of the Deptford Township Police family group identified the wounded officer as Bobby Shisler, who joined the department in 2019.
The Attorney General’s Office — tasked with investigating when someone dies in a shooting involving police — did not say what led to the shootings, which happened around 12:45 p.m. near Doman Avenue in Westville. TV news outlets reported that the officer was pursuing a suspect.
As authorities continued their investigation, they emphasized there was no threat to the public.
In a statement on Facebook, the Deptford Township Police Department said that all information on the shooting would come from the Attorney General’s office, but offered a “heartfelt thanks” to the agencies who responded to the scene Friday.
“To our Officer’s family, please know we will be with you every step of the way,” the post said. “We fight as a family.”
Yellow crime scene tape cordoned off Doman Avenue in the residential neighborhood as police officers congregated on the street Friday afternoon. Children filed off school buses maneuvering around police cars to their parents, holding hands and ducking under the tape on the way to their homes.
Neighbors gathered on street corners, watching the crime scene investigators and gaggle of reporters in the typically quiet suburb, as helicopters circled overhead. A plastic tent was pitched in one home’s yard, and another was on the street.
Emily Secord, 26, lives on a street adjacent to Doman Avenue, and said she heard several gunshots Friday afternoon.
At first, she said she feared a shooting at her daughter’s school, not too far away. She looked out her window, watching the dozens of police cars whiz by.
”It’s scary this is the reality,” Secord said, rocking her young daughter’s stroller back and forth.
Secord said she’d lived in her house for six years and has never seen anything like the crime scene unfolding on the nearby dead-end road. “The gun violence is just wild.”
Meanwhile, area business owners spent much of the afternoon waiting for additional information from police.
The owner of Delsea Drive convenience store Westville News wasn’t there at the time of the shootings but said police asked to look at surveillance tape.
Further down the block, an employee at MK Mechanical Services said they didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary until police arrived at the door.
“There was a foot chase somewhere behind us,” said the employee, who asked not to be named. “And they told us to stay inside and keep the doors locked.”
The Attorney General’s Office said the investigation was ongoing.