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Ricky Rivera, 20-year-old Paterson resident was shot by Sgt. Vincent Avoletta after hitting a police officer with a car on the early morning of Tuesday, August 1, authorities said.
At 5 a.m. police were patrolling a neighborhood plagued by auto thefts, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said. When police approached a suspicious vehicle parked in a driveway on Regency Place, Rivera fled the scene in the vehicle, striking an officer, Suarez said.
Avoletta discharged his weapon, Suarez said. Soon after, the man crashed his vehicle into an occupied Port Authority Police Department vehicle, Suarez said. Rivera was found to have a gunshot wound and was treated at Jersey City Medical Center for non-life threatening injuries, Suarez said.
Rivera was charged with aggravated assault, eluding police, unlawful possession of a weapon, among other charges, Suarez said. He is being detained at the Hudson County Correctional Facility pending his first court appearance, Suarez said.
Per protocol, the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General and the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office Shooting Response Team investigated the shooting.
The investigation included interviews of witnesses, collection and review of video surveillance and body worn camera footage, physical evidence collected by the Hudson County Prosecutors Office’s Crime Scene Unit, photographs, and ballistics evidence that had been examined by personnel from the New Jersey State Police Firearms Unit, Suarez said.
This evidence, along with recorded interviews given by the two Weehawken police officers on scene at the time of the shooting— including the officer who fired his weapon—was presented to the grand jury, Suarez said.
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