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Police rushed to the Johnson Avenue home just after 5 o’clock tonight after the mother of Raymond Peralta-lantigua locked herself in her bedroom and dialed 911, saying that he was “going crazy,” Police Director Michael Mordaga told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
He had a knife, she said.
The 6-foot, 180-pound Peralta- Lantigua — who acquired a criminal record in the two years since his brother brought him into the country — threw a large rock at the first police car that arrived, Mordaga said.
A second officer pulled up, and Peralta-Lantigua rushed him waving the knife, the director said.
Mordaga wouldn’t confirm how many shots were fired or how many times that Peralta-Lantigua was hit.
Law enforcement sources told CLIFFVIEW PILOT that the officer fired two shots.
Peralta-Lantigua was struck once in the chest, they said.
He was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center and was pronounced dead there a short time later.
The knife was recovered, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said.
CLIFFVIEW PILOT reported earlier tonight that a witness told a law enforcement officer from another agency that Peralta-Lantigua “went after the cop with a knife” and “was trying to hurt him [when] the cop shot him.”
Among his priors, Peraltia-Lantigua was arrested by Hackensack police in May on criminal trespassing charges from the month before. He spent three days in the Bergen County Jail before posting $2,500 bail, records show.
He also had a history of arrests for drug possession and skipping court.
Police had been called to the house to deal with him before, Mordaga told CLIFFVIEW PILOT tonight.
MUGSHOT: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY SHERIFF
PHOTOS: Danielle Lembo
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