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Tajshmer Johnson and Queenasia McFarlane, both 30, were named in a state grand jury indictment returned Tuesday, July 25, that charges Jocquise Timmons, 28, with the NJSP shooting in early March.
Authorities said Timmons stepped out from behind a parked vehicle and opened fire on two State Police detectives -- wounding one of them -- near the corner of East 26th Street and 9th Avenue.
The troopers had been following a vehicle tied to an attempted burglary in that same neighborhood, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said at the time.
Platkin revealed on Tuesday that the vehicle they were following was being driven by Johnson -- an ex-con with what turns out to be a long, deep and violent criminal history.
The lifetime Paterson resident was 19 when he was involved in a hit-and-run crash that killed a 31-year-old city man in December 2011, records show.
Johnson didn’t have a driver’s license when the vehicle he was driving struck another, flipping it on its side against a house. Firefighters had to cut through the car’s roof to extricate the body.
Johnson pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of a fatal accident and was sentenced to a maximum three years in state prison with no minimum. How much time he actually served couldn’t be determined.
What could be pinned down, however, was Johnson’s involvement in the fatal shooting a decade ago of 16-year-old Ragee Clark, with whom he’d had a dispute.
Clark was walking home when five assailants ambushed him near the corner of Broadway and Madison Avenue in March 2013. Clark was shot in the legs and torso and had to have his legs amputated before dying at St. Joseph's University Medical Center days later.
Johnson pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter and weapons possession and was sentenced to a maximum of eight years in state prison.
Although the mandatory minimum sentence was four years, Johnson was released in November 2020 after serving three years and four months, state Department of Corrections records show.
Timmons, it turns out, was involved in that shooting, as well, records show.
The nine-count indictment stemming from this year’s trooper shooting charges Timmons and Johnson with attempted murder and aggravated assault. Timmons also was charged with several weapons counts, including possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.
McFarlane was charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution.
The March 2 incident "quickly escalated from a call about a suspected attempted break-in to a life-or-death situation for these detectives, serving as a reminder that members of law enforcement are always facing great risks,” Platkin noted on Tuesday.
“We are all grateful this ambush did not end as the two suspects intended — with the deaths of members of our New Jersey State Police,” he said.
“We fully intend to hold not only the suspected gunman but also those who assisted in the commission of this crime and who obstructed our investigation accountable,” added Derek Nececkas, the interim director of the state Division of Criminal Justice.
At the time of the shooting, the detectives were investigating a report of an attempted break-in by masked intruders at a home on East 26th Street.
The detectives were following a vehicle driven by Johnson when Timmons got out of another one, hid behind parked cars, then took a shooting stance and opened fire on the undercover State Police vehicles, Platkin said at the time.
One of the troopers took a bullet in the leg and was taken to St. Joe's after he applied a tourniquet he pulled from his gear kit, the attorney general said.
Timmons was captured by U.S. Marshals as he stepped off a commercial bus in South Carolina the day after the shooting.
Johnson was taken into custody last Thursday, July 20, 2023.
McFarlane is accused of lying to protect Johnson, Platkin said. She was released pending trial.
Deputy Attorneys General Kevin J. Long and Cynthia M. Vazquez, the deputy chief of the DCJ Violence Suppression and Organized Crime Unit, are handling the prosecution for the state following an investigation by the NJSP Major Crimes North Unit.
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