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Although authorities collected a trove of surveillance and bodycam video showing precisely what led to the death of Joshua Gonzalez, 20, of Millville, state law still required a grand jury to review the outcome.
Gonzalez kept police at bay for nearly a half-hour during the video-recorded rampage in Vineland, which began around 5 a.m. on Dec. 18, 2021, on West Park Drive.
One police vehicle is seen being smashed and another being knocked onto its side. An ambulance was toppled, and a sedan was repeatedly struck with its female driver still inside.
The backhoe also took down a tree and a utility pole.
Gonzalez was "bent on destruction," the New Jersey State PBA wrote in a social media post.
Bodycam footage shows an officer exiting her SUV and the backhoe smashing it seconds later.
She watches in shock as another police SUV is rammed.
"Two police cars completely destroyed," another officer is heard saying on her police radio.
“He’s going right into a house -- right into a house,” another officer shouts. Screams can be heard inside the home.
"Are you all right?" the female officer asks the woman who was in the rammed sedan.
"No, I'm in shock," the victim replies as officers get her to safety.
Police eventually were left with no choice.
Footage from his bodycam shows Vineland Police Sgt. Louis Platania parking his cruiser on another street and then running through backyards and down a cul-de-sac to get to the backhoe in the Penn Lincoln Mobile Home Park.
At this point, Gonzalez had rammed one residence directly and pushed a vehicle into another home with the backhoe.
Platania fires four shots from his service weapon through the side window.
The backhoe continues rolling across the road into a tree, which stopped it from hitting a home. The engine is heard racing.
Other officers come running.
"Turn it off!" his colleagues shout to Platania as he climbs over the lifeless body slumped on the floor.
"He's on the accelerator," Platania replies before another officer follows him into the cab and the power is cut.
“He’s stuck, he’s stuck!” another shouts. “Get him out! Get him out!”
The officers remove and try to resuscitate Gonzalez, who Platkin said was pronounced dead at the scene 5:48 a.m.
Platania was clearly shaken, but a colleague tells him he did what was necessary.
The officers then turned their attention to residents in the community, with one saying they've "got to start checking these houses" to make sure everyone's OK.
Three Vineland police officers sustained minor injuries during the incident and were treated at a local hospital before being released, authorities said at the time.
Despite the obvious circumstances, both state law and his own guidelines require Platkin to investigate any and all deaths that occur “during an encounter with a law enforcement officer acting in the officer’s official capacity or while the decedent is in custody."
The guidelines guarantee that the investigation is done “in a full, impartial and transparent manner," he has said.
Once the investigation by his Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA) was completed, the results were presented to the grand jury, the attorney general said.
The evidence included interviews of witnesses, forensic evidence, the various camera footage and the autopsy results.
The recordings – which Platkin’s office showed to Gonzalez’s family before releasing them to the public in January 2022 – show not only the destruction but also the fear it brought to a quiet neighborhood.
CLICK HERE for the recordings: Vineland-Gonzalez (NJ Attorney General's Office)
After hearing the testimony, reviewing the evidence, and receiving instructions on the law, the grand jury earlier this month returned a “no bill,” which essentially deems the shooting justified.
“An officer may use deadly force in New Jersey when the officer reasonably believes it is immediately necessary to protect the officer or another person from imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm,” Platkin noted.
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