23°
Luke Mendez, 26, had his left hand wrapped around the knife handle as he barreled down a set of stairs inside the Middlesex County home, bodycam video released by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin shows.
He was only two steps from the landing -- within less than three feet of Old Bridge Police Officer Christopher Hammel -- when three shots rang out.
Mendez was pronounced dead at a local hospital about 90 minutes later.
Platkin released the video from Hammel’s body-worn camera and the 911 call as part of a mandatory investigation by his office into the April 24 incident.
WATCH IT HERE: Old Bridge - Mendez Video
A woman is heard on the 911 call that afternoon telling police she wants Mendez out of the house on Woodland Avenue, a tiny residential street in Old Bridge’s Laurence Harbor section less than a half-mile from Cheesequake State Park.
Hammel arrives and is told that Mendez took a camera that she’d set up in the kitchen.
Another man sits on a couch and an older woman on another. A brief discussion focuses on whether the caller was justified in setting up surveillance inside the home.
One of them says the woman was “threatening [Mendez] with the cops.”
Hammel says there are two sides to it. The woman had the right to install the camera, he said, but her fellow residents also have the right to object.
He asks where to find Mendez, who’s upstairs in his bedroom.
Hammel walks through a short hallway to the rear stairway and calls up to Mendez.
"Can I come up and talk to ya where we can have some privacy?" he asks.
Mendez emerges at the top of the stairs gripping the long-bladed knife by the handle. He’s upset and doesn't want the officer coming up.
"Why do you have a knife in your hand?" Hammel asks, drawing his service weapon and pointing it at him.
Mendez says something unintelligible.
"Well, you gotta put the knife down,” the officer replies.
Hammel grips his gun with both hands and repeats himself.
Meanwhile, Mendez rocks at the top of the stairs, his right hand on the top knob of the banister.
"Relax, relax, relax, relax, and put the knife down," Hammel tells him.
Then he calls it in: "Headquarters, one at gunpoint, with a knife in the hand."
Another officer joins Hammel, who keeps the gun trained on Mendez.
Several times he tells Mendez to put down the knife. He repeatedly asks why he’s so upset.
"We can walk through this," Hamell says. "They're allowed to have a camera. You're allowed to have some common courtesy, as well. OK? Relax. Put the knife down and talk to me.
"You didn't do anything wrong right now, so talk to me,” Hammel says. “You want privacy -- you're entitled to your privacy. I explained that to them.
“You are not wrong. You are not in trouble for taking the camera, all right? You're not in trouble at all right now. And if I was you, I'd be upset if somebody had a camera in my house, as well. OK? I'd be upset, too....
"There's another way around this, though. Whatever you want to do, there's other ways around this. Talk to me. C'mon, buddy, talk to me. You're upset at them in a living arrangement."
He says he spoke to the woman who took the camera and said she's "a nice person."
"You didn't do anything wrong. You're not in any trouble right now,” he tells Mendez.
Others in the house can be heard shouting.
"This is all workable still. We're still all workable," Hammel tells him. “We’re still good. We're still good, Luke. Talk to me."
Hammel to this point has ignored the shouting, but it obviously has to stop. So he asks his partner to get the others out of the house.
Then he continues to reassure Mendez.
“We’re still good,” he says. “You want privacy, you're entitled to it, Luke. C'mon, buddy, talk to me."
Mendez continues to rock forward and back, sometimes side to side, at the top of the steps.
The officer keeps his gun trained on him.
"Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath,” Hammel says.
Mendez inhales deeply, still rocking on his feet.
He looks down, then up at the ceiling, then down again, shifting his weight -- like a basketball player setting himself for a foul shot.
“That’s good, we’re good,” Hammel tells him. “We're still good, Luke. You're entitled to your privacy and I want to give that to you. I want to help you."
The shouting woman can still be heard, however.
"You're upset about the camera---," Hammel begins to say.
But Mendez suddenly takes a quick breath and barrels full-tilt down the stairs.
He gets within only a few steps of the officer.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Drop it, drop it! Roll to your stomach, roll to your stomach," Hammel shouts after shooting Mendez.
The officers seize the knife and handcuff Mendez, then pull him down a few stairs, leaving a wide blood streak. Hammel calls for an ambulance on a rush. He and his partner don their surgical gloves and roll Mendez’s bloodied body on his back.
Hammel places one hand over the other and presses on Mendez’s chest.
Then the video ends.
Mendez was taken to Old Bridge Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 4:47 p.m., Platkin said.
The entire encounter between him and Hammel lasted a shade under 30 seconds.
Both state law and the attorney general's own guidelines require Platkin to review 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," no matter what the circumstances are.
The guidelines guarantee that the investigation by his state Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA) is done “in a full, impartial and transparent manner," removing politics or personal agendas, the attorney general said.
Part of the involves releasing all recordings, whether made by police or others.
“Investigators previously met with the family of Mr. Mendez to provide them an opportunity to review the recordings before they were publicly released” on Tuesday, July 11, Platkin said.
Once the OPIA investigation is completed, he said, the results will be presented to the grand jury “in a neutral, objective manner, and with appropriate transparency."
The panel will then rule on whether it was a clean shoot or a criminal investigation is warranted.
“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 has noted.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Englewood and receive free news updates.
