After New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin named Everett Rand, 29, of Newark as the man who was shot and killed by police two weeks ago, a basic record check showed that he had been arrested six times in the past six years.
Platkin said that around 8:30 p.m. on May 3, when police responded to a 911 call, they found a 27-year-old guy dead and a young boy named Zahmire Lopez badly hurt.
Zahmire’s mother tried to protect him, but the killer allegedly grabbed him and shot him in the chest. She probably got away through a window on the second floor.
The attorney general said that Zahmire was said to be dead at University Hospital at 9:14 p.m.
“Rand was carrying a gun when police found him running away from the house where two people had been shot,” Platkin said.
“Several officers from the Newark Police Department were chasing Rand on foot,” the attorney general said Tuesday. “Officer Steven Ferreira and Officer Ryan Castro fired their weapons during the encounter, killing Rand.”
No one has said yet whether or not ballistic tests on the semiautomatic handgun Rand was said to be carrying show that it was used in the murders.
Rand’s death is being looked at because it is required to be done so.
State law and his own rules say that the attorney general has to look into any death that happens in New Jersey “during an encounter with a law enforcement officer acting in the officer’s official capacity or while the decedent was in custody,” no matter what the circumstances are.
The attorney general has said that the rules make sure the probe is done “in a full, fair, and open way,” without any politics or personal goals.
Once Platkin’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA) has finished its review, the results are given to the grand jury “in a neutral, objective, and clear way,” as he put it.
The panel then decides if the shooting was fair or if it should be looked into as a crime.
“Platkin has said that an officer can use deadly force in New Jersey if the officer has a good reason to believe that it is immediately necessary to protect the officer or another person from an immediate threat of death or serious bodily harm.”
