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Police were responding to a 911 of a domestic incident at 6:30 a.m. Monday when Lee Waskiewicz, 47, was shot at the West 1st Street home across from Dennis Collins Park where he lived with his mother, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said.
According to a preliminary investigation, officers approached Waskiewicz in a stairwell, Grewal said, but he "retreated up the stairs" and returned with a knife.
"During a second interaction in the stairwell, Officers Timothy Ballance and Edward Taveras fired their service weapons, fatally wounding Waskiewicz," the attorney general said.
"Officers rendered medical aid until emergency medical personnel arrived and transported [him] to Bayonne Medical Center, where he was pronounced deceased at approximately 7:43 a.m.," Grewal said.
No one else was injured, responders said.
State law and his own guidelines require Grewal’s office to investigate 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."
A 10-step process ensures that the investigation are done “in a full, impartial and transparent manner,” he said.
Once the investigation is complete, the results will be presented to a grand jury -- ordinarily consisting of 16 to 23 citizens -- which will determine whether or not criminal charges are in order, the attorney general said.
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