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ONLY ON CLIFFVIEW PILOT: Palisades Park Police Chief Benjamin Ramos today told a community activist that he never agreed to first disclose to the family of a knife-wielding Leonia man the identities of three officers who shot and killed him moments after he held up a CVS.
“None of that was ever said,” Ramos told CLIFFVIEW PILOT after setting the record straight, in writing, to self-appointed community activist Rich Rivera. Copies were sent to Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli, among others, the chief said.
Rivera told a media organization yesterday that Ramos and Leonia Police Chief Jay Ziegler promised to identify the officers to the family first. Two are from Palisades Park and one from Leonia. A fourth Palisades Park officer was there but didn’t fire, authorities said.
Ziegler dismissed Rivera’s claim immediately. Releasing the names wouldn’t serve any “useful purpose,” he said.
Ramos, meanwhile, said he was waiting until members of Molinelli’s Police Shooting Response Team had interviewed all of the officers involved, with their attorneys present, before fulfilling a request that their names be made public.
- YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Two Palisades Park police veterans known throughout town for their work with the volunteer ambulance corps and a third who’s been on the road barely six months were identified by Chief Benjamin Ramos today as those involved in the Nov. 25 shooting death of a knife-wielding Leonia man moments after he held up a Broad Avenue CVS. READ MORE….
Interviews with the officers were postponed last week, but the last of the four met with the prosecutor’s team today.
That officer, although still troubled by the Nov. 25 incident, “felt like a brick had been lifted off his chest” once he’d described the entire event, a colleague told CLIFFVIEW PILOT late this afternoon.
“No one wants to shoot anyone,” a Bergen County police official said last week. “Unless you’ve been involved in something like this, or know someone who has, you can’t imagine what it does to a police officer.”
CLIFFVIEW PILOT was the first to report exclusively that the officers weren’t the only ones shouting at Rickey McFadden to drop the knife he was carrying that fateful Sunday afternoon: Both a man and woman who witnessed what became a fatal encounter did so, as well (SEE: Civilians urged Leonia robbery suspect to drop knife before shooting).
Both were among no fewer than four civilians who have given similar eyewitness accounts of the broad-daylight events, a law enforcement source with direct knowledge of the incident told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. All of them agreed the officers were clearly defending themselves and protecting the public from a serious threat, the website reported last week.
McFadden’s family this week filed a notice of intent to sue the Palisades Park and Leonia police departments, among others, for what would amount to wrongful death.
Speaking on their behalf, Rivera said his Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey Civil Rights Protection Project is asking the state Attorney General’s Office to take over the investigation.
Rivera, a former West New York police officer who left the Hudson County department amid controversy, insisted that Molinelli, as the county’s chief law enforcement officer, should have disclosed the names himself.
“[I[t is unfair to the surviving family to be misled by the head of the lead investigating agency,” Reyes said today. “Public confidence will not be restored until the Attorney General takes over the investigation of Ricky McFadden. The establishment of statewide uniform policies for in-custody use of force that include state of the art, non-lethal force are long overdue.”
In such instances, Molinelli told CLIFFVIEW PILOT, he is required to follow the guidelines set by his boss, the state attorney general. And nowhere in those guidelines does it say anything about identifying officers involved in such situations.
What’s in the prosecutor’s discretion is to determine, in counsel with his staff, whether to present the case to a grand jury or to tell the attorney general that he is satisfied that everything was done by the book.
The grand jury, if given the case, would decide whether criminal charges are warranted, or to issue a “no bill” clearing the officers of any wrongdoing.
The panel’s review would include the results of an autopsy conducted last week, although toxicology reports aren’t expected until early January.
McFadden, who was once pepper-sprayed by Englewood police after he become combative after a traffic accident, had a history of emotional trouble.
He had just turned the corner after pulling a knife on a clerk at the Broad Avenue CVS on when the Leonia police officer arrived and ordered him to drop the weapon, witnesses said.
McFadden kept walking, however.
Moments later, three Palisades Park police officers arrived, backing up their colleague.
Despite their attempts to keep McFadden from hurting anyone, the situation escalated over the course of another block, witnesses said.
At the intersection of Hillside and Kingsley avenues, the Leonia officer and McFadden, 47, drew close to one another. It was just after 4:30 — still daylight.
The officer pepper-sprayed him, but McFadden kept coming, knife in hand, despite the entreaties of both police and civilians, witnesses said.
Two of the Palisades Park officers and the Leonia officer then discharged their weapons, CLIFFVIEW PILOT has learned.
McFadden, who lived with his parents on Grand Avenue in Leonia, fell on his back, arms outstretched. He was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead sometime later.
Among the items recovered at the scene was the knife, the empty pepper-spray cannister and items reported taken from the CVS.
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